Chapter 37: The Forum!
Aakesh could only smile wryly after seeing the newly-installed application on the phone's home screen.
The app's icon was in the form of a battle arena, while its name was simply "Forum."
"Even here, they want the adventurers to battle," Aakesh mumbled, as he could only think of it as the reason behind the strange icon for a forum app.
Aakesh then tapped on the app, and soon, the usual buffering circle welcomed his sight.
Aakesh didn't have to wait for long, as only the next moment, a new screen appeared on the phone, with different topics and conversations.
On the left top of the screen was his photo, while on the right top was the icon of a pencil.
Aakesh understood what those things meant, so he tapped on his image, and the next moment, a new window containing his game details appeared.
There were his attributes, his level, and his title. There was also the class section, but it was dim and next to it was a glowing question mark.
When Aakesh tapped on it, he understood why the class section was dimmed: it was because he still hadn't received one.
Aakesh then tapped on the close window option as he returned to the forum. He didn't tap on the pencil icon but on the article at the top of the screen. It was pinned, so it must be important.
It introduced the class system of Panagea to Aakesh. There were countless classes in Myth Online, with several types.
The most famous were classes related to warriors, wizards, priests, summoners, blacksmiths, etc.
From the time the adventurers entered the game, the system would track their progress. Once any adventurer reached Level 10, the game system would introduce three classes to choose from depending on how they had played the game up until that point.
Aakesh finally understood why he got three classes related to either speed or strength.
Aakesh then returned his focus to the article. Adventurers didn't need to choose only classes from those three, as those were only the basic level of classes in Panagea.
There were quests, hidden classes, and myriads of ways to gain classes in Panagea.
The article then introduced one class that could only be unlocked by a quest, and it also showed quests for that.
[Class: The Necromancer
Description: A powerful spellcaster who can summon and control the dead, the Necromancer is a versatile class that can deal damage, summons minions, and debuff enemies. They have moderate HP but high intelligence. They can use abilities to summon skeletons, zombies, and other undead creatures to fight for them, as well as curses and damage-over-time spells to weaken enemies.
Quest: The Rise of the Necromancer
Objective: To unlock the Necromancer class, the adventurer must complete a series of tasks to prove their mastery over the dark arts
Step 1: The adventurer must gather a set of rare reagents, including bones from powerful monsters, a vial of blood from a vampire, and a page from an ancient grimoire.
Step 2: The adventurer must visit a remote graveyard at night and perform a ritual to summon a powerful spirit of death. The adventurer must defeat the spirit in the battle to prove their worth.
Step 3: The adventurer must visit a hidden tomb deep in a dungeon and recover an ancient ritual relic. The adventurer must fend off hordes of undead creatures to reach the relic.
Step 4: The adventurer must visit a powerful necromancer and prove their knowledge of the dark arts by answering a series of questions.
Step 5: The adventurer must complete a final test by summoning an undead army and using it to defeat a powerful boss.]
Aakesh couldn't help but become dumbfounded after reading the quests. It was as if the creator of the article didn't care whether the class Necromancer would become popular or not.
Even Aakesh became interested in knowing whether the quests would work or not, but when he read the comments under the article, he finally understood why the article's owner was so confident.
Player "Your Father": What an asshole!
Player "Fattyboy": Hey, Bastard! Don't let me see you in real life.
Player "Beast_in_Bed12": @#%$ @$#!$ %$@# @%%@$
The chat section was filled with obscene comments abusing the article's owner. Some were so obscene that even the forum had to censor them.
Even though the comments complained about the lies, for some reason, Aakesh felt that if he did the quests as told, he would unlock the class The Necromancer.
Aakesh was also interested in knowing who the article's owner was, but it was anonymously written, so Aakesh believed someone from H-Power to be behind this.
Time flew by, and around an hour passed in the blink of an eye.
Ring! Ring! Ring!
Aakesh became so immersed in reading articles and their comments that he didn't even know he had long surpassed the time he had set for logging out!
Only when the phone rang did Aakesh check the time. A helpless smile spread across his face as he found one hour to pass like that.
Aakesh then checked the number and found it to be unknown. Since the caller ID didn't show the number as spam, Aakesh answered, "Hello?"
"Hello, is this Aakesh speaking,"
A female voice came from the other side, surprising Aakesh.
"Yes, who is this?"
"I am Shachi. Aunty Taruna gave me this number." "Are you busy right now?"
Aakesh couldn't help but freeze when he heard the name.
"Yes, I am busy!" Aakesh immediately answered and cut the phone. He was too tense to talk to Shachi.
***
On the other side of the phone, a frown appeared on Shachi's face, as she didn't expect Aakesh to cut the phone.
Shachi was in her mid-twenties, the same age as Aakesh. Her complexion was a warm, sun-kissed wheaten hue, and her eyes were a rich chocolate brown. Her hair flowed down her shoulders and cascaded to her knees like a waterfall. Her natural beauty radiated from within, and her presence commanded attention.
"What happened?" Shachi's mother asked, seeing Shachi suddenly put down the phone with a frown.
***
Aakesh, who had only come down to spend some time with her friends before immersing himself back into the game, was given a direct stare by his mother.
***
A/N: The quests here aren't real, or are they?