MMORPG: The Elementalist

For the next few days, Qin Ruo and company remained in the vicinity of the Ancient Ghostvine’s respawn point. They continued to harvest roots and select loot from the monster. The newly-formed Party was joined by two new volunteers (Level 52 Summoners) who were recruited from the League.

Killing the Divine Tier Ancient Ghostvine each time granted the players more than 30,000 Experience Points. The rate at which they were leveling up was not much different from when they did routine farming. But this was way more exhaustive as it required the members to stay vigilant at all times. They could not afford to have even a minor slip up.

Therefore, they needed the extra help. The two Summoners would transport them directly back to the Winter Demesne once every few hours so that they could recharge in town while they handed the roots over to Yaeger.

The two Summoners who took turns to follow the three Veteran Elementalists into the Dark Region had a fruitful harvest too. Besides honing their personal battle skills and gaining physical rewards, they were also given the rare opportunity to fight a Divine monster first hand.

If not for the fact that they had promised to keep the matter a secret, they would have been a pair of “lottery winners” admired by many of their comrades in the Fallen Angels now.

***

Winter Demesne, Winter Bar.

The designer a.k.a. owner of the bar, Qin Ruo had renovated the establishment into a modern-style bistro. There were players sitting in front of the bar counter carrying various in-game equipment—either a knife on their backs or a staff in hand, and they gave the place a unique vibe of antiquity.

This place near the Warp Portal was specially reserved by Xiaoxiao when they were constructing the city. Centered on Qin Ruo’s design concept, it had become the one and only modern underground bar in H&G. The grand hall within the building could house a thousand customers at one time.

However, it was not open to everyone. It was only accessible to members of the Fallen Angels with at least 1,000 Honor Points.

To Qin Ruo’s surprise, the restriction that was initially placed to limit the flow of customers had stirred a frenzy among the League members to collect Honor Points. A lot of lower class citizens had secretly vowed to enter the bar one day.

Today, as usual, the three of them went straight to the Winter Bar after they left Yaeger’s shop.

“Commander! You’ve come to have a drink too?”

“Clan Leader!”

“Commander Black! Hey Commander Homme, as cool as always!”

Those players chilling and chit-chatting at the Winter Bar immediately turned to them. They greeted them eagerly, and Qin Ruo as well as Black Rock greeted them back with wide smiles on their faces. After that, the three Elementalists found their favorite spot inside the grand hall and sat down.

“Hey, my respectable Fatale, is it really that hard for you to put on a smile?” Black Rock sat down and took a jab at the cold-looking Homme Fatale.

The latter ignored him and talked to the NPC waiter who swiftly appeared beside them, “One Gorgeous Blueflame.”

At the bar counter, Gold Digger Babe, who often dropped by to try out different cocktails during her free time, fixed her gaze on Qin Ruo’s table after she noticed the sudden commotion in the establishment.

She had witnessed the same scenario way too many times during the past few days. Other than the Winter Bar’s uniqueness and rich supply of alcohol, one of the main reasons the Fallen Angels were attracted to it was probably the chance to meet Qin Ruo in person.

Many of the Fallen Angels still regarded their League Commander as a mysterious and distant existence. After all, not everyone got the chance to become Qin Ruo’s close acquaintance.

Who would have thought that the man who had dominated the game was only a white-collar employee in a normal company? ‘An ordinary guy who couldn’t even handle a little girl like me!

‘Then again, I think he still qualifies as a handsome man…’

She stopped her random thoughts and pulled her gaze back to the liquids in front of her. She was eager to carry out her next cocktail experiment.

***

Qin Ruo’s eyes stopped on Gold Digger Babe’s face for two seconds after he followed Homme Fatale’s line of vision to the bar counter.

“A little girl still in university being so immersed in mixing alcohol… Kids nowadays sure are weird.”

“Little girl?”

“Kids?” Black Rock held down the Lonely Night he had just taken a sip of and looked at the pretty lady sitting in front of the counter. He clicked his tongue and looked back at the lamenting Qin Ruo, “Let me get this straight, Gold Digger Babe’s a grown up, right, Fatale?”

“This is none of my business.” Homme Fatale moved his head away and wiped the wacky grins off their faces. He was clearly disinterested in continuing the topic.

“All right, let’s drop it.” Qin Ruo shook his head as he smiled and changed the topic. “Sister Violet, Dino, and the others have attained Tier 6. Now, more than a hundred Fallen Angels have reached this milestone.

“Furthermore, the stock of Rootless Elixir has also reached four thousand bottles. Each core player has been given at least twenty bottles of the elixir. Judge and Subjugator have also run out of space to accommodate more.

“So, I think we can stop collecting the Ancient Ghostvine root for now. I’ll delegate the task to Burning Rose and Apocalypse… On second thought, maybe it’s better to ask each Clan to send out a group so that everyone can get a taste of fighting the Divine creature.”

Black Rock and Homme Fatale nodded in agreement. The latter then asked, “What about us?”

“We’ll get some rest first. Then, we shall gather in town at 7 p.m. after dinner.” Qin Ruo added after a short pause, “I believe by then, Xin Yu, Violet Orchid, and Violetmoon Devilite will have their skills ready.”

The three ladies were learning Tier 6 skills from Resurrector, Raleigh, and the Bandit, Yaeger respectively.

Raleigh was responsible for passing on a Tier 6 Radiant Priest skill to all qualified Priests in the Fallen Angels. The skill was known as the Great Resurrection. There was fifty to eighty percent chance of resurrecting all allies within a thirty-meter radius (the increment was parallel to Mastery Level, from Novice to Master). Meanwhile, Yaeger was in charge of teaching the Tier 6 Bandit skill known as Death Dodge. The skill gave Bandits a fifty to seventy percent chance of evading incoming attacks in a time span of two to five seconds.

(On a different note, Edgar taught Starfall to all the Tier 6 Bowmasters. Its arrow release was so powerful that it was said to have destroyed a star before.)

Speaking of Tier 6 skills, Black Rock could not help but sigh.

Although he had achieved Tier 6 for quite some time, he still had no clue about the Tier 6 specialty for Terramancers. He was especially envious of those under the three Classes above, who could easily acquire new skills just by visiting the corresponding NPC.

“Which dungeon are we going to attempt?” Homme Fatale suddenly raised the question.

The two of them were baffled and were reminded of the two newer maps they had also obtained via the Ancient Ghostvine besides the previous one.

After the appraisal, the old maps were still an unsolved mystery. The actual contents of the maps would only be made known once they entered the Secret Dungeon. Meanwhile, the initial map gained from the Ancient Ghostvine was related to a rescue mission in Thunderstruck Valley—The Conspiracy Surrounding Hades.

The map clearly stated that it was best to have a Bandit who excelled in Trap tag along. Only a Bandit was able to find the dungeon where the Dragonlord’s Bone would potentially be hidden.

Other than that, the dungeon also had a restriction. The number of challengers was limited to only ten people, and all of them needed to be at least Tier 6. In Edgar’s opinion, the difficulty of this particular dungeon may even be more terrifying than the unknown ones.

Edgar was very familiar with the legend of the Dragonlord.

The Undead Horde was banished from the Mythical Continent due to its intolerable obsession over death. Similarly, the Dragon Kin had also chosen to migrate to the Underworld as the human race was too afraid of their otherworldly strength and began to hunt down Dragons with low reproductive capacity.

According to the legend, the Dragonlord’s individual strength was even greater than that of Hades. The Underworld would not have been ruled by the latter if he did not own the Eye of Hades and the Undead Horde was literally, undead.

The previous Dragonlord was wise enough to avoid direct confrontation with Hades. To protect its kin and continue the Dragon bloodline, the Dragonlord decided to open up a new territory in the Underworld, staying as far as possible from Hades and the human race.

However, Hades could not rest well knowing that a dangerous species was looming just next to his garden.

Thus began a long history of war between the Undead and Dragon Kin. The war lasted until the previous Dragonlord used a forbidden technique to heavily injure Hades and permanently weaken its power.

Unfortunately, after the Dragonlord paid with its life for using the forbidden technique, its bone was stolen by Hades’ personal army and hidden in Thunderstruck Valley. As long as the current Dragonlord did not get to it and assimilate with the knowledge and power of the previous lord, then it would never be able to match Hades, who was gradually recovering close to, if not to his full strength.

To make matters worse, Thunderstruck Valley had a constraint—a constraint against the Dragon Kin.

Every dragon that entered the valley would lose its sanity instantly. Hence, the Dragonlord had turned to the humans and asked for their help in retrieving the

bone. The Dragon Kin promised a lucrative reward to any adventurer who could help them fulfill the quest.

Sadly, the great number of Demigod and Divine creatures within Thunderstruck Valley meant that it was an almost impossible task for human adventurers. They could barely survive in the Underworld, much less help out the Dragon Kin.

Qin Ruo spoke after long consideration, “The Conspiracy Surrounding Hades… I personally think the difficulty level of this quest is still beyond our reach currently. The Dragonlord is on the same level as Hades, so its bone must be guarded by a Divine Specter at the very least. Judging from our present strength, it’ll still be too risky. I suggest we complete the easier task first. As for this quest, maybe we can attempt it when we’re bored, just to take a look. After all, the drop rate for this map isn’t that low.”

“True.”

Seeing that they agreed with him, Qin Ruo also passed the same message to the other ten members through the Party Channel. “So it’s fixed. I’ll see you all tonight.”

Just as they prepared to leave the bar after their conversation, a person who was panting hard, barged in and called out, “Commander!”

“Someone… Someone’s put a price on our comrades’ heads through the Mercenary Guild!”