My Plunderer System

Over the next week and a half, Milo's team closed more simulated gates in the guild's training room. The team was working on treating the simulations as real gates in order to get a more realistic training regime. Because they acted like they did in the real gate, it took the group a bit longer to clear each of the gates. David had decided that they should revisit the simulation due to their unconscious change in their tactics when moving from the simulation to a real gate.

Because of this, since the day Milo sent Avery the materials for his new weapon, the team closed 5 simulated gates of the C rank, and 1 of the B rank. The C rank gates would be the best practice for them as they would only be sent to close C rank gates until David or Jorge cleared them for B ranked gates, which they weren't sufficiently prepared for.

While the group closed the simulated gates, David had pulled Milo aside and instructed him to focus on conserving stamina, as this was his weakness. He was obviously their highest source of damage, but he burned through too much stamina too quickly. Because of this the gates took a bit longer, but Milo was able to be a bit more free in the boss fight and could use his full strength for longer.

The real gate the team closed took them 8 hours to clear, and the simulated gates they had been closing took them an average of 6 hours at this point, after adapting to the more careful combat style they took. They had become extremely efficient in combat, even though Milo held back a bit more, and they were still training as if they would die for real if killed in the simulation. Through this practice they had cut their average clear time with their new gate closing strategy by 2 full hours, which was a huge improvement.

The B rank gate simulation they had been thrown into took them 11 hours to clear when they treated it like a real life gate. They would need a lot more training to cut down this time before attempting a real B rank gate.

Soon, almost two weeks had passed and after clearing yet another C rank gate, Milo received a message from Avery saying that his weapon was ready to be picked up at a transport station. Milo's eyes glittered with excitement reading the message, his training was done for the day and the following day would be a free day for the team so Milo decided that it would be time for him to start his training using his new weapon.

When Milo arrived at the transport station, he approached the counter and gave the person working the transport code that Avery gave him that would allow Milo to pick up his package. The employee of the transport station stepped into the backroom where the packages were stored, and a few minutes later returned to the front carrying a sword shaped item wrapped in a black cloth. Milo received the package and rushed home to open the package up.

When he got back to his apartment, he rushed into his room without saying hi to Corinna. Corinna was confused at first but brushed it off, as Milo seemed excited about the thing he was carrying when coming through the front door. She yelled that dinner was on the counter whenever he was ready for it and returned to her work on her computer.

Hearing Corinna, Milo was too excited to worry about eating and decided he'd eat after seeing Avery's new creation for him. Once in his room, he set the package on his bed, and pulled the strings undoing the knots holding the cloth to the weapon. After the strings fell to the sides, he gently pulled the cloth open revealing his new weapon.

The weapon looked menacing at first glance. The orichalum used made the segments of the blade a dark gray that would look black without light shining on it. There was a line of silver towards the center of the blade segments, running from the hilt to a bit under the tip of the weapon. Overall the weapon had the shape of a spine of some strange creature. The grip was leather and had a black intricate pattern pressed into the side that looked like a chain similar in appearance to the ones on his gauntlets. And there appeared to be a small button towards the top of the hilt as well.

There was a note tied up in the cloth with the weapon, Milo grabbed it and read what was written:

"Hope this is to your liking, I noticed the chains on your gauntlets you use and thought I'd include them in the decorative elements on the hilt. If you press the button it should swap between the sword and whip mode with the assistance of a small device in the guard.

-Avery

P.S. This is probably my best work so far, so use it well"

Reading the message, Milo smiled at the idea that Avery used his other gear when taking appearance into account. Most gatecrashers got matching sets of armor and weapons, and so far Milo had just got what he thought would be useful without considering if they looked good together, black was a color present in all his equipment so far, and the new chain whip sword fit with his other equipment. Not only this, but chains had become a sort of symbol for Milo, as all the plunder skills involved chains in some way when visualized.

Milo couldn't wait any longer and picked the new weapon up. Unlike most swords Milo had picked up, this one was made with Milo in mind and felt well balanced in his grip. He could tell Avery thought of everything when making it for him. He then pressed the button on the top of the grip and the blade separated into its different segments, with a black sort of cord running through all of them holding them together in the middle. The whip mode of the weapon seemed to be about half the range of his chain making his mid range attacks when not using his ability a bit shorter but it was a worthwhile sacrifice as now his close combat capabilities would become stronger. Seeing how the weapon worked when shifting between modes, Milo grinned, it felt exactly like his chain sickle did when using the chain side.

He then pressed the button again and a soft whirring sound could be heard as the links reconnected with a satisfying *clink* noise as they locked back into place forming the sword blade. The change from the whip form to the rigid blade took a split second, much faster than Milo was expecting which would allow him to quickly swap between the two modes while in combat. He wanted to swing it around but chose to hold back to avoid destroying anything in his room.

He chose to wait on checking the weapon with his inspect skill and would do so after using it in the training room the next day at the guild headquarters. He wanted to keep some things a surprise as he didn't want to go through everything that night, since the weapon already seemed too good to be true. He put the weapon in his dimensional storage earring and ate the dinner Corinna set out for him, before turning in for the night, it took him awhile to fall asleep however as the excitement he felt from being able to test the new weapon the next day robbed him of some sleep. Eventually he nodded off but not before thinking of what the weapon would do to the training dummies the guild had.

Waking up the next morning, Milo wasted no time, rushing off to the guild building to test his new weapon. When he arrived at the right floor, he ran into Harvey who was also there to test some new equipment he had made for him from the cores he received from the C rank gate they closed. Milo had his new weapon in his hand, as well as all his other equipment put on as well.

"Milo, you're using a sword now? What happened to that weird chain thingy you had before?" Harvey asked.

Milo said that he still had it, but thought this might fit him better, Harvey shrugged and asked if Milo wanted to share a training room with him. Milo agreed to the proposition and the two co captains of their raid team entered one of the training rooms together. Milo immediately pressed a button on the consoles by the door, causing three regenerative training dummies to rise from the floor.

Milo started with the new weapon in sword mode, hacking and slashing the dummies into ribbons, the blade felt good in his hands, and while his swordplay was still obviously novice, the sharpness of the blade allowed him to make up for it.

Watching Milo at work with the sword, Harvey didn't note anything spectacular about the weapon. It was indeed sharp but it seemed to be like any other sword, aside from the strange shape of the blade.

After regenerating the dummies, Milo pressed the button on the guard and the blade split up, transforming to the whip mode. Milo swung the weapon out holding onto the hilt, and slashed the dummy, leaving a large laceration across its torso. While whipping the weapon around, he noticed that the cord holding the links together stretched giving the weapon a bit more range. With the elasticity of the cord, the range was around 3/4 the range of his chain. He then tried the move he saw when researching the weapon online, swinging the weapon out allowing it to wrap around the dummy, digging the bladed segments into its midsection, he then ripped back the blade, shredding the dummy where the weapon had wrapped around it originally.

After Milo transformed the weapon, Harvey could see why Milo would say it suited him; it mixed the close combat superiority of the long sword with the ranged advantage he held when using the chain sickle he'd normally use. He nodded, obviously impressed by Milo's ingenuity with weapon choice, before beginning his own training a bit away from Milo so that he wasn't hit by Milo whipping the whip like weapon around.

Milo then activated the inspect skill, finally ready to reveal the statistics of the weapon to himself. And seeing the screen his eyes widened.