[NR] Difficulty Finding A Helmet - Chapter 475 (Patreon)

Rosha ends up taking much of the rest of the day haggling over what skills she will learn and at what price. It isn't even that the rogues are trying to fleece her. After all, they're in the Adventurers Guild right now. No, it is just that doing so could almost be seen as part of the cost of doing business. Not everyone can be as lucky as Jason and run into someone willing to pass on a rare skill.

Speaking of Jason, while Rosha was getting frustrated, he wasn't doing much better. While his style of fighting isn't the most unique, just that most would use stuff like brass knuckles or what have you. His equipment requirements are.

Most people looking for gear want a couple good supporting effects and a lot of stats. With Jason's cultivation technique negating all gear based stat bonuses less than 70, he isn't going to be finding any gear that can help in that way. At least not that he could afford. Wouldn't be worth it anyway.

So instead, Jason has to look around in what is basically the bargain bin for mostly effect gear. Sure, effects are more important than pure stats, but that doesn't stop the crafters from going for both. After all, if given a choice between +20 Strength with a decent effect or just a really good effect, people are going to pay more for the first.

The upside of this for Jason is most of the gear he wants is cheap. Now if only he could find more of it. After all, the more skilled a crafter is, the more likely they will get what they want.

In fact, Jason dreads the next time he has to upgrade his gear. After all, this is one of the major bottlenecks and the next time around there won't be any bargain bin deals to grab. That will mean custom made gear.

Not that Jason is against custom gear. Rather, what he wants is so out there that it will cost a ton more anyway. He sighs and shakes his head to clear it.

While there are a lot of places to shop for gear in the town, what with the dungeon and all. He wasn't finding anything today it seems and so Jason heads back to the inn to meet up with the others.

Back at the inn, Jason is the second to arrive, with Courtney having got there first. Though it isn't even a half hour later that Rosha shows up looking exhausted.

Courtney looks around the table and sighs, "So it looks like I had the easiest day. I did spend almost all of my money with only some non-gold coins clinking around in my bag. Still, I should have the new spell figured out within a few days."

Jason shrugs, "I'm going to have to be a bit more aggressive with my gear search. There were a few workable chest pieces, but I'm not buying any of that until I've got a proper helmet. Most of what is being sold seems to be pure defense bonus caps with only a few minor cushioning effects.

"I figure I'm going to have to actually talk directly to the big shops to find any low stat, high effect helmets. Nevermind the fact I'm not looking for just any effect."

Rosha nods, "You would likely have an easier time in an actual city. I'm sure any metal gear that isn't quite what they want gets melted down and reforged. After all, they have to import all their normal metals.

"Anyway, I'm going to be training for anywhere in-between a week and a month, depending on how much these new skills build on what Peter taught me. Is there a place nearby that might have better gear selection?"

Courtney shakes her head, "This dungeon is in the middle of nowhere. You can basically think of it as the midpoint on a bunch of trade routes. And even that is only because the routes got shifted when this place was found to be good for breaking through."

Jason sighs, "Can't exactly get anything custom made with my budget. Guess I'll just have to keep looking while we wait for Rosha to finish up. At least that will give me some time.

"Plus, it isn't like they can undo making leather gear. So, I should be able to pick up something in this timeframe. If not though, I'll just settle for something cheap."

Courtney nods, "Whatever we do next should give us a chance to get you custom gear. Just need to break through and we'll have until the bottleneck for 75 before we have to dungeon dive again.

"I'm not saying the System quest for 50 isn't hard of course. However, dungeons tend to be gear checks more than over world quests. After all, no matter how complex a dungeon might get, they're all straightforward in that you have to get to the end and you can't skip anything they don't let you."

Jason, "We do need to figure out how best to work as a team going forward though. I'm not exactly going to level slower going forward. On the other hand, 75 requires completion of a raid dungeon.

"While I'm confident in completing this dungeon on our own, a raid dungeon is a whole nother beast. They start with level 100 bosses, with an 's'! As in multiple. At that point we're going to need five and a half parties to team up with for a chance."

Rosha nods, "A full raid group is going to be hard to gather together if we don't settle down somewhere. Beyond that, we should probably work on expanding the party. The three of us romping around the game isn't bad, but we're certainly missing some vital roles as this dungeon has proven.

"If anything, we should at least get someone with proper AoE damage going on. Fighting the swarms was fun enough, but I don't want to actually face stuff like that without something like a fireball to drop on them."

Courtney sighed, "We need to go deeper into the wilderness. I was hoping we could stick around civilization longer, but as it is, we need a frontier town. After I learn the healing spell, I'll look into it."