Aincrad's 11th Floor, Taft.
This is the main street area of Aincrad's 11th Floor, the closest town to the staircase leading to the 10th Floor.
Currently, the front-line clearing group of players has expanded the floors up to the 26th, so this isn't where top-tier players would normally stay. It's frequented by mid-tier players instead.
However, mid-tier players are the mainstream in this world.
After all, not everyone can become a top-tier player qualified to join the clearing group. Being brave enough to leave the starting town and venture outside already makes a player quite courageous.
Thus, compared to the sparsely populated front-line area reserved for the elite players, this area is relatively lively. With occasional lower-level players transferring here from lower floors for sightseeing, Taft is quite popular.
As a result, a stone tablet placed under a white pavilion in the center of Taft's plaza is emitting bursts of pale-blue radiance, causing players to appear and disappear in succession.
This is the teleport gate plaza of Taft.
At a certain moment, the teleport gate connecting to various cleared floors once again lit up, and a player appeared within the blue radiance.
The person who arrived here was naturally Rozen.
"Is this the place?"
Rozen glanced around.
"Gu!"
The Rainbow Butterfly fluttered beside him, flapping its wings and emitting its habitual sound.
This sound immediately attracted the attention of the surrounding players.
"What... what is that?"
"A monster...?"
"Wow! It's so beautiful!"
"Wait! How can there be a monster inside the safe zone!?"
"Could it be... a familiar?"
"Hold on... a rainbow-colored butterfly...?"
"Could that be...!?"
Players stared wide-eyed at first, looking bewildered, then as if they had remembered something, their expressions turned to astonishment.
Seeing this, Rozen frowned and quickened his pace, leaving the area.
The surrounding players finally caught on.
"T-That player just now... was that 'Magus'!?"
"Oh my goodness! I actually saw 'Magus'!"
"Why would the leader of the front-line clearing group appear here?"
"Who knows..."
Players were immediately excited, puzzled, stunned, and exchanged glances, causing waves of commotion that didn't settle down until quite some time later.
...
On the other side, with the Rainbow Butterfly, Rozen walked into a narrow alley, feeling somewhat helpless.
"Being too famous isn't a good thing either."
"Gu!"
Hearing Rozen's helpless tone, the Rainbow Butterfly made a somewhat pitiful sound.
"Alright, it's not your fault."
Rozen extended his hand and patted the little creature's head.
"But continuing to having you out would bring all sorts of trouble. Could you bear to go inside for now?"
Saying this, Rozen reached into the physical pouch at his waist and took out an item.
That was a crystal shimmering with a beautiful luster.
In Sword Art Online (SAO), there are various types of items.
Among the numerous items, the most popular ones among players are undoubtedly the crystal items.
They each have different functions and effects based on their types.
Regardless of the type, these crystals can all take effect instantly, making them exceptionally rare items that resemble magic.
These items are categorized by color.
There are blue crystals for instant teleportation, called "Teleport Crystals."
There are pink crystals for restoring HP, instantly replenishing all HP values, called "Healing Crystals."
And then there are green crystals for dispelling abnormal status effects, not just poison, but also paralysis, blindness, poison and more, called "Curing Crystals."
Various crystal items have instant activation and the best performance, which makes them quite expensive. Even top-tier players in the clearing group are reluctant to use them, only resorting to them in real crisis situations or when in a hurry.
The crystal that Rozen took out now was one of these crystal items.
However, this crystal wasn't blue, pink, or even green. Instead, it was a very peculiar multicolored crystal, dazzling like a rainbow.
If any other player were here and saw this crystal, they would surely be surprised.
Because in SAO, there were no crystal items of this color.
Crystal items were usually of a single pure color, each color having a specific purpose. This multicolored situation simply didn't exist.
In fact, besides Rozen, there was no one else in this world who possessed this type of crystal item.
The reason was simple.
This crystal item was custom-made.
More accurately, it was a special custom-made item that Rozen obtained after completing a long and challenging quest, a unique item called the "Familiar Crystal." It was estimated that only he possessed it.
As the name implied, this was a crystal closely related to familiars.
Its function was similar to a player's inventory, except it wasn't used to store items, but to store familiars.
"You should enter the crystal for now."
Rozen raised the Familiar Crystal in his hand.
"Gu...."
The Rainbow Butterfly could only tilt its head, weakly extending its paw to touch the Familiar Crystal.
"Clang!"
The next second, the crystal emitted a rainbow glow, enveloping the Rainbow Butterfly and then drawing it inside the crystal.
Seeing this scene, Rozen couldn't help but smirk.
"If I had this kind of crystal back on the 1st Floor, I wouldn't have had to worry about being recognized as a beta tester."
Unfortunately, crystal items were rare and precious. They were absolutely unavailable on the 1st Floor.
"Anyway, let's go find Kirito."
Rozen put away the Familiar Crystal and then dashed out of the alley, heading towards the outskirts of Taft.
...
At this point, Rozen naturally didn't have to worry about encountering danger in the wild.
After nearly half a year of the game's operation, players had already deduced which levels were safe on what floors. They didn't need to worry about losing to monsters.
Generally, as long as a player's level was at least 10 levels higher than the floor's level, it was considered safe.
In other words, as long as a player was above level 20, on the 11th Floor, they wouldn't be absolutely safe, but as long as they didn't run into traps, boss-level monsters, or get surrounded by a large number of monsters, they wouldn't need to worry.
Rozen's level was 48.
For a level like this to venture into a place like the 11th Floor would be no problem.
Rozen immediately picked up his pace and made his way through the training area outside Taft, arriving at a forest.
As soon as he arrived, Rozen immediately spotted Kirito.
"Over here!"
Kirito waved his hand towards Rozen.
Rozen immediately halted his steps, his expression turning to surprise.
That was because there weren't just Kirito and Rozen present.
Next to Kirito, there was actually a group of players.