Close Combat Mage
chapter-366-30041322

Chapter 366 – Controlling Luck Pt.1

Failure, success, failure, failure, failure, success, failure, failure, failure, success, failure, failure, success, failure, failure, failure, success…

Suo Jia’s frown deepened as he examined his records. No matter how he calculated, he couldn’t find any patterns in his results.

Suo Jia stared at the densely packed statistics that didn’t seem to have any correlation. Although he couldn’t find a pattern, Suo Jia did make a bewildering discovery: the enhancement success rate was around 30%. Sometimes it was a bit more, and sometimes a bit less, but 30% was the average.

Suo Jia knew that at the moment he still had too little resources, and that he’d have to continue enhancing to slowly find a pattern. He believed that everything in the world followed a type of order, it was just a question of whether it could be discovered or not.

Once he returned to the first checkpoint, Suo Jia returned to the ten major cities to purchase 100,000 pickaxes once more. He also placed a future order. Although Suo Jia had spent most of his money, he still had a few hundred thousand. However, this amount was equivalent to nothing in Suo Jia’s eyes.

Suo Jia returned to the second checkpoint with all the pickaxes and rushed over to Obsidian City. Suo Jia knew that if he shipped these goods to Scarlet City, there was no way he would be able to sell them at a suitable price. After all, Suo Jia had already sold 10,000 of them there. The city now had enough supply for at least a year.

However, because the magical beasts blocked the roads, the fact that Scarlet City had a full supply didn’t mean other cities would. If Suo Jia made a round trip once a month, he would be able to complete six transactions within half a month and earn over 8 billion. However…even if all this money was spent, to what extent would he be able to enhance his equipment?

His journey advanced swiftly. Finally, Suo Jia arrived at Obsidian City and he headed directly to the largest tool exchange shop. The reason he didn’t look at any smaller ones was because of their deficit in finances. Not all stores could hand over a few hundred million to purchase these pickaxes at once.

By now, Suo Jia had insight in the negotiations process. Going by his experience at Scarlet City, he sold all his pickaxes for a price of 1.4 billion. This was to be expected…a profit of a hundred million per year was impossible to turn down.

Without wasting any time, Suo Jia ran straight to the local auction house and continued to enhance his equipment. This time, his results were even more mediocre; after spending 1.6 billion, he was only able to raise all his equipment to rank 6. A general success rate of 30% still held.

During the following four months, Suo Jia continued to purchase pickaxes once a month without rest. After having successfully upgraded all his equipment to rank six, he had even managed to accumulate 4 billion.

Since it was now the arranged meetup time, Suo Jia didn’t continue enhancing and instead rushed back to the inn at Illusion City at full speed. That was where they’d all agreed to meet.

Suo Jia rushed so quickly back to the inn that he actually arrived a day early. There was still a whole afternoon and night left until the arranged meeting time. While pondering what to do, Suo Jia suddenly had a new train of thought [regarding the enhancement process].

Although he hadn’t found any patterns, Suo Jia had considered it closely for the past half a year, and had gotten some results. Based on his inspection, there were still some tentative patterns!

Although historically the worst record was enhancing 800 gems in a row without success, Suo Jia was sure that this person was just extremely unfortunate. If everyone suffered experiences like that, then there’d be no point in trying to look for a pattern. However, Suo Jia believed that someone’s fortune was set from the day of their birth.

Although Illusion City wasn’t the city that produced the most Illusion Gems, it was where the most people performed enhancements. That was because there was a sculpture of the goddess of fortune erected in the center of its main square!

After eating lunch, Suo Jia went back to the Illusion City auction house and sat down in a chair in front of its entrance. He set up a sign that he’d prepared beforehand and then closed his eyes to rest a bit.

The words Suo Jia had written on the sign were very simple; he would enhance gems for people that wanted to raise their equipment to rank one. If they handed over the fee of 2 million coins, Suo Jia would be responsible for successfully enhancing their equipment!

Anyone could see that for Suo Jia, who had a success rate of 30%, accepting only 2 million coins was a huge financial loss. However, Suo Jia’s current objective was to collect data and examine its behavioral trends, so he didn’t really mind losing money. Rather, the most important point was to verify the pattern he’d found in the past half a year!

Before long, a lanky mage walked over. After glancing over at Suo Jia, he exclaimed in surprise, “Will you really enhance equipment to rank one for only 2 million?”

Suo Jia looked over at the mage and nodded. “Yes, that’s right. If you don’t believe me, I can get a collateral you are satisfied with acknowledged by the auction house, and get it back after I succeed.”

The lanky mage hesitated for a bit before asking in confusion, “I really don’t understand. Can it be that your success rate is 50%? Even so, you wouldn’t be losing or gaining money by accepting only 2 million!”

“Haha…” Suo Jia chuckled and calmly replied, “I have my own reasons, but please forgive me for being unable to say them.”

The mage thought this over for a bit before resolutely nodding. “Alright, in that case, please help me. I have a total of 6 equipment I want to enhance.”

Suo Jia replied in a low voice, “Alright, that’s not a problem, but my current mental condition isn’t the best and I’m currently recuperating. Can you come tomorrow morning at 8?”

“No problem!” The mage affirmed, and bid farewell. As Suo Jia watched the mage’s figure disappear off into to the distance, he couldn’t help but feel a bit at loss. Was doing all this really the right choice? He wasn’t sure.

Just then, another low voice rang out, “Mister, is what you have written on the sign true? Will you really be willing to help us enhance our equipment to rank one for only 2 million?”

Suo Jia smiled and confidently answered, “That’s right, you read it correctly. You can give me the money after I successfully enhance the equipment and I have a collateral here that the auction house can acknowledge, so there definitely won’t be a problem.”

As he spoke, more and more people had discovered his offer, and fought to get to Suo Jia first. After seeing the sign, it inevitably became a main topic of discussion.

In the span on the entire afternoon and the first half of evening, Suo Jia accepted over a hundred appointments to enhance more than 500 pieces of equipment. However, Suo Jia asked all of them to come after 8 the next morning. After all…Suo Jia didn’t have that many goods to use as collateral at once, so he could only keep exchanging with customers one by one.

In the latter half of the evening, Suo Jia stopped accepting requests and began to meditate. Although enhancing didn’t really consume spirit energy or magic energy, Suo Jia still preferred to maintain his optimum state.

The next morning, all of the people came flooding over. When Suo Jia looked at the packed crowds jammed within the auction house, he couldn’t contain his astonishment. This wasn’t just 100 people, it was more like 500!

Suo Jia shook these thoughts away and used his card to purchase over a thousand rank one gems in one go. He then found a work room and began to start enhancing.

Every time he enhanced an equipment, Suo Jia would carefully record it down. As time passed, the pieces of equipment were boosted one after another to rank one. At the same time, the crowds of people watching were growing more restless. Who wouldn’t get excited over something cheap and great like this?

Every warrior wanted to enhance their equipment. For each gem used, the equipment’s might could potentially be raised by 10%. That meant reaching rank ten would increase effects by 100%.

Although the 10% might not seem that great of a number, if an entire set of 10 pieces of equipment was raised to rank one, there would be an overall increase by 100%. If the entire set was raised to rank ten, then it would be an astounding boost of 1000%. Of course, there were no more than ten people in the entire world that had an entire rank ten equipment set.

Suo Jia continued to place gems in the extraction box before moving it into the enhancement room with practiced movements. At the moment, Suo Jia was in a hyperactive state. This was already his fourth failure in a row. For the sake of waiting for this kind of chance, Suo Jia had already extracted hundreds of gems, using up millions of coins.

Suo Jia anxiously watched the magic equipment inside the enhancement room. The rainbow colored light finally came pouring out from the side outlet, and the next moment…the glow surrounding the equipment gradually disappeared without a trace.