The little fairy was indeed very angry. She was programmed to give either the silver axe or the golden axe to the students as long as they stumbled upon this place.
But the player party that had found her was very weird.
Take for example this blonde hair girl. She was having a headache. There wasn't any special condition she had to fulfill to get the clue from this sub quest. As long as she held either of the silver axe or the golden axe the clue for the location of an emerald block or a chalice would be revealed.
The golden axe held the chalice's location while the silver axe held the emerald block's location.
Within the player party all of the players except for her and another young man had chosen the silver axe and in every axe ten percent of the location’s true information was contained as a clue. These two, however, were a complete anomaly for her programmed self as she didn't know how to go about completing the command.
Both of them had refused the two axes and now after apologizing they instead asked for the iron axe they had dropped.
The little fairy was very perplexed.
Just because she was a programmed AI doesn't mean she couldn't feel such emotions. Her programmer was a very high level production class player after all. That being said, she didn't have any code that mentioned what to do in this situation.
She pondered with her intelligence and finally reached a conclusion. It seems that she had no choice but to give both of them all the three axes!
First of all, they were neither selfish nor nepotistic but they had shown true honesty. They naturally should get a better reward. Those who were to get the golden axe still needed to toil hard to search for the emerald block which was mandatory to pass this competition.
An indirect punishment for being selfish as her programmer had once mused while those with silver axes though not selfish but may need to look for more sub quests that would point to the chalice. It was meant to encourage players who held lofty goals to accomplish further in their path.
These two young players had shown much better performance than her programmer had anticipated so as a special AI she had to give them appropriate reward for their splendid character. The silver axes these two would get will give them the complete location of an emerald block.
The golden axe should give them, overall, twenty percent clues for the location of a hidden chalice. The problem was now the iron axe that was still undetermined. This axe was just supposed to be a throwaway object meant to trigger the sub quest.
The little fairy decided to give this axe the same property as the golden axe which would make the remaining eighty percent clue contained in it upon the initial coding. However, a single axe shouldn't hold so much advantage so in accordance to her special algorithm she had halved it to forty percent instead.
Hmm?
If the two of them did receive forty percent each then doesn't it mean it still rounds up to eighty percent thus giving them the entire location of a chalice? She calculated again to check for any way she could decrease this probability but it turned out that these two's performance should indeed warrant such rewards according to her programmer’s past words who valued splendid individuals.
So it was finalized to be an appropriate decision much to her astonishment.
For the first time, this little fairy witnessed a player party getting the entire location of both a chalice and an emerald block on their very first sub quest.
°°°°
Blue exited the space with a satisfied smile.
He met up with the pawns and checked on their progress. Except for Luna all of them had gotten the silver axe. It didn't deviate from his expectations.
He was again pleasantly surprised that after they had combined the rewards two locations of a chalice and an emerald block were given in its entirety. He obviously knew that the AI fairy must have been forced to recalculate the rewards because of him and Luna who behaved differently than others.
He was not worried that Luna, the reincarnator, wouldn't see through the opportunity to maximize the party's gain by overloading the AI through “ideal” personality. The fact that the persona he showed was attuned to this approach was a plus point which had brought them the present result.
This sub quest was based on a famous story of Grand Duchess Artemis, who should be Arthur now, and was very popular throughout the void. It won't be wrong to say that most of the inner denizens and probably all the core denizens of the six regions knew about it. After all, the story was about a near invincible existence’s early life.
Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
Regardless, without further ado he gave his next set of order,
“Turns out this Artifact indeed brought us to an auspicious place. Now that we got the location let's head for the emerald block first. Even though we have the location, if another party or a mage order stumbles into the place and obtains it accidentally then it would be a great loss for us. The chalice can be ignored for now as the blocks are mandatory to pass this competition. Let's go.”
The party got into the previous battle formation as they hurriedly headed towards the location. Along the way he had told everyone to avoid combat as much as possible. The Diviner and The Inquisitor came in clutch to pave the way for them while Luna's newfound power as a core denizen erupted as she sensed a vast distance ahead to better navigate the rainforest for them.
With so many plus points, his party soon saw the described location.
“Southeast direction, the place where a waterfall is dwarfed by a millennia old tree but its splendor unblemished by the forest's inhabitants while the block remains on the cave hidden from the sight.”
This was the complete information given for the emerald block location.
In front of them was indeed an enormous waterfall present. An even bigger lush tree had shadowed it from the thunderclouds above while around it no aether beasts, plants and even a single insect was found.
“This is the place. Let's search for the cave.”
He confirmed and just as he was about to make them search around Luna interjected,
“I suspect that the part about a cave hidden from sight refers to the space behind the waterfall.”
“Hmm? Why are you so certain? It could be above the waterfall with a hidden underground cave still out of sight from here or on the other side of the tree which is similarly hidden from our sight, no?”
Karla asked with a skeptical tone as Luna's confident remark baffled her for a moment.
In her opinion, just because a cave was mentioned doesn't mean it was the cliched hidden cave behind the waterfall, right?
“Think in this way, after the clue had been found the first thing a student sees from the direction that they came from, which was the place of that earlier stream where the sub quest is now concluded, was bound to be the same one that we are all seeing. By that deduction shouldn't the place behind the waterfall become the most immediate suspect for investigation from this viewpoint?”
Luna's smart explanation seemed to convince these naive players but only Blue knew that she had made this up on the spot just to cover for the fact that she had sensed the cave already. When she had earlier found the perfect spot for the base she was also similarly questioned as to why she could find it when the higher leveled him couldn't do so.
At every single time she had cooked up a nice explanation for her behavior.
He had to give it to her but that being said any time she would take a proactive action despite being questioned later on was her way of telling him that they needed to hurry on their way as other variables were approaching or close by.
Thus he chimed in,
“Let's just look there then. We should hurry up as the chalice still remains to be found.”
So the Azure Sun party looked behind the waterfall and indeed found a hidden cave. Their perception skills were blocked from outside the waterfall which had kept this cave hidden from their earlier search. Only the likes of Luna could directly sense it with her profound methods.
Unfortunately, Blue still hadn't unlocked the bloodline ability that would have helped in this situation or else he wouldn't be so in need of her assistance.
They entered the cave with caution and the dark interior was bright as morning for their awakened human's eyesight. Upon awakening night vision was a simple matter for them as long as they had enough aether attribute comprehension to be able to utilize it.
The hidden cave was enormously circular and damp with green moss and fungus everywhere. Within the center of this circular cave lay a small platform made of stone that gave the impression of having formed naturally. Upon the stone platform laid a fist-sized emerald block that glowed with green hue.
“Remember the vice principal’s words. This block would reveal our location from time to time. Though I am not sure if touching it would trigger this function from the get go but let's assume the worst. One of you can take it and the party will help defend against the opponents that get lured here.”
It seems that there was a hidden consensus as Matthew spoke up with a zealous tone,
“Leader Blue, as the party leader it is only natural that the first block goes to you. Please accept it.”
“Yes, yes. We all agree to this. The first honor goes to the party leader. The chalice will also be the same.”
Marcus with the same zealous tone added and others nodded their head in confirmation.
“This… sigh! Fine then. But next time we should set up the order of how we should confirm the distribution unlike now where we are making decisions on the spot. How about this, as the two defenders with the highest defensive means available Johansson and Johnson would get the next block or chalice.”
“I am fine with big brother taking the first one.”
Johnson readily agreed while Johansson became a bit flustered at being chosen over everyone.
“Don't be shy. As you're of Warden class, leader Blue's decision is indeed sound. I also have no objection.”
Marlow the Paladin showed his agreement and soon others also did the same. Blue also fixed up the order of distribution that sounded “logical” for them. He kept an eye on Luna's reaction and seeing no disagreement from her the matter was settled without any issue.
He walked ahead and took the emerald block to observe for a moment. However, the moment it was picked the worst case scenario indeed happened.
A green light shot up and phased through the ceiling!
No doubt their location was exposed.