The Sin system in Fate was different from other games, but were also similar in many ways.
Some cities were made inaccessible by players with high Sin values, while NPCs would also ignore the players’ dialogue requests. These players would also be denied entry to some dungeons as well.
Of course, the killing of players might not necessarily result in high Sin values, as there were continents hostile to one another. Killing an enemy player would give a player reward instead of a penalty, and while the rewards of killing hostile players were not as high in the early stages of the game as travel between the continents were fairly limited, things were entirely different when the patch was introduced.
With the Middle Continent was a common ground, large scale battles between players of different continents were becoming a more and more common occurrence. Each enemy defeated would result in a large amount of EXP rewarded and dropped equipment, and each kill would also award players with Honor Points as well. Death, while punishing, was very well worth the risk.
Such large scale battles between players were allowed and were even encouraged by the developers.
But Fate was a game focused on not only its PVP elements, but also PVE as well. This was why certain measures were put in place to protect the interests of players who favored PVE.
A team might not necessarily be limited to a party or a guild. It could also include a continent, and even two allying continents.
And this was why Fate was designed to punish PVP activities between players of the same continent or allying continents. Of course, this was all in terms of principle.
There were still incidents where players from the same continent fought against one another. Players with similar levels would not suffer too great a penalty by killing each other. While Sin points would still be to a player, it would easily decay over the span of a few hours, and the player could return to the main city as if the killing did not happen at all.
But if there was a large difference in levels between two combatants, players would be penalized with a higher Sin value. A Sin level of 100 and above would not be removed so easily.
This was a mechanism put into place to protect new players.
This was why players would not attack low level accounts unless their hands were forced. The high Sin value was simply not worth the act.
And it was very rare for players to employ human wave tactics using low level accounts in the game. It was something that a person might not even see in his or her lifetime as a gamer.
And who would have expected something like this to occur?
Even as a reincarnator. Ye Ci did not even dream of something like this would happen to her. This was why she did not even know what to do when her character had accumulated nearly 40,000 points of Sin.
F*ck! This Sin value is too high! I don’t even know how much money I have to pay to cut the figure down. How long will it take for it to naturally decay? How many monsters do I have to kill?
It’s all Golden Era’s fault! This wouldn’t have happened if they did not send out so many low level accounts against us! This meant that I’ve killed at least 400,000 low level accounts with Ol’ Six in half an hour!
She did not even know if she should be happy for Ol’ Six’s performance, or be angry because of the tactic employed by Golden Era.
As she waited for the construction of the fort to finally complete, Ye Ci’s mood was gloomy. There were no signs of the large battle that took place moments ago.
This was one of the benefits of the game. Players were not required to clean up the battlefield as their corpses would be cleared away by the system ten minutes after their revival.
Ye Ci pulled out a bottle of wine inventory and gulped down a few mouthfuls of alcohol.
Despite her woes at the outcome of the battle, Ye Ci was able to enjoy the fight as a reincarnator who had grown bored of fighting.
Just then, a voice called out to her. She lowered her head, and saw Ideal Height 1.7m standing beside Ol’ Six.
A teasing smile appeared on Ye Ci’s face as she looked at the Dwarvish player. With her already short height, and Ye Ci’s elevated position on Ol’ Six’s back, the contrast between the two player’s height was very apparent.
Of course, the two players were still good friends. There was no way Ye Ci would speak to her from Ol’ Six’s back. She jumped down from her steed, and stood beside her friend before giving her a warm greeting.
She did not dismiss Ol’ Six. The presence of her pet was no longer a secret after the fight with Golden Era. The same thing could be said about the owners of the fort. It was already made clear that Upwards Ho! was the guild who was behind the construction of the fort. And Ye Ci decided to put the presence of Ol’ Six to good use.
The battle with Golden Era had just ended, but it also meant that many of the major guilds had caught wind of the incident. They would definitely learn of the presence of Ol’ Six. They might still be uncertain about the identity of the owner of the Dragons, but its sheer presence alone was enough intimidation for any parties who might try to challenge Upwards Ho!.
“Heh, only a tall race like you can ride something like this. I don’t think I can even climb onto that thing.” Ideal Height 1.7m looked up at Ol’ Six. It was at that moment that Ye Ci came to the realisation that Ideal Height 1.7m’s legs were not even as long as the sole of Ol’ Six’s foot.
The teasing grin returned to her face.
“Wipe that grin away from your face!” Ideal Height 1.7m snorted at Ye Ci, “Don’t think that I do not know what you’re thinking!”
Ye Ci crossed her arms in front of her and taunted Ideal Height 1.7m, “Do you want me to carry you up so that you can enjoy the view up here? Or maybe a breath of fresh air?”
Ideal Height 1.7m waved her staff at Ye Ci, and Ol’ Six turned its head around and huffed at the Dwarven player. Had she not clung on to Ye Ci’s cloak, Ideal Height 1.7m would have fallen onto the ground.
“F*ck it! Don’t look down on short people!” Ideal Height 1.7m glared at Ol’ Six as Ye Ci broke into laughter.
“By the way, how long will that pet of yours be here?” Ideal Height 1.7m climbed on to the wall of the fort and tossed a bottle of wine to Ye Ci while she pulled another one from her inventory.
“At least after Blossom is done installing the defences on the fort, or we might lose this fort to another wave of Golden Era’s attack.”
“I guess so. They might not send low level accounts again in their next attack. It’ll be a pain in the ass if their lvl50 and lvl60 accounts show up.” Ye Ci nodded in agreement. It was one of her worries as well.
As one of the guild’s fighters, Ideal Height 1.7m was bored out of her mind once the battle was concluded.
She asked about Ye Ci’s Sin value after some small talk, and was shocked to hear that it was nearing 40,000 points. “Well I guess it’s normal. One breath from your Dragon took out a large crowd of them” she said after recovering from her initial shock, “But there’s no way your Sin will decay so quickly with that amount right? Will you be spending gold to clear your Sins?”
“No way. With this amount of Sin, it’ll take a very large amount of gold coins.” said Ye Ci as she took a sip of wine, “I do not have that sort of money to give to the game developers”
“But you won’t be able to go to any city other than Red Lake City like this.” Ideal Height 1.7m was worried.
Ye Ci tilted her head to a side, “I’ve actually thought of heading to the Middle Continent. Sin value does not value much there, and there are a lot of high level maps. It’s not bad over there.” but Ideal Height 1.7m was still worried as there was still a bounty on Ye Ci. It was not a worry that was shared by Ye Ci, who left after a short conversation with Ideal Height 1.7m.
A post featuring Ol’ Six and the Golden Era players quickly made its way into the forum. From the angle where the video was taken, it was obvious that the post was not made by a Golden Era player, and was instead made by an onlooker from a vantage point.
It became the most popular post of the day, and even attracted the attention of Fate developers. They could of course easily acquire the identity of the Dragon’s owner through their own database, but it was not something they would do. The material itself was enough as a free form of advertisement. This was how the video was uploaded to Fate’s official site with the title “When players have dominated the land, who will rule the skies?”
This was originally a video captured by a player in the game, but it was able to gain a lot of attention due to the promotion by Fate developers. It suddenly became a hint from the developers that aerial steed would be introduced into the game.
And the discussion quickly shifted from the one-sided slaughter to the possibility of having aerial steed in the game.
When the Dragon was revealed to still be in the Lesser Demon Sanctum, countless of players swarmed into the map.
Ye Ci equipped the Secret Cloak and remained in stealth beside Ol’ Six. She held a strong disdain for the players who began taking pictures and videos of Ol’ Six. As she still could not leave, Ye Ci could only allow the crowd to continue staring at Ol’ Six as if it was a tourist attraction.
Of course, people were already guessing who the owner of the Dragon was. Many of the answers pointed at Gongzi You.
Blossom finally completed the installation of eight Meteor Cannons on the fort and stocked up a large number of munitions in the warehouse. With such an equipment, the fort could hold off against an attack from even a guild like Wolf Pack for at least three hours.
Ye Ci was satisfied with the results. With all the preparations complete, she walked up to Jasmine and unlocked the quest. This finally began the mining operations of the only Mithril ore vein on the Eastern Continent. But according to the quest, the ores could only be mined by the player holding the quest, or by the Black Iron Dwarves hired by the player. The Dwarves did not take gold as payment, and instead needed only a small portion of the Mithril mined.
