Second World

At that time, they heard a loud knock on the door. It soon opened. The workshop owner appeared behind the door.

”Hey, timeʼs up. I have been knocking for a while already now,” he said with an annoyed tone.

”Ah, forgive me! My work is done, thank you for renting me the place,” Jack quickly packed up and went out.

In the next four days, He spent it by doing some short adventurer quests and hunting quests. He did the hunting quests again on the second day with Flame, Bowler, and The Man. One of The Manʼs subordinates had succeeded in his Warrior class, so he was also invited to the hunting quests. Fierce Flame and The Man were already level 19, Flame especially was closed to level 20. While Bowler was still at level 18.

Jack thought that if he had not encountered that level 28 special elite Ice Troll Sentinel and kill-stole it, he probably would be lower than Flame in terms of level. After all, it took him twice as much exp to level up compared to the others.

After they completed their hunting quest trip, they celebrated by spending time together at the tavern. In the tavern, Jack told Flame about the Tame Pet skill since she was close to level 20. He told her that she would need to purchase some baits, cages, and pet foods from the hunter shops. The process of taming a pet was arduous and required preparation. She could choose any monster from the wilderness as long as it was considered small-sized monster. The Silver Wolves and Grey Sabrecats that were commonly found in the vicinity of the capital were one such example of small-sized monsters. The skill would not work on anything larger like Swamp Croc or Horned Rhino.

An Archer could only have one pet. If they decided to choose another pet, they would have to release their current pet, so it was important to choose carefully. The monster would be lured using the bait before being trapped using a cage. Taming would be done after the monster was in captivity. The cage could also break during the taming process, thus the need to prepare more than one cage. Several attempts might be needed before a pet was successfully tamed. Once the monster was tamed, the skill would change its name to Summon Pet. The pet could then be called for assist during battle.

Jack also told her that it would be better if she chose to capture the offspring of her chosen monster. It would be more difficult for her to find as it would require her to track the monster to its lair. Another drawback was that even if she had successfully captured an offspring, it could not be immediately summoned for battle. After all, an offspring had no battle capacity. She would need to nurture it and raise it to adulthood before it could be summoned for battle, which would take time. But if she managed to do so, the raised monster would have a better bond with her and able to coordinate better with her in a fight.

Another advantage was that the raised monster would have better attributes compared to its standard counterpart. The better the pet food used to raise the monster, the stronger its growth would be. There was even a chance that the raised monster would increase in its grade and possess special skills that would not be available from the other monsters tamed in a normal way.

All this was of course informed by Peniel to Jack, before he relayed the information to Flame. The others were impressed by how knowledgeable he was. As usual, he used the excuse that he had read the information from the library.

”You really like to read, eh?” The Man commented. ”I would never be able to sit still and spend more than five minutes with a book filled with words.”

”I can imagine,” Jack replied without trying to be polite.

Jack also informed them all about the Amulet of Rebirth, which could be purchased from the Church of Creation.

”Do you mean this amulet?” Bowler showed him the amulet he was wearing.

Jack inspected it and saw that it was really the amulet he was mentioning about. He only heard the name from Peniel, he didnʼt truly know what it looked like. When Earmouth wore the amulet, he never really paid attention to it.

Bowler also informed them that he had actually become a member of the Church of Creation. There were many technique books of spells for Healer available there, but he would need a lot of contribution points before he could get any of them.

Since the topic touched upon the league factions, Jack proceeded to explain to them about the multiple factions available in this world. That they should find a suitable faction to develop. He told them that he had joined the Kingdom faction but he was not sure how he could help them to join, since it required an invitation for it. They, however, were not too bothered by it. They didnʼt seem too interested to join actually.

They also talked about the development after that meeting organized by the three big guilds. John had managed to scare off a part of the ones who attended the meeting, but some remained. Jack didnʼt know what the secret content in the third part of the meeting, but the resource management plan, as Manager Steelhand called it, had started to be implemented.

After that meeting, there were eight guilds, big and medium, who were willing to join the three big guilds. Forming a coalition of eleven guilds. They were a force to be reckoned with.

John and White Scarf had spread the bad rumors about Corporate Unitedʼs involvement in the robbing incident, and also the dictatorial plan in the meeting of controlling certain leveling up areas. These rumors had caused many independent players and small guilds to denounce the coalition. However, their resistances were disjointed and could not form a cohesive front. In the end, the coalition still managed to take control of several leveling-up areas.

The other large guilds, like White Scarfs and Saint Edge, had no choice but to also carve out a portion of area for their own. The wilderness surrounding the capital ended up becoming a collection of turfs between the guilds. The ones that suffered the most were the independent players and small guilds. They were forced to go level up at areas with higher difficulty which provided higher risk, or areas with lower difficulty which gave less exp, or pay tribute to the coalitions in order to be allowed a limited time to grind for monsters within their turfs.

In the end, it still came back to who had the most men, Jack thought with a sigh. Gangs, mafias, corporations, governments, the pattern of the real world was starting to be applied in this world as well. The minority would always have to follow the rules decided by those with more numbers.

And the sad thing was, even with the exposure of the bad deeds by the member of the coalition. Many players still lined up to join the guilds within the coalition. Such was human nature, always prefer to join the seemingly winning team, even if said team had a moral problem. As long as they could get a benefit, everything else was secondary.

Flame was not too bothered by those guildsʼ actions, since she usually enjoyed grinding at a higher difficulty area. Bowler, on the other hand, was cursing his heart out when the topic on those guilds came into talks.

😉