Chapter 40 : Global and Local Rank
After the dinner ended, Raka and his family said goodbye to each other. There was no need to send Raka to his boarding house. He was already a grown up after all.
Unexpectedly, right when they were about to leave, Dania came and apologized for the matter that happened years ago. She tried to explain everything without blaming her family. Naturally, Raka's family understood her reason and couldn't help to like the girl more.
Especially Mrs. Mira who kept urging Raka to quickly repair his relationship with Dania.
Being the man Raka was, he would definitely try to befriend Dania again. They were best friends after all. Raka never held any grudge toward her. In fact, he already forgave her parents for their act.
The night ended peacefully. Everyone went home with a warm feeling. Especially Dania who felt relieved because the matter had finally been lifted from her heart.
...
Ragna logged in and found himself right at the Prawk City's Plaza. The combination of the magically controlled fountain and the road's stone paving made the scenery looked like it was taken from fantasy movies.
The place was bustling with activities, especially for the merchants and production-related players who were busily doing their things. Shouts could be heard everywhere promoting their own goods. By selling their goods to players who took the quest could increase their contribution points. Unfortunately, despite their effort, they wouldn't be able to beat the combat-related profession in this race of contribution points. Everyone reached a consensus that this time the developers were a bit biased toward the combat-related players.
Ragna looked at the space above the fountain. There were two huge magical screens which displayed the current rank for this Astral Realm quest. The rank was divided into Local Rank and Global Rank. Local Rank was player's rank being compared to each other inside their respective city. On the other hand, Global Rank was the most prestigious one as it compared the rank of players in the whole world of Maya.
The one who was placed first in Global Rank was someone with an in-game name of Arthur. As for the one who placed first in Prawk City, he had the name of Blazing Fire.
But, the most shocking thing was that there was a merchant who managed to secure a spot in the top ten of Global Rank!
Ragna was a bit startled when he saw it. He quickly remembered the name and committed it to his heart. The merchant's in-game name was Richie Rich. As someone who was studying in Management and Business Major, he was very interested in this person's heaven-defying feat.
Seeing those amazing people made Raka excited. He too was wondering what Rank he was in. He quickly browsed through the rank starting from the bottom.
Hmm.. 1340.. 1100.. 980..
After searching for a while, he didn't manage to find his rank. He had finished skimming to rank 500 players when he decided to just search for his name. He was too lazy to browse it over because he thought that he might have missed his name.
Input name.. Ragna.. search!
112 !
Ragna : Local Rank 112 !
Ragna nearly jumped backward from shock when he saw his Rank. He never thought that as a mere level 16 player he could manage to get that spot. One had to know that the top hundreds was a spot exclusive for the elite players. They were players who at the very least had the minimum level of mid-30s!
He was just a level 16 player and he nearly reached the top hundred!
It was unbelievable!
He too was heaven-defying!
After he carefully thought about this matter, he could understand it somewhat. Yesterday, he successfully hunted level 26 wolves alone. That was a feat only achievable by a group of at least late 20s leveled player being led by someone who had the level of early 30s.
Furthermore, by hunting the wolves in a group, the contribution points they got would suffer from a slight penalty. There should be 10-50% penalty to their points according to the number of players inside their party.
Ragna was very excited. He now had a chance to fight for the contribution points rewards. He swore to himself to hunt harder today. He would kill like a machine if needed!
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Naturally, his goal was the Local Rank. As for the Global Rank.. he didn't have the qualification to challenge it. Every one of them had an enormous amount of contribution points. It seemed like they had their own fortuitous encounter yesterday. Especially the one named Arthur who was leading at the top with large margins.
It was at this moment that a notification screen showed up in front of everyone. It told them that the portal would be open shortly. Everyone quickly went toward the portal gate. They too were impatient to start the 2nd day of this quest.
...
Ragna was once again welcomed by the eerie looking forest. The trees seemed withered. It was as if everything here was devoid of life. The only living beings here was the monsters. Ragna too didn't understand how they could sustain their lives.
The quest today was to scout for any useful information. That included high-classes monsters, ruins, or clues that could lead to treasure. Those who could bring a useful information would be awarded enormous amount of contribution points. Also, that person's status would be heightened. At the very least, the rewards were sufficient.
Of course, there would still be someone who hid those secrets. They preferred to find whatever treasure it was by themselves. Naturally, danger and opportunity lurked together in that kind of place.
He quickly separated himself right after receiving the notification screen. He didn't want to be followed by those people from yesterday. Unfortunately, he could already see them tailing behind him.
In Maya, player's awareness was derived from the combination of their Agility, Dexterity, and Wisdom. Players with high enough awareness could never be stealth upon and would be safe from assassination or ambush attempts.
Wisdom was a stat that only a few Agility-based players raised. On the other hand, Agility and Dexterity were also unlikely to be raised by Mages or other Wisdom-related players. This condition prevents most of the player from having high awareness. Unless, the character was specialized on doing so. Which is actually very rare, especially in this stage of the game Where no information regarding the second advancement was available.
Obviously, Ragna was in no way affected by that. The system automatically assigned his status points for him. Coupled with his stats bonuses, his awareness level was high enough to the point of unfathomable in his current stage.
Seeing two or three scouts trailing behind him, Ragna couldn't help but shook his head. He wanted to quickly hunt and raise his contribution points. But if he did that he would be suspected and people would start questioning him about his overwhelming combat capabilities.
On the other hand, if he killed them, he would create some sort of enmity between them. He wasn't afraid with those lousy scouts. The one he was afraid of were the people backing them. To be able to command scouts just to pursuit someone without any guarantee of success, indicated that the guild or group had quite the power.
Speaking of guilds, there was no official guild available. Those people who proclaimed themselves as a guild was unofficial guild migrating from other game. They had the power but they didn't have the qualification to make a guild, yet. In fact, everyone was competing for the first Guild Insignia. Despite all their efforts, no one had managed to find the slightest information about it. From this point, one could imagine how great the influence would be if one could make the first guild in Maya.
Obviously, that point was still far from Ragna. He was just a mere level 16 player with no background nor influence. His current goal was to quickly level up and gain stable position in Maya.
Back to the scouts, Ragna was thinking on how to deal with them. Without him noticing, he arrived at the border of level 16s to level 20s monsters. A small grin came to his lips as he sped deeper into the forest
'Let's see whether if you have the quality to follow me!'
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Author Note : Enjoy this 1400 words long chapter!