Through the system's interface, Victor quickly parsed the gear hierarchy of this new world. It was a steep, uncompromising ladder:
[ Ordinary, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Mythic, Legendary, Divine, and so on... ]
By that metric, the rusted iron sword in his hand wasn't just low-tier, it was the absolute basement of the equipment pool. In a realm where 'Ordinary' was the baseline for equipments, 'Trash' was just trash. This sword was so far gone it didn't even qualify as Ordinary.
Victor felt a flicker of annoyance, but he didn't let it get to him as he walked away from the Iron Hearth. He just needed a quiet spot to work.
"Lucky for me, the system threw in a free enhancement for the first time" he noted, stepping into a secluded corner near the city wall.
The choice was already clear. On one hand, he had a weapon, trash or not. On the other, he had 'Appraisal', a purely auxiliary skill with zero combat application. To farm EP, he needed to kill monsters, and for that, he needed offensive power. Pitiful as it was, the rusted blade was still a weapon, and it was sharp enough to draw blood, even if it couldn't cut smoothly.
The answer was obvious. He didn't need a better utility spell right now....
...
'Enhance it...'
Victor mentally commanded as he held the sword in his hand and the familiar chime of the archive made him feel a surge of excitement, to know what his talent could do.
[ System: Infinite Enhancement activated. ]
[ Success! 'Rusted Iron Sword' has been successfully enhanced once. ]
Victor's fingers trmbled a bit in anticipation as this was it , he would know what SSS rank meant. He opened the stat window to see what had changed.
[ Rusted Iron Sword +1 ]
Grade: Ordinary (Upgraded from: Trash)
Type: One-Handed Sword
Attributes: Attack +30
Special Effect: Tetanus
50% chance on hit to afflict the target with Tetanus. Targets lose 100 HP per second for 10 seconds.
Description: It looks like a piece of junk, but appearances can be deceiving.
"Thirty attack" Victor noted his excitement growing as this massive boost in stats itself was a huge thing.His base attack was 10, so the sword had essentially quadrupled his damage. The jump from Trash to Ordinary was a solid bonus, but the special effect was the real outlier.
'A thousand damage over ten seconds!'
That was an insane number especially at this early stages and from what he knew about early stage monsters and his current hp , there definitely shouldn't be a beginner level moster with 500-800 hp. And if there was a monster with 2000 hp he only needed to trigger 'Tetanus' twice.
It was a broken passive to have a on an Ordinary grade weapon.
He tested the weight of the hilt. It felt more balanced than before, even though it still looked like a rusted piece of scrap. That was fine by him. Atleast it wouldn't stand out too much.
Victor tucked the blade into his belt and headed toward the city gates wanting to level up quickly so he could feel a sense of safety.
He wasn't going to rush, though. The enhanced Rusted Iron Sword was a massive boost, but he was still a Level 1 player with only 100 HP. If he got swarmed by a pack of monsters, he'd be dead before the 'Tetanus' effect could even kick in. So he needed to know what he was walking into first.
He opened the [Chat Area] again, hoping to see if anyone had posted anything useful about the zones surrounding the city. Instead, he was met with a wall of red text. Hundreds of death notifications were flooding the feed as Victor was taken a bit aback by it.
He clicked on the recent logs to get a better picture of what was happening.
[ System Log: Player 'Jax' has been killed by a Level 1 Spiked Caterpillar. ]
[ System Log: Player 'Simp Lord 69' has been killed by a Level 1 Rabid Hound. ]
[ System Log: Player 'Big Trumbon' has been killed by a Level 1 Water Arrow Frog. ]
Victor stared at the first name. Jax had been the loudest guy in the chat only minutes ago, acting like he was the protagonist of this new world because of his B-Rank talent. Now, he'd been taken out by a caterpillar.
It made Victor sober up a bit as he became even more cautious than he already was as it was a blunt reminder that despite his SSS-Rank talent, the world outside didn't care about potential. If Level 1 mobs were dropping "elite" players this quickly, the forest was going to be a bloodbath.
And Victor didn't think he was the MC of some power fantasy with infinite plot armour... Even Jax the protagonist of this story died so there really was no hope for Victor.