Prince Alonzo shook his head. He then gave Jack another thing. A pouch.
“What’s this?” Jack asked. In his mind, he thought, ‘another reward? This prince is truly generous.’
“Quintus had informed me about how you approached the Healer Society. That was a great move you make. We need everyone if I am to have a chance for the throne. I also heard you use your own coins to persuade them for support. It is inappropriate if I don’t return the coins.”
Jack received the pouch and found it to have 100 gold coins inside, the amount he had given to Andrea, the Grand Healer in Thereath Infirmary. He was overjoyed. With this, the amount he just donated to the guild had returned.
“Where should I go in Sangrod Empire?” Jack asked, getting back to the quest on hand.
“Tranviste, one of the main cities in Sangrod Empire that is closest to the border between our two countries,” Mason explained. “this city was also run by the Lucien family who you will be meeting.”
“Is there a time limit for this ambassador mission?”
“As fast as possible. It wouldn’t paint a good picture to make our ally wait,” Prince Alonzo said.
“All right. I will depart at once,” Jack answered. He originally was planning to join Jeanny and John’s raid on the monster settlement. If he teleported to Thesewal and use Pandora’s speed, he should still be able to catch them before they started the raid. But guess he should just leave that monster settlement to them.
“So, who will be coming with me?” Jack asked.
The prince again paused for a while due to Jack’s question, before he answered, “you should be going by yourself.”
“Oh…,” Jack made the same response again. He thought that because he was on a diplomatic mission to an ally country, he would be provided an entourage. At least one person such as Samuel like the last mission. But then again, the prince had already given him a companion, albeit weaker than Samuel.
“Aren’t the areas around the border of countries dangerous?” Jack asked.
“Yes, but our intel said you possess a Nightmare steed, didn’t you?” Mason asked. “That is one of the main reasons why Prince Alonzo and I chose you for the mission.”
“Ah, ok,” Jack said. With Pandora’s fear aura, those highly dangerous monsters on the border would still move aside.
After chatting a while more, Jack said his farewell and left. He used the exit on the western gate, the one he entered just now with Samuel.
After leaving the palace, he headed to the Adventurers Association. Not to pick up any quest, he no longer had the time to deal with these neutral factions. However, he still had two completed neutral quests which were registered under his completed quests. Test of Courage, the quest from the Valley of Tempus, and Freeing the Fire Mana Site, the quest from Haestus. He could receive some adventurer points if he reported these two neutral quests in the Adventurers Association.
When he entered the association’s building, it was packed full of players. Now that more players could travel in between cities, more players had come to visit the capital. Jack went to the silver hall and found that it was also crowded.
All the counters were occupied. He had to queue in line if he wanted to talk with the staff at the counters. He then remembered his Adventurer Badge was a VIP grade. He never used that feature before, it was time to exercise this privilege.
He looked for one of the guards overseeing the security of the hall and asked for direction. He was shown to a set of stairs that brought him upstairs. Up there, he saw several enclosed cabins. Most of the cabins had their doors opened, two were closed.
A staff approached Jack and asked, “Can I help you, sir?”
Jack showed him his VIP Silver Adventurer Badge. “I would like to submit a quest completion. I was told a VIP member can use the counters here?”
The staff checked his badge and confirmed, “you can use any of the unoccupied cabins. Inside is a staff that will process your requests.”
Jack nodded and went to the nearest cabin. Before entering, he observed the place. There were ten of these cabins, two had their doors closed. Does it mean there were other VIP members? Were they natives or players like him? He didn’t really see many of the native adventurers even in the silver or bronze halls. There were only a handful of native adventurers, players had taken up the major bulk of the membership, so these two were most likely players as well.
As Jack entered the cabin and the door closed by itself, he wondered if any players had achieved gold-rank membership in this association.
Inside the cabin, there was a counter, similar to the silver hall downstairs. The process was the same so he submitted his two quests speedily without any problem. He received 2100 adventurer points from those two quests. Despite not being formal Adventurers Association’s quests, these two still net him lots of points because they were both S-rank quests.
His accumulated adventurer points were now 9954 points, and available points for exchange were 8874 points. He was only 46 points short of becoming a Gold-rank member. He was very tempted to take one quest from the association and cross that borderline before departing for Sangrod Empire, but he culled his desire. It would be really bad if he failed the important matter to chase this small attainment.
Jack then made another visit to the nearby Hunters Association. As usual, he took the ten hunting quests for the most likely monsters he would meet on the way.
He went around shopping in the business district after, stocking up on recovery potions, magic stones, and as many ores as he could find. He went and bought a few Wind Jet and Magic Wall scrolls. He refrained from buying any other magic scrolls.
The day was getting late already by then, so he decided to spend the night in Amy’s Bakery again before leaving. He took the 34 gold coins profit from Ellie’s Restaurant first before going into Amy’s Bakery. The bakery’s weekly profit was not due for another four more days, so he didn’t get any from there.
After dinner and chatting with Amy and Samantha, Jack went to his room and took out the Transformation Prism and the sixteen rare medium pants he had, which included his Shadow Bear Tasset. He activated the prism and fused all sixteen rare equipment into a super rare grade.
Fortunemaker Chausses, level 35/65 (super rare medium armor)
Physical Defense: 105
Magical Defense: 91
Durability: 50
Wisdom +12
Luck +3
Coins and loots quality from monsters and chests increased by 25%
‘Oh, my luck increases again,’ Jack commented after reading the new armor’s description.
He took out his rare mobile blacksmith tools and started upgrading his armors. Because of the limitation of his ore stocks, he only managed to upgrade two armors, his chest piece and these new pants, to level 44.
His Sin Devouring Breastplate now had 163 physical defense and 142 magical defense. While the Fortunemaker Chausses increased to 150 physical defense and 136 magical defense
For the free points he received after becoming level 33 Archmage, he used the 3 free attribute points for Dexterity again. The 3 free skill points he used 2 to max out Call Familiar. Peniel now had 100% of Jack’s HP and acquired the fifth skill, Second Life. The skill when used would allow Jack to be resurrected with full HP if killed during the skill’s duration, which was 3 minutes. The cooldown of this skill was 24 hours.
The remaining 1 free Archmage skill point he added to Myriad Ensnaring Chains, making the spell level 2.
Early next morning, Jack departed.
On his way out of the capital, he sent a message to Jeanny and John informing them of his faction quest and that he would be unavailable for quite some time.
“Damn! Expert, you truly are not kidding when you said you will go off on your own doing whatever you like,” John commented.
“Dude, I told you about the importance of this quest, right? Imagine the benefit we will get if our guild gets backing from the king of this kingdom,” Jack replied.
“He is not wrong,” Jeanny joined in. “Our core members have already received many invitations to join the kingdom faction. Our guild also receives some special quests given directly by the nobles and the military. These quests provided more reputations than the quests from Guilds Association. We will improve much faster with the imperial support.”
“Fine, do what you must. We will manage on our own,” John said. “But do us a favor. Try to establish as many teleport links as possible with the main cities you pass through. Apart from giving our members access to those cities, you can also teleport back in case of emergency and continue back from those cities. That way, you don’t need to travel too far back again after.”
“Yes.. That is also my intention,” Jack replied.
