As soon as they reached the village, Tetsujin and Shadow immediately made their way to the village head for the credit exchange. There was a long line at the village head's location. It looked like most of the guilds had already their representatives to the village for the purpose.
There was a limit on the number of coins that can be brought per day to only one gold per person. So, more than one person from every guild came to the village. Balthazar and Merlin also had the rest of the team stand in line to buy coins.
The line had at least 200 players before them. It would take at least 5 minutes for them to reach the village head. In a couple of minutes, they got coins in exchange for credits from the village head. As they were moving toward the auction house to check it out, a notification sounded to all players.
Blackrock Village Region Notification: The populace of the village exceeded its limits. It will be upgraded to a small Town. The upgrade will take 15 minutes and all players will be transported outside the village during the upgrade.
Immediately they were all magically teleported outside the village boundary. More than 5000 people were at the gate of the village beside the graveyard.
"I don't think we can go to the auction house for now," said Shadow to the team. He looked around and soon found Slaine coming towards him.
"Finally, you are here," said Slaine moving towards him. Blinding was beside him along with a few others. Slaine chose his old ID in war god's tempest, 'Slain n Shot'. There were few others alongside him.
"These are Light, Brick and Reel, they are old friends from War god's tempest." said Slaine introducing them. "They already joined the workshop and we are planning to start here. Rudra would be joining us soon. Thinking of starting from this place. We already have you here. It is sad that we can't make a guild till level 10."
"You sure that you guys want to start from this place? There are going to be a lot more players coming here," asked Shadow.
"Ya dude, we thought of completing the quest to go to the city from Silver Leaf village but now we could have all our friend and acquaintances start from this place due to the portal."
"You know that other guilds would also consider the same, right?"
"No, most would be usually considering developing in towns or village any of their vice leaders or even elders were first sent to. You already managed to get special quests and first clears. Really hard to get any reputation at this place now. So, most would avoid developing their guild here even though it would be a hub for trade."
"Oh! That makes sense. I guess we do have a certain amount of advantage on starting from here."
"Yes. It is better if we start the guild from here. Moreover, this is going to become a town. It would create more quests. About 200 of the guys from the guild in War god's tempest are coming to register. They are all attempting the dungeon. Your guides have been quite useful," said Slaine.
"That is good. The Sirius Imperials guild is also here. They have one of the vice leaders Blue Dart here. They would be competition."
"I heard. But I doubt that the majority of their efforts would be here. Their leader Blood Wolf is at the Brown Rock town. They seem to be recruiting mostly at that town. Towns have more populace and better place to recruit members. They wouldn't suddenly change their focus now to this town."
"Fine. I am cool with it. You can start recruiting here, but most of the players who would be interested in joining guilds have already joined Sirius Imperials."
"Yeah. Already knew that. Anyways, we intend to use your name and popularity for recruitment. You don't mind. Do you?"
"I own the workshop. It would be a waste if I don't allow you guys to not use my name for recruitment. Use it however you like. Putting that aside, these are friends, I found here," said Shadow pointing to the team.
"Yes, Blinding told me about them. Nice to meet you lot. Will you be joining the guild?"
"Not really into these things. How about we tell you once you actually create the guild?" suggested Merlin. "Which guild do you own?" he asked Shadow.
"Oh! It is Crimson Realm. You might have heard of it. We came into the top 20 for the Dread cup in War god's tempest."
"Yes. I heard of it. That guy Roadkill was one of you right?" said Merlin as he remembered the name. "You own the guild?" he asked looking at Shadow.
"I recently came to own it," said Shadow nodding his head. "Anyway, why don't you guys get acquainted. I need to log out for a few minutes to check on a few things," said Shadow as he walked pulled Slaine to a side away from the rest.
"Don't try to persuade those guys to join the guild. Mad Merlin likes to be a bit independent and he is a good player. Leave him to me. I am trying to create an adventurer group to work in collaboration with us," he explained to Slaine.
"Mad Merlin? You mean the one who got out of Magus Shrine? You know that Magus Shrine is a super-first-rate guild, right?"
"I know. But I don't think that they will find trouble with him. That is why I am thinking of an adventurer group rather than the guild to be on the safe side."
"But we were hoping to have you in the guild," said Slaine confused. He couldn't actually use his name if he isn't in the guild.
"I will be a honorary elder preferably. I won't be able to play after these few months anyways. So, let it be like this for now. I will log out now. Inform Rudra of this. See you in 15 minutes," said Balthazar logging out of the game. He got out off the pod, stretched his legs and opened up his mail.
He quickly checked his mail and found out that Robert had already sent the documents which he requested. He first sent the agreement to Winston so that he would be ready to support Robert. Next, he began to go through the documents about the planetary excursion he would need to go along with Robert.
The next one was after three days in an abandoned planet nearby. The planet DG-105 had about 10 times the gravity of Asklepian. Due to the high gravity and the atmospheric pressure, it was not advisable to stay there for longer durations. But these conditions led to the growth of some rare species of flora.
The animals on the planet were mostly reptiles with thick hides. The majority of animals here had extremely tough bodies and were considered dangerous. Luckily the high gravity didn't allow for any flying beings native to it. The only birds there are flightless and extremely fast like the rest of the living beings.
They were only allowed to be on it for a duration of 10 hours. it is mandatory to wear a combat suit that would reduce the strain from the high atmospheric pressure and gravity.
As he was going through the list of animals to be expected and their characteristics, he got a message from Winston informing that he had received the document and would support Robert. He also forwarded a list of suggested items he could take to the planetary excursion.
As he checked the list, he found that few of the items he suggested would actually be useful. Mainly two of them. He would require a very sharp and strong blade for the purpose of cutting up whatever he found. It would be extremely unwise to use any of the usual high frequency blade* as the heat would cause an explosion due to high atmospheric pressure.
He also would need a something to shield him in case of an emergency. Though he couldn't use the combat suit he took to BR-64, he was offered the small piece of equipment that could project he shield. Winston wanted him to carry it on his body wherever he goes to.
Balthazar appreciated his grandfather's offer and immediately sent a message back offering his thanks and that he would gladly accept whatever he wanted to give for the excursion. Winston asked him to meet the next day morning so that he could prepare them for him.
With the concern about the competition for the elders handled, he had one more important thing to check. He wanted to find out about the situation at the base as soon as possible and what would his posting be.
Though he had been informed by Sophia that there was no information about his posting, he still sent a message to her hoping to hear something new. He had been in constant contact with her every day. He even told her about the suspicions he had about the knights and the Nirbaadh pirates. She was his confidant about a lot of things with exception of his family secret, the one of his father's true lineage.
He returned to the game and found that the blackrock village was upgraded to blackrock town. He quickly checked his privileges panel and found that he had the same amount of reputation in the Blackrock town as before.
Reputation in towns is generally harder to gather than a village. In a village once he hit 200 reputation points, he would be provided the maximum privilege possible equivalent to a village head. Gathering any further would be a waste. The only reason he wanted to be the first to finish the quest of clearing a path was to get reputation at White River city. Now he had another reason.
With the rate the size of the town is increasing it would soon be a famous starting point for those players spawned at the White Heart kingdom. Within a town, he could actually have a guild quarters set up. Having reputation points exceeding 250, he would already be considered a first-class citizen of the town.
He found that his team and friends have already got into the town. With the upgrade into a town, the geography of the place changed. The boundaries have increased, various buildings have increased in size along with a few new ones popping up.
There have been new constructions too. A few watchtowers were visible outside the village. A large 4-storied hotel appeared beside the town hall which was 3-storied building itself. Many new NPCs were also visible.
With his friends and team already exploring the new town, he couldn't lag behind and immediately went into the hall. The first place he went to was Blacksmith Kade's shop. He had a decent amount of resources from the Cave of Wargs, which he could use to obtain a few designs. The majority of the player in the town were already level 5 and right now the equipment would earn him a lot.
As he went in, he realized that the outline of the place had changed a bit and master Kade's shop wasn't where he expected it to be. He checked around and even bought a map of the new town from a shop but couldn't still find Kade on it.
""Ah! How could something like this happened. I was just performing well and now this upgrade had Kade disappearing," thought Shadow. An NPC wouldn't usually leave once a village upgraded into a town. If anything, he would try to achieve a better position in the town than he had before.
"Oh! That's it. He probably just closed the shop and moved to a better area. I better check near the auction house or the market," he thought. With these thoughts in mind, he made his way towards the market.
He called Slaine and was told that he along with the team were at the marketplace beside the teleportation point inside the town. As he reached the location, he observed that the auction house was also moved beside the marketplace.
The marketplace was vast and empty and allowed the players to call out their wares and exchange items with one another. It was like a real-life market with hawkers and shops. There was a new building opposite to the auction house. It was the town bank.
The bank was a feature that was very useful, especially for trade profession and merchant players. It was widely used by all guilds too. It would provide a storage area for valuable possessions and also to store money or coins to be shared among a group.
All banks in the town and cities of a kingdom share the storage space and the items stored at one town can be accessed in another town of the same kingdom. But to be able to use a bank one must rent the storage using coins.
Along with the hawkers, there were also people who were shouting about recruitment for guilds. Slaine was also among them with his friends, Merlin and the team. Rudra and a few other have also joined him. As he saw Balthazar, Rudra came running to him.
"You changed your ID!" said Shadow as he noticed him. It used to be Road Kill No 1. Now he is using
Crimson Power instead.
"Well, Lizzy used to be the actual guild leader before, though I handle the affairs. I am told that Road kill would be a horrible name for guild leader," replied Rudra.
"Road kill was a horrible name for one's character any way you look at it," said Balthazar shaking his head. It was the name of an old game that Rudra used to play as a kid and chose it when he first started to play games.
"OK. You sure you are all right? I heard that you are playing like a crazy person," said Rudra.
"I am fine. Why do you keep asking the same question?" said Balthazar angrily. He was getting irritated that everyone he knew kept asking the same question. They were obviously worried that he might have taken Max's death to heart. But he was actually angry that Max died without letting him know anything about his companions.
"Fine. I will give your space. Let me come to the point. I heard you already might have earned enough reputation to be a first-class citizen, right? Can you purchase some land in the market? If we get a shop for trade profession, it will improve our popularity in the town," said Rudra.
Rudra already had the thought and went to the town hall. But he couldn't even rent a land as one required to be at least a third-class citizen with 50 reputation points to do that.
Now that Blackrock village upgraded to a town, it provided more quests and one could soon accumulate the required reputation, but it would be a lot slower and he might not even succeed. It would be best if they could get the best slots near the market, right now.
This kind of competition is only seen in towns. It is rarely seen in villages where there wouldn't be any shops available for rent or purchase. Balthazar completing the special quest had resulted in this situation too unexpectedly. He quickly made his way to the town hall where one could purchase such properties.
"Well, it is best if I do use the advantages I have. I can never be too prepared. Moreover, this would help reduce some strain on me in the White Heart Region," thought Balthazar as he went along with Rudra to the town hall.
Note:
*High frequency blade - A high-frequency blade was a sword reinforced by a powerful alternating current and resonating at extremely high vibration frequencies. This oscillation weakened the molecular bonds of anything it cuts, thereby increasing its cutting ability. The effect is similar to using a red hot blade and it produces a lot of heat and sparks.