115 Chapter 115. Abundant Rewards

The blinding golden light forced Jack to cover his eyes. After a time, Jack carefully peeked out. He found that he could safely open his eyes. The golden light was still pouring out, but not as intensely. Jack could see now that it was not just the light that poured out from the destroyed Core; objects were pouring out, jingling joyfully like prizes from a slot machine. Some of the most eye-catching ones were tiny gold-colored round discs that kept coming out one after another.

"Are those gold coins?" Jack asked with uncertainty.

"Yep," Peniel answered.

"Hot damn! There are so many of them!" Jack exclaimed and then asked again, "are you really sure they are gold coins?"

Peniel did not bother to answer. She floated around the broken Core as she observed the treasures that were still coming out of it.

"You hit the jackpot; I wonder if it's because of your high luck stat?" She mumbled half to herself and half to Jack.

Jack wasn't paying attention to her as his eyes were glued to the gold coins that were still pouring out. There were other items besides the coins, but those shiny golden coins were more eye-catching for him. He was futilely trying to count them as they spilled out.

When the golden light finally died out, he heard a voice notification, "congratulations! You have successfully raided a monster settlement, rewarding 100,000 experience points."

Jack was elated; he could hardly believe he got an experience reward for successfully raiding the Settlement on top of the treasure rewards. And the experience points rewarded were also so extravagant!

Another notification followed soon after.

"Congratulations, your Warrior class has reached level 16

Your HP increased by 40

Your Stamina increased by 30

Your Strength increased by 5

Your Dexterity increased by 3

Your Intelligence increased by 1

Your Endurance increased by 3

Your Reflex increased by 2

Your Wisdom increased by 1

You receive 2 free attribute points and 2 free skill points"

Jack was stunned. Peniel was right; the attribute increase for the Warrior class thoroughly trounced that of the Fighter class. The free attribute and free skill points also doubled. More free points would allow him more freedom in shaping his build. He opened his attribute window panel to have a look.

Storm Wind

Class: Warrior / Magician

Level 16 / Level 15

Attributes:

-        HP = 690

-        Stamina = 280

-        MP = 250

-        Strength = 71 (+2)

-        Dexterity = 63 (+5)

-        Intelligence = 66

-        Endurance = 68 (+4)

-        Reflex = 52

-        Wisdom = 66

-        Luck = 12 (+1)

Free attribute point = 6

Free skill point = 2/2

He was still admiring his attributes when Peniel smacked his head from behind.

"Are you going to just let those treasures lie there on the floor?" She asked.

"Relax," Jack said. "What's the hurry? It's not like there's anyone nearby that will come and steal them."

"Hearing you say that I really hope there will be someone so I can just laugh in your face."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Alright, alright. Let's see the treasures."

But when he was about to close his status window, he noticed that the experience bar for his Magician class, which had just gone up a level not long before, was already filled up to more than 70%.

'The experience reward from raiding a Settlement is truly abundant,' Jack thought.

He then decided to set the experience sharing for the Magician to 0%. In other words, he was stopping the growth of his Magician class and focusing all experience on his Warrior class. Tomorrow he would go into the dungeon with Silverwing. He did not know how much experience he would receive, and it would be a pity if his Magician class increased to level 16 before he upgraded to advanced class. Once he finished tomorrow's affairs, he would return to the capital to apply for his Mage advanced class.

After Jack set his experience distribution, he closed the status window and went to the pile of treasures. After looking at the pile of gold coins, he swallowed hard. He tried to count them properly this time.

"No need to count it, slowpoke," Peniel said. "I was bored waiting for you, so I counted them for you. There are 56 gold coins, 12 silver coins, and 67 copper coins."

"Fi– fifty-six…?" Jack was dumbfounded. It had been so difficult to get even one gold coin all this time, and now he had 56 of them.

Afraid that someone would actually show up and steal the coins, he hurriedly stored all the coins into his inventory bag. He checked inside it, combined with the coins he already had, he now had 59 gold coins, 20 silver coins, and 55 copper coins.

He was grinning from ear to ear. He was R-I-C-H!

"Why are you grinning like a fool over there? There's still more stuff here!" Peniel chided him.

Reminded by the Fairy, he immediately looked at the remaining loot. He inspected everything using his God-Eye monocle. There were five common and two uncommon pieces of equipment that he had no use for. He would dismantle them when he had the chance.

Then there were three pieces of common medium armor; a shoulder protector, a belt, and a pair of boots; he would store them for later combination in the Transformation Box.

There were also two pieces of uncommon equipment, one of which he could use immediately.

Steel Spaulders, level 15/25 (uncommon medium armor)

Physical Defense: 27

Magical Defense: 23

Durability: 40

Reflex +2

The other was another Magic Staff. Since it was weaker than the one he was using, he just stored it. He now only needed four more uncommon staffs to combine them into a rare Magic Staff.

After dealing with all that, he still had a pile of miscellaneous stuff.  There were several iron ores and three steel ores, a bunch of cooking ingredients, a couple of shiny-looking objects he had never seen before, and a dark grey cloak. He stored the rest and checked on the shiny things. There were two reds and one purple.

Ruby (common gemstone)

Amethyst (common gemstone)

"Gemstones? What are they for?" Jack asked.

"They can be used for several things, but they're most useful in runecrafting," Peniel answered.

"Runecrafting?"

"Yes, it's one of your auxiliary skills. Just keep them for now. They will come in handy later."

"Will they fetch a good price if I sell them?" Jack asked. His concept of gemstones in the real world was that they were just for decoration, making jewelry, and trading for cash.

"They will," Peniel replied. "But you would be a fool to sell them."

"Okay," Jack nodded his understanding and stored the gemstones. He then inspected the last item.

Cloak of Shadow (super rare cloak)

Darkness Resistance: 30

Completely concealed from Inspection

Become invisible if not moving for 3 seconds in a shadowy place. Moving or getting attacked will dispel the invisibility.

Super Rare equipment! Jack was shocked. It was even a cloak, the only armor piece he was still missing!

"Darkness resistance?" He asked Peniel.

"That's surprising. Stats that boost resistance usually only appear in high-level equipment. You are really lucky. This resistance will help you a lot when you meet opponents that use dark magic. Its other abilities are very amazing as well. I would say this is your best find yet, even compared to that pile of gold coins you just stored."

Jack agreed with her. This cloak looked awesome; he admired it for a while more, then he equipped it.

"This Monster Settlement gave lots of experience and rewards," he commented. "People should just look for them and raid them; the profits are insane!"

"Only a lunatic like you would storm a Monster Settlement on your own!" Peniel rolled her eyes. "The experience and rewards of a Monster Settlement are indeed bountiful, but it usually also takes a complete party to raid one. The experience and rewards would be spread among the party members, thus reducing each person's portion. In addition, Monster Settlements are rather rare; it's not easy to stumble into one. And when one is found, usually many adventurers will compete in raiding it. You were just lucky to find this tiny Settlement."

"This is tiny?" Jack asked with raised eyebrows.

"Yea, this encampment could be classified as the smallest size amongst settlements. The biggest ones are the size of a town."

While they were talking, the main hut suddenly began shaking. The walls and roof crumbled into ruins like the huts the Lizardman Chief had demolished during the fight. Jack looked where the remaining four huts should still have been standing; they were also in ruins.

"The Core has been destroyed; therefore, the settlement will be dismantled," Peniel informed him. "By tomorrow morning, all these ruins will disappear as well. It will be as if there was never an encampment here."

As the main hut was gone, he looked at the night sky above.

"It's late already; let's just rest here for the night," Jack said as he took out his camping tent and set it up.

He turned to Peniel with a grin, "I've not yet found a tent with an alarm function, so you won't mind being the lookout again, right?"

Peniel's eyes twitched when she heard it; she then helplessly said, "Fine! Fine! You are lucky that Fairies don't need as much sleep as you humans do."