Second World

”What the hell? Again?” Jack uttered when Girolamo disappeared into his room.

Not long after, he came out with, as expected, another parcel. ”Here, please take this to the Grand Healer in Thereath.”

Jack just stared at the package in the old manʼs hands.

”Whatʼs wrong? Hurry up! I donʼt have all day, you know,” Girolamo said.

ʼSo do I, old man. Do you think of me as a real postman?ʼ Jack asked in his mind. But then he thought about the destination for this next request. It was in Thereath, where he would be going back to after dealing with the coalition. If it was another city, then he might truly consider just forfeiting the quest. He couldnʼt afford being asked to go all around the kingdom just to deliver parcels.

”All right,” Jack said as he took the goods from Girolamoʼs hands. ”Tell me. After I deliver this one. Will they ask me to deliver another…”

Girolamo closed his door on Jack.

”… parcel again.”

Jack stared at the door for some time.

”How rude…! What the heck!” He felt like throwing the parcel in his hands at the door, but he managed to calm himself down. He stored the parcel into his storage back and grumbled, ”I swear. If after this, they asked me to deliver another one to another city again. I will tell them to just shove the bloody thing up their asses!”

Peniel who heard it said, ”Oh, then I do hope they will ask again. I want to see you say those things to a level 65 Special Elite. I believe the other Grand Healer would not be any weaker than this one just now.”

Jack rolled his eyes at her. She seemed to be enjoying this.

Not planning to get sidetracked again, Jack headed immediately to one of the city exits. On the way, he saw a few players with guild tags that he recognized, like Death Associates, Wicked Witches, and the like. He asked Peniel, ”I have always wondered. What if two groups from different cities tried to form guilds with the same name. For example, Death Associates have some people who originated from this city as well as in Thereath. They canʼt communicate at first and have no idea about each otherʼs existence. So what if they both register their guild name as Death Associates? Then there will be two guilds with the same name.”

”They canʼt,” Peniel answered. ”The name will go to the first one who registered. The second one will have to use a different name.”

”Like Death Associates 1 or Death Associates Junior, something like that?”

”Any name. I have no idea what you outworldersʼ preferences for names.”

”But I donʼt see any of those kinds of names. The ones I saw from the players around here are the same as the ones in Thereath. Hm… Maybe when they found out that the guild name they wanted to register had already existed, they just applied to that guild?”

”Despite knowing that such a guild exists, they canʼt apply to become a member of a different city. Not until one of that guild members comes to this city and established a link. For example, your guild. Paytowin wonʼt be able to apply to your guild before despite seeing your guildʼs name as the first on the guild chart. Not until you come here and establish the link to the zone portal of this city. Only then, the players in this city can apply to become a member of your guild.”

”I see… Then how do you explain why I didnʼt see any guild name variations on the players I saw here. I donʼt believe they stayed guildless and waited for their formal guild to come here and establish a link.”

”They had probably used the guild merging function.”

”Guild merging?”

”Yes. Two guilds can choose to merge and decide on which name of the two to be used. But such an option is mostly a sentimental purpose. More loss than gain. Because when you merge, the reputation points carried over will only be from the highest one. The reputation points amassed by the lower one will be nulled, so all those hard works to accumulate the points will have been wasted.”

”What if both guilds have a guild headquarters?”

”Then it will be a dumber move to merge the guild. As I said, one guild can only have one Guild Headquarters. All their guild coins and resources will be combined, they wonʼt lose them. But the weaker Guild Headquarters will disappear. Only the stronger one will remain.”

While chatting, Jack finally arrived at one of the city gates and summoned Pandora. He opened his Map interface to check the destination before having Pandora rush in the direction.

During the travel, Jack no longer needed Peniel to direct him into going through low-level areas, because Pandoraʼs fear aura allowed her to just rush through in a straight line. Jack still made time to stop whenever he saw a new monster or the targets of his hunting quests.

There was one time when he decided to circle around though. It was when he caught a large dark red dot on his radar, indicating a much powerful monster compared to his current level. Something that probably rivaled the Grim Sand Drake or that Land Behemoth he saw in the past.

Although Peniel had informed him that only Mythical and level 70 Rare Elite were able to resist Pandoraʼs aura, Jack decided to be prudent and avoided crossing near that dot. What if coincidentally that red dot was exactly a Mythical or a level 70 Rare Elite being? He steered Pandora away from there before resuming his journey.

During the travel, his Archmageʼs level had increased to 31. His Mage level was already close to level up in the past, which prompted him to stop feeding exp points to it. So, now after he set back the exp arrangement so the Archmage class received exp again, it didnʼt take long for it to level up.

When the Archmage class level up, the attributes increase he received were:

HP +70

MP +100

Strength +2

Dexterity +2

Intelligence +10

Endurance +4

Reflex +3

Wisdom +8

3 free attribute points

3 free skill points

He spent the three free attribute points in Reflex. As for the three free skill points, he added them into Call Familiar spell again. It was level 13 now, bringing Penielʼs HP to 80% of his, but no new skill yet for her. He needed to allocate another two skill points to the spell for that.

Due to the frequent stops, the supposed three days journey ended up becoming four days instead.

When he woke up on the third day after he left Themetus, he was notified that he had reached the third month of his age. He actually felt it had been longer, then he remembered this feeling was due to the distorted time inside the Valley of Tempus. His race skill: Limitless Potential, had increased again, now becoming rank 3, providing him with HP +600, Stamina/MP +100, and all attributes except luck +3.

”Will this race skill continue to be the same? Simply increasing in its potency?” Jack asked.

”You will see a different race skill next month,” Peniel answered. ”And then on the fifth month, it will be a race skill in conjunction with your class? This means every human outworlder with a different class will get a different race skill. However, I am kind of curious about the case of you having two classes. I wonder which one your fifth-month race skill will determine as your class.”

”Probably I will get two race skills at the same time then?” Jack said with a grin.

”You can wish, but my take is that it will pick your highest-level class as a priority. Which in your case, is the Blade Dancer class.”

At the beginning of the fourth day, Jack could see from his map that he was getting closer. He estimated before sunset today, he should be able to arrive at where Corporate Unitedʼs Guild Headquarters was. While he was storing his Camouflage Tent that he used to spend the night, he noticed three blue dots approaching.

ʼBlue? Player?ʼ Jack gazed in the direction the three were coming. Nowadays it was no longer strange to have players roaming around the wilderness. But even though it was no longer strange, it was still rare. Because the mainstream players were only at the minimum level for traveling, thus there were only very limited low-level areas that they could travel to. And at this time, peopleʼs understanding of which areas were low-level was still very limited.

The three players seemed to be heading directly to his position. Could it be that a*shole magistrate Warren placed a VIP mark on him again? He had been tempted to go meet with Prince Alonzo and tell him about the assassination attempt but decided against it. He was not one to complain to someone else about his difficulty. He would prefer to deal with that magistrate himself once he had gotten stronger. Not to mention magistrate Warren was backed by Prince Therribus. Jack doubted that Prince Alonzo could do anything significant to Warren even if he wanted to.

Assassination or not, as long as the ones coming were players, Jack was not afraid. He stood his ground and waited for them to arrive. If it was a native assassin like Oswald, then thatʼs a different story. But with Pandora, he believe he could flee now even if it was Oswald that come for him. He had not yet seen any steed that was as fast as Pandora.

Before long, the three players appeared in his view. The lead seemed to be a girl, followed by two men. They were walking at a steady pace, not running at him. Jack didnʼt move as they approached. ʼPerhaps they are just adventuring players coincidentally passing through here?ʼ Jack thought.

But that thought was soon doused once the lead girl was near enough for Jack to have a closer look. Storm Breaker and Whirlwind Falchion appeared on each of his hands.

In one of the girlʼs eyes was a God-eye monocle.

😉