‘Tanael’ came out to the Quantum Main Hub after a whole night inside a separate quest space. Out of the seven large candles Aletro used to tell the time, one had been burnt out. It was six in the morning despite the lack of day and night cycle and the activity around the quest obelisk was as busy as ever.
Tanael took a deep breath and shouted to the world: “GOOD MORNING EVERYBODYYY!!!”
He liked it here. Oh, the adventure that was waiting for him. Tanael was anticipating tomorrow with a dancing heart. Why not spread some of that positiveness to the outside? There was a saying in his old world, meat from pigs with less stress tasted better.
A hundred pairs of eyes of the busy folks darted towards the fakely handsome Tanael. Most ignored him, some replied good morning back.
Get fattened up, dear pigs… Awright, let's get started raking in those spark shards!
***
Viers’ experience with the varieties of quests yesterday taught him much. Was it better to go as a group or solo? How much difference between difficulties? Was it more efficient doing multiple easy or one hard?
What would be the best course of action possible to do this with as little cost as possible but with as much benefit as possible?
Viers also learned about the resignation penalty. After taking a quest, the people could give up whenever they want but some shards would be taken as the price. How many shards were taken was based on the quest’s reward. If giving up a quest that would give 10 shards without completing the quest, Viers would end up minus 10 shards instead.
Yesterday, Viers tried a normal difficulty quest about bridge building. He needed to create a bridge that connected land separated by a river but he resigned. It would have taken too much of Viers’ time to complete so he cut his losses early. Viers thought he could fell a couple of trees to make a makeshift bridge but there were no trees in the vicinity, only stones and mud.
Boram should be able to transmute a bridge easily but I can't. Not in a short time, at least. The quest is incompatible with me. Good thing it is only a normal quest.
Easy quest - 1 shard
Normal quest - 5 shards
Hard quest - 10 shards
Expert quest - 50 shards
Impossible quest - 5000 shards
There were minor differences depending on the quest itself but that was the normal reward for each difficulty.
Viers had done 3 easy, 3 normal, 8 hard, 3 expert quests yesterday. He concluded hard was the most suitable for him. Expert quests were tough and risky although he could still finish them.
With no spending and 5 shards reduction, his current total was at 243 spark shards. His black spark was no longer a speck of black light, it turned into tiny candlelight.
Viers glanced at the ranking list. Seeing no one suddenly gained 5000 shards, no one had completed any of the 5 impossible quests yet.
My rank is… 79th. Oscar is 2nd now. The top place is someone called Airmaster with 375 shards. Both of them are black spark holders, the same as me.
Viers paused his thoughts to look at an armored guy riding a white horse. He took a white quest card from the obelisk, burned it with his spark then disappeared.
White armor… Silver Legion? And that horse… a familiar?
Now that Viers was conscious of it, he looked around and picked up others with familiars accompanying them. Viers felt a significant amount of regret.
If I have Dia at my side I could do so much more… What a pity.
After a day, there were more groups forming. Most belonged to the same School and since black and white took separate quests save for some exceptions, a group pretty much consisted of the same holders of the white or black spark.
School in this world wasn't exactly the institution for educating children like in Viers’ old earth but more akin to martial arts’ dojo.
A School taught the disciples techniques and Artes, adding their own unique recipe to them. The teachings were usually based on their Profound Codex or geared to those with a specific affinity.
Basically, Schools are just xianxia Sects with another name. Viers called it as it is.
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Based on the available data he gathered yesterday, Viers arrived at the opinion that defeating monsters solo in hard difficulty was the best way for him to gain spark shards. Take the quest, kill the monster quickly, get out, repeat.
However, a certain problem immediately came to mind, his Victa.
Everyone’s cultivation had been made the same, Level 2 middle. Actually, other than that, their Victa pool was also spread out evenly. Seeing the rate of Victa generation -even after the 30% increase from the moon pendant- it was clear to Viers that he couldn't repeat a questing spree like yesterday. He wouldn't have enough Victa.
Not only me, everyone is on the same boat. After the initial surge, the rate people take quest will lessen because they don't have enough Victa to keep going gung-ho.
Resource management… taking quests willy-wally would make their Victa dangerously low, and what about the mysterious stage 2 then? Would anyone dare to get into the next stage dried up with nothing in their tank to cast Arte? I sure as Hell wouldn't. So many decisions were thrust on our faces by Aletro.
“So what are you gonna do now, Lord Viers? The Victa problem is a big issue. A problem made clear from our discussion yesterday,” Farley asked.
However, Viers was not a normal Pathseeker.
“Naturally, we’re gonna go questing until we drop. Don't stop, make it pop!” Viers crazily replied with telepathy.
While the girls were stupefied by Viers’ response, a song started playing. It was upbeat and sung by a female voice.
Wake up in the mornin' feelin' like P-Diddy
Grab my glasses I'm out the door I'm gonna hit the city
“A song? Again?”
“What language is this?”
“Is this the music of the current era? So different from my time...”
Like he had done so in the past, Viers pulled a memory from his soul and played it out as an MP3. The song was in English but the girls didn't recognize it. The language of this world was different.
Following the rhythm of the beat, Viers took one of the hard quests and activated it, just in time when Kesha TiK ToK’s chorus was playing.
A dino monster that looked like a velociraptor was waiting in the battle space. Viers took off his mask and the battle began.
There was no Artes flinging immediately, only the sound of ripping clothes. Viers’ body bulged so much his shirt was in tatters. His form twisted, changed beyond the category of humanoid. Viers’ limbs grew in number as his skin was covered by yellow exoskeletons.
“SHHHULULULU!”
Viers’ mouth was no longer capable of speaking human speech.
Instead of a pair of legs, he had four pairs.
Instead of arms, he had great pincers.
A yellow crab monster the size of a van stood before the velociraptor!
“This is…!”
“Viers’ monster transformation?”
“It was fish-form before. He’s a crab now?”
The girls didn't expect this development. They couldn't see Viers’ new appearance from V-stream so they went out in ghost form and Viers allowed it.
Seeing its fellow monster, the dino shrieked with challenge but the yellow crab was not intimidated; Viers stomped forward with his legs, pincers opened wide, fully intending to choke the life out of the lizard.
The raptor leaped forward, claws bared. Viers snatched it from the air, pincer of its long neck, and slammed the dino down to the ground!
The pincer tightened. The appendage capable of tearing steel squeezed down mercilessly. However, the dino wasn't going down without a fight. The lizard knocked Viers away with a lightning blast from its maw.
“That is… Jagjag Crab?” Paina tried to guess Viers’ species.
“Jagjag Crab shouldn't be that big. And that pattern on the shell… that should be Gigadia Crab,” Farley said.
“What’s the characteristics? I’m not familiar with the monster,” Clarissa asked.
“A crab monster often found near rivers, overwhelming physical might, armored body, minor earth control especially mud,” Paina explained. “It's a pretty rare monster though… Jagjag Crab is the minor and lesser variant.”
The three watched the deathmatch between the two monsters. Both were Rank 2 monsters but one had a human mind and intellect under that monstrous body so the battle tipped to the one side before long.
The raptor, animal it might be, still possessed some form of cunning. It employed a circling strategy and hit-and-run approach. Gigadia Crab was not known for its agility and mobility, Viers had difficulty pinning the lizard down.
“ZHULLULU!!”
The raptor’s legs were caught by something. The dino yelped in surprise and fell because of the sudden stop of momentum.
“Water Chains?! Viers can still use Artes in monster form?”
“The toughness of those chains… The Arte also got strengthened by Lord Viers’ mysterious ability!”
“Physical quality of monsters, human intellect, and Artes on top of that… This Viers… If he keeps growing like this...”
“HULU SHUHUSSH!!!”
Veirs raised his pincers up high and brought it down, twin hammers striking an anvil!
The ‘Hulk Smash’ shattered more than fifty bones in the raptor’s body. It no longer had the capability to fight against Viers.
It was time to put it out of its misery.
The dino only managed to leave some scratch marks of no import on Viers’ yellow exoskeleton. Unusual result for a battle between monsters of the same Rank. Viers raised the mangled body of his opponent and raised it overhead, showing the world of his glorious victory.
“SHUHULULU!”
A mighty jerk to left and right, the raptor split apart into two, bathing Viers in the blood of his enemy.