Since he was not familiar with this city, Jack immediately asked a local for the location of the zone portal. After getting the direction, the three of them headed over in haste.
‘Blasted backwater city. Why doesn’t it have carriages?’ Jack cursed as he tried to move as fast as possible without bumping the other pedestrians.
There was no more time for him to take care of the delivery quest given by Albert. He would have to return to this city later to complete that faction quest. Hell, there was not even time for him to rest. He really did not expect himself to spend an entire night inside the trial. He truly lost his sense of time in there. Luckily, he still came out before it was too late. Weird thing though, he didn’t feel tired despite not sleeping the whole night. It was probably due to something special inside the trial space.
.
After some time, Jack saw the field which housed the portal structure. As he was about to go into the field, a group of five men came into his path. From their postures, they intended to block Jack’s path. Jack Inspected them without slowing down his pace and found them to be from the guild Six Rings of Prosperity.
This bunch had received a message from Suicide Prayer who reported what Jack looked like and what he had done. They had gone near the League of Champion building searching for him but failed to find him. They then tried to widen their search. Little did they know that Jack had spent the entire night inside the Blade Dancer academy.
After a fruitless search, they decided to place their people at the city’s chokepoints, which were the exit gates and the zone portal. They didn’t have many members left in the city because most of the ones who reached level 30 had been sent to a city called Thereath several days ago, something about a mission to claim a guild headquarter. Luckily, they only need four teams to monitor the chokepoints.
After a long wait, the team near the zone portal finally saw Jack who was approaching. None of them could use inspect on Jack but Jack’s armors were rather unique, so it was easy for others to recognize.
The lead of the group came forward. “Hey, you! Are you the one who has caused trouble for… waahhh…!!” The lead failed to finish his speech because Jack, without stopping his advance, had grabbed him while swiping his legs, causing the guy to be flipped in the air before landing hard on his back.
Without stopping, Jack ran past the other four who were still dazzled.
“Fei! Your grab-and-throw technique is too rough. You relied too much on your strength,” Domon said while following him.
One of the Six Rings of Prosperity’s people snapped out of his daze and gave chase. Domon was near to him and since the old man appeared to be in cahoot with Jack, the guy extended his hand to catch the old man. The other three also started chasing by then.
The first one who gave chase, suddenly felt his arm getting grabbed and twisted as he felt a light tap on his leg. Before he knew it, he was upside down in the air and crashed onto his other three comrades.
“That’s how you should have done it,” Domon said.
Jack had forgotten how this grandfather of his enjoyed giving lessons when it came to martial arts. He, however, was not in the mood for learning. He went directly to the zone portal. There were a few guards who were guarding the zone portal and had seen the commotion. They came forward to halt Jack.
Jack fished out his Viscount badge at them and said, “I’m sorry, sir. I’m in a hurry.”
Seeing the badge, the two didn’t stop him. No damage was done in the exchange just now anyway. They then turned to Domon. “He is with me!” Jack quickly said, preventing the guards from stopping the old man as well. It would be a huge problem if Domon misunderstood and used his martial arts to throw the guards away.
The five people from Six Rings of Prosperity who had stood back up watched in confusion as the guards just stood there as Jack and Domon activated the zone portal. Did they not see those two tossed them around like balls? In the end, they could only watch helplessly as Jack and Domon disappeared into the portal.
Jack and Domon materialized inside the Teleportation Chamber inside Heavenly Citadel. Jack didn’t waste time and ran directly to the Guild Hall with the platform that showed the surrounding landscape.
When he entered the hall, he remembered he need to set permission to allow Domon to enter. But when he looked back, Domon had already stepped through the door into the hall.
Before Jack could ask, Peniel gave him an explanation, “during wartime, the permission is lifted off. Enemies or non-permitted members can go in to defend or destroy the Guild Core.”
Inside the hall, he saw the place was empty except for John who was standing before the platform as he tweaked the hologram above the platform.
“What are you doing here?” Jack asked as he came over.
“What am I doing here? I am fighting the coalition, unlike you!” John replied curtly.
“Fight? How do you fight from here?” Jack asked, but then the image he saw in the hologram gave him the answer.
The hologram had been zoomed in to show the front section of the headquarter. He saw the real projection of the fighting that was going outside. The coalition was not kidding, they had amassed a lot of players. There were probably six to seven thousand of them. All those players were marked with red, while his guildmates were marked with blue, who were outnumber around ten to one. But amongst this blue, some were marked with solid blue. John was using his hands as he tapped on these solid blue figures.
“Are they the native soldiers produced by the barracks?” Jack asked. “You can control them?”
“Before that, let me say something first. WHAT THE HELL, MAN…!!” John yelled.
Jack was taken aback, what’s the deal with this guy?
John continued, “When you said you want to go out to gather experience, we agreed because your job is to fight. You will be our main combatant. But after all this time, you are still at bloody level 30?! What the hell have you been doing all this time?”
John could see Jack’s level without inspecting because as one of the leaders of the guild, he could see the level of every member. The lower rank members, on the other hand, could only see the name of the higher rank members. Level and class were hidden from them.
“I managed to become an elite class, though,” Jack tried to defend himself.
“Don’t change the subject. Do you know the mainstream players are mostly level 30 already now? Most of the experts were already level 31! How do you end up becoming lower level than the other experts when you have been concentrating on gaining exp?”
“Uh, if you allow me to explain…”
“No need for excuses! Do you think elite class is great? Flame had also become one. Our enemies also have people with elite classes, three of them some more!”
“Three? Who are they?”
“Red Death, Selena, and Killmonger.”
“What elite class are they?”
“Assassin, Elementalist, and Berserker respectively. All of them got their elite class at level 30 and they are level 31 now. You better not underestimate them. Especially Red Death, she was the first one to get the elite class in Thereath.”
“She did? I thought Flame was the first?”
“Flame took the trial first, but she failed. She had to wait several days before she was allowed to take the trial again. While she wait, Red Death reached level 30 and managed to succeed on her first try. Our Trinity Dawn should have a decent chance of succeeding on the first try as well, but she has not yet got the time to take the trial. She has been helping us repelling the coalition all this time… By the way, why the hell are you still here chatting with me instead of going out there to fight?”
“I’m analyzing their positions,” Jack said, indicating the hologram above the platform. “I’m figuring about where I should hit. You haven’t answered my question, are those solid blue figures you are controlling are the native soldiers produced from the Barrack?”
“Yes. I can give them instructions directly from here using this platform. It allowed me better maneuverability compared to giving instructions to players. These native soldiers were also more durable due to their higher HP, so they provide a very good meat shield for the players. Especially since all the trained footsoldiers have been upgraded to Squire instead, they had a better defense. We have managed to train around one hundred Squires, they are all level 35 elites.”
John switched to another group of solid blue figures. “These Bandit Archers are also very useful. Their range is especially far. They can cover lots of ground with their arrows. They are also level 35 elites, but we only managed to train around fifty of them with the time we had.”
So the guild had also built the Archery Range needed for training Archers. His guildmates worked very efficiently, Jack must admit.
“I have to say that training so many native soldiers with the time we have is already very good. I must thank you for sending that Triggerman to us, we have handed him to kingdom authority and received a hefty bounty of guild gold coins and resources in return,” John added.
“We have no allies?” Jack asked.
“Only White Scarfs. But technically only Silverwing’s personal retinue, numbering around one hundred that are out there fighting with our guild members. Words are, they have made contact with the true leader of White Scarfs and this leader has given the order to not oppose the coalition. The ones that come here are only Silverwing and his closest aides.”
Jack didn’t put too much hope on allies actually. For Silverwing to still come was already proof that he was a true friend.
“Uh, I am fascinated by the change of this headquarter,” Jack said. John had zoomed in on the hologram, so part of the headquarter building was outside of view. But from this small portion, Jack could see the headquarter had grown. Many structures must have been built. It even had a defensive wall now, but the wall gate had no door yet, probably not enough time to build them. Now was not the time to admire these changes. If they failed to defend this headquarter, then all these growths were pointless.
“Say, do you have a way to make the enemies cluster together?” Jack asked.
“Why? I have been trying to spread them out,” John replied. “I’ve been using the terrain to confuse them and have the native soldiers blocked them at chokepoints while the players strike their weak parts, but there are too many of them. I don’t think we can last long this way. Why do you want to make them cluster?”
“Remember my unreasonable lightning balls skill?”
John’s face showed a realization. He then grinned. “Go to the wall’s main gate. I will send them your way.”
