RETURN OF THE SHADOW - Chapter 231

As Harley got out of the room, she immediately came to talk to Kiriti, while she sent Karma into the room to sign a contract with Balthazar. Though Karma was the one who had the quest and was a professional player, she valued Kiriti more as he was player who helped develop the guild in the town the most and was the liaison with the Ardent Ronins.

She was always the tough one who pressurized the opponents while he was made the deals with others. It was a game of good cop, bad cop played by them in the guild. He handled most of the problems that cropped up due to overexcited players in the guild and was a very responsible employee. He was also one of the few players whom she recruited personally into her guild as she observed his potential. So, she valued his view on this new player, fleet-footed Rogue who was currently being a problem.

“What do you think of him?” she asked as the both of them got out of the bar and started walking in the direction of the forest.

“He is a tough one and it is not worth fighting him. Recruit if possible, else have a friendly relationship,” answered Kiriti. “We also need to keep on the lookout for his actions. He seems to be tough and unrelenting, but if that was the case, he wouldn’t have been so amicable after killing Hard Head. He intends to form an amicable relationship with the guild, else he would have continued to fight others after killing Hard Head. Based on what I was told by Puba, he definitely had the guards of the town on his side at that time and it would be a good opportunity to deal with us. But he relented, which makes it clear that he understands that he can’t fight against us. He just isn’t one to get pushed around.”

“So, he has his own plans,” agreed Harley. “Just keep a look out for him as you suggested, but why do you want to be so passive. Previously, you would have forced a player to accept your terms by using my name. What is different?”

“It is the game. The nature of gaming has changed. It is not the same as the previous ones where almost all players have a similar skill set or the strong ones are limited by the physical restrictions of the gaming systems they use. A simple headgear without much need for maintenance does bring a lot of people into the game, who wouldn’t have been the slightest bit interested in such things previously,” answered Kiriti. “It is the same reason that you suggested to your brother to search for new blood for the guild for the sake of competitions.”

“You think, he is one of that kind. It is not possible. Those kinds hardly spend lot of time in the game and it would hard for them to be proficient in a secondary occupation like making potions. Smithing and sewing skills can be developed fast for such people if they had experience in real-life, but this is different,” replied Harley.

“Yes, that is what I also thought, but he did tell me he was a combat medic and I looked into antivenoms production. Currently, we use pico-tech to dissolve all kinds of venom in real-life, but there are old school methods which could be employed. Such skill would be learn’t by a few rangers or explorers,” said Kiriti. “It is just the vibe that he gave me during our first exploration of the marsh. He seemed very adept at it and he also made a personal antidote. So, I am bit concerned.”

“Still is it necessary to consider him as one of the possible options?” asked Harley still unconvinced of Kiriti’s explanation.

“It is just a theory, but better safe. If he is what we suspect, then he might be adept at guerrilla warfare and the forest and the marshes are both really good place for someone like him. It is unnecessary trouble to mess with him just for Karma’s quest at the start of the game,” said Kiriti.

“In that case, continue with your plan. See if you can recruit him. Money isn’t something of issue if we can recruit a good asset. Most professional competitive players of our club like Karma aren’t that much independent. It would be good to have one of him. He will be a definite improvement,” said Harley.

“That might not be really possible. He doesn’t seem to be much cared about a constant source of income like us. He also did tell that he needs to attend to his actual job during daytime. So, he might not consider this much important,” said Kiriti. “Even money can’t buy a few things, but it would be good to have him as a friend. At the very least, if he is an elite, he could coach our players in his free time.”

“I understand,” said Harley waving her hand as she went back to her team to continue farming experience. Kiriti understood that she left it to him and didn’t care much. He knew he had to take care of things and it was the reason that her brother didn’t let her manage the club which participated in gaming competitions, even though he would rather let her handle it to get some free time. She always had ideas, but rarely followed through them. She lacked patience to see through it till the end. Else, she would be been made the owner of the guild and club by her family already.

In the bar, Karma and Balthazar had signed the contract and Balthazar went back to the tamer. He planned to make a few more of the antidotes for the day before he went out of the game. He had a meeting with Herschel early in the morning and he needed to create enough antivenoms to satisfy the according to the treaty. So, he thought it was best to make the necessary amount of antivenom required by the contract first and give them to Agua as he wasn’t sure if he could be busy trying to get to Ryan Rowley.

He quickly contacted Agua who had been collecting the required supplies for him and went back to Kiran’s and started with the production of the antidotes. Four hours later in the game, he managed to produce about 90 doses of the antidote and he finally reached level 20.

It was a time, he could get to completion of the adventurers association to take the test for becoming a tier 1 adventurer. This was a categorization of the adventurers in the adventurers association. The advantage of taking the test for this categorization is that a player would have better privileges if he was of a higher tier in the association. It had no effect on the levels of the players, but the higher the level of a player when he completes the test, the less rewarding it is. This was common for all the tiers of adventurers.

Apart from this information, which was public, Balthazar had a bit more information due to his experience in past life. There was one good thing about the quest, that once a player took it his level would be capped till, he finished or aborted the quest. The experience stored would be used to elevate the player’s level once they successfully completed the quest but would be lost if they aborted it.

The quest would be graded based on the level and the completion rate. Aborting once causes the grade of completion to be dropped by a level even if the person had a 100% completion rate the next time. The tier 1 quest also usually gave player opportunities to get special jobs. So, he wanted to take the quest as soon as possible and complete it at level 20. He failed to do so in his past life and that was something he regretted in the game continuously. It made a lot of difference, especially in using special skill and the like.

He stopped with creation of the potions and went to the adventurers association to take up the quest. As he went into the adventurers association of the town, he was greeted by a receptionist. On requesting for a tier 1 quest, he was immediately shown a list of quests. They ranged from clearing a bandit cave in the forest, to wild beasts in the marshes. Quite a few of them also referred him to go to the coastal guard and the temple of the twelve.

Having joined the game two years after it started in his previous life, he had never seen these many quests. The usual one was to clear a dungeon close by which was at level 25, but one could enter if they accepted the tier 1 quest. He immediately understood that the others were special quests which could provide him with special jobs or skills.

He had an urge to try to get to the coastal guard but after a few seconds of thought, he decided that the temple of twelve was a better option as coastal guard special skill would probably only make him better at water based locations. He made his way to the temple of the twelve. As he walked into the temple, the deacon called greeted him.

“I heard you have been busy. It seems that you made a good impression on both Mr. Theodore and lieutenant Bloom,” said the deacon smiling at him. “What do you require now, adventurer?”

“I have been to the adventurers association for getting a tier 1 qualification and was told that the temple could use with a bit of assistance,” answered Balthazar.

“Oh! That. We have quite a few things that you could help with. On completion, the church will give recommendation to the adventurers association that you are a tier 1 capable adventurer,” said the deacon as a list of quests were provided to him. The list had about a hundred quests that Balthazar was surprised that there were so many of them. As he was looking through them, the deacon interrupted him.

“I see that you are in possession of some power of shadows and you have a profession which suits the power. So, I would suggest you go to the shadow glen near the city of the Wightbarne. There seems to be some sort of unnatural presence and the branch of the church has asked for assistance,” suggested the deacon.

New Quest: Blight of the Wightbarne. (Tier 1 qualification quest)

Quest Description: An unnatural disease plagues the area near the city of Wightbarne. The church has requested your assistance. Contact the priest at the city to get more details.

Quest Rewards: Based on completion rate. Currently unknown.

Taking the quest, Balthazar immediately contacted Agua. He wanted to know more about the city of Wightbarne so that it would be easier for him to navigate the place. A few moments later, Agua managed to get him a map that would help him reach the city. As he received the map, he went back to the refining potions. He had plans of going to the city, but he felt that he would have better results if he upgraded his weapons before that. It was a common method in his previous life for players to get better equipment and consumables after taking tier qualification quest and let the experience acc.u.mulate without the level raising. It would give him better grade if he did so.