3 bar menu

Volume 8 Chapter 4 Part 3

Translator: Kell

Of course, you can’t transmit spells as powerful as Steam Explosion, but in terms of damage output per minute, an Aircraft Carrier Sage can deal more than just casting Steam Explosion. To begin with, Steam Explosion has a sixty-second cooldown, so it’s not suitable for inflicting large damage continuously.

Until now, the lack of firepower has not been a problem, as many of my opponents have been dealt with by a single shot from Steam Explosion. However, it’s a different story when the enemy uses Awakened Skills.

In the battle at the mountaintop, I had to wait for sixty seconds, and then my second Steam Explosion managed to finally defeat the enemy. And while I was able to take them down, their Ether Wall stayed intact in the end.

If they had fought a little better, I would have been killed. For example, if they had simply attacked me from a position where they had direct visual of me, instead of fixating on their Ether Wall, the situation would have been much different. It wouldn’t have been enough to defeat me, but at least it wouldn’t have been that easy.

With the firepower of an Aircraft Carrier Sage, however, there was a good chance that I could have finished them off without waiting for the second Steam Explosion. If not, then the improved offensive capability would have been very effective in buying time.

If I could unleash a high-powered attack, the enemy would be forced to deal with it, and the attacks I would receive would be less severe. There’s a saying that offense is the best defense. It’s not uncommon for increased firepower to solve defensive problems as well.

In particular, an Aircraft Carrier Sage, who’s able to produce firepower by remote control regardless of their positioning, is the best guy suited for ‘attacking for defense’.

Furthermore, Aircraft Carrier Sage can also use Steam Explosion. It’s possible to cast Steam Explosion every sixty seconds while fighting like an Aircraft Carrier Sage.

It might sound like Aircraft Carrier Sage has many advantages, but there are, of course, some disadvantages. A simple one, in fact—acquiring the necessary equipment and Skill is difficult.

Well, by the time I came to this world, it was easy to get all the necessary equipment and Skills, but when the Aircraft Carrier Sage first became popular, it was very difficult to build. Back then in BBO, the Aircraft Carrier Sage was even treated as a symbol of a top player.

There were ordinary players who imitated the concept by copying the top players, but those who didn’t have the right equipment were laughably weak. Being a normal Sage would have been way stronger.

That’s why I’ve been fighting without using any remote-control magic. The reason why there was such a big gap between the top players—the Aircraft Carrier Sage—and the ordinary players was precisely this Enchant Shaft. It makes remote-controlled magic so busted.

Unfortunately, an Enchant Shaft is not something you can just pick up and use as is.

“Is this, um, nail-looking object useful for anything?” the king asked.

“Yeah. I could use it to make myself even stronger. The question is whether I can make the preparations for it.”

“I don’t know what you need to do, but if I can help, I will gladly lend a hand. Increasing your power would be an extremely big plus for our kingdom.”

If I have the king’s cooperation, it will make the preparations much easier. How difficult the preparation will be, though, depends on the situation in this world.

It’s not unusual in BBO to require you to go to a special place to do something, such as a church for a class change, an active volcano for an Awakening, or a desert for a Sandstorm. For the Enchant Shaft, there’s the Altar of Bestowal. Only after you install the necessary abilities there does the Enchant Shaft become effective.

There’s a wide range of effects that can be granted to Enchant Shafts. The simplest of these would be the enhancement of attack power.

A typical Enchant Shaft with enhanced magical attack power can provide approximately thirty percent more firepower than without it. Thirty percent may sound like a modest number, but anyone who has played an MMO will understand how amazing an increase that is to attack power.

However, there are several other enchantments that are so broken that the thirty-percent increase in firepower seems mediocre. Of course, it’s not possible to bestow all of them, so you have to carefully decide. From the countless enchantments, you pick the ones you need and put them on the Enchant Shaft. That’s what the Altar of Bestowal is for.

The ritual itself is not difficult at all. It’s a simple matter to select the necessary abilities, as long as you know how to do it. The problem is that the location of an Altar of Bestowal is more difficult to find than the other special places.

Altars of Bestowal can be found in various places, such as in a forest, a labyrinth, or even in an undersea temple. It might sound like it’s handy to have so many possible locations, but it’s actually the exact opposite. Despite the lack of obvious landmarks and the large number of possible locations, the number of Altars of Bestowal found in BBO was not much different from that of active volcanoes used for Awakening.

Since there was a lot of information-sharing among players in BBO, it was relatively easy to pinpoint the locations, making the bestowal process itself easy. There were some groups that tried to keep the locations secret and use them only for themselves, but since one altar could be used infinitely, once the location of one altar was made public, there was no point in keeping the others secret. Transportation was also much better there. Even if the altar was far away, you didn’t have to worry about a thing.

But unlike in BBO, there are no hints from the management in this world. You literally have to search the world over to find an altar.

The means of transportation is also downright awful. Domestic travel can take weeks. It cost me three million to get on a ship to the royal capital. If there was an Altar of Bestowal whose location was made public, I can’t imagine how hard it would be just to get there if it was halfway around the world.