Chapter 42 - Negotiations (1/2)
”System: Your party is the first to clear an Elite Instance dungeon. Experience awarded 300 exp each. First clear rewards would be directly placed in your inventory.”
Blackrock Village Region System Announcement: Congratulations to Quiet Fire, Tang and Spicy, Little White Feet, Blinding White and Shadow Tyrant for being the first team in clearing the Elite Mode of the Corrupted Forest. All players of the team will be rewarded with 30 Blackrock village reputation points.
White heart City Region System Announcement: Congratulations to Quiet Fire, Tang and Spicy, Little White Feet, Blinding White and Shadow Tyrant for being the first team in clearing the Elite Mode of the Corrupted Forest. All players of the team will be rewarded with 10 White Heart City reputation points.
The announcements surprised all the players attempting in the dungeons or quests. It had been a bit over 7 hours since the game started. Most of the professional players and experts were stuck at the boss Vultarc of the normal mode of the Corrupted Forest.
The announcement had all of them perplexed. They began to suspect the whether they were playing the same game. It cause an uproar among the players in the White Heart capital city region.
”Ridiculous, I was so distracted at the announcement and got myself killed by a monster.”
”WTF? I've been stuck at normal instance boss and someone actually finished an elite dungeon?”
”It must be a leak of information. How could someone actually finish the elite mode when no one finished even the normal instance of Corrupted Forest.”
”Someone is hacking the damn game. GM, please look into it.”
”Dog shit GM, ban his account. We can't have such shameless hackers in a game.”
”Of course, it is a hack. It is the same dog shit player Shadow Tyrant in the team as the one in the special quest announcement. Ban him.”
Apart from the regional chat and forums, a number of applications were immediately submitted to Metic Technologies. But the received only one answer from them. ”No hack or external interference was used by the concerned party. Based on the data of the fight, no bugs were used either.”
While the forums were abuzz with discussion again the man responsible for it was peacefully looting the corpse of Vultarc. He found a bow, a skill book and a potion bottle.
[Vultarc's Bow] (Black Iron Bow)
Level 3
Requirements: Strength: 10
Agility +3; Perception +7;
This bow could be used up till level 5 by any ranger. Perception is a very rare trait in any equipment. Any weapon that increases it would have double the usual value. Balthazar first thought about providing this to Slaine who was a ranger but realized that he could only meet him after level 5 and the bow would not be of much use at that time. As no one in his team were a ranger, it is best he sells it.
[Knife throw] (Common skill)
Level 0
Causes 100% damage on using a throwing knife.
No Cooldown.
Though this skill becomes a pretty common one in the later stages of the game. At this point, it would still be considered one of the rare skills at this point of time. It would be an easily farmable skill by weapon master in one of their common quest at level 15. But for Balthazar it is still a useless one and not the one he was hoping for.
[Vultarc's Berserk potion] (Potion)
Level 2
Increases strength attribute by 20%.
Reduces defence by 20%.
Attributes would be reduced by half for 30 minutes after use.
He put all three of them in inventory and then checked around him. Tang was looking at him with a perplexed look. ”You are really in disguise all this time. How did you put it on? How much time can it be used? How could even your identity be changed?” she asked.
”Got it as an extra skill from an equipment,” replied Balthazar. ”Can use it as long as I like. It breaks when I am injured. It is meant for stealthy and spy jobs I guess.”
”You have no issues with me actually hiding my identity?” asked Balthazar as they began to walk back towards dungeon exit and entrance.
”What identity? Shadow Tyrant is also not your real name. It is just an in-game name. And you had a good reason. Anyways, those idiots from Sirius Imperials have always been overly oppressive. I actually admire you just because you managed to irritate them.”
”What reward did you get for first clear?” she asked Balthazar.
”I forgot to check. What did you get?”
”I got a level 3 black iron sword. I think it is the first level 3 equipment. It looks so beautiful,” she said displaying a red one-handed curved sword.
Balthazar quickly checked his own inventory and found that he had received a belt. It had places to hold throwing knives too.
[Vultarc's belt] (Black Iron Leather Belt)
Level 3;
Endurance +3; Vitality +4;
Increases bag space by 5 slots.
The usual belts allow for up to 20 slots of bag space with each slot used to carry a stack of items. The stack size of each item may differ based on the item. The belt allows for a 25% increase, which can be considered to be quite generous for a level 2 dungeon reward. He quickly equipped the belt
As they exited the dungeon, they found Blinding White, Quiet Fire and Little White Feet waiting for them. They had also received their first clear rewards. Quiet Fire received a black Iron necklace which improves her intelligence, Little white a cloak which also had the same effect and Blinding got a tiara which increased her vitality and also provided a shielding skill.
They were more than satisfied with their rewards, but they looked like they were in distress at the same time.
”I thought getting a first clear would be something to be cheerful about. Why the gloomy faces?” asked Balthazar.
”We received a call from Raging Blade of Sirius Imperials,” said Quiet Fire. ”They are asking for the strategy for the corrupted forest.”
”Okay, we can sell the strategy. I am not against it.”
”No. They are not looking to buy. They are demanding that we join their guild except for Blinding White and give them the strategy. Else they have about a couple of hundred people waiting to kill us right outside the dungeon.”
”Wow. They're quite a bit arrogant. Aren't they?”
”What should we do?” asked Little white feet.
”How did they contact us? And why don't they want Blinding?”
”Raging Blade is my ex-boyfriend. He contacted us through Little White,” replied Blinding.