"Damn! I don't believe this. It was hardly a few seconds before he called me," thought Balthazar he saw the calls. He could believe that Winston was calling him, but Bolena was unexpected. He decided to take Bolena's first as he put Winston's in waiting.
"What is it?"
"I just wanted to thank you for your help. I just got the papers giving me the permission to further continue my experiments. I have made arrangements to get back to Asklepian in a month or so when I am expecting that I would have all the test results for my research done so that I could move on to the next step," said Bolena.
"So, Congratulations?!"
"Thanks, but that isn't what I called you for. Winston realized that you were the one who helped me. He just had a not so friendly chat with me. He might be calling you, next. Wanted to give a warning."
"He already is calling," said Balthazar.
"Let me join the call, I will be alongside you. It wouldn't reduce his anger, but probably be a slight buffer against him."
"Grateful, but let it go. I think he has more than your situation to talk about. I will be taking his call now. Bye," said Balthazar as he changed the calls.
"You Idiot! What are you doing? First, you go ahead and help your sister with her ridiculous request. Can't you realize why I am doing it? We might need to call them back soon. The recent events were quite disturbing. Without our protection, she might not be safe there," shouted Winston as soon as he saw Balthazar's face.
"Now, I hear you are being a bounty hunter. Do you want to give me a heart stroke? Do you want me to die?" he continued shouting.
"Sorry, I didn't know that it was so serious. Bolena didn't tell me," said Balthazar in an apologetic tone.
"Of course, she didn't know. She doesn't understand how the incident would reflect on the parties involved. Considering the resurgence of them, there is a high chance the knights might attempt to kill you guys again. Even Robert's security is increase and we had plans to convince you to have someone beside you and you have plans to be a bounty hunter," he continued without accepting his apology.
"That is..," stuttered Balthazar. "Right. I am sorry about Bolena. I didn't think that far."
"Forget that. I am still fine with that. Her movements would be known and there will always be a couple of us looking out for her. Now, you are a different thing. You are going after the pirates or something after I have explicitly told you to not involve yourself with them," said Winston as he continued to shout.
"I am not going after them. I want to get a hold of the Nirbaadh pirates. I am just going after Dave. I believe he could help me with the knights," said Balthazar.
"Ah! Shut up. I don't care what you say. I wan't someone to partner with you," said Winston dismissing him.
"That is unnecessary."
"It is now. With those guys still alive, I don't know what to make of the situation. We have been operating on wrong intel for decades. So, I will send you a couple of bodyguards."
"Can it be Salazar?"
"Why?"
"I know him, and I am acquainted with him."
Suddenly another person joined their call. It was Arthur. "I saw the mail you forwarded," said Arthur. "I agree that it is not suggestible to go ahead under such circumstances. I also have called Walter to talk about it."
"Good. So, I hope he can get a guard to babysit him. I guess, Richard is already looking after Robert. It is best if we have someone continuously on him like Richard is on Robert," said Winston hoping that Arthur would quickly provide a person to look after his grandson.
"Walter and Daniel are of a different opinion," said Arthur. "They wanted to let him attempt whatever he intends to do."
"What?" shouted Winston. "That is ridiculous. Why? Why would they? What are they thinking?"
"I suggest you calm down Winston. It is not like they intend to harm him. You will realize that it might be for the best," said Arthur.
"For the best. I listened to that when Walter let him go into the military. He came back almost dead. I don't care for the best of the family. I care for him," shouted Walter. "And now they want him to go out as bait. I won't agree to it."
"Listen to me," yelled Arthur getting angry. "Get to your office. We will all talk there."
A few minutes later, the three of them were in Winston's office in the mansion. Arthur came in and explained the reason for Walter and Daniel to choose to let Balthazar do whatever he wanted to.
"So, he is not the bait," said Winston realizing his folly.
"Not at all, we have been under a lot of pressure because we are not sure about the others who might be in bed with the enemy. Someone clearly informed them that Max was made and being tailed by the whole force of the family. It was under wraps. Half the family didn't know about it. It is clear that someone betrayed us and is still unknown to us," said Arthur.
"So, who will be acting as me, if I go out?" asked Balthazar.
"It will be Salazar. He will be your guard when you are here and will replace you and act as you in your absence," said Arthur. "But you can't reveal you identity. Wear a disguise, change your appearance, some scars or something. Salazar will teach you. Apart from that, there is one last thing, that I need to tell you."
"There are more surprises?" asked Balthazar sceptical of his own words.
"Well, it is that they requested one of the table, to be with him at all times. Even during his travels as a bodyguard. He will only be with you when you are travelling to evaluate you," said Arthur.
"Evaluate me? For what?"
"To include you into the Table of Ouroboros."
"Didn't you people still think it was too early for him?" asked Winston.
"We had some misgivings and weren't sure, but Daniel insists that we best include him if he is capable. He helped us with stuff we never managed to and this way, you can be assured of a modicum of security being focused on him during his travels. He doesn't want to go over your head. So, all of this is currently a suggestion. It depends whether you accept it," explained Arthur.
"I do," said Balthazar immediately.
"No. Wait. Think about it. It is a very risky thing to do."
"No, you think," shouted Balthazar. "I am more or less capable. This is the best way to move forward. More men after me implies less after Bolena and Robert. We need to get any personnel if involved to be handled soon. Else, the risk would only get greater. This is the best time," he explained.
"Fine. Let it be so."
"Good. I would introduce you to your new friend. He is waiting outside," said Arthur as he opened the door allowing a man who looked slightly older than Robert and a bit more than 6 feet tall. He had a thin and pallid face with green eyes and brown complexion. He had sholder-length dark brown hair that he had tied in ponytail.
"This is Glen Fitch. He had joined us a couple of years ago and is the youngest among us. This could be considered as a trial to the both of you," said Arthur introducing the man.
"I thought you were dead," said Winston looking at the guy. "You are Herbert's brother, right? The one who saved him and went missing when that station was razed during.."
"Yes. Yes. That it is. He had joined us after that incident. He decided to join us completely as he didn't have any intention to continue as his father desired," said Arthur.
"I am the same guy," said Glen shaking Winston's hand. "I took this job because I don't like to life as my father did and as my brother wants to. I decided to join the outfit."
"Nice to meet you, Balthazar," said Glen shaking his hand. "I will share my contact information and I hope we can work together effectively. I have been already informed by Arthur about the situation. Consider me your man, someone you hired. You are the person in charge, even though I have become a part of the table. I am just going to listen to your orders."
"You will be given his details. You can contact him whenever you plan to leave the mansion, but bear in mind that if you fail to stick to the plan, we will make sure that you will be confined to your room in the mansion. Even access to dining hall would be lost to you. I hope you don't disappoint," said Arthur sternly.
Exchanging contact information with Balthazar, Glen Fitch and Arthur got out of the office. "I am not really comfortable with that guy. I didn't want to be along with him. He was Herbert's brother. Their father is known to be a miser and considers nothing more important than getting more power."
"Wait. Before you talk any further. The man is all you told he was, but Glen was different. He was supposed to marry someone else, but he loved someone different. He went ahead and married the person he loved, and his father tried to kill him. He was missing along with his wife after that. Now, we know who helped him," said Winston.
"You are sure?"
"Yes, we are. That was one of the black marks of that old coot, Archie. It was kept a secret from most of the world as the council decided against it, but it had an adverse effect on his power. So, I am sure of it," said Winston.
"I will give it a try," said Balthazar.
"No. This is a gift horse. Glen was known to have issue with authority. So, he might have sounded a bit off when he was assigned under you. So, there might be a friction. You should understand that it is as much of a test to him as it is to you. They will also ask for your reports after his own reports. You are closer to getting into their circle sooner than I hoped," said Winston.
"I will cooperate," said Balthazar as he made way to his room. He put on the helmet and with Rudra and his team continued to explore the area around the Welog town in the direction of the Jarko town. Knowing that he would probably be unable to play for some time when he was after them, his main priority was to increase his level. So, he continued till he reached level 17.
Once, they reach level 20, they would be stuck in it or increase experience very slowly, if they don't improve to tier 1. That was one thing that would keep the players from increasing their levels fast when he was unable to play. This was both a good thing and bad from Balthazar's perspective. The Tier 1 test would be hard and to get through it one would need better equipment and consumables which would cause the importance of secondary occupations to increase and also the skills of professional players who focus on them.
The secondary occupations in vita-nova were much harder than others due to the nature of the game, but this time would put enough stress and resources would be given to such players by guild to help them improve. This would help improve even the resource collection which is only possible if they improve their skills in attacking the monsters.
The levels and development of the secondary occupations was still not his main problem in the game. It was his own equipment that was most troubling to him. He had two unique equipment and he needed to upgrade which was going very slowly. It will become very hard for him to improve further if he didn't tackle this problem.
The most important thing that he needed to do was kill monsters of the dark faction or void to upgrade his equipment or void race species. There was no decent place to hunt for dark faction other than the level 15 dungeon. So, despite the fact that he would get very little experience in killing the species as he crossed the max level of the dungeon, he went to farm those monsters alone.
After a few hours, he managed to get his mask upgraded once to level 10, but he didn't want to continue as it was taking a lot of time to kill these creatures and he only did so that the effects of the mask wouldn't decrease.
Though the mask was upgraded, the main thing that he needed to upgrade was his weapon, the void dragon's talons. Luckily, he had other ways to upgrade his weapons. Void race species or dragon race species could also be killed. Void race was a race rarely found in the game and he had no way to get to such places. It would only be found close to the regions occupied by elves. The closest to dragon race that could be considered at level 20 was the knuckler species and it would very hard to kill them. They were more like snakes and found in marsh like places.
He knew enough of the game to get to a place where he could find such areas. The problem was that it wasn't in the White Heart Kingdom. He needed to get close to the Greybark marshlands in the border between Five Elements Empire and the Spritewar Empire of the fae region. Crossing empires need special items if one intended to use teleportation. Passes that would allow players to go to another empire which can only be found in the destination empire and one would need to barter or exchange these passes with players of the other empire if they intended to go there. These passes could also be used to get to places in the country where a person hasn't been there. One needed to be a first-class citizen of the location they wanted the pass for.
Before, he didn't have a way, but he remembered that the Divine Swords had made efforts to develop in the fae region mainly in the Spritewar Empire and the Pixplatin Kingdom. He could use them to get to the Five Elements Empire. It was also good, if they could develop close to another guild who had intentions to cooperate alongside them. There was also another guild called Children of the Sun who competed with Divine Swords, so he was sure that they would accept a collaboration.
So, he immediately had Jack contact him to talk about it. A few minutes later, he found a member of the Divine Swords putting on a pass to a town in the Five Elements Empire in the auction house. This was one of the common ways to get items from different regions and through the auction house, he got the pass he required. In return for that he had also gave a couple of passes for BlackRock Town.
[MurkWater Town pass] (Special Item)
Can be used at teleportation portal to move to the MurkWater Town in the Five Elements Empire.
Remaining Uses: 3/5;
Getting the pass, he went to the bank and dumped all the materials that he collected, cleared his bag space an immediately went to the teleportation portal at the White Heart City. A couple of seconds later, he was at the Murk Water town. Though it was clear that it had already been used twice, he didn't care as it would be very hard to find a pass to a place where one couldn't find a pass which was to a place where the person didn't have their base.