Jack used Inspect on this new arrival.
*
Callan (Mythical Orc, Divine Priest), level 85
HP: 2,000,000
*
‘Damn! This place is truly a nest of monsters,’ Jack thought.
The other players couldn’t inspect the two persons in front of them because these two’s levels were too high, but they could still feel the pressure. They knew these two were not someone they could mess with.
Callan gave a warm smile to the players standing in formation before him, as warm a smile an orc could show. Everyone immediately had the impression that this orc looked more friendly compared to the militaristic Pallas.
“I thank you, outworlders, for have come to our humble home. You are welcome here to join the world tournament, something that we hope can be a new tradition for us going forward. We are truly looking forward to seeing each of your endeavors. Whether you win or not, your names will ring throughout the world. Your matches will be broadcasted to all the main cities, not to mention the rewards we will provide for you. Even those that lose their first match will still receive rewards. As long as you are here, you are already a winner. Of course, those who become the grand champions will receive the greatest rewards.”
Everyone was visibly excited to hear about rewards.
“That being said, I have to tell you though. As I’m sure our good Pallas here had mentioned, you have to behave yourself. Do not come into confrontations outside of the matches. Follow our rules, don’t wander around where you shouldn’t be. If you make trouble, you can forget about getting any reward. And I won’t mind throwing you out of this mountain myself, literally throwing you from the top of this mountain.”
Callan was still wearing that warm smile, but no one thought him to be any less scary than Pallas now.
The head priest continued with his speech, mainly to give further motivation to the participants and explain the virtues and rules of this place. He even started rambling about the history of this place. How the God of Courage saved a young draconian warrior who ended up dedicating his life to the God. Seeing his dedication, the God took him under His wing, teaching the warrior His virtues before the warrior went on to teach the others. They developed into some sort of religion. The warrior and his followers then built a monument in the form of a giant statue at the top of the tallest mountain in Hydrudond Dominion, Mount Audacias, which many had believed to be the home to the God of Courage. In time, more and more followers came to this mountain and they ended up building this place and staying here.
Jack was feeling bored from all this speech, but he didn’t dare show any disrespect. He forced himself to put on his best behavior and stood still.
Callan went on to explained in detail the tournaments’ broadcasting. How the matches would be broadcasted in all main cities. It was similar to how Themisphere had done during the selection tournament, except it was free and much grander. The matches would be played out in the form of 3D projection right on the sky above the main cities. Some establishments or even player guilds could pay a sum of coins to gain the privilege to have the matches projected inside the establishments or guild headquarters, so they could watch the matches from the comfort of indoor.
After a lengthy talk, Callan finally ended his speech. Jack noticed lots of other players showed relieved expressions.
“Now lets us join together to offer a prayer to the God of Courage, may He bless us all with bravery and honor…”
Callan started praying while the others lowered their heads.
After ten minutes had passed, Jack asked Peniel in his mind, ‘exactly how long this prayer lasts?’
‘Shortest version is usually half an hour. If the priest felt inspired, it can be more than one hour.’
‘#@*$’
After a long and restless one hour, Callan finally ended his prayer. The sun had set and evening had arrived by then.
“Tomorrow we will begin the world tournament. For tonight, we have prepared a feast to welcome you, our honored guests. Please be so kind as to follow the priests over there,” Callan said as he gestured at several people with priest robes that stood by the side.
Everyone started following the priests. Many walked rather stiffly due to standing for a long time. The native guests also followed.
They were brought to another beautiful park with artificial lighting, trimmed plants, and tables filled with food and drinks. There was even a small stream passing through the park, several wooden bridges crossed between two sides of this stream. When Jack walked by the stream, he saw fishes swimming inside the clear water. One side of the park was the edge of the mountain, where people could see the expansive sceneries below. A metal fence served as a safety rail on that side.
Everyone admired the beautiful view. This outdoor atmosphere under the starry sky was truly enchanting. There were even some cute small critters running around the place. The young girl players immediately took a liking to these critters and tried to play with them.
After some time, some people grabbed the food and drinks. Some started talking to each other. Everyone grouped up with their original races at first, but slowly, everyone started mingling up, especially the players. It was easier for the players, since they were all originally the same race, coming from the same world.
The natives were more reserved. When they talked with the other natives, it was mostly out of political agenda. Prince Alonzo took this chance to talk with the other native royalties to build his influence. He was accompanied by Horatio. It seemed that the vampire prince made good on his promise.
Horatio noticed Jack gazing at him, the vampire prince only nodded slightly, but otherwise pretended as if he didn’t know Jack. Jack did the same. From what he saw, the native groups didn’t bother to mingle with the players, even when they were from the same race.
Warlord Abasi was there as well, he was again glaring at Jack when Jack was looking over at where the native royalties were hanging out. Jack again smiled and waved at him, which seemed to annoy the warlord greatly. The warlord seemed to be accompanying another orc who should be royalty if judged from his fancy clothes.
As the players started mingling among themselves, Jack looked around and saw Wong. The orc just stood at one corner ignoring everyone else. Jack was curious about his purpose here. He was just about to go over to ask the person directly when he saw Red Death approach Wong. Even when Wong was wearing an orc face now, it seemed that Red Death still recognized his teacher. The two started talking.
Jack canceled his attempt to go talk with Wong after seeing that. He didn’t want to intrude on the teacher and student’s moment. He went to one of the tables with refreshments to get a drink while waiting.
While he stood there and drank, he heard conversations. Nearby was a group of Ethereal, Draconian, Orc, and Dwarf players who sounded like all of them were women. Jack didn’t mean to eavesdrop but his beastmaster’s hearing allowed him to hear their conversations clearly.
“Look at those human, elf, and vampire girls. How they strut around. F*cking lucky pricks!”
“Yeah. F*ck them. They don’t know how lucky they are. If only they know our hardship.”
“Yeah, look at me. This f*cking deformed body. These stupid shorts hands and legs. I used to be a model, for goodness sake! Now I’m stuck with this ugly dwarf body!”
“You want to talk about ugly? Look at my face! Try finding a pretty orc face!”
“An orc face is still better than my draconian face. Shit! You can’t even differentiate a draconian man from a draconian woman with this face full of scales.”
“You people want to compare? How about you take a look at me. No mouth, no pupil, our faces are almost the same with one another. Heck, we can’t even differentiate who is who amongst the ones we travel with. The differences are so subtle. We have to literally use Inspect every single time before we start a conversation, just to make sure we don’t talk to the wrong person. F*cking annoying! Whoever is responsible for bringing us here, wait until I get my hands on the person.”
“I’m with you, sister!”
Hearing their chitchat, Jack secretly celebrated for getting a human body. He could sympathize with those girls. If this was just a game, it was probably still fine, because it was only temporary. But to permanently transform into the other races, especially those four races with physical traits so different from humans, it is certainly difficult to accept.
Jack could empathize with them, but there was nothing he could do. Even Wilted didn’t mean for this to happen when she designed the game. If she knew her game would be changed into reality, Jack bet she would have just used the human race for all players. Jack took another drink and then walked away, lest he became depressed from continuing to listen to those poor girls.
He was heading over to Jeanny and Giant Steve when he heard his name being called. He turned and saw Paytowin come over to him.
“Do you find out anything?” Jack asked him.
“Yes,” Paytowin nodded. “You asked me to check if any other participant is registered under the World Maker guild, right? There are. There are two other players aside from that Wong fellow over there.”
“Two?”
“Yes, one is named Ronald Dreary, a level 46 gunner from the Ethereal representatives, over there,” Paytowin pointed. True to his class, the guy was wearing matching light armor that looked like a cowboy costume.
“That is a set equipment,” Peniel said.
“Set equipment? I guess it provides bonuses when one equipped the complete set?” Jack asked.
“You are correct.”
“As expected of World Maker, they really can get the best of equipment. Who is the other one?” Jack asked Paytowin.
“You should know his alias. He is over there. A level 47 Weapon Master. His alias is Spring Crown.”
“Spring Crown? The one people called the number one gamer in the world?” Jack exclaimed with surprise.
