With them having completed their first attempt to finish the quest with a decent success rate, things have changed a bit. Other guilds will be trying to finish the quest in the same manner they did. Their advantage was that they had dynamites. They used about 300 of them in the first run with nearly half of those used at other players who tried to block them.
Though Rudra put about 50 of those for sale at the shop, he still had enough remaining and he continued to make them once they reached the city. This would enable more of the players in their guild to soon get to the city from Blackrock Town.
On the side of the Blackrock Town, they had Lizzie who was managing the shop and the second group of players ready to complete the quest. They had a significant advantage of higher-level players in the city at this moment and no other guilds wants to waste their time in fighting them. Moreover, they also had the advantage of dynamites which gave them a significant chance to overtake any others.
In this manner, the situation with the Crimson Realm guild was at a good starting point and Balthazar had enough time to explore the other regions right now. Moreover, he managed to reach level 13 while he was creating all the dynamites, the previous night.
It was the best time for him to explore other cities and get to know of the resources that would be available. The best part about having a guild was that collecting information through the guild was a lot easier than directly exploring. He had contribution points of the forging association but didn't use them as he had no idea what are the various resources that could be found in abundance at the surroundings of the city.
He immediately told Rudra of his dilemma and asked him to maintain a proper database with various levels of access at the guild. It was best to use a separate server to store such information. Luckily vita-nova allows one to access mails and other features available on the net and once, they found a secure storage vendor, this library could be easily maintained.
He also was a third-class citizen at the city currently and could use his reputation to get a hold of one hop to rent. He didn't do it previously because of the lack of coins. Now, it wasn't the same. Apart from the shop in the Blackrock Town, a number of players moved to the town through the portal in Blackrock hills to check the merchandize available. Though it is a small amount for using the portal once, a number of players in guilds made quite a few trips to get hold of money and were congregating at the shop. This itself provided him a decent income.
He also could complete his quest at the town Jarko to compete the quest given to him by the priest from the temple of the twelve. There was the third option of also continuing to the hills and get the weapons of the Lord of Shadows.
The faster he finishes this, the better it would be. But he wanted to take Merlin, Tetsujin, Slaine and Little White Feet along with a few others as he knew from the memory fragment that at the very least the same place was visited by the lords corresponding to warlock, martial artist, ranger and cleric. He also heard from the forums in his previous life that more than one player found unique equipment at that place. So, he preferred to take Merlin and his team along with Rudra and his old team to that place.
Even if none of them managed to get a unique armament, they would still me able to get some good equipment from the run. It was worth the attempt. The issue was to get them all to be ready for it. Moreover, he wanted to improve on their equipment and level before they went for it. Among all of them, only he was at level 13 and a couple of them at level 11, the remaining were all at level 10. They at the very least needed more level 10 equipment armed before they attempt it.
At this point, the only players in the White Heart City were all from the Crimson Realm guild. There were others who were attempting the same quest and would soon be able to get to the city. If the players in the beginner villages and towns knew which city they would end up at the end of their quest, most guilds would try to avoid White Heart City as Crimson Realm. But the thing was that no player would realize the nearest city till they reached the gates.
This was the main issue that Balthazar was facing right now. As he wanted his friends to increase their strengths, he had no other option than to go farming monsters and finish other quests at the city to increase their levels. He knew that the players of Foedus Rex would definitely be coming to the White Heart City and they would attempt to complete the same quest he wanted to finish.
He needed to make sure that he and his team attempts to get to the unique weapons before the players from Foedus Rex. The good thing and the advantage that he had was that despite the various routes that one could use from various villages and towns to reach the White Heart City, they all had to register at the main gate to enter the city to finish the quest.
This was where he could keep a lookout for the members of Foedus Rex like Sultan and the others. Moreover any guild that would find themselves at the White Heart City at the end of the quest would scramble to get more reputation and find a foothold for themselves at the city because they all knew that Crimson Realm had been here for more than a day.
The same was valid even for the players of Foedus Rex which was a super guild. The only thing that he didn't know was weather these players also received a quest from the beginner village or town like him or if they received it at the city. If it was at the city, it wasn't much of an issue, but if it was at the village, he was sure that they would try their best to attempt it as soon as possible.
This was something that he wanted to desperately avoid. From what he knew of the guild Foedus Rex, the star players of the guild had used V.R. suits in the previous games and they even used to practice wearing V.R suits in the previous V.R. games. So, even if they weren't accustomed to the somnium technology, they still had a decent practice with moving their bodies in games due to the V.R. suits.
This allowed all the super guilds main roster's to easily increase their familiarity with the somnium technology compared to others. They also had already hired a bunch of software professionals to use the samsara framework to create practice routines and sessions for the players. This was something that guilds teams did so that their players who showed decent talent could be well trained for competitions. Hence, he didn't want to take any chances with them.
He had asked Rudra to send a couple of players to station themselves at the gate. This was not really possible as there are not many missions around that place. The best way to do that was to get to join the city guards.
It isn't an easy thing to join city guards and most wouldn't find any decent rewards anytime soon. The guilds would only realize the value of them joining the various organizations in the game only in later stages. But, Balthazar knew about the advantages. The contribution points from these would be quite useful. These contribution points would have similar use to that of the White Bane corps but not as useful.
It wasn't easy to get into the city guards. They easiest way they could get into it was to accept missions. Registering new players to the city was the best option for them right now. It was something that provided contribution points based on the amount time they spent on it.
It was one of the simplest missions and extremely boring, but the best thing was that he could be sure that they could keep track of the new arrivals. It also didn't provide any experience. Hence, most considered it one of the worst missions in the game and hardly any player accepted it. There were such missions all over the game and they provided any decent returns on continuing the machine for a very long time.
He convinced Rudra that he needed someone on the lookout for players of super guilds at the main gate. He couldn't tell Rudra that he needed to lookout specifically for Foedus Rex players as he has no reason that would be convincing. He asked them to just continue till any super guild managed to reach the city only for the day. Most players that would manage to clear the quest at this stage would be guild players and he provided them a list of player names from his memory that they could check for. He told them that he went through the forums and these were the most probable the would reach the White Heart City and were in the vicinity from the map that he purchased.
With that part of the issue cleared, he had to do something else. It was to get hold of a shop in the city as soon as possible. He immediately went to the city hall to rent a new shop in the White Heart City.
Similar to the Blackrock Town, the receptionist at the city hall guided him to a registrar and he was shown a list of the available properties in the city. He chose one close to the Colosseum in the city. It would be quite a popular place almost on par with the market as it would soon be filled with players who would be very interested in getting better equipment to win at their fights in the Colosseum.
His guild had been earning a decent amount of money from the shop in the Blackrock Town which he could use to purchase a shop instead of renting it. So, he chose a good shop but it cost 500 gold.
Though the shop was earning a decent amount of gold, it would take some time to get a return of about 500 gold.
"The guild needed quite an amount to buy resources too. Taking 500 gold at this stage might actually do more harm than good," thought Balthazar and decided to buy the shop later as he was in no hurry. "There isn't much use in buying a shop now anyways. With the amount of players in the city, right now it would be a total waste to open it now," he thought.
While he was searching for the shop in the list provided to him at the city hall, Rudra collected some basic information from the members of his guild. Their reports were as he expected from his knowledge of the surroundings of the city.
He immediately met up with Merlin and his team. Rudra also led Slaine, Rick, Harry and the three other members whom he trusted to stay in the guild for a long time. Balthazar told Rudra to get players he trusted completely as he intended to take them to a special quest after they increased their level and he was going to help them with it.
There was a forest surrounding the city on three ends and a grass land on one end. Balthazar chose to go for the grassland. The place he wanted to search for unique weapons was in the forest at a small hell to the left of the grassland.
In the grassland, the monsters they found were similar to the ones, they found in the village. The main problem after level 10 was that they would need to properly attack at the right body parts of the monster or they might end up not receiving any resources when the forage.
As they went into the grassland, they found it inhabited by a herd of white horn deer. The white horn deer are same as any other deer and brown in color except that they had a long white horn on their snout and were about 7 feet tall. Their horns were used in alchemy rather than forging and other resources that can be obtain were their skin and meat.
[White Horn Deer] (Common Monster)
Level 12:
HP: 4500/4500;
Despite their large size and the horns on their heads, they were docile monsters and would run away from players. The players had to disable them to hunt them down like they did with the antelopes at the Blackrock town.
Now, that they were above level 10, disabling monster was much easier for Shadow. Previously they needed to strangle or hold them down, but from level 10 onwards, the game would change so that a proper hit on a weak point would simply disable the monster and also deal a large amount of damage.