Karl watched the timer tick down as they dropped the final boss for the fourth time that day.

Three full runs had been completed in the Iron Man timer, with seconds to spare. It was better than they had dared to hope for, but with every run, [Predation] made them more effective, and they all gained a bit more experience with what skills did the most damage for the least energy expenditure.

That wasn’t something that most of them normally practiced.

It wasn’t something that mattered when your primary consideration was finishing the dungeon without major injuries. Taking a few more minutes on a fight was better than rushing things and risking a careless mistake.

{Timer Expired} Calculating total rewards

{Total Rewards Calculated} Please open chest to complete event

Elder Alix walked over to the vibrantly glowing chest and tapped it to open it and see what they had received.

What he got was an explosion of rewards.

The chest began spewing items like a fountain, tossing them out onto the ground one after another. Armour pieces, weapons, accessories, books, scrolls, gems, blocks of metal.

"That is glorious." Cara sighed happily as she watched the loot fountain flow.

"It really is, isn’t it.

Was there anything that your team wanted out of this run? We can sort out personal rewards before giving the rest to the warehouse for shared credits." Elder Alix noted.

"Just the crafting materials. We don’t really need the items unless there is something absolutely awesome in there," Karl offered.

He could make most of the good stuff himself, there was no need to get lazy and grab it from the dungeon.

Socrate nodded. "That works for us. If we get you to take the crafting materials, other than the alchemy materials that I need, we already know that you’re going to upgrade them and sell much of it back to the Clan.

That’s good for everyone.

Sure, they’ll have to pay for it, but they’re going to have to pay for the other items as well, it’s how we take Clan Credits back out of circulation."

Cara made a very important discovery from his words.

"You alter the payouts for missions to reflect how much stuff you have in storage. If you get too much, you start giving more generous rewards so that the members buy it all up.

The fact that they can change it for cash to make smaller transactions is just background noise that helps keep the credit system from getting out of hand."

"And you found a way to exchange clan credits for more cash than the market rate. Don’t think that I don’t keep track of Karl’s account balance." Socrate noted.

Remi also bought and sold goods on Karl’s account, as the system linked the beasts to his interface.

"Not as much as I was hoping for, but enough that I can exchange for people and keep the difference to fund the classroom’s outings." Cara agreed.

"I won’t ask how you managed that, as I suspect that it involves exploiting a system glitch, and speaking it aloud will definitely cause some sort of backlash.

Now, let’s get this stuff sorted."

Elder Alix nodded. "There is a lot of Epic grade gear here. Dozens of pieces by my initial count. We only downed twelve bosses, so that’s two or three per boss, which is definitely an upgrade on the usual rate.

But the volume of Rare grade items is no joke either."

"Does anyone see anything that is Peerless grade in there? Surely, there should be one piece, just by the odds, in such a large pile." Elder Kushal noted.

Socrate pulled up a pair of gauntlets. "These are Peerless... but..."

{Flaming Fists of Fury} Immortal Rank, Peerless Grade. [Warrior] Class only. Adds 900 Percent base damage as fire damage to all attacks. Adds 300 points to base strength. Adds 100 points to base Agility.

Cara examined it for a few seconds, stunned at the evil genius that went into making it.

"It only works for base warriors. Not people who can use warrior class skills, or subclasses that used to be basic warriors. Just warriors. That is both hilarious and tragic at the same time.

You definitely need to sell that to another Clan.

You will make a fortune, and they won’t even know that we’re laughing at them for being unable to advance their class," Cara insisted.

"The badger is right. There are a number of small Sects with peak Immortal warriors as their Clan Leaders. They would definitely want these gauntlets. That much bonus fire damage on all attacks is no joke, this is actually an incredible item.

It’s just so limited in who can use it that it might as well be worthless to us." Elder Kushal agreed.

Then Dana picked another Peerless item out of the pile, and it was even worse than the first one.

{Stealth Club of Skyfall} Immortal Rank, Peerless Grade. Increases [Meteor] damage by 1100 Percent of base.

But when you actually examined the club, the only ones who could use it were Rogue type classes. Virtually zero people could both cast [Meteor] and had a Rogue class. There might be one somewhere that had gone from Rogue to Mage type, but certainly not one that any of them had ever met.

"Well, that’s triple meteor damage, as mine do six hundred percent of base damage now. Which is pretty impressive. But [Apocalypse] has a whole lot of small meteors, and it would gain a huge buff from the club.

Only, none of us can use it."

Elder Alix frowned. "I swear that this dungeon is trolling us. There’s more nonsense items in here as well. Look at this, bracers that add unarmed combat damage to mage type classes. And a charisma buff amulet that only works on people who are already in love with you."

"No, that one’s good for married men." Elder Kushal joked.

Karl nodded his agreement. "Just because she’s annoyed with you, and you need to sweet talk your way out of trouble, doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you anymore."