Maria had put it off a while ago because she was too busy exploring Gaia but now that she was faced with a wall that was the Advanced Class, she finally remembered that she could do that as well. There were many skills and stat multipliers that were locked behind the second class advancement and Maria had been handicapping herself all this time because she had completely forgotten about it.
She had received many other power-ups that closed the gap in stats between her and the players who had completed their Second Class Advancement but compared to an NPC, she’d definitely lose out against them. The earlier NPC was the first Second Class Advancement NPC that Maria had encountered in the game and the feeling that NPC gave off was like an insurmountable mountain.
Back when she was fighting Thor in the IGC, the Primal gave off a heavy pressure but Maria felt that the power she sensed from him was still manageable but the earlier NPC...well, Maria knew for certain that she wouldn’t be able to handle him or her at all. There was no shame in backing off but Maria’s interest in the NPC grew by quite a lot. She wanted a strong opponent that could put her abilities to the test and she just found one. However, she knew in her current state that no matter what she did or how much effort she put in, that NPC would just trample over her like an ant.
In Maria’s eyes, that NPC she just met earlier was the most powerful NPC in the game right now. She was lucky that the NPC hadn’t attacked her immediately upon her trespassing or else she would probably have been logged out by it. Her life was nearly forfeit earlier but she had to thank the NPC because it reminded her of something important which was going to be her next new objective.
“Lizzy used the Teleporter in Discordia to move back to Eur so I should be able to do the same. I just hope nothing bad happens when I return…”
Even though she had a rather forgetful disposition, Maria wasn’t going to forget that there was a bounty on her head on planet Eur. It was precisely because of that she had no qualms of immediately leaving that planet where her friends were to go to Vanhal with Ash. She wouldn’t be able to develop in such an environment where she was always on the run from the players and NPCs since the two faction’s church had placed bounties on her.
Maria only hoped that the bounty on her had been forgotten or better yet, it had been lifted. She visited Gaia and informed her that she would be leaving the planet for a little while to complete her second-class advancement quest. Gaia couldn’t actually restrain her in any way and right now, she didn’t particularly need her help just yet so she blessed Maria and prayed that she had a safe journey.
She left the temple before flying to the World Teleportation Gate. She contacted her friends to tell her about her plans before leaving the planet just in case they needed her help again but couldn’t find her because she was off-planet.
[Maria: Amanda, Em, I’m going to leave Gaia for a while!]
She messaged their group chat so everyone in her circle of friends was able to see it. The two didn’t bother asking why she was going off the planet but they did ask which planet she was going to.
[Maria: I’m going back to Eur to do something. Lizzy’s still there, isn’t she?]
[Emily: She is. You might as well ask her to pick you up from the Floating Castle.]
[Amanda: You better ask her to come to pick you up. We know you’re bad with directions, Mary!]
[Maria: I know, I know...but why isn’t Liz replying here? Is she not reading this?]
[Emily: Knowing her, she’s probably busy with her quest so she’s turned off all notifications.]
[Maria: I’ll try messaging her directly. Anyway, I’ll be off now, see you guys!]
[Amanda: Keep your comms open, Mary. We might need your help again.]
[Maria: Sure~]
After closing the group chat, Maria immediately tried contacting Lizzy. Just like her friend said, it was best she get in touch with Lizzy who was already on the planet. No matter how busy her friend was, she’d somehow always make time to see her and if they met up, not only could Lizzy guide Maria around but they might be able to help each other out with their quests. Maria was well aware of her own horrible navigation skills at this point so the best thing to do was to seek aid but unfortunately, all of the messages she tried sending didn’t make it through to her friend.
*DING*
The player you are trying to contact is unavailable
“Hm, that’s weird...I can’t send her a message…”
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Maria double-checked her friend's status in the game and saw that she was indeed online. However, she just couldn’t send her any messages. It wasn’t as if Lizzy had turned off her notifications or anything and even if she did, she’d still be able to receive the messages. The reason why Maria couldn’t send any messages to her friend was that Lizzy was currently at a place that didn’t allow any communication with the outside world, similar to the mysterious realms that held the Sin Demons that Maria hunted.
In those realms, Maria wasn’t able to receive or send messages to anyone until she got out. Not being able to use the messaging function was already normal to her so she didn’t think about it any further and stopped trying.
“It doesn’t matter. I bet she’s busy with her Awakening Quest. I shouldn’t distract her.”
It didn’t take her too long to arrive at the teleportation gate that connected the two planets, Eur and Gaia. She hesitated for a moment before ultimately walking through the gate and selecting her destination, Planet Eur, the place where all her adventures started...as well as any other players’ adventures since it was the starting planet. With a burst of light, Maria was teleported away from Gaia and by the time she opened her eyes in the next moment, she was in a completely different place.
Her friends told her that the first place she’d appear in would be the Floating Castle that held the World Teleportation Gate, but she didn’t think that the Floating Castle’s interior would be so majestic.
“Woah…” Maria gawked in awe as she looked around. She was currently in the middle of a large chamber within the castle’s interior and all around her, beautiful sculptures, paintings, and other works of art decorated the place.
The pillars that supported the chamber seemed to be gilded and above the teleportation gate was a large magic crystal hovering in place that was giving off a radiant rainbow glow. It was a little too bright for her taste but Maria couldn’t deny that the place was extremely beautiful.
“So this is the rumored Floating Castle! Everything looks so expensive and shiny!”
Maria took a brief look around the place but noticed that not many people were coming and going, however, the outside of the chamber seemed to be very packed with people. When she walked out, she naturally attracted a lot of attention because of her unique character. She looked around and noticed that many people had set up vending booths and other kinds of private stands. She somewhat missed all of this hustle and bustle. Of course, it wasn’t like her city wasn’t hustling and bustling, but what she missed was the atmosphere the players brought with them as they went about with their activities.
That kind of atmosphere was absent in her faction because no player other than her had made it to Vanhal at the moment. She didn’t linger around for too long because people began noticing who she was.
After attending the IGC, Maria had become quite the celebrity now. It was hard not to talk about a young, beautiful girl who was in the spotlight for accomplishing quite the feat during such an important international event. She quickly took flight before anyone could crowd around her but once she was in the air, she immediately lunged to the side as a shadow flew past her.
“What the―Oh, crap…”
She immediately cursed under her breath before going supersonic and leaving the place. The shadow that flew past her earlier was a large bolt and it was fired by one of the ballistae that guarded the Floating Castles’ walls. Maria noticed that all of the other ballistae on the walls were turning in her direction and preparing to fire and a few knights riding on griffins were flying towards her. From this, she knew that the bounty on her head was still there and every NPC and player was still out to get her.
Of course, maybe not any players since most of the players that saw the World Announcement of her bounty were now on Gaia and they’ve probably forgotten while the new players wouldn’t know anything about her bounty unless they specifically looked for it. This wasn’t the start of the journey that Maria was hoping for. She did somewhat expect that the bounty was still there, but confirming it right away after not even spending 10 minutes on the planet was a bit disheartening.
Maria wasn’t aware that the moment she came back to the planet, all of the NPC armies from all of the factions were already on their move now. Many players inside of the NPC cities around the planet saw the NPC activities and were wondering what the heck was going on. They all thought that some kind of event was going on so they began asking around, however, no world quest or anything of the sort appeared when they tried interacting with one of the NPCs that were mobilizing. The only response they got was ‘move aside’, ‘get out of the way’, ‘do not obstruct us’, or the cold shoulder.
The person that was the cause of all this was currently flying extremely fast in a single direction from the Floating Castle and she had stopped in midair after she felt that she had flown far away enough that it was safe now. Unfortunately, for her, nowhere on the planet was safe, except for maybe the frontier areas, but that wasn’t the place she needed to go to.
Maria had read on the forum that a class instructor or the NPC that bestowed the class would be able to give her the class advancement quest and since she had received her class from High Priestess Hella, she naturally needed to head over to the Dark Faction city of Enoch where the Dark God’s church was located since Hella was the head of the church there. She stupidly thought that her hidden legacy class was the same as any other class or hidden class so the misconception that she needed to return to Eur and talk to Hella sprouted from reading this guide.
She forgot that the person who gave her the Dark Priestess class wasn’t Hella but her patron god, Death himself, and as Death’s Envoy, Maria could summon Death’s Incarnation any time she wanted as long as she ‘prayed’ to him. Through the incarnation, Maria could then ask Death to give her the class advancement quest because she had fulfilled the level requirement for it but, she just didn’t know.
Maria never once summoned Death’s Incarnation knowingly outside of the times when she wanted to tackle one of the Sin Demons. In fact, all this time, Maria never summoned Death to directly ask for any legacy quests and the like even though she definitely could and should only because she simply didn’t know about it. Players that played as a class that had any religious affiliations such as a Holy Knight, Paladin, Templar, Priest, and etcetera, would sometimes receive hidden or legacy quests of various ranks above B, through donating gold to the church or praying in the churches.
Those activities would provide some EXP and Item Drop buffs so they were worthwhile to do. Naturally, the players didn’t have to actually pray or anything, they just needed to sit around the church for a certain period of time before obtaining the buffs though ‘praying’ did help shorten that time and the chances of obtaining a hidden quest were higher if they did.
If Maria progressed with her class as all the other players did, she would’ve known about this and the large EXP penalty for raising her level due to being a Fallen race would have been alleviated to some degree but unfortunately, she didn’t progress like ordinary players...which could be both a good thing and a bad thing. Up to this point, Death was the one that would always appear before her and give her legacy quests after she fulfilled a certain requirement. She never took the initiative to seek him out but how could she anyway? There was no precedent of players in her situation so she couldn’t just open up the forum and look up information about it.
After plotting a course on her map, she started flying towards the Dark Faction’s territory. Luckily for her, the Dark Faction had a large territory so even with her directionally challenged self, Maria only needed to fly straight in the general direction where the Dark Faction’s territory was located.