No matter how old Meredith was reluctant to face the truth, he had to admit that the Players’ ability was far beyond his own and the Crookes city watch (although they when he saw them stormed forward and destroyed the monsters he could never stop, and was barely preventing them from entering the Faint Crystal Stratum.
“I see, so that’s what it is…” Old Meredith eventually turned his eyes to Eleena. “No wonder you wouldn’t want my title as the mayor of Crookes, insisting that you want to go on adventures with your friends… I could mostly understand that now.”
Eleena turned blankly at the old-man who was posturing just then. “Your abilities definitely far surpassed that of normal humans, and perhaps already reaches into the level of superhumans… Instead an old, decaying city, it makes sense that you prefer the radiant and the natural, to continue exploring the world with your companions and revel in your freedom.” The old man laughed self-deprecatingly. “Yes. This era is changing, and I’m just a codger, an antique that survived the last era. The future is yours!”
With that thought, Old Meredith finally gave up on his meaningless intention, and could make peace with it all.
“But I’m not supposed to go ahead after I am done with the Faint Crystal Stratum.” The girl shook her head. “I’m leaving the rest to the others.”
Certainly, the reason she would follow the frontliners into the Faint Crystal Stratum as if fooling around with her own life was actually to find her long-lost grandfather as soon as possible.
Now, not only did she find him, she had more or less profited with the other frontliners, making the trip worth it.
After this, she would start carrying out her role as a toll to ferry groups of Players into the Elven Synchronized Intellect Nation (SIN).
After all, the key to the front gates was in her possession.
On the other hand, the old man was left confused, but despite feeling that something was out of place, he did not probe into the matter.
Indeed, he felt that it was good that his granddaughter didn’t risk herself, and those Players who possessed supernatural abilities were the best pick to explore the other strata of the elven ruin.
Edward had even flown off in his Blackfire Dragon deep into the tunnel, coming back up after taking a brief look around.
“I’ll summarize it: there are not many monsters in the Deep Wall Stratum,” Edward said, trying his best to reveal his findings. “There are a lot of small holes and the wall with some big enough to fit six people, but some would barely fit a boot. If you can’t fly, you should be able to use the holes as climbing grip to slowly climb downwards.”
To put it simply, Players who couldn’t fly could only climb down.
That said, as long as they keep their stamina bar in check, not to mention that they could take breaks at the bigger holes and not worry about becoming fatigued.
Even so, it would increase the time needed to clear the dungeon considerably.
But after a brief farewell with Eleena, the others began to enter the Deep Wall Stratum tunnel one by one.
That said, sentimental and tearful partings were meaningless to the Players. Even if another person was on the other side of the world, communication was no problem as long as they could access the player forums.
They could even link up for a round of Tierra Blocks…
“Aren’t you hoping to go adventuring with your friends?” The old man said, gently patting her head. “Why not go with them?”
“Because I have my responsibility,” Eleena said solemnly.
Though she wouldn’t match Edward in belief towards the God of Games, she would definitely rank amongst the top few. She had long since become faithful towards Xi Wei after he performed miracles to save her again and again, therefore regarding the ‘oracles’ from the divine kingdom with the greatest importance and carry it out with unshakable trust.
This event was a fine example—since the God of Games had made clear in the quest objectives that her task was only to ferry other Players inside the Elven SIN, she would naturally not do anything else.
In the first place, Eleena never cared about being the Saintess (in-waiting), and that there was nothing too important about all that.
Nonetheless, after recently leading the Players in a banzai charge against the Tortoise Colossus, the other players’ subsequent unconditional trust and high regard towards her had left her a little lost, but also holding her status with some importance.
Even as she enjoyed the honor and power of her hidden-class-Saintess-in-training, Eleena had finally realized that she should shoulder an equal extent of responsibility.
Meanwhile, every Player was left thrilled after the first-rate Players had cleared the first stratum of the Elven SIN in under half-an-hour.
After all, this event would only last seven days.If they couldn’t clear the whole dungeon in seven days, there just might be a huge reduction in runic rewards and whatnot…
And now, the frontliners were proving that the Elven SIN dungeon was not as difficult as imagined
After Eleena came out, she began sending in many other groups of Players inside.
Most of them were naturally following after the footsteps of Edward and the others, heading from the central Deep Wall Stratum tunnel down to the Dark Sky Stratum. There were others who chose to remain at the first stratum as well, exploring places Edward and the others hadn’t explored.
After all, the Faint Crystal Stratum was quite vast, with Edward’s group having covered less than one-tenth of its area in their search for the way to the next stratum, meaning that over ninety percent of all area was still idle.
Those Players were expecting that there might be some good stuff hidden in the unexplored areas, and it was soon proven true: many of them had managed to get their hands on many weird relics in the first stratum, and exchange them for some fine trinkets from the wood elf elders.
Nevertheless, there was a new post uploaded on the player forums come evening.
It was not long and its content simple, the general idea being ‘we have cleared the Deep Wall Stratum and reached the Dark Sky Stratum’.
