Huo Wu stopped in her tracks and turned to face Shi Feng, noticing that he had laid out quite a number of items — each one gleaming with a golden luster, clearly no ordinary goods.
"These daggers are for you. Also, there's this shield for Ke Le. Tell him he better not let this shield down." Shi Feng handed all three items over to Huo Wu.
The pair of daggers were none other than the Gold-grade daggers Frost Fang and Flame Dagger that Shi Feng had purchased at the Black Wing Auction House. As the main raid's leader, Huo Wu's equipment naturally couldn't be anything less than impressive, and these two daggers were a perfect fit.
In addition, there was the Dark-Gold Rank shield Arc Guard. With this shield in hand, Ke Le would easily qualify as the number one Guardian Knight in White River City — no other Guardian Knight could compare.
"This…?" Huo Wu's eyes went wide, completely captivated by the stats and appearance of the two daggers.
Though the daggers she currently wielded were already quite good, when placed beside Frost Fang and Flame Dagger, the difference was like that between silver and gold.
Huo Wu immediately equipped the two daggers. One white, one red, they flickered at her slender waist, dazzling and mesmerizing.
"Those nine people — I've already had them report to the designated location. You just need to go pick them up and lead them through some leveling," Shi Feng said.
"Understood, Guild Master." Huo Wu nodded with a faint smile, twirling the two daggers in her hands, an eager gleam in her eyes — she clearly couldn't wait to test out her new weapons.
After that, Huo Wu left the reception room, and Shi Feng headed up to the forging room on the fourth floor.
Now that he had the new Magic Spirit Crystals in hand, it was time to begin forging the Arc Shields.
Time slipped by. Before anyone realized it, the competition among White River City's three major dungeons had grown increasingly fierce.
The Dark Star Guild was leading the charge across all three dungeons and had finally begun tackling the last boss in the Land of Eternal Sleep. Coming in second was Snake of the Body, which had already started on the fourth boss — a pace that caught many guilds off guard.
"What on earth has that woman Bai Qingxue been eating? How did her progress suddenly jump so far ahead?" The Guardian Knight Wei Wo Du Kuang scowled at the latest intelligence reports, his mood souring.
"Don't worry. I spent a good four or five hours on the fourth boss alone. Even if Bai Qingxue's side is faster, they'll still need two or three hours. We'll definitely clear it before she does," said a brawny Ranger standing beside Wei Wo Du Kuang.
"That's right. This time we've deployed all our Elites. Our combat power is clearly a tier above Bai Qingxue's team." Wei Wo Du Kuang felt he had been overreacting. In this run of the normal Land of Eternal Sleep, they would undoubtedly be the first to clear it. Even though there was no server-wide announcement, the gap in guild strength would make every other guild in White River City aware of Dark Star's terrifying power and cement their standing.
"Guild Master, we just received word — Bai Qingxue somehow managed to get her hands on four Arc Shields. With those four shields, the healing pressure was drastically reduced, giving the DPS much more time to deal damage. That's how they cleared it so easily."
"Arc Shields? Isn't that the design Black Flame obtained? How did he produce them so quickly?" Wei Wo Du Kuang had been drooling ever since he heard that Black Flame had obtained the Arc Shields' blueprint. If possible, he would have bought one himself, but reaching Black Flame proved far too difficult. There was simply no chance of getting an Arc Shield.
News of the Arc Shields spread quickly to the other guilds as well, and every one of them was tempted.
A main tank's strength could almost single-handedly determine the outcome of a boss fight. And the prerequisite for a strong main tank was equipment — especially their shield.
Right now, only a tiny fraction of the main raid tanks across the major guilds were equipped with Mythril Rank shields. Tanking bosses in the three major dungeons was still an exhausting proposition. Switching to a Gold-grade shield would obviously lighten the load considerably, instantly dropping the difficulty by an entire tier.
And Snake of the Body was the best proof of that.
Because in today's race through the Land of Eternal Sleep, Snake of the Body had come from behind and surged ahead, clearing the normal difficulty first — leaving every guild in White River City stunned.
Wei Wo Du Kuang of Dark Star was livid. He had been secretly preparing for so long, all with the goal of surpassing Snake of the Body, only to have them slap him in the face instead.
Before long, every major guild in White River City was scrambling for information, trying to find a way to obtain the Arc Shields through Snake of the Body's members. Some guilds even posted buy orders on the official forums, offering hundreds of thousands of credit points.
Many players thought these guilds had gone mad — spending hundreds of thousands just to get a single Gold-grade shield.