Azimuth: The Elden Throne (New Version)

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Dale quickly read through most of the messages, ignoring the hate mails or pathetic attempts of other players in putting pressure on him.

From greedy players that were trying to scam him, to delusional people trying to get in contact with him as if Dale owed them.

These people were immediately blocked by the system AI after he set up some simple parameters, not even taking a glance at what they wrote.

His patience could be said to be very long, but equally short.

Dale would listen to an elderly person talking on and on, but the moment he heard someone shit talk without a basis he would immediately get done with it.

Albeit, Dale was indeed curious and he would take a look at what they wrote, just not now.

"Hum…"

'All of the consumable items were sold fast, just as I expected…'

'They weren't put for auction so that I could raise even more funds for my other activities, and also because they weren't as much of a necessity for other players as the other items.'

'But that didn't mean I put their values low... No, not at all, they were rather overpriced, for obvious reasons.'

'When the game had just started and resources were low, the chance to get enough supplies to raid a few times was rather valuable for many clans who were competing with each other.'

"Thinking about this, Clan Wars should be starting soon..."

'Once they start setting up their own territories, Clans will definitely fight each other to take control over areas...'

"In any case, the items and materials were sold, and what I wanted to buy was successfully acquired, I can say everything went smoothly."

'But the important things are the Sets I put for auction and the Special items I wanted to buy, let me take a look…'

Dale opened another trade tab and his eyes immediately bulged!

'I… I underestimate these gaming Clubs and Clans' financial capabilities…'

'Well, no matter, better for me. The Complementary armor set is already going for several Hundread Iron Zulls a piece... That is a lot more than I expected.'

'In total, I may expect a few thousand Iron Zulls just from this, which can then be used to fuel David and to acquire more resources from the trade market in the future, killing two birds with one stone.'

Being in the middle of nowhere in a decadent Village, Dale had no way to procure many materials, so he would have to rely on the Trade Market to make ends meet.

Though he would have to limit visits as much as possible due to their costs.

"Still, these smaller Sets are only an appetizer, what is truly important is the final set… The Commander of the Vault guardians set…"

(In case you forgot, go to notes)

"What about the commentaries?... Hahaha! I knew it!"

Dale smiled as he read the complaints under his trade page… And the reason was simple.

It is good to remember that this particular set is not guaranteed to drop on a Tutorial Lobby, and sometimes, only a few pieces of the set will be available for the players to collect.

And even if the server has all of these pieces available, getting them is something completely different, the Vault raid was extremely hard, and only a few players will be able to do it, much less if there was competition on the same server.

So even if there are tens of millions of players right now, less than 0.1% should be organized enough to raid them. And that only amounts to a few dozen Lobbies.

(Lobbies can support 1000 players at once, so 10 million players -> 10 thousand Lobbies)

The most important thing in raids is oftentimes not damage, but being organized and coordinated.

Remember that this is the tutorial, most players will enter it while being eager to hop right into the main game, and in the future, players will just ignore it completely, making these sets even rarer.

Someone joins the game and is presented with something completely and utterly optional, he/she does some quests, gets gear, level up, and then once they're done, the game asks if they want to proceed to the main game, how would someone proceed in that situation?

Stay back and try the extremely punishing raids scattered around the place?

Even if they do want it, how do they gather a party to attempt it?

Several things need to align for people to raid them, even then...

The rewards aren't guaranteed.

"A bunch of opportunists that want to drag me down..."

What people were complaining about was simple, it was because of the information he hid.

Dale purposely hid the name and appearance of the set in order to make people anxious and theorize, spreading rumors all around.

Many players successfully raided the Vault, and a few gained parts of the set, however, until recently, no one had managed to make a full set.

Or if they did, they were unwilling to post it online.

So what did these players do with these scattered parts?

A few kept them, some others sold them… It was to be expected. The players that did manage to get these pieces would be from large clans, gaming clubs, or similar groups on average.

The current situation of the game is akin to a race, but a race where the objective isn't to only be the first, but the strongest as well.

So instead of holding onto a useless piece of gear that has no clear value… Why not sell it to Dale who was very eager to buy them off from them?

Or literally to any other Gaming club that was hunting for pieces like flies swarming a pile of dung?

It's not like the price was low in his case, it was quite friendly... So for those without connections, he ended up being the one to go to.

A lot more went into it and even if most didn't sell and speculated something else, Dale didn't care as the numbers would pile up over time.

That was Dale's plan, and why he was hated by everyone right now.

During these 14 hours, Dale's items were sold and many items were sold to him as well, this included many pieces of this rare set…

And Dale can proudly say he is currently in the possession of 500 or so of these sets.

The reason why he didn't have more parts was that he set a limit of 500 for each part, so after the Trade Center system bought 500 items, it stopped.

He also gathered a total of 45 sets for the Commander of the Vault guardians set, with the same conditions stated above.

And this was what most of the complaints were about… It was the people who cried as to how they weren't capable of selling their useless gear…

This also included the most important item of the Main Set! It wasn't the armor, it was the Sword!

The Ruin Guardian Glyph Blade! An item that was only possible by getting two very specific items in the Tutorial Tower, two very rare drops…

And one of them seemed to be a special, unique drop, in other words, there was only one chance in each lobby to get it.

However, was there no one capable of assembling the full set yet?

To understand the odds, you must first understand where each of the items came from.

First, the sword was created through the fusion of two items, the Broken inscribed dagger, and the Broken inscribed blade.

The dagger was given to Dale as a special reward for achieving something never done before while the blade was given when he completed the Tutorial tower.

It is clear that they are both rare items, so the chances of the same player getting the two pieces are minimal, even for a group, unless it's a very united group, who would report everything they find?

Especially when the two items are classified as trash/miscellaneous items?

Second, there is no need to explain anymore how rare the armor set is.

So for someone to find out Dale's secret, they would need to get the entire set together with the sword, and in these 14 hours, no one managed to do it.

Dale let out a sigh of relief, if someone had found out about it, his total sale value would've decreased considerably…

"Now it's time to put everything together." He said with a smile

Dale opened 25 windows and put each of the Main Sets, together with the Gliph Blade for auction, showing all of their stats and descriptions at once!

Not only that, he added another product... The Vault Guardian Set.

Each Commander Set was being sold with 20 Vault Guardian Sets!

Just enough for them to get the maximum Stat Bonus from the Set effect, but not enough for them to unlock the second Skill... This would inflate the Set's values even further!

He went beyond that and opened 20 more windows where he sold the sets and swords individually.

10 solely for the armor, and 10 solely for the sword. Since it's bound to be people that will only need the set or the sword... Though this was mostly done to inflate the prices even more.

This also increases the total number of bidders, if he puts all of his eggs in one basket if things were to go bad, he may compromise the remainder of his batch…

Lastly, he added all of the remaining armor pieces for sale of both sets for sale, but he didn't do the same for the sword pieces.

People may find out the values of the pieces, but not right now. So until the day someone realizes they can combine the two pieces, these parts are useless.

So Dale will buy as many as he can and profit since the swords are still high-quality items at the end of the day even if they aren't used together with the armor.

This, however, left 10 Commander Sets and 10 Gliph blades in the trade market's inventory...

Dale kept them for the more… Special clients…

"5 minutes till 1 Am? Nice timing, just good enough for people to spread the news around hehe." He said with a thin smile as he saw the numbers rise

"..."

David looked at Dale with a conflicting expression before he closed his eyes and ignored everything else.

…

All around the world, the players stopped what they were doing as they made their way to the Trade Centers.

Be it guild leaders, clan leaders, or normal players…

Some went out of curiosity after hearing about a rumor from a friend, while others went there to confirm something…

And their reactions were all pretty similar, as they read through the description of the items in front of them, many opened their eyes wide in greed and desire.

Some were skeptical, others were angry…

But most were filled with curiosity, seeing these big groups clashing is always entertaining.

For how much would each set go for?

…

/In one of the many tutorial lobbies back at the tutorial tower…/

The last floor had been completely refurbished by a singular group, with many tents and objects scattered around the place, going from a desolate arena to a camp of some sort.

All around the place were banners and stamps depicting a floating mountain clad in lighting…

And inside one of the many tents, a big red tent was a man sitting on a chair as he observed a map.

"Hm? Come in." Said the man as he noticed the person outside of his tent

The man had thick red hair and a beard like that of a lion's mane, he was also very big and muscular, making his figure rather imposing.

The person who entered did not say a single word of greeting.

He had long dark hair that went to his waist, he had a pair of dark circles and even dark makeup around his eyes and lips, and overall his aura was gloomy…

"It has started." He said in a low tone as he looked at the time

"Uhum… Is everything proceeding as per normal? If so there is no need to warn me about it." The man said in a serious tone without taking his eyes off the map

"It isn't… See for yourself." The other man replied as he showed his boss a picture and a document

"..."

The man looked at the picture and after a minute, he frowned as he realized the scope of this incident.

But despite his visible anger, he smiled.

"This guy… He surpassed my expectations… We were played."

'We didn't sell him any of our armor pieces, but we underestimated the value of the armor set greatly… Which is great for us, though it means we lost many sources for additional sets as many preferred to sell their items to him instead of us.'

'The Skills are much better than we thought, this also means that the value of the complementary set is even higher.'

He raised his head for the first time and looked at the long-haired man.

"Do we have enough funds?" He asked the long-haired man as he tapped on the table

"At least to bid for 2 sets, but competition is going to be fierce…"

"No, more than that, we are talking about 35 sets, all sorts of groups will try to get their hands on at least one of the sets, and bigger groups will bid at them like rabid dogs, especially the ones with a large number of the complementary set."

The Boss' eyes closed as he went deep in thought…

"We currently have well over 50 complementary sets, it isn't impossible for us to gather 100 within 24 in-game hours, but we have yet to unlock the Main Set…"

"Even though we have all of the armor pieces, enough to make 3 sets… Yet the Set effect is still locked."

"This means we are lacking something else, and that is most likely that Sword, however, no matter how much I think I can't remember seeing it anywhere, and such a thing is impossible seeing how precious it is.

"To top it off, he seems to have a monopoly on how to get them… But I do have some suspicions." He said as he opened the trade menu, looking at the miscellaneous items

The Boss stopped and thought for a little longer before he continued:

"He is selling 25 full sets and 10 sets are divided… We can focus on acquiring the swords in that case."

"We need them, use everything you can to secure at least one of them, if possible 2, ideally 3 so we can already make use of what we have."

"Understood." He replied as he turned around

But before he could leave, the red-haired man said again:

"Also, see if you can get in contact with this player if we can get a few more sets… I am sure we have something he may need instead of money."

'Someone that has gathered so much attention... He may want a lot of money, but that is only useful until a certain point.'

'It would be foolish of him to merely want money and nothing else, this is his chance to rake in on the hype and improve his game.'

'At least... That would be what I would've done.'

The dark-haired man nodded before he turned around and left for good, leaving the red-haired man to his thoughts.

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Notes

The next chapter is the end of this minor arc and we will see the mc getting his new Class and enjoying some of the items he bought.

Would you like to see the reactions of the player all around the world or should we jump for the Mc?

Thank you for reading!

[Ruin Guardian Glyph Blade (Unique)

Rating: 3.5-Stars

+10 all Stats while in a ruin

Gives the temporary Skills, Glyph Activation 2-Star (Active); Glyph Ignition 3-Star (Active) while the sword is equipped.

Set Bonus -> [Locked] (Same as the Commander of the Vault Guardians, they are part of the same set)

Requirements: Strength: 25; Dexterity: 25; Mana: 10

Description: Long ago the Paxus Knight Army stood guard over the Capital of Pil-Iros with their Glyphed weapons and armor gloriously under the setting sun.

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[Commander of the Vault Guardians Set (Unique)

Rating: 3.5-Stars

+15 all Stats while in a ruin, otherwise, +5 to all Stats.

Set Bonus -> Commander, if there are 5 or more people with the Vault Guardian Set near you, All Stats + 2, and for every 5 additional people, to a maximum of 20.

If the number of people goes to 25, unlocks the temporary Skill, Barricade Vault 2-Star.

If the number of people goes to 60, unlocks the temporary Skill, Gliph Aura 3-Star.

If the number of people goes to 100, unlocks the temporary Skill, Wrath of the Machine 4-Star

Requirements: Strength: 30; Constitution: 25; Dexterity: 10

Description: Long ago the Paxus Knight Army stood guard over the Capital of Pil-Iros with their Glyphed weapons and armor gloriously under the setting sun.

Their Commander, wearing his famed armor, stood guard over the city and never once lost a battle.

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