Game’s Dogma

Zephyrwolf continued, ‘No one really cared about it at first. Who had the leisure to give a damn about mercenary quests?

‘But then people noticed that mercenary quests gave decent rewards and experience. Some are monster subjugation quests also, so we can accept those quests and farm in the wilderness. You can farm experience while clearing quests. That’s why the mercenary guild went from desolate to having crazy long queues now.

‘Mercenary rank’s also hella useful. You can exchange or buy special items based on your rank. For example, you can get as many Return-to-City Scrolls as you like for free when you reach Rank 5. Of course the scrolls can only be used by the guy who exchanged them, but it’s still a game changer when these scrolls cost ten to fifty gold coins now. That’s like a few hundred bucks a time.

‘The guild also sells intermediate potions that are a lot better than the ones sold in grocery stores. You can buy them at Rank 2. Everyone knows how awesome the Mercenary Guild is, boss. We have to act fast.’

Drako Yau nodded; the Mercenary Guild was indeed very attractive. Putting everything aside, just having free Return-to-City scrolls could already drive everyone mad. For a rich guy like him, the scrolls weren’t expensive at all, but it was different for ordinary players. A few hundred bucks might be their salary for a day of hard work. They’d rather walk their way back to their cities rather than waste a scroll.

However, walking back to the city took a lot of time, and that brought complaints from many grassroot players. If Drako Yau’s conjecture was right, the dungeon’s new death system and the Mercenary Guild were implemented to satisfy player demands.

Drako Yau was back in the city, his mind occupied with various thoughts as he walked.

The update lasted for twenty-four whole hours, yet he hadn’t noticed it at all? In other words, he had fallen unconscious for twenty-four hours? It also happened that the system began its first update when he was undergoing his class progression. Was everything merely a coincidence?

Even though he had gotten stronger and had met more people, he was just as confused about this world as he had been from the start. The game seemed like a real world where NPCs were no different from true human beings. However, they also bore the characteristics of NPCs, such as names and icons above their heads. If the game was a real world, how could players resurrect then?

His mind occupied with such thoughts, Drako Yau arrived at the Mercenary Guild.

The queue of players all gave way to him.

They looked at the fiery red mask with all sorts of emotions, some showing respect and reverence, some showing admiration, some showing jealousy. Regardless of what they felt, they all subconsciously let Mask pass when they saw him coming their way, even when Drako Yau wasn’t giving off any sort of aura.

It was who Mask was—it was Drako Yau’s status in Yoda.

Seeing everyone let him through made him feel a bit awkward, but he took up their offer and headed into the Mercenary Guild. He walked towards a vacant counter to handle his membership registration and was greeted by a nice lady.

While Drako Yau was waiting for her to finish the procedure, a middle-aged man walked towards his counter and said something to the lady, startling her. She looked at Drako Yau with a complicated look before leaving the counter, replaced by the middle-aged man.

‘Sir, the Mercenary Guild already has a record of your membership. This is your mercenary badge.’

Drako Yau received the badge. It was a circular piece of metal decorated with three stars.

A nosy player stole a glance at his badge and yelled, ‘That’s got to be a mistake! That’s a Rank 3 badge! Didn’t he just apply to become a mercenary?’

The middle-aged man shook his head and said, ‘There are no mistakes. We have taken note of this man’s deeds in Yoda. He is well worthy of his rank.’ He wrapped up his explanation with such simple words, ignoring the crowd of players who were shouting ‘Unfair!’. He then bowed courteously at Drako Yau.

Drako Yau shot the middle-aged man a weird glance, then left the Mercenary Guild.

This man… Isn’t he the butler back at the Castellan’s residence? The butler who smiled like a fox with slit eyes!

At that moment, he received a notification.

‘Find me when you’re Level 30. Don’t forget our deal.’

The sender’s name only consisted of a single word: Castellan.

Drako Yau was surprised; even the Castellan has access to private messages?

Drako Yau left the Mercenary Guild and shook his head heavily. Now was not the time to overthink; he had to become even stronger. The weird purple man, the Castellan, Ichor Hon, Chris… They were all overwhelming opponents whom he couldn’t resist against at all, but that also reminded him of how fragile and weak he was when up against true masters.

Drako Yau clenched his fist and left the city.

A month flew by quickly.

As time progressed, the average player level was also steadily rising. However, as originally designed, it was more difficult and more time-consuming to level up the higher the level. After an entire month, the average player level was still at Level 25, while the highest player level was in the early 30s.

In the past month, fights and races went on as usual, but Empyreal Spire caught everyone’s attention once again. The reason was simple: they took the first kill of Easy, Normal, and Hard of the Level 30 dungeon, John’s Laboratory. It was rumoured that they were already on the way to clearing Hell.

When the average level was still at Level 25, Empyreal Spire already had a squad of Level 30 players who could challenge Hell difficulty of the Level 30 dungeon. It just went to show how powerful Empyreal Spire as a guild was, and that made other guilds wary of them.

However, none of the guilds made a move against Empyreal Spire because the guild had a vastly different structure compared to ordinary guilds. Rather than a guild, it was more like a studio: few in numbers, great in quality.

Thanks to their different approach, they hadn’t had major clashes with other guilds. They didn’t need a lot of players because they went down the route of elitism and only recruited the cream of the crop. Meanwhile, other guilds emphasised strength in numbers.

Both approaches weren’t wrong. No matter how many elites you had, in a guild war on the scale of tens of thousands, what could half a hundred of players do? On the other hand, Empyreal Spire had an overwhelming advantage when it was about getting first kills in dungeons, encounter quests, or other squad-oriented tasks. 

Everyone had originally thought that Empyreal Spire would continue to act against Mask after suffering severe losses in their previous attempt. After all, both Mask and Empyreal Spire were enemies to other major guilds. They certainly wouldn’t mind seeing their enemies fight among themselves.

Who’d thought that Empyreal Spire would just swallow such a massive defeat down their throats? They no longer made moves against Mask and instead reorganised themselves, taking three first kills of the John’s Laboratory dungeon as a result.

In the meantime, what was Mask doing?

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