Maria also found out about another thing regarding NPC development. The NPCs that were affected by these randomized skill-learning and rank upgrades were only applicable to those who were directly under her control.
Meaning those in her subordinate or pet menus was the only eligible ones to receive the benefits of growth and promotion.
The NPCs that were just in her faction weren't granted this tremendous benefit. However, some were exceptions. Those in her faction who had high positions or ranks in her faction were still able to receive these benefits. This meant that the strong would only get stronger within her faction.
Maria wondered if the players that held a high ranking in a faction would be able to receive something similar to what the NPCs gained. Or it could just be an NPC-exclusive feature.
One day, the players would without a doubt out-level the NPCs of an early-stage area. She wondered if this particular feature was to help compensate this so that the players and NPC could level up and gain skills in a parallel fashion.
It would be worrisome if one day the players did out-level their NPC counterparts on planet Eur and one day came back to just conquer the entire world. It would hurt the new players that started the game if this happened because then, the guilds or player organizations that took over the starting planet would have divided up the areas to level up and bar those who aren't affiliated with them.
Maria could already see this happening because the guilds and player organizations were very much similar to a country in the real world. If they took over a piece of land and announced that it was theirs, then there was no way that they'd let 'invaders' or people unaffiliated with them enter those areas to level up and grind for materials.
It was already happening right now. Maria was receiving intel directly from her former guild members about how they would clash against other guilds and factions over leveling and resource collection areas.
The fights and skirmishes were already so intense that most of the time, instead of grinding and leveling, the guild members would actually be waging war against other guilds and factions to claim leveling areas and protecting them against intruders.
Of course, this mission was delegated to the other members of the guild while the elite members were dealing with the Main Scenario Quest of Eur.
Maria constantly received news from Lizzy saying that the war between guilds and factions from both the NPC and Player sides was intensifying as time passed. Especially after the Livestream, the Players began concentrating their efforts even more on the Main Scenario Quest and the clashes between guilds against hers were now more intense since people wanted to try and stop her progress or steal away the quest item she had on her.
The worst part about it was that Lizzy believed she was at the last segment of her quest chain and only needed a little bit more effort to finally finish the entire quest chain. Another problem cropped up for her and that was the fact that even NPCs began meddling with her quest on top of the players already doing it.
She was constantly sighing in class and Maria could clearly see the worry and stress in her eyes and actions. Maria couldn't do anything to help her besides offer her friend her consolation. She also advised Lizzy that it may do her good if she tried befriending one of the meddling NPC factions.
As for allying with player factions or guilds, Lizzy had already made that effort but when the guild masters or leaders of each faction met with Lizzy, they looked down on her for being such a young guild leader and made ridiculous demands that caused Lizzy to just end the discussions and walk out of the room.
She didn't like being talked down to when they were supposed to be forming an equal-standing agreement. Lizzy could only complain that Maria wasn't there anymore because if she was, they wouldn't be able to sit on their high horse for so long.
Especially since Maria was rumored to be one of the most powerful players in the game because of her feats during the one guild war where she nearly decimated an entire elite squadron of the Eclipse Guild, which was a leading guild within the Dark Faction of planet Eur.
There were other rumors and news about players who had unique power and character similar to Maria but they were kept under wraps by the guilds or factions they joined to save them as trump cards.
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The only known unique and powerful players were Maria, a Holy Knight-class player from the light faction's Heaven Pavilion Guild by the name of Ulric, and another light faction player who possessed Maria's counter class, Sacred Priestess.
Her name wasn't known because she was part of the Church of Light which was an NPC faction. It was also rumored that this player also possessed the Saintess title just like Maria. She was being sheltered by the Church and news about her was only known because the Church had announced it.
The only known player who had a unique class and was powerful from the Dark Faction was currently only Maria and that was because Maria never viewed herself as a powerful character and didn't see any need to hide like the other players in the game who acted as trump cards for the factions that they joined.
She was simply there to enjoy the game and didn't think much about the power struggle currently ongoing in the game. Maria had other things to worry about, like her S-rank and above quests and about expanding her faction and getting ready for the war against the Blood Faction of Vanhal.
*****
Once the Dire Plains was conquered and renamed by Maria after the thorough extermination of the monsters that inhabited the place was finished, she continued moving towards the town that she had wrested away from the Baron whose name she had already forgotten.
She left a few of her soldiers back at the outpost to continue building and reinforcing it while they waited for the faction army to come and occupy the place. They would only move to rejoin her after this.
Once Maria arrived at the town, she cleared out the monsters in the surroundings and had her soldiers move to the 2 villages that she remembered were here in the area. She wanted to secure those villages as well since she didn't want to start one from scratch.
She was able to get quite the large amount of event candies from this outing so she felt very rewarded, despite not making much effort herself. Maria only personally dealt with a monster if it was a boss-class or elite-class monster.
The mobs were no longer appealing to her since she only needed to use a few spells or swing her weapon a few times before killing them. She also noticed something peculiar, but the Halloween event currencies had a higher drop rate for NPCs than the players.
For every 3 monsters she killed, she would only get one candy of a random grade while her soldiers would get a candy of a random grade for every kill they acquired. Maria naturally took advantage of this and pushed her soldiers to fight and kill more.
A few in-game days passed by before Ash and a few other faction members arrived at the town she had now turned into a semi-fortress. Ash was also surprised to see how much the soldiers improved after only a few days since he's handed them to Maria.
Every single one of them exuded a dangerous and bloodthirsty aura. Their levels had risen quite a bit too since Maria kept on sending the soldiers out on rotations and they couldn't catch a long break or be negligent.
Even when they were resting, they kept a constant lookout for their Queen who always seemed to have an unsatisfied look on her face. This caused the soldiers to put in more effort to try and please her which resulted in their power increasing.
Even then, they noticed that the unsatisfied look still hadn't left Maria's face. Actually, the only reason why Maria had that unsatisfied look was that she noticed her leveling stagnating because she stopped hunting monsters personally.
The NPCs still gave her some experience but the small amount that they shared with her was too minuscule compared to a large number of experience points she needed to level up a single level. This was why she was dissatisfied.
Even when she went out to hunt, most of the monsters had already been cleared away by her soldiers, and the respawn rate of the monsters couldn't keep up with the rate her soldier and her were clearing the monsters.
She could just go out further into the field and search for monsters, but she had promised Ash that she would wait for him in the town. Because she hated waiting, the look of dissatisfaction was ever-present on her face.
Maria needed something to occupy herself so she had ordered for her soldiers to gather materials to rebuild and reinforce the town because every single night, there would be small waves of monsters that would come and attack the town.
It wasn't something she welcomed because these monster waves that appeared at night were just a faction event so the drops and experience that these monsters gave were lesser than what the normal monsters gave.
The town had now become a fortress over the course of the last few days and the bodies and blood of monsters decorated the walls or the field just outside the town. It gave a really ominous and empowering feeling to the fort as a whole and it was something that went out of Ash's expectations.
"Her Majesty does her work really quickly. She only left for a few days and she's already created both a fortified outpost and this magnificent fortress!" One of the officials of the faction which was sent over to this place exclaimed in awe.
Many of the others who were sent to build, live, and govern this place naturally agreed with this young official's words. Ash sighed and thought that there was something more to this than what was seen on the surface.
Everything looked like it was hastily built, but a special power fortified it, so it meshed everything together very well. It was clear that Maria had used her power as the Dire Queen to fortify the fortress after it was hastily built.
From what Ash knew, that power shouldn't have been arbitrarily used for such a minor area as this. It should have been used for somewhere else like the port city they were planning to build when they discovered that they were actually closer to the coastline of the continent than they had thought.
"Let's go see our Queen now... remember to present yourselves with dignity and respect before our Queen!"
"Yessir!"