Chapter 19

Will he return?

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Authors note

Welcome back , i hope you will enjoy :)

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" Haha what a day. " Craig said after flinging his sweat drenched clothes into a basket.

As soon as he removed them he proceeded to his favourite activity , taking a shower. He enjoyed staying underneath the hot water even just for the purpose of relaxation , as it uncramped all the muscles he used during his jogs or occasional soccer games.

He came out of the bathroom and something was definetly different then usual in his bedroom. As Craig looked around he found nothing beyond the usual and just continued drying his hair.

Craig went into the living room and opened the ranking lists of The new Beginning. He still had no means to return to the world but he still wanted to be up to date.

" Wow can't believe the first player is lvl 216. That is some serious grinding. " Craig exclaimed surprised.

Now he searched for the names of people he knew in-game.

" Can't believe they fell behind that far what have they been doing! " Craig said with dissatisfaction.

He looked up some more data which mainly was from a certain guild in The new Beginning. Hermes guild they were the most informed and the so called information ' brokers' . After the video that was recorded from Celus point of view was made official a incredible demand for live footage on particular hard quests or dungeons came into being.

This so called hermes guild were the tv station employees that were highly demanded by the top guilds that had formed since Grim died in the world. Every huge party had either 1-2 hermes guild assosciates with them on every quest or dungeon. The tv companys took the footage of their employees and send it through the internet to anybody who wanted to watch it.

Most of the times these videos that were uncut and unedited cost money just to watch. But it was a minimal sum of 1 $ per video , regardless of length. Then a monthly ranking of which guild received the most clicks , or which made the most money , was listed and the guild leaders got money ranging from 10-20% of the collected videos profit.

But only the top 10 ranked guilds in these ' halls of fame ' received any money at all. This was like killing 2 birds with one stone nonetheless. The guilds received reknown and new members through those ' contracts ' as they were advertised through out the whole world and received money.

Just last week Craig himself watched a video he had bought for 1 $ and was amazed at the progress this guild was making. Sure they were only Orcs , so the highest leveld players , but how they muscled themselves through a ancient kingdoms ruins filled with ghosts and animated skeletons was quite fantastic.

But as he watched it Craig noticed what the group could have done different , as many of them died in the process , or simply what they had over looked in the process of brutally swarming the enemys with inflated stats and numbers.

Grims fighting style was smart , deceisive and deadly. But those orcs fighting style was .... hectic was the best word to describe it. They just ran at the enemys as soon as they saw them without any plan a hundred of orcs just swarmed the enemy slashing or hacking at them. The ones who died were discarded like rotten meat and left behind level , item and profieciency wise.

Like the video Craig watched , the fought against 500 skeleton soldiers backed up by 250 skelton archers. Like a wave of green smelly flesh the orcs crushed the poor lvl 180 Skeletons with their far superior level advantage as the lowest orc was lvl 200.

Was that a real fight even though the skeletons had a higher number? Not really , as the skeletons were brittle to begin with. Soon this method of fighting would stop , and Grim knew it.

This was still considered the beginning of the Game and what had the glorious ' chosen ones ' achieved so far? Okay Grim had suceeded in a rank S quest with the help of a god that destroyed or better deleted his character and made him unable to return to The new Beginning.

But this rank S quest was a joke. Craig had read on the internet from the company that upheld The new Beginning that as soon as the balance of the world was tipped a new difficulty of quests would be introduced.

The > + < quests. Simply put the enemys they were fighting consisted of stupid small or human sized creatures with reduced stats to their actual levels and gave close to now experience even when fought in numbers. Craig knew this was true since only 90 000 goblins gave him 8 levels when he was far superior in levels then him.

Now if he fought the same goblins with the same level as himself he would only gain about 0.05 % xp for a new level of each one. If they were 20 lvls above him 0.1 % and so on. But Grim saw a short video about a group fighting big and strong monsters that gave them , even though the whole group was 20 levels above the monster , staggering 0.1% per creature.

Okay that group of 10 people shared the experience so if one could defeat the Monster alone they would need to kill 100 and gain a level. In a group of 10 people 1000. Simply put Craig expected the quantity of Monsters to decrease but the quality to drastically increase.

Everytime Craig saw the capsule his fingers would itch to run to the capsule swing open the hatch and lay down inside of it. But much to his dismay he layed down inside of it multiple times and no feeling of weightlessness assaulted him.

As Craig grew more and more frustrated he stored the capsule away yesterday , but a desire after looking at the rankings burned inside of him so he ran to the little storage room he had.

He threw open the door and grasped the cloth he covered the sensitive machine with. Craig took a deep breath and with one strong pull the machine came free.

" Ahhh .... " Craig vehemently sighed and started to cover the machine once again.

Craig didn't even know why he wanted to look in the first place as the machine was unplugged from the circuit. He tapped the light switch and the lightbulb turned off. Before closing the door he took a quick peek back and to his surprise a green light shortly light up.

" What the ...? " Grim said.

' The machine is not connected! ' Grim thought and without further ado he picked up the 200 pound machine and carried it to his bedroom once again.

He plugged it in quickly and all of the lights flared green in quick succesion but soon turned gray once again.

" This machine is making fun of me.... " Craig said to no one in particiular.

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" Sooo how much longer until that person appears , Lillith? " Damion said while trying not to look at the naked figure in-front of him.

Now the apparation of the nine tailed blue skinned elf was furrowing her brows in thought. As she did so she placed her hands on her chin and tilted her head slightly. Damion almost fell unconscious to the floor at the cute gesuture combined with the nakedness she held.

Well he had almost no experience with females , but nothing in the real world could compare with this beauty , excluding the tails and pointy ears. Erica and Iz sighed.

Iz stomped her feet on the ground with every step she took to close the gap between her and Damion. As soon as she reached him she wacked him with her staff plainly across the skalp , multiple times , until the only thing he could see was starts instead of a naked godess.

" God , Damion. You are pathetic. " She said after he was half unconscious.

Another few minutes passed before the godess spoke up.

" Well , i could tell you many things as to WHEN this person will arrive. But the more troubling question will be IF he arrives at all. "

Now all eyes , besides Damions , turned towards the godess with utter shock.

" So we are chasing the golden goose? " Erica said.

Now the godess took her thinking position again as she had no idea about the story of certain small boy , some magical beans and the search for a goose that only layed golden eggs if feed with the proper food that only grew in the skys. ( Ever read the ORIGINAL Grim storys their creepy)

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The next day after Craig came home from his usual jogg and he already took a shower he was examining the Capsule that was placed in his bedroom once again. During last night the flashing green light that sporadically appeared had given him no rest.

Every time after the green button flashed into life Craig woke up jumped into the capsule. But nothing happend as he entered it.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

It was frustrating but nothing could be done. Everytime the machine went to live with the buzzing sound of fans starting to work to cool down the mirco chips and the tingle of his iris and synapses being scanned with a precision laser the machine shut down.

Just as Craig was examining the machine , once out of the hundred times he already did this , the green light flashed and he jumped in the capsule.

The process completed but nothing happend afterwards. Still inside of the dark and crammped place Craig ruffled his hair and was almost about to rip out his own hair but soon his cell phone rang.

His cellphone usually remained silent for a long time after his mother had called , which was a few days ago , but now the name on the screen indicated his mothers name so he picked it up.

" Craig Austin Miller , " Uh-oh Craig thought as his Mother only called him by his full name if he was in big trouble. " tell me what you have done now and maybe ill reduce the scolding by a slight degree. " She said.

Craig thought about the last few weeks since he has been banned from the game but nothing came to mind. Since his mind was occupied with only the new beggining since he got banned the only thing to relax his mind , besides driving the water bill into a devestating amount , was studying.

So he had already got enough credits for all of his courses that he did not need to attend any more classes. He neither slacked of with his jogging so he was in top condition. His money should still be on his bank account , as he always did hard labour during his breaks to earn enough money to last him for the whole semester. Besides the paid apartment and tution bills due to his stipendiat.

" Mum , i have honestly no idea what you are talking about. " He said honestly.

Now with a disatisfied tone his mother clicker her tongue , Uh-oh she is really pissed.

" Craig Austin Miller , i can't believe you are lying to your mother. * Sob* * Sob* , what wrong have i done to raise such a rotten son ... * sob* * sob* . " His mother spoke through the phone.

Now it was Craigs turn to sigh as his mother used the tactic that EVERY Mother could call her special weapon , inflict a twang of guilt inside their children. This was especially effective since his mother loved Craig dearly and doted on him more then usual.

" Well im hanging up now later Mom. " But Craig didn't want to play this game.

" Wait wait , okay. Gosh sometimes you are so difficult. Explain to me why you got banned from > TnB < . " She finally decided to tell him his wrong doings.

Craig hung his head and explained everything to her with. Everything he had to do and everything that went wrong and why he had to give up and sacrifice himself for the sake of the quest , the elfs , the balance of the world and most importantly his new found friends.

Now Craig even explained why he was alot more open towards other people and tried to rip apart the cocoon he placed around himself , which made only slight process. His mother listend carefully and only interrupted him when she didn't understand something.

After 4 long hours of telling his Mom everything the story finally came to and end.

" I still can't believe my son is the Ruby prince . Hehe . Mommy is so proud! " She said.

A slight sliver of hope just manifested in Craigs heart and he just burst out with it.

" Mom can you revoke the perma ban the Gods ai has given me? " Craig asked in a feeble voice.

A long silence filled the conversation for the first time but Craig heared his mother typing on her keyboard.

" No , i am sorry son. But the ai's or the gods in the game govern the complete system. There is no magical code a Gamemaster can put in to rewrite a governing systems directive. Heck there not any Gamemaster in the game in the first place as it is self sufficient. " His mother started.

She explained alot more about the systems function and at how a ' cheated ' item would also put a player on the black list but so far no one had the ability to crack and infiltrate the firewalls that protected the servers.

Even if they managed to do it , while they activly fought the ai's protection the other ai's would step in and retrace the hackers steps. As soon as they located the methods they would evolve like a organism and start counter measures.

Nobody suceeded but there were quite a few fried capsules and computers left as reminders of people who wanted to hack the servers.

" Well if another Ai would counteract , Palanthalos's orders then you would be able to join the fun again. But i checked there is nothing there. " She said.

Now Craigs hope completly shattered.

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" Oh welcome back. " The godess greeted the trio as they stepped into the large chamber.

In return they said some words without much meaning after they had hunted some more Yetis. As yetis were monsters with high advantages and incredibly inflated stats and size as well as armor bonuses their respawn rate was very low.

But even though it was low it wasn't like they respawned after a week. It only took 3 days. Even so Damion had noticed something. Everytime they slew 1 yeti after 3 days in the exact same spot a stronger yeti would remain. Not level wise but they were incredibly harder to deal with.

Even though the level remained the same it seemed their strength increased as they did more damage. Their agility had also to be severly higher as they dodged more attacks. Now sometimes even 2 or 3 patrolled the icy mazes corridors and halls.

All in all it was confusing to Damion , Erica and Iz. Damion even went so far after they had noticed this the first time few times to contact a few people through personal messages.

Every single one of them were having problems with monsters now that used to be a piece of cake.

As it was no help just getting a selected fews opinions all three logged out and searched the net. There were numerous videos where a lvl 10 newcommer was killed by a rabbit.

Some would say cmon a rabbit? But what if that rabbit was deliberatly looking for fights and with every player it killed gained in strength? To top this off every time 1 rabbit got attacked 20 more would appear out of holes in the earth.

Now even wolves began to prey on foxes and rabbits , while in turn free roaming humanoid monster hunted the wolves , while in turn the humanoids were sought after by big beasts and so on.

Damion came to a conclusion that the Game , or should he rather say the world , was evolving at a rapid pace.

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The next day after Grim had talked to his mother Grim was so bored he went to a lecture he had no reason to attend anymore. He even bought on his way home a newspaper to find a part time job , but at the moment he was reading one of his favourite books again.

Several years ago , to be precise 40 years , the unknown author started to release a series of Dragons that changed into humans and mostly seduced human females to become their partners. Well some also declared them their slaves , but in the end it worked out somehow.

It was steamy literature but since he started playing TnB , all of his life changed. He became interested in Fantasy to a degree a nerd or geek would not be able to compare. But in this particular series of shape changing dragons he was deeply in love with one fictional character.

Not in a literal sense but in a different way. He loved how the character reacted in dangerous situations and how she valiantly fought. A human with a dragon soul that used magic to defend her Family against harmful influences.

He was so obsessed with the series that he read all 18 books the author wrote just about dragons in 4 days. As i said he had alot of free time.

But as he was just about to finish the book once again a loud ring , coming from the entrance way bell , disrupted the best moment of the book. As Craig was angry he opened the door and a rather ' large ' guy in a blue overall with some tools in his pocket and a brown delivery packet was standing in front of him.

" Yes ? " Grim asked while reigning in his anger.

" Are ya Craig Austin Miller? " The worker said with a rude tone.

" Yeah but i didn't order anyone anything. " Grim said while looking at the package.

" This has been ordered by the higher ups TnB's corporation , said your capsule was defect. " The guy still continiued his rude tone.

But this fat guy , which Craig only saw as a angelic figure with wings was his last hope so he instantly allowed him entry and offered every hospitality he could offer.