(Quest, Find the end of the cave maze and speak with the phoenix: Complete. Calculating completion rate… 97% completion, rank A. Rewards: 20,000,000,000 XP, 1,000 guild renown points, two drops of phoenix blood.)

  (Quest: Bring a worthy recipient for ice phoenix mark to the ice phoenix. Do you wish to accept this quest? Rewards, access to ice phoenix blood and feathers on a limited basis and unknown. Warning, failing the quest will have negative repercussions on your account. Yes or No)

  “Well, I will see you soon.”

  “Thank you, and I will ensure to choose carefully.”

  Bīng simply smiled as she returned to the bed to sleep, which Xeal assumed was her only way to find some escape from the prison that she had spent ages in, quietly. With one last look, Xeal accepted the new quest before he turned and left, making his way back through the caves until he came back to the imp village. He took a few hours to just observe the village to see how they operated and make sure that there weren’t any major surprises that would keep him from being able to lead a raid on it. When he felt like he could return in confidence, Xeal turned and snuck back to the cave that had led him here and exited, startling Lingxin as he did so.

  “Xeal, I must say it is good to see you made it back. Did you find the phoenix?”

  “Yes. Though it is a bit more complicated than I would like, she will help, but before she is willing to do so completely, there is an infestation of imps and other demons that needs to be dealt with.”

  “I see, I will tell my brother.”

  “No, she will not deal with your family anymore. You or your brother’s involvement beyond this point would only have a negative impact on the deal I made with her.”

  “Did you at least learn the reason why?”

  Xeal shared what he had been told, while leaving out the situation with her ancestor who had become an ice monster, in the process. Xeal watched as she thought over what he said and he could tell that she held a bit of indignation at the notion that an emperor was hidden to avoid fame instead of to signify his superiority. Xeal had given her a hard look as he prodded her to look at it from the commoners’ viewpoint instead of hers, that had the superiority view ingrained since birth. He could tell it had not completely made it through to her, but using how Empress Sakurai Jingū didn’t hide, gave her some pause. The pair made their way to leave, reporting to her brother on the way out as Xeal received permission for a party made up of his guild’s leadership to clear out the imps, so long as they all signed a contract to keep the cave secret while the Huáng empire stood. With that taken care of, Xeal returned to Nium.

  The first thing Xeal did when he returned was to ask Lingxin to wait in his mansion as Maxwell alerted Prince Victor that he had returned and wished for a meeting. With that taken care of, Xeal made his way to the guild to see how the 200 players who were part of the second round of players to attempt their tier 5 trial were doing. When he sat down, he was surprised to see a smiling Taya as she held out the reports, keeping them out of his reach while looking smug.

  “Alright, Taya, what has you in such a good mood?”

  “Oh, nothing, it’s just good to see that you are alive. I must say that it has been a hectic few weeks as our members complete their tier 5 trials, especially our nightmare challengers.”

  “Are they all done?”

  “Yep, the last ones came out 30 minutes ago.”

  “Aalin and Gale, how are they?”

  “Well, they both passed, but they told me that they will tell you all about it offline tonight. Now here are the rest.”

  “That’s good. In that case, just give me the summary.”

  “Alright, of the other 198 members who attempted nightmare, 91 passed with ranks of one S, five As, 28 Bs, 44 Cs and 12 Ds. Of the 2,000 members that took the medium and hard challenge, 1,524 have passed as well. Bringing our total tier 5 member count to over 1,600, and from the reports we have been receiving around ED, no other guild has any members above level 70 at this time, with a few exceptions. Even then, we are the only guild with any real intel on what to expect at this point and we should have another 10,000 players ready to attempt their tier up by the end of the week.”

  “Good. Lift the restriction on how many are allowed to attempt everything but nightmare mode. For those who wish to walk through the nightmare, they need to still pass our screening, ensuring that they are ready for it.”

  “Okay, but nightmare mode still has over a 55% failure rate, even with the screening. Wouldn’t it be better to simply have our members tier up as fast as possible?”

  “Taya, that is fine if you are a crafter who just wants to put out good to great equipment down the line and don’t care about hitting tier 7, or 8. However, not giving it your all at this point, if you hope to reach tier 7 and have a chance to reach tier 8, could prove detrimental. Who knows, maybe I am blowing this out of proportion, but haven’t even the D-rank passers from nightmare received more rewards than the A ranks from hard?”

  “Yes, they have, but a D rank from nightmare could probably get an S rank on hard.”

  “If you don’t push yourself, you will never grow, and just doing so in training means nothing, as until there are real consequences for failure, you won’t know if you have what it takes. Heck, every player who has failed to complete their tier 5 nightmare trial have had the skills needed to pass, yet didn’t. Part of it is just bad luck, but more of it is simply they failed to execute when it mattered.”

  “You really think it means that much?”

  “Taya, the difference between an expert and a good player can be measured in the milliseconds. It all comes down to how fast you can adapt to the changing situation in the heat of battle. Right now, we have a major level advantage that will shrink as we approach tier 7, and if we stall out there, none of this will matter.”

  “Alright, here are the rest of the reports.”

  “You know, you need to start thinking about your own tier up trial. Are you going to attempt nightmare, or are you going to be the only vice guild leader to take the easy route?”

  Taya just glared at Xeal as she shoved the reports into his hands as he smiled, and took a look at all the reports that he had missed while he was away. Other than a few worrying reports about the movements of Red Crushers and Templar Fall, nothing seemed out of place. The archery lessons that Nora was still giving were being well received, but she had been asking when he would attend one as well. The next one was scheduled for the following morning and Xeal had a thought that made him smile. It was already late and Xeal knew his meeting with Prince Victor would come in the morning after he got some rest. When he returned to his mansion, he was met by Enye, Dyllis, Lingxin and Mari, who must have arrived with her guard while Xeal was otherwise occupied. The four of them were seated at a table that Maxwell must have set up at their request in the middle of his main hall, which had yet to host any events since he had occupied the mansion.

  “Ah, he is finally home. So Xeal, when were you going to take the time to introduce us?”

  Xeal could tell from Enye’s tone he had messed up in his pursuit to catch up on guild business and now he was going to pay for it. When Dyllis cut him off before he could respond, he knew it was beyond him to salvage it.

  “Enye, you mustn’t blame Xeal too much. He has had far too much on his mind these past several weeks. He was too focused on other things to remember that he had two princesses who needed to be accommodated in the palace. I mean, I am sure he didn’t intend for them to stay here for the night. That would cause too much of a scandal.”

  “I apologize. You are both right, I have been gone far too much recently, and I failed to ensure you both were doing well before I went straight to my duties that could have waited an extra hour or so.”

  “Well, come and join us. I must say, you must have a few stories to share from what Lingxin and Mari have shared.”

  At Enye’s invitation, Xeal sat and spent the next hour with the four ladies as they asked him questions about his trip and his guild’s status. When they got to the point about Xeal setting up things to try and prevent the fall of the Muthia empire, all four ladies were very interested in just how he planned to accomplish that. Mari especially took time to question Xeal about the basics of his still-fluid plan, until Maxwell rescued him by telling the ladies that it was time for them to return to the palace if they didn’t want rumors to spread. As the four ladies got up to leave, Maxwell reminded Xeal that Prince Victor was expecting him at breakfast at 6:00 in the morning.

  Xeal awoke with a half hour to make it to breakfast with Victor and quickly got ready and arrived with around five minutes to spare. At breakfast, Xeal gave Victor an update on the situation with Bīng, as well as how he planned to handle it, though it seemed he was more interested in what finding all of the phoenixes would mean. Xeal had to temper his expectation and remind him that all of them were stuck where they were, and at best, he could see about getting each of them to mark a single maiden. When they were done with that, the topic turned to the quest Xeal intended to undertake in the north that would involve him securing an area that was one of the alternate invasion paths. It was an area where the mountain ranges were low enough that crossing over with an army was possible. Unlike with the orcs, there was no real settlement to negotiate with as the area was controlled by several beast-men tribes. The quest required Xeal to set up an information network that would alert the kingdom to any armies that attempted to march through the forests, or travel upriver in ships. Both moves would show desperation from the invaders as they would need to navigate more than a few level 200 to 230 maps to use these routes. There were two points that Victor was concerned about and he only expected to have enough manpower to effectively guard one of the two points. The enemy could use either to cross into Nium and both were under 100 miles from the river. To make matters worse, the two points were about 200 miles apart and the garrison portals at each were too far for a quick response. If they guarded the first point and the enemy went to the second point, they would never arrive on time. So, the plan was to have them stationed near both, with a signal system in place to alert them the moment a landing was made, or if they passed the first disembarking area. This would give the forces time to unite and reorganize before the invaders arrived.

  After breakfast was over, Xeal invited Victor to join him at his guild headquarters to congratulate the most recent group of adventurers to reach tier 5 by passing the nightmare trial. It took a bit of convincing, but Victor finally agreed that it would be good to see the players who were likely to play a critical role in any wars that were waged. So, the pair made their way to the training grounds next to the area where Nora would soon be teaching archery. Xeal had ordered Taya to have the 91 players who passed in the last group assemble there. Victor seemed to take the whole thing in stride when they arrived as the players locked up upon seeing Prince Victor, as few knew how to handle his sudden appearance without warning. Xeal just smiled as Victor talked to several stiff players who looked like they had been forced out of bed by Taya before they were completely recovered. It was then that the hundred or so tier 4 FAE members started arriving for Nora’s archery lesson, and a few minutes later Nora herself arrived. Victor had just noticed the increase in adventurers when Nora came over to give her greetings.

  “Prince Victor, Viscount Xeal, it is good to see you both. What brings you out here this morning?”

  “Ah, Nora, I simply invited Prince Victor out to congratulate my members who just made it through their tier 5 nightmare trial. However, seeing as I have yet to make it to one of your lessons, perhaps I should join it this morning.”

  “You would be most welcome, as would Prince Victor, if he so desires.”

  Xeal had to keep himself from laughing as he saw the conflicted look Victor was currently wearing as Nora waited for his response.

  “Xeal and I will be there shortly, Nora. I just need to finish congratulating these adventurers before we head over.”

  “Thank you, Prince Victor.”

  As Nora turned and left, Victor turned to Xeal with a stern expression.

  “Xeal, did you plan this?”

  “Plan would be giving me too much credit. I simply knew she would be teaching this morning and figured I would see if you two bumped into each other, my prince.”

  “This is one thing I did not miss about you being gone. Would you like me to solve the issue and push her towards you?”

  “I would rather you didn’t. Besides, you know why I am supporting her as your queen, my prince.”

  “I hate when you go formal on me. Now let’s get this over with.”

  Once they bid the new tier 5 players farewell and joined Nora, Xeal smiled as Prince Victor was forced to just kind of awkwardly be there. Nora ended up asking him to help her demonstrate as he was by far the best archer present, other than her. By the time the lesson was over, it was less than an hour before Xeal needed to log off and he just smiled as Victor was trapped into having lunch with a smiling Nora.

  Evening November 28, 2266.

  Alex woke up to find Nicole smiling at him as she reached out for her wake-up kiss, which he gladly gave her before they got up. Alex wished that they didn’t have dinner with Mr. Chun and Lina as it was the first time in days that Nicole and Sam were functional. They both understood as they got ready while smiling, but it wasn’t until they were in the car that they spoke, letting Alex know that they both had achieved an S rank as they shared about their final hurdle. Alex didn’t know what to make of the encounter with Freya that Sam had had, let alone becoming her vessel. Alex had known of a few such cases in his last life and none had ended well, as once they were known, it almost became a holy war to kill the player back to level 0. It didn’t matter that they had lost the connection the first time they died, the other deities wanted to ensure that no adventurer would accept the burden in the future. Though as he thought about it, his mark put him in the same category and once he started collecting phoenix marks for FAE, it was likely that it would leak eventually.

  While pondering the implications of everything, Alex noticed that Nicole seemed a bit left out and he let her know about Bīng and how he intended to have her receive the mark. This had led them to discuss everything that had happened, and Alex only had time to get up to when he met with Emperor Huáng Jin for the first time, when they pulled into the parking lot. Mr. Chun had selected a modest establishment in consideration of Jingong’s current financial situation and the three of them felt at home as they entered the quaint diner. Mr. Chun and Lina were already seated at a corner booth near the back and the hostess brought them to the table before leaving them to look over the menu.

  “Ah, Alex, it is good of you to come meet us like this, especially with Sam and Nicole. I take it you both were successful in reaching tier 5?”

  “Thank you for hosting me, and yes, all three of us are now tier 5, along with much of my guild, several of whom will be heading your way to hold up my end of the bargain with the Huáng empire.”

  “Very good. I must say I am happy that it is looking like the Huáng empire will be a great fit, even if there have been a few hiccups so far. Honestly, we may have been better served if we had chosen it as our main base to start. Ah, but it is too late to worry about could haves, wouldn’t you agree, Lina?”

  “Yes. While it is a shame that we failed to secure a lasting partnership, it is good that we achieved what we did, and who knows what the future holds.”

  The conversation continued like this until they were served dinner and the five of them enjoyed a nice meal before turning to dessert. It was just after dessert arrived that Lina broached a serious topic once again.

  “Alex, is there nothing that would entice you to possibly merge into our workshop? There is so much you could accomplish with your skills and our connections.”

  “Lina, I am flattered that Jingong is interested, but it would end with both of our destruction if I did. My style requires fast independent action and planning. If I were part of Jingong, all that would happen is the council and I clashing as they refuse to follow my advice and send me to do what they think is important instead.”

  “I see, and even if we promised you freedom of movement for your own actions, the lack of resources would be an issue. The council would not be inclined to invest in a lone wolf like you would become, denying you what you currently have.”

 

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