Chapter 365: Atonement

Commander Quintus reorganized the army once the orcs retreated. Multiple tents were erected. Everyone needed to rest after the long fight. Especially the ambusher troops which had been constantly chased around all night. The main army still had the chance to rest yesterday night since they could alternate between the ones who rested with the ones who defended. The orcs' main army had also done the same.

Jack took out his small camping tent, he did not intend to wait for the army to finish setting up the tents. However, before he could get into his tent, he heard a commotion. He looked over and saw Samuel kneeling down in front of the Prince.

Jack walked over and found that Samuel had just found out about the matter with Ronnie. He was the one who had recommended Ronnie to become one of the Prince's personal guards. He had been so confident when he vouched for him, but the guy turned out to be a traitor.

"I have gained the intel directly from that traitor, Samuel. I know you are not aware of his treachery. You are not at fault," Prince Alonzo said.

"No! My unawareness of his treason itself is a sin! I should have found out before he does any damage, but instead, I did not. I thank Heaven for not allowing his mission to succeed. If that had happened, even killing myself a hundred times will not be enough for atonement. Now, I will only need to die once to atone for this sin!"

He pulled out one of his two tomahawk axes, he put it in front of his neck to slash it.

Jack did not know when an NPC wanted to commit suicide, they would just require one slash by themselves, or they had to hack themselves repeatedly until their HP reach zero. If it was the latter, it would be rather comical.

Still, he didn't wait to find out. In his half-sleepy state, his hand instinctively slashed out with his Storm Breaker. A crescent light hit the tomahawk axe that was just about to dig into Samuel's neck. Jack's attack was nothing for this high-level NPC, but the impact was enough to halt Samuel's attempt.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Samuel looked at Jack angrily.

"What a drama queen, uh, I mean, king," Jack uttered, drowsily. "If you really want to atone, giving your death is worthless, that is the easy way out. You should instead give the prince your life! You should work your whole life for the prince to make up for this sin that so bothered you. That will be more beneficial to the prince, rather than you just leave now and let the prince fend for himself. Now, since you already decided to give your life and death to the prince, then you have to wait for his permission first before you kill yourself."

Samuel's angered expression turned complex after hearing Jack's words. Despite his emotional state, he appeared to be seriously contemplating Jack's words.

"What mister Storm Wind said was right," Commander Quintus added. "You have served under me for a while, Samuel. I never pegged you for a coward who will choose the easy way out."

"I am not a coward!" Samuel exclaimed.

"Then give your fate to the prince to be decided."

"I…," Samuel prostrated himself. "My prince! I give you my life. Please decide what you wish to do with me. I will adhere to your command!"

Prince Alonzo looked at the prostrated officer. He closed his eyes for a while before opening again and said, "in this war, I have also done mistakes. If I didn't act as I did and forced myself to join the cavalry charge troops, things should have gone as planned. Instead, many soldiers had lost their lives because of it where they would be otherwise still alive. Even though I was not the ones that killed them, I also bear such sin and responsibility to make up to them."

The prince stared at Samuel sharply, "I declare that you are to keep your life and use it to help me bring balance and stability to our kingdom. Now that we know that this war was brought forward due to my second brother's scheme, and my first brother had sent an assassin on me, I can't pretend to not vying for power with them anymore. With all of you who are willing to support me, I will strive to become the king that deserves all your efforts!"

Jack could see the officers and the soldiers who heard the prince was rather motivated by his speech. That young prince was now giving more of the vibe of a monarch compared to the previous. This cadet had truly grown after this ordeal. Even his level had increased another level again to 27.

Jack was however too tired to think about it all, he slowly walked back to his tent.

"Storm Wind!"

Jack looked back when his alias was called. Samuel was the one who had called him. "Thank you…" he said.

Jack simply smiled and waved at him, he really was very sleepy. Before he entered his tent, he saw Jeanny who should have been equally tired as him. She was calling those that had lied on the sandy ground, to wake up and go sleep in the large tent the military had erected.

Such a responsible leader, Jack thought as he headed inside his tent.

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The army ended up spending the whole day and another night to rest. There were plenty that had been wounded in the war. The healers were hard at work to heal them to a stable condition.

After Jack woke up, he had gone around the battlefield where he had led his team in ambush. He wanted to check if there was still any loot lying around, which only drew a mocking laugh from Peniel. She reminded him again that dropped loots only lasted for three hours. Even if he went directly to search for the loots when the orc army left, he would still not find any loots left.

He spent the remaining free time practicing spell formation. He also leveled up his Storm Breaker. He fed Ronnie's Venomous Viper sword to it, bringing it up directly five levels, and used its poisoning ability.

Storm Breaker, level 35 (rare one-handed sword, bound weapon)

Physical damage 195

Attack speed 3

Cannot be destroyed

Bound to Storm Wind

Dexterity +6

15% chance to cause Poison status effect on each attack

Overlimit: Release the weapon's hidden power that adds an additional 200% damage as chaos damage, increase weapon range by 2 feet, and decrease target's defense by 70%. Duration 120 seconds. Cooldown 8 hours

He had also used his gemstones for runecrafting. He had four gemstones in his bag, emerald, amber, diamond, and amethyst. The emerald and amber were useless for now since their elements were wind and earth respectively. He took out the uncommon diamond and rare amethyst gemstones.

Amethyst was of lightning element so it was compatible with both his Runestone of Probability and Runestone of Luck. Peniel explained to Jack that Diamond was a special gemstone that had no element, and was compatible with all elements, making it the most valuable of all gemstones. She also explained that the uncommon compatible gemstone would give 50 elemental energies, while the rare one gave 200 points. Meaning these two gemstones had a total of 250 elemental energies if he used them on Lightning-based runestone.

His Runestone of Luck was of Rare grade and required 1000 elemental energies to upgrade to Super Rare. So he would not be able to upgrade it at this time. He decided to use the rare amethyst on Runestone of Probability and the uncommon diamond on Runestone of Luck. After injecting the energy, the runestone flared up and upgraded from Uncommon grade to Rare grade.

Runestone of Probability (rare runestone)

increase approx. 25% success chance to auxiliary jobs.

Elemental energy required for upgrade: 110/1000

There was another surprising event after the orcs retreated and the war ended. Same event but happening to two persons. The first person was John, he announced that he had received something called a talent after the war ended. The talent was named Strategist. It increased his Intelligence by 10% and all NPCs under his command received an additional 20% damage and stamina or mana.

Hearing his claim, Jeanny said that she also received one. Hers was called Motivator, it increased her Wisdom by 10%, and all NPCs under her command received an additional 20% defense and HP.

Everyone joked that they should form a joint command army then. Their combined bonus would give an all-around upgrade to the NPC's prowess. Jack, on the other hand, was feeling glum. Although their talents only give a boost to one stat while his was two, the ability it gave sound much more useful compared to his. His Investigator talent only gave him an unreliable ability to detect clues from the environment and lies from NPCs.

Still, he was happy for them. Those talents they got do indeed suit their persons.

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