I Gain Infinite Gold Just By Waiting-Chapter 255: Episode 51_Preparation (5)

6.

A 10% success chance is, barring any rigging, a 10% success chance.

So what is the probability of that 10% chance succeeding twice in a row?

—You’re telling me he hit a 1%?

With just two attempts, the probability drops to 1%.

What about three times?

0.1%. Four, five times.

With each additional success, the probability plummets exponentially.

0.01%, 0.001%, 0.0001%.

It might sound simple when you just tack on another zero each time, but if you rephrase it as “one in ten,” “one in a hundred,” “one in a thousand,” you realize it’s anything but easy.

In other words, breaking through a 10% chance nine times in a row is so absurd that it’s the kind of scene an author writes only after accepting they’ll get roasted for plot armor.

—0.0000001%?

—One in a billion?

—What did I just watch?

—This has to be fake, right?

Naturally, the viewers watching live couldn’t believe it.

Who would?

Kim Buja had suddenly gone live with an “enhancement stream,” said he was hoping to hit a 10% chance nine times in a row, and then, just as he’d said, every single enhancement had succeeded.

—Man, I almost fell for it.

—Dude, he even showed the hologram. It said 10%.

—He could fake what we see. He’s a Legendary class.

If he had shown two or three successes in a row among those nine attempts, the viewers wouldn’t have united so hard in suspicion. Probability is weird like that. Truly ridiculous things do happen sometimes—not to you, but to someone, somewhere.

And even if the odds were one in a billion, enhancement chances were independent events. If luck lined up, you couldn’t say it was impossible for a 10% chance to hit ten times in a row. Of course, if you kept increasing the number of attempts, the results would eventually regress to the mean.

In any case, the viewers were in chaos.

—I just watched something insane.

—The enhancement options are even more insane.

—My poor eyes. How am I supposed to look my own items in the face after seeing that?

They were watching a miracle: a brutally low success rate turning into a wall of green “Success” messages. On top of that, the options that came with each success were enough to make them feel worthless.

’What kind of sick pleasure is he getting, making us watch this?’

—How much stronger did he get from this round of enhancements?

—Hat, top, bottom, gloves, shoes all got all-stat and defense-related options, and the accessories had status effects and some skills. But the last part went by so fast I couldn’t catch everything.

’Please, just tell me this is a dream.’

The viewers begged, but the person who looked the most stunned was the man himself, sitting there slack-jawed, which only made the whole thing feel more real.

—Ugh, judging from that face, this is 100% legit.

—Life.

—This messed-up world.

—Damn it.

If he was acting, he was doing an Oscar-worthy job. If he wasn’t, then he was doing nothing to hide his genuine shock.

Either way, only one thing mattered.

—Another legendary video in the bag.

—I’m jealous enough that he can enhance at all, and then he goes and hits a 10% chance nine times in a row.

—Today’s lesson: Some guys have all the luck.

—If those are level 2, that means there are level 3 and 4, right?

—How broken is it going to be at higher levels?

—Exactly. If those are the options for just one level, the next ones are going to be completely busted.

—There’s no ceiling on his growth.

—The success chance will be even lower, though.

—Lower than the odds of hitting a 10% chance nine times in a row?

Even if he hadn’t meant to, the video had successfully filled the viewers with envy.

After lingering on the same shot for a while, the stream finally ended.

* * *

“Whew.”

Only after he barely managed to pull himself together did Kim Buja take a deep breath.

[Enhancement succeeded. 1 → 2]

[Enhancement succeeded. 1 → 2]

[Enhancement succeeded. 1 → 2]

He had stayed calm through the first two or three successes.

’It can happen.’

It was probably payback for failing fifteen times in a row on his weapon. That’s how it goes. When one thing goes horribly, the next tends to go well.

That was what he had assumed was happening with the streak. He had even wondered if he should take a break starting from the fourth attempt.

But when the fourth, fifth, and sixth all succeeded, he could no longer keep his head straight.

His hand kept rhythmically pressing the Enhance button, but his mind was flooded with a thousand different thoughts.

’Should I stop? What if I break the flow and it stops working? If I fail once, won’t I just fall into another endless pit? Okay, just until the first failure.’

That was what he kept telling himself as he clicked, and by the time he finished enhancing his earrings, he could only stare blankly.

His old memories of failing at a 1% chance didn’t even come close to this.

Independent trials or not, this kind of probability made no sense.

“Live long enough and you really do see everything.”

Satisfaction welled up inside him.

’So my luck isn’t that bad after all.’

He couldn’t wipe the grin off his face as he organized the mountain of enhancement options he had just stacked up.

▷ “Enhancement Stage Level: 2” effect is active.

Lv1: –

Lv2: Attack / Defense +10%

On top of the options he had gained for roughly 10 million gold, he also had the Enhancement Stage Level effect. It was on a completely different level from what “Gold Enhancement” had given him before. The level 1 effect had simply carried over his existing abilities, so nothing new had been added there, but level 2 gave him a clean +10% to both Attack and Defense.

It was an insane number. It was also a fitting reward for succeeding on nine items with a base 5% chance, even with his 10% enhancement bonus.

“Heh.”

But more than any of those rewards, what made him happiest was the gold he had left.

’I still have 10 million.’

Just a few hours ago, he had been wondering if he would even be able to enhance everything before running out. Now, he had finished all the enhancements and still had enough left over to finally tweak his equipment refinement effects as he had wanted.

’I wonder what kind of joy Equipment Refinement will bring me this time.’

It was a skill that had helped him a lot when it first appeared. Even now, it is still activated at just the right times, reminding him of its presence.

[Equipment Refinement]

▶ Grade: (S) Legendary

▶ Type: SVIP Skill

▶ Level: 1

▶ Refinable Slots: 10

1. Weapon

2. Hat

3. Top

4. Bottom

5. Gloves

6. Shoes

7. Earrings

8. Necklace

9. Ring

He fell silent.

Looking at the Equipment Refinement window he had opened for the first time in a while, he realized that his memories of it “still progressing nicely” had just been wishful thinking.

The only changes were the addition of three accessory slots and an increase in total refinement slots to ten.

“What the hell?”

For the first time, Kim Buja frowned at an SVIP service that had previously brought him nothing but joy. He drew a slow breath.

’Right, it can’t be amazing every single time.’

He carefully checked to see if the old level 2 options—Freeze, Gold Plunder, and Stun—had been tucked away somewhere as passives, but he couldn’t find them anywhere.

Instead, when he tapped “Refine,” he finally saw the changes that came with his promotion.

[Would you like to attempt Weapon Refinement?]

▶ Current Weapon Refinement Options

1. None

▶ Gold Required

Lv. 1: 3,000

Lv. 2: 10,000...

Lv. 6: 5,000,000

▶ Refinement Options...

“Level 6?”

The refinement effects, which had previously only gone up to level 2, were now available all the way to level 6.

Considering the significant gap between the level 1 and level 2 options, he couldn’t even begin to imagine how powerful a level 6 effect would be.

However, the thought of actually trying to fill all ten slots with level 6 effects was so daunting that he couldn’t bring himself to even try.

“Five million gold per roll? Are they insane?”

Given the baseline costs of other SVIP content, it wasn’t an entirely unreasonable price. Still, from Buja’s perspective—as someone who understood exactly how the Equipment Refinement system worked—he couldn’t just jump in blindly.

’This is worse than Gold Enhancement.’

Gold Enhancement at least had fixed probabilities. And even if those probabilities were low, the cost per attempt was also set low to match. You ended up spending a lot overall, but the psychological burden was relatively light.

Refinement, on the other hand, demanded a staggering five million gold for a single attempt at level 6. Of course, a fairer comparison would be between a level 6 refinement attempt and the cost of enhancing an item to +6, but people rarely think that objectively. When the system shows you can go all the way to level 6, human nature dictates that you’ll want to aim for level 6.

“How much would I have to spend to get something decent at five million a pop?”

It was an endless dilemma, the same efficiency problem he had wrestled with when he could only roll for level 2 effects. Should he roll for a decent option at a lower level and then upgrade it, or should he gamble on the expensive level 2 rolls from the start?

Back then, it had been more efficient to get a decent level 1 option and then upgrade it.

Level 6 was no different.

If he rolled the 3,000-gold level 1 refinement until he got a good option and then upgraded it step-by-step, the total cost to reach level 6 would be roughly 20 million gold. The odds of getting the exact option he wanted in just four level 6 attempts—out of countless possibilities—were far worse than rolling the 3,000-gold option dozens of times and building up to it. On average, the latter would be cheaper.

For some of the ten refinement slots, that would definitely be the more efficient method.

Yet Buja couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“These level 6 refinement effects are just too good.”

It had been the same at level 2; because you were paying for a more expensive roll, the pool included a few effects that simply couldn’t appear at level 1. The total number of possible outcomes was about the same, which meant the number of useless options was slightly lower. The reduction was nowhere near as dramatic as the increase in cost, but even that had been enough to justify going for level 2. Now that he was looking at the level 6 effects, he was certain.

’I have to roll for these.’

At level 6, the good options were boosted, and the trash was trimmed away. Even with bad luck, he could still end up with level 2, 3, or 4 effects. The odds were still low, but pulling even a level 4 or 5 effect from a level 6 roll would be better than starting from level 1 and upgrading all the way.

“Haah.” 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

His deliberation didn’t last long.

If he had really wanted to min-max efficiency, he would never have considered going for level 6 in the first place. He had finally grown to a point where he could prioritize quality over quantity.

“Let’s fill them one by one. Make each one count.”

In his head, he had already mapped out exactly how he wanted to fill all ten slots and what combinations to aim for.

▶ Gold on Hand: 10,424,119

In reality, he only had enough for two attempts.

* * *