There was science and theorycrafting to be done. And he had a perfectly willing, beefy, high-HP target dummy to do that testing on.

Wade was in his element.

Seven years ago before he had to keep up with rent, this would be all he'd be doing in his free time. Finding strange and underused weapons, and then seriously attempting to find a way to make them work. It was his hobby, where he'd find the most fun in games. Most times, bad weapons and spells really were bad and the best he could do would only bring them up to par with the rest of the game's balance.

But sometimes… sometimes he'd find something that wasn't intended. And that's when the fun was.

"What exactly are you plannin' on doing, yank?" Illy asked, still debating if she should stick one more dagger into the groves of their trapped victim.

"Testing what combos we can do. But first we need a control test." Wade said, preparing his trusty rocks. Of which he slammed one into his leg, activated the dodge right before he could deal damage, and then slapped the golem with one hand. No hop, no jump, nothing that would actually do damage to the golem.

The slap didn't do anything to the golem, but the shock of lightning that zapped it clearly did some damage. The health bar flashed above the golem's nameplate, although it didn't go down by a single percent. "Okay, not a great sign, but all things in time."

"If that's the control, what's your second test?" Illy asked.

Wade turned, then pointed at Leon's hammer. "That. I need to see how much more damage I deal with the slap while using a hammer."

She nodded, then frowned. "Hold on now, with the slap? Not the hammer? How does that make any sense at all?"

"I'm not testing just for damage." Wade said, holding a hand out for the hammer. "I'm sniffing around for a possible exploit."

Specifically, he was testing to see if the 'normal weapon damage' meant something… unintended.

Leon shrugged and handed him the hammer while Wade continued to chat. "See, an old game I played there was a really shit rapier. Called 'The Dustbringer' and it hit real fast. But it was a rapier, so it also did very little damage with each hit."

"Dramatic name. But I'm following." Illy said, while Wade prepared his experiments.

"To put it bluntly, it was so terrible, people called it the Dustbunny. Absolute trash, used only for fashion. Or emotional damage on the enemy player, because if you killed someone with the Dustbunny, it would have been a death by a thousand papercuts type of fight." Wade lifted the warhammer in his hands. Heavy, but with his strength stats he could somewhat carry it using his shoulder to prop it up with one hand. Good enough. "The Dustbunny did have one thing going for it, its on-use effect would empower the next attack to deal greatly increased damage. Thirty second cooldown."

So basically it could be used once or twice per fight.

"Not sounding like it was enough." Leon said, amused at watching Wade fumble around with the hammer.

"Yep. 'Greatly increased damage' based off an already low-damaging weapon, not great scaling. At best it made the next normal attack hit slightly more than most standard rapiers in that game. The devs had expected it to be paired with an execute ability of some kind."

Wade could see the vision of this weapon from miles away. The devs wanted a player with quick agility, running in and out, attacking plenty of times, only to finish the fight with a sudden lunge or ability that would be a finishing blow the enemy had to pay attention for.

The problem with an effect that could modify any weapon damage in the game... "Meant they couldn't give this anything actually strong on its own, since it was balanced around some of the harder hitting abilities in the game. Hence the tiny little rapier that couldn't."

"I'm sensing a 'but' here." Illy said.

Wade didn't answer, now feeling ready for another dodge roll. He stood up, kept the warhammer perched on his shoulder and right hand, then triggered his dodge with his left hand's trusty emotional support rock. As in throwing it at his feet looking for pain.

The dodge roll did not knock his heavy warhammer off his hands. It didn't go spinning off into the darkness either. The weight and inertia didn't get in the way of the roll at all, rather the entire hammer felt instantly weightless, same as everything else on his person. When he recovered on his legs again, it hadn't made him any more or less tired, consuming fifty percent of his stamina as stated, regardless if he was carrying a twenty pound warhammer now compared to the last roll.

Good data to add to the hoard.

"That's so weird how it works. Physics is not having a good time with the System." Wade said, in between breaths. He had ten seconds to hit the target dummy now.

Once more he walked over to the struggling construct, and gave it the same slap.

He didn't have that much hopes for this, but he needed to know.

Lightning crackled out from his palm, striking the golem.

One percent damage.

"Oh shit." Wade said, eyes lighting up.

"Did ya find something?" Illy asked, at his side.

"Yeah, need to test it again in case the prior hit just knocked it close to losing a percentage. But we might have a Dustbunny situation here."

He walked backwards, sat down and waited for his stamina to regenerate, getting ready to test the warhammer again. "That rapier, the devs got lazy with their coding. When it was introduced, dual wielding wasn't a thing yet, so they took some shortcuts they really shouldn't have. The extra damage was an active buff cast by the rapier on the player and was removed the moment the rapier did damage."

By doing that, they didn't need to make entire new code just for this one niche weapon. It slotted into the game without any more work required. It had taken years for the game to release the new dual wielding update, and by then the Dustbringer was a relic of an older time, released so long ago the devs forgot it was there.

He reattempted the lightning dodge, once more having Leon's warhammer equipped in his right hand, before giving the golem an electric slap with his free lefthand. Another one percent went down. That confirmed it.

"I'm still not quite seeing what yer getting at here." Illy said after Wade sat down to recover his stamina. By now, the golem had three more daggers stuck into less critical parts, and the Scot was eyeing that gun arm with clear intentions. Wade's odd testing was fine to her, so long as he eventually killed the golem.

And then they could get on with the important part of looting the crap out of it. She wanted to figure out a way to get her hands on that gun.

"I didn't end up using the Dustbunny like a weapon at all. Instead, had my character equip it on my left hand, used the buff, and then paired it with a right hand weapon. Something that hit with slow swings so that each swing dealt extra damage to compensate."

Illy frowned, trying to understand why that mattered. She didn't play much video games, or any at all really. "Good on you for waving that rapier around like a fancy bauble?"

"The rapier's buff. It increased my character's attack damage. And it was only consumed when my rapier hit the target. So what happens if I never hit the target with the rapier, and instead use a different weapon to deal damage?"

Now she got it. "… Oh, the rapier's buff gets applied to your main hand weapon unintentionally, and so long as you never stab anything with the rapier itself, buff stays active the whole time?"

"Bingo. And that buff was nasty. There's a reason only the Dustbunny got that ability. It was too powerful to give to any other weapon that could hit hard. They'd probably aimed to have it on another weapon and couldn't balance it right, so the Dustbringer was the backup it went to. And now I had it affecting a hard hitting weapon for infinite amount of attacks."

It got even worse when weapon abilities entered the picture. The damage had been so ridiculous, the devs were forced to disable the rapier in a hotfix hours after he'd posted up his full breakdown analysis on his youtube channel.

Wade had a feeling this was similar to how his lightning boon was being calculated. Because the System had to follow through on what it said on the tin:

Your next attack within ten seconds will deal an additional 25% of your normal weapon damage as electric damage.

The slap itself would still do a slap's worth of damage. But it was still considered 'the next attack.' Thus it was required to do an additional 25% of his normal weapon damage - which had to be calculated off something. And that something was his main hand weapon. It never said anything about the next attack using that main hand weapon at all.

After a few more tests that ended with the golem's health down a total of five percent, Wade was certain: Simply holding the hammer in his main hand increased the damage of the shock portion of that boon significantly higher.

"I'm still not seeing why you're so excited about this." Illy said when he explained his findings. "It's still only tickling the rusted toaster. You planning on slapping that thing fifty times over?"

"It's about the scaling we can do with it." Wade said, looking over the warhammer's shaft. Where his hand wrapped around the string bindings, he could see three metal marks that all seemed to perfectly fit where a hand would be placed. One for a thumb, and the other two for the index and ring finger. It only appeared on the left hand, near the lower half of the warhammer.

Leon might not have recognized what these were, but Wade did: They were activation runes. And the warhammer was enchanted with impact, which meant its base damage was increased if that enchantment was active.

"Still can't believe a hammer with an enchantment is considered starter gear by the system." He said, turning it over in his hand to investigate while he waited for his stamina to regenerate.

Leon shrugged. "Was told any weapon worth using have enchantments, or they don't sell."

That... odd idea. Wade took out his phone. Time to ask the menace. "Chat, is this real?"

If you had to buy a gun, would you get a musket or a glock?

"I think you're asking me a rhetorical question here."

Nailed it. (b ᵔ▽ᵔ)b Non-enchanted weapons are for decoration. If you're looking to buy a weapon for actual use, why buy a non-enchanted one?

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. "Isn't it, uh, difficult to enchant something?" Wade asked, but realized right away that was an assumption based on other fantasy worlds out there - what if it wasn't difficult?

Capitalism is everywhere Michael, supply and demand baby~ brb, Zinny's back with sugar. think about that musket and glock over a bit while I'm gone.

The reason he'd buy a glock over a musket, is that it's cheaper and better. And the reason it's both of those is because there's a demand for a better gun, which ended up with an entire industry dedicated to streamlining it. So applying that to Azdrial... were blacksmiths and weaponsmiths already prepared for enchantments as part of the forging process?

He looked over the hammer, seeing the engravings. They did look a little modular. Like a stamp. There wasn't any artistry or pretty decor on the hammer, just the enchantment lines in some different colored metal, and nothing else.

Wade filed that away as an extra selling point when he went into being an arms dealer for Earth.

What he was after right now was scaling - what if empowering the hammer during his lightning dodge might mean the lightning damage was not only basing its damage off the hammer - but the hammer at its maximum potential? And then mix that with Illy's dagger debuff, and his Skyviper Archer hit scaling each damage tick off that?

Wade took out his phone. Then spoke out loud and found he couldn't say a word. He tried again, paused and frowned. That contract was so weird in his mouth. "Fine, Play. Is your butler there with you?"

He'd been trying to say Zin's name out loud.

He says he's at your, unfortunate, service. What a good little butler eh?

"Is he able to see what this hammer is about? Description says it's similar to my healing ring back home, I found what looks to be a few activation runes, which one's the correct one?"

There was a pause.

He says weapons tend to have multiple activation marks for safety, you got to hold all of them at once and channel mana through each. It's a little more involved than your ring lol

Illy and Leon both looked him over with clear curiosity at this. Wade waved them off, "Learning a few tricks about how to use mana. I barely have any practice at it, but I can give you a run down while I wait for stamina regen."

He did so and inevitably the discussion turned to how the System affected Mana.

"Stats." Wade called out and zero'd in on the important one:

Mana: 8/125

Unlike the mana potion he'd taken, he couldn't really feel the mana anywhere in his body, although he knew it was. The number ticked up to nine, and then immediately dove back down to 8 again.

"So assuming the yank's told us the whole bit, this number's probably the ambient mana in the air?" Illy asked.

Yeah, probably

Last time it had stabilized around 9, which was probably where the equilibrium point was. Made sense it was doing the same for Leon and Illy. They were all in the same environment.

He searched around, trying to feel it. It would be a very minor amount all together, but spread all over his body. He didn't want to move things within his organs, but his skin surface would work. Although at best, he might only collect a few points of mana. Would it be enough?

"How much mana does the butler think the hammer needs to run on? What happens if I pour in say eight mana points into it?"

Impact is directly proportional to the mana you're pushing into the hammer. Less mana, less damage. More mana, more damage. His words, not mine. ┐(￣ヮ￣)┌

"And the ambient mana around here, is it also in the hammer?" It didn't look to be powered. What if he triggered the effect and it just powered itself up?

Only one way to find out boo~

Wade sighed, and held the hammer correctly, feeling his fingers on the three pads. Then he realized why the hammer wasn't currently turned on even if it had ambient mana inside. He had to push mana into it in the first place. Jump start the process. Like a water system with water already inside, but all standing still until more water was finally squeezed into the system.

That was a problem. Wade needed a better source of mana than the ambient one around him since he couldn't feel jack squat here. And any mana, he'd left back home specifically for a far more important use.

But there was a source of mana here. He turned straight to the moonwing elf, "Selena, I think you're using a mana crystal of some kind right?"

"I do yes. I brought one crystal with me, I was… er, unprepared for this situation and do not have any other reserves. It has seen some... use."

Wade waved his hand at her, "No problem, but can I borrow it?"

Selena took an unconscious step back. "And why might you need my mana crystal? Do you not have your own to work with?"

"I need to test out this hammer's enchantment and I can't get it to work with ambient mana."

Michael~ I don't usually give direct advice, but think I should warn you, taking a mana crystal is a huge step up from a mana potion. Wouldn't recommend it…

"All great things happen because people took calculated risks." Wade said, nodding firmly. All he had in his head were damage numbers and making them bigger. He turned back to Selena, and she looked supremely uncomfortable with the idea of giving the crystal up.

The golem remained on the ground, beat up, still trying to move, and unable to. There might never be a better test dummy than this.

"This is the only crystal I have with me, human Wade. We cannot afford to waste it on your strange unconfirmed magics." Her voice carried that formal, almost haughty tone. Ears flattening back like she was preparing to fight tooth or nail for something.

"I'm not going to waste it, just need to test the hammer out. Should be easy, I'll give it a test and hand it right back after."

"I know with full clarity the abilities and spells you humans have used thus far do not use mana, and I can tell you are not trained for it." The elf protested. "I remember you asking yesterday for information on basic casting, even while afflicted with Blackrot which anyone with sense would know makes magic use moot. It takes months if not a true full cycle before any apprentice is ready for a mana crystal."

"It'll be fine, just a tiny little suck of mana to get this thing kickstarted."

The ears wiggled accusingly. "Have you ever even used mana yet?"

"As a matter of fact I have." He was careful not to tell her he'd only practiced one time, and on a sugar cube's worth of mana potion. Details! "Besides, we need to know if this hammer works. What if we run into another golem? Or something worse?"

"Have you lost your sen-" She immediately stopped, about to go on a tirade, then pushed her feathers down and tired to calm down. "No. Absolutely not. A crystal is far more dangerous and difficult to use than a mana potion. I implore you to listen to reason, you are not yet skilled enough for this step."

Wade didn't need to be. He could die just fine without any issue in Azdrial.

"That is not what I speak of in terms of wasting the crystal. If you lose consciousness from mana poisoning we would be forced to use a mithril pill to save your life. The pill would consume the entire crystal within seconds to render it inert. Without a working catalyst, I cannot summon my wings, cast spells, or even use most of my armor's enchantments. Do you truly know what you're doing? Is your experiment worth the risk of losing all access to my own abilities?"

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a warning flag went up. Because she did make a good point. "Uhhh…"

It wasn't about the danger, it was about the quantity. They only had one crystal, and if Wade messed it up, Selena would be in a world of hurt. No healing, no magical damage, no using her equipment to its fullest, and no flying.

And plus, if he died from mana overdose here, he didn't have enough coins to buy the dodge roll boon. Sure he could die anytime for free in Azdrial according to the rules, but dying early came at a steep opportunity costs. When's the next time he'd get randomly given a dodge roll?

"Fine, fine!" Wade waved his arms. "I'll figure out a way to do it without me using up the mana crystal."

He put his idea of empowering Leon's hammer to its full strength on the backburner as one of those schemes that required future unlocks to really make it pay off. Right now, he was just missing extra supplies and training.

"All right, dodge boon's testing is complete." He said in english to the group. "Now it's time to figure out what exactly consecutive attacks mean for the Skyviper archer upgrade. Rocks, please."

Illy and Leon fortunately had some junk to offer to the alter of science, and Wade got to work, noting down the secrets of his upgraded boon.

The results were better than he'd hoped for. And after testing it out a third time just to be certain, his head went into full theorycrafting mode again. He added his findings into the math, ran the numbers and discovered one possible alternate way of abusing his discoveries here that didn't need him to use the group's only mana crystal, and possibly die a gruesome death himself.

"I got it." He said.

"Yer finally done? Are ye sure? We can wait another bloody hour or two, not like Lapushka's going to send a fecking army down here soon enough." Illy said, arms folded across her chest.

"You just want to loot the rotary cannon it's got." Wade said.

"Yeh I do, what's yer point? Are you gonna put this thing out of its misery so I can loot the guts or are we going to kiss it goodnight and tell it a bedtime story?"

Wade sighed, "Fine, I got what I needed to know. Get me a lot of rocks. And I mean a lot of rocks."

The crew did that, and when Wade finally tested the full combination he'd planned, he found it worked out exactly like he'd hoped. The skyviper archer upgrade really did allow him to break the game in the best way possible even if he were trapped on his own. But adding some of Selena's abilities, Illy's dagger's and Leon's hammer all together?

The group watched in awe as the trapped golem's health bar started going down each second in small chunks, and continued to go down and down.

"Okay, I take it all back." Illy said, staring at the result. "One percent damage is absolutely mental. Holy shite."

Challenge Gauntlet (2) Complete! One storefront coin added to inventory.

"And that's how you min-max." Wade said with a satisfied nod.

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