About half an hour later, a fat, bald woman left the conference room, whining and cursing.
The guards around the building all tried to hold back their laughter after seeing her, as if it were nothing to be surprised at.
Roland wasn’t aware of the weird tradition among the leadership of the Red Magic Tower.
He had already been teleported to Betta’s city in the wetland.
He found Betta on the way and pinged his friends in the guild system.
Roland: “I have an epic quest here that requires five participants. Who’s in?”
Li Lin: “Sorry, but we’re in the God of Love’s temple in Urganda and we’re occupied.”
Husseret: “Same here.” Brazil: “Same here.”
Raffel: “Same here.”
Fine. Those four were too addicted to women and should be left behind.
Then, Schuck replied, “I’m going to Rhodes Island, or the Island of Dragons, with Margret.”
Roland: “You’re meeting her parents already? I’m shocked!”
Schuck: “Get the hell out of here!”
Then, Roland looked at Betta who was not far away.
Betta shrugged. “Sorry, Brother Roland. As you can see, I’m too busy with the affairs in the city to leave.”
Roland looked at the players nearby who were working hard and was rather impressed. He looked back at Betta and asked, “Are you able to keep a record of who does what every day when so many players are here to help you?”
“Don’t worry, Brother Roland,” said Betta casually. “The Divine Noble innately carries an ‘administration’ system, which will be activated as soon as you get a territory. I can issue quests on my territory for the players to pick up, and the system will help keep track of what they do and how many points they should receive.”
Roland was speechless for a long time.
He had to say that the hidden class was really great. The Divine Nobles weren’t the best in terms of combat ability in head-on clashes, but they definitely weren’t weak.
They also had plenty of useful tricks, such as a talent in picking up money and the ability to administer their territory.
Also, Betta mentioned while chit-chatting that, when a Divine Noble charged with his legion of knights in a formation, they would be boosted by a battle aura.
That was something that was war-specific.
Under normal circumstances, only the Warriors with high Charm could hope to develop such an aura.
On the other hand, the Divine Noble was also a half-Warlock and could cast spells. This class could almost do everything.
Roland was even of a mind to delete his character and start anew as a Divine Noble, if his career as a Mage hadn’t been going so well.
Even Betta didn’t have any time… Were epic quests so unattractive these days? Unwilling to admit defeat, Roland posted the quest on the forum with the requirements for his desired teammates.
He wanted a Warrior, an Archer, a Rogue, and a Priest who were all about level eight. He promised that anyone of those classes who came to him first and sent an application would become his teammate.
In no more than a minute, there were a thousand replies to his original post.
After that, a dozen people ran out of the wetland city and searched around. Very soon, they found Roland.
Then, like dogs that had just spotted fresh s*it, they scurried toward Roland.
It seemed that the epic quests hadn’t lost all their attraction.
It was just that his brothers weren’t interested in the epic quests anymore.
In fact, Roland was the same.
If it weren’t the Great Elder’s command, he wouldn’t have picked the quest at all.
Wouldn’t it have been more interesting to spend time on magic studies?
All the killing and fighting was too much of a waste of time.
The four players who came to Roland first joined his team as he had promised.
The slow runners behind them all wailed sadly.
Roland drew a magic array for multiple teleportation on the ground. Instead of teleporting them straight to the spot of the quest, he brought them to the basement he secretly built in the desert outside of the Red Magic Tower.
It would’ve been brainless if he were to fight a boss with teammates who didn’t know each other at all.
Therefore, in the small basement, Roland asked everybody to introduce their abilities and specialties.
Very soon, he figured out these people’s combat ability. He found that he had established a rather traditional team.
He had a Shield Warrior, a Longbow Hunter with a leopard, a scout Rogue, and a Priest from the Church of Light.
Roland sighed a breath of relief.
The Priests from the Church of Light were great.
Although the Priests from the Water God Church were strong too, their way of fighting was too bizarre.
Sometimes, their DPS could be much higher than that of their teammates, and they were great at survival too. When they detonated their armor in extreme excitement, everybody except themselves would be killed.
The Priests from the Water God Church often attacked their teammates during their killing sprees and could be even more violent than Berserkers.
After informing each other of their battle styles and talents, they spent an hour discussing their responsibilities in the team.
After doing multiple oral simulations, Roland drew a teleportation magic array and teleported the five of them to their destination based on the coordinates that the Great Elder offered.
They saw nothing but darkness after they stepped out of the magic array. They could barely see their own fingers.
Roland immediately cast an illumination spell.
Several bright balls of light hovered around them. Three of them rose to the sky and illuminated the environment.
They found themselves on a plain full of broken stones, dark clouds revolving in a huge vortex above their heads. The smell of dry grass and decayed corpses permeated the air.
Roland also sensed a tremendous amount of dark magic power surging in the air like a human heartbeat.
This was a place that they had never been to. It could be dangerous. The Shield Warrior, the Archer, and the Priest, who was wearing heavy armor, immediately protected Roland in the middle.
Although Roland’s level was higher than all of theirs, it was the players’ natural instinct to protect the Mage in their team. They had learned this lesson through fire and blood.
As for the Rogue, he had already disappeared at some point.
In such a dark environment, he was as comfortable as a fish in water. The illumination balls kept flying forward, but they stopped fifty meters away from Roland.
That was the maximal distance of those balls. Their spiritual connection to Roland would be cut off if they flew any farther.
Without the supply of magic power, the illumination balls would soon die out. Grains of sand were everywhere on the plain. There were no sun, moon, or stars in the sky, either.
Therefore, it was impossible to tell orient oneself in the usual ways.
“Captain Roland, what should we do now?” asked the Shield Warrior in a low voice while staying on alert. “This place is quite creepy. There’s no sound or anything that can direct us. Also, routes of quests are not displayed here like they are in other games. Do you have any thoughts, boss?” The Priest also looked at Roland. “Boss, it’s time to show your capabilities.” Even the Archer looked at Roland with hope in his eyes.
Roland took out a round stick that had a flat bottom from his system Backpack. He then erected it in the middle of the sand.
All his teammates looked at him weirdly.
Roland closed his hands and cast Lesser Benediction, before he said, “I want to know the target’s direction.”
The green light between his hands suddenly vanished.
Half a second later, the erected stick fell to the ground, with its tip pointing in a certain direction.
Roland then pointed in the same direction. “Our target is right there.”
His teammates looked odd, as if they wanted to laugh but didn’t really dare to. They seemed unconvinced.
Even the Rogue had dropped his stealth and was gazing at Roland in surprise.
“Are you serious, Boss Roland?” The Shield Warrior had a bitter face. “I’ve never seen anyone telling the way by the fall of a stick except in anime or comedies.”
The other teammates were showing the same subtle expression.
They wanted to laugh, but they didn’t really have the courage to. Roland chuckled and said to them disdainfully, “You barbarians don’t know the first thing about the mysteries of magic.” Since he was with fellow human players, Roland didn’t think that he had to act serious all the time.
They were all playing the game for fun, and it would be boring if he were too serious.
Giving each other a hard time without crossing the line was the real way of communication among players.
As he expected, the moment he made fun of them, his teammates were no longer as awkward as when they were still awed by Roland.
They were a lot closer to each other.
The Shield Warrior chuckled in exactly the same way as Roland did. “What if you’re wrong?”
“What can I do?” Roland raised his eyebrows and said, “I’ll introduce the most expensive escort in Fareins to you. She might also be the worker with the highest hourly pay in the human world.”
The Archer was shocked. “How do you know that? Have you tried her yourself?”
“No, but one of my friends did. He told me.” Roland began to demean his brother. “His name is Schuck.”
“I have a friend who would like to be acquaintances with your friend.” The Rogue quickly picked up the meme.
All the rest of them chuckled in mutual understanding of each other.
What Roland didn’t know was that the Priest, who had been silent the whole time, secretly turned on the camera function.
In no more than five minutes, more than a hundred thousand netizens flooded into the stream channel entitled “Best Mage in the Server Takes Me to a Raid.”
At this moment, everybody was posting the same comment in the channel.
“I have a friend who wants to get to know the worker who has the highest hourly pay too.”
It was pretty obvious that all men could get closer quickly as long as they dared to tell dirty jokes to each other, no matter who they were.
Talking and laughing, they moved forward. They didn’t encounter any enemy in the first ten minutes.
But starting from the eleventh minute, they met a huge number of weak skeletons.
As they pressed on, the skeletons grew stronger and larger in number.
At first, they were bare skeletons. Starting from the fifteenth minute, armed and armored skeletons showed up.
Twenty minutes later, many skeletons who carried bows appeared.
Thirty minutes later, skeleton knights that rode bone horses joined the battle too.
The enemies were large in number, and they weren’t weak at all. Unfortunately, they had to deal with a Priest of Light.
The Priest only used one spell from the beginning to the end, which was Sunlight.
It was a light spell with a super massive range. It wasn’t very destructive under normal circumstances, but it was a bane to undead creatures.
The regular skeletons would fall apart when they were hit by Sunlight.
The special skeletons that were strong wouldn’t fall apart, but they would be deprived of most of their combat ability.
All Roland and the others needed to do was wave their weapons and cut them apart.
Even the Death Knights were greatly slowed under the suppression of Sunlight.
Roland also provided a series of buffs including Body Fortification and Agility Increase, which enhanced the overall combat ability of the team by at least fifteen percent.
The four Death Knights were soon crushed. In case they were resurrected, the Rogue tore them into parts and stole all their usable equipment.
As a result, even though the Death Knights were revived later, they would be in an awkward position where they had no equipment they could use, and they wouldn’t pose any threat.
After the four Death Knights were downed, no more enemies appeared again.
The team went on and saw a small castle made of unique black rock five minutes later.
It was almost impossible to see the building in the dark from a distance.
A black, human-shaped creature seemed to be floating at the top of the castle.
This human-shaped creature obviously had four black wings on his back.
