The evening of the banquet had arrived and John was busy getting ready in his room.
He had spent twenty-four hours straight in game in order to complete the class quest Bengal had given him, he managed to level up to twenty, received another skill point and also Bengal's word that if she approved of his friends, then she would bless them.
Luckily he was able to inform Alea about his quest and she along with Thasinia had used some sort of magic to make it so his body would not require any food or water during that time, he was unsure what they did but Alea had warned him that this could not be done often and advised him against accepting such quests regularly.
Sarah had explained to John exactly what Pride Rock was while he was learning to be a tiger.
Apparently Pride Rock was a special kind of raid called a resource raid, the idea was that whoever cleared the raid first would gain exclusive control of the raid location allowing them to set up cost's players had to pay if they wished to enter the raid location to gather the resources and also access right's which allowed the owner to block access to select players.
Resource raids where what they sounded like, a place abundant in resources, resources could be limited to only one type such as ore to be mined or it could have several types including ore to mine, herbs to gather, leather to collect from animals, as long as it was classed as a resource in Genesis then a resource raid could contain it.
Pride rock the resource raid that Sarah was talking about contained an abundance of resources, including all those mentioned before as well as places to fish, a variety of animals to hunt for meat as well as leather, jewelry to mine alongside the ore and many more.
This was why Pride Rock was such a contested raid among the humans, Sarah explained that the humans may look united on the surface but that was only for show so their enemies did not attack them constantly.
Underneath however the human race consisted of three major factions, first was the imperial faction, this was obviously the Imperial family and their allies, Alexia, Adria and Sarah were of course part of this faction.
Next was the anti imperial faction, this was mainly made up of several powerful ministerial families who were not happy that they were ruled over by the imperial family and wanted to take them down so they could claim power for themselves, obviously if they ever did manage to take down the imperial family a civil war would break out as the ministerial families fought to see who would take the throne, however they did not care about this or the little folk that would be hurt as long as they gained more power.
This faction included people like Daniel Sanders and his sister.
The final faction was the necromancers, while not every necromancer was a part of this faction the majority where, this factions goal was the same as the ministerial in that they wanted to claim the throne for themselves and put the head necromancer, someone named Markus De-wright on it.
According to Sarah, when Pride Rock was discovered the anti imperial and necromancer factions both saw this as a chance to weaken the imperial factions public image.
Empress Alexia was pressured by many powerful ministers who pretended to be on the imperial factions side into having Princess Adria form her own team to claim Pride Rock, the other factions then spread this news to the populace so that it was common knowledge.
After that the two other factions formed their own teams to concur Pride Rock before Adria's team, thereby damaging the image of the imperial family by claiming the imperial princess was not as strong a combatant and leader as the members of the other two factions who were of similar age.
Along with the two official teams the anti imperial and necromancer factions formed, they also created small teams designed specifically to target and kill Adria's team, they normally did this when her team was engaged in combat with the lions of pride rock.
Pride Rocks enemies players had to face where lions, however a resource raid is not like a normal dungeon or raid where you just have to fight your way through the trash to the final boss and you complete the dungeon or raid when you kill the boss.
No it was a capture scenario, the idea was that after fighting your way through all the trash mobs and mini bosses to reach the end of the dungeon, you would find a capture point, this capture point differed depending on the raid however for Pride Rock it was a giant flat circular rock.
The idea was that once your team stepped into the capture point at least one member would have to survive for six hours, if every team member died or left the capture point then it would fail and you would have to start all over again.
While in the capture point waves off enemies would attack one after the other progressively getting stronger and stronger until either you succeeded or you failed.
The unique thing was that only one team could challenge the capture point at a time, once the capture trial started a barrier would go up that blocked all other players from entering, while the other teams could watch your attempt from outside they could do nothing to interfere.
Sarah's plan was simple: after the banquet was complete, John would bring Adria to the Emerald Enclave for her to be blessed by Bengal.
Afterwards they would all head to Pride Rock and capture it before the other factions could figure out how to beat the waves of lions.
Pride Rock had been discovered a couple of months ago but was still undefeated as none of the factions could figure out how to beat the wave where several bosses appeared during the trial.
Normally Sarah Vulxis and John would be far to low level to even think of entering a raid yet, however because of the blessing that stopped all cat species from attacking them unless they attacked first, the idea was to just head up to the capture point while avoiding any other humans and when they get there chance they would all just sit on the capture point for six hours.
Since no cat species should be willing to attack them and no other players would be able to reach them, they should be perfectly safe to capture the resource raid for the imperial faction thereby causing the other two factions to shoot themselves in the foot since it was their scheme that put Adria there in the first place.
John had not left his room all day after leaving Genesis because he didn't want to get in the way of any preparations the elves were making for this night.
He did however notice from his balcony that overlooked the city that the representatives of each race seemed to arrive into the city throughout the day as many more electric car convoys than normal were entering the city gates and they all had different flags on the bonnet to represent their race.
Alea had done what she said and requested that Ayduin make a suit for John, and since he already knew his measurements, John had to admit it was a beautiful piece of work.
It was a three piece tuxedo that had a black jacket with a dark green interior that showed on the folds above the buttons.
The waistcoat was the same dark green color with a silver chain that attached from the waistcoat's middle button to the left pocket.
He had a black tie that was worn over a white shirt with the tie having a silver clip that fastened to it that then became a stain silver chain that wrapped around the tie and fastened behind it.
The trousers were the same dark green as the waistcoat while he wore black shoes.
Alea, knowing that John would never have worn anything like this before, arranged for someone to instruct him on how to wear such a high class outfit.
As John studied himself in the mirror he had to admit that he really did look good in it thanks to also having his hair trimmed recently.
At this time a knock was heard from the door and as John opened it he found it to be Thasinia standing outside wearing a beautiful off the shoulder split thigh silver dress that matched with her hair color.
"Well now don't you look handsome." Thasinia said with a smile.
"And you look very beautiful." John replied, causing Thasinia's smile to increase.
"I'm here to escort you to where your three dates are waiting, after all we can't have the big surprise being leaked before the big reveal." She said with a smirk.
John nodded as he closed his door before turning to Thasinia and offering him arm as he said.
"Shall we."
Thasinia smiled again before sliding her arm through his and replying.
"We shall, thank you sir."
After which she led him along the palace corridors.
As they walked John noticed something which caused him to ask.
"Are we not supposed to wear our access bands tonight?"
John was looking at Thasinia's wrist where normally her access band would be, however tonight she instead wore a silver bracelet that was carved to look like tree branches intertwined around her wrist.
"Oh this?" Thasinia giggled before suddenly the silver bracelet became her normal access band for a few seconds and then reverted back to the bracelet.
Enjoying the look of surprise on John's face she explained.
"I am using a simple illusion spell on my access band to make it appear to be this bracelet."
John nodded in understanding before Thasinia continued.
"You will notice that a lot of people have something else on their wrist at these formal gatherings while others have their access band."
"It's a bit uncouth really but an unwritten rule is that those with magic should proudly show it by using an illusion spell on their access bands and making them appear as something else."
"After all, outside the Elves who can all use magic and Draconian who it's very rare not to be able to use magic, most races have a very small number of magic users."
"I think in your human race only around fifty percent can use magic."
Seeing the slight concern in John's eyes Thasinia smiled warmly before saying.
"Don't concern yourself with this however, as all those whose opinion should matter to you ether know already you have magic capability and your just waiting for the poison to vanish completely or they are actually not worth your friendship if they do say anything."
John nodded in agreement and a few minutes later they arrived outside a room.
"Get ready for a treat." Thasinia teased before knocking on the door after which they heard Alea say.
"Come in."