Almost an hour passed, and the cashier did his [dailies—stage 1], as he calls it.
First and foremost he went to the exploration section, the story mode, and used all the free and purchased attempts in quick battles. The purchased one uses gemstones called "Astrals", which look like purple diamonds. Regarding the story mode exploration, the cashier's high level, like other players with similar levels as him, barely levels up now and pushes the exploration stage (like once every three weeks). It's because the exp given per hour is fixed yet the exp they need gets bigger and bigger as their level increases. But about now, the cashier actually leveled up.
Second, he also uses all the available attempts from the other contents in the game that drop different resources and materials for characters which are called "Zeniths", for pets which are called "Mystics", for weapons, and for any other upgrades.
Third is buying resource packs (which may be dailies, weeklies, or monthlies) that cost money; if there were events (which usually include good to godly worth-it packs) currently happening, the cashier could spend up to 400-500 dollars within that event, which usually spans two weeks. If there are events and must-have limited characters in limited banners at the same time, the cashier could spend 500+ dollars. But regarding now, the cashier spent approximately 300 dollars only since the current events didn't require Kraken-tier spending and the currently limited characters are just repeats. But because of this chronic situation, he has always spent a portion of the bag of money some random person gave him right after when his parents went missing three years ago.
Fourth is just completing the remaining daily tasks to reach the maximum campaign points and get all the daily rewards.
Then, as is his usual case, from up to bottom and left to right he pressed buttons where red dots appeared. It usually means that some things must be seen or done there.
Lastly, the cashier spends a lot of time thinking about how to budget for the next days and so on, as well as looking for some information about upcoming events. That's why it took him almost an hour to complete stage 1 of his dailies.
Now for the second stage of his dailies; it's where things get more complicated and mental-draining. The first part is content pushing, and since the game is already in its very late stage, most players of the game, like the cashier, have so many strategies at their hands already, each with specific uses just to win better in most of the content available. For example, like any idle gacha RPG game, there usually is a player-vs-environment "tower".
However, there are two towers in Zenith Girls right from the get-go, which are the Tower of Babel and the Ex Machina Tower, and they are connected to the game's story. Regarding these, both have similar rewards and levels of difficulty from start to end, but they have entirely different weaknesses and strengths. That's why players, especially the rare f2ps, had a hard time progressing with this unique content in the early stages. But because of the unique playstyle and battle concept that the game has, the players forced themselves to push progress, although not that many remained.
And about the present time, the cashier also has countless strategies, especially now that he has reached a new mode of these towers. So speaking of the two towers, he pressed the button that leads to the screen of choosing which tower to enter.
"Oh, wait, let me peek at the rankings first." The cashier suddenly remembered about the Pyramid of Genesis, one of the PvP contents in the game where the second placer is the only one who has the attempt to fight the first placer's defense lineup, while the third placer to the second, and so on. He was supposed to open it later on, however, he recalled a certain player's private message to him, saying: [I've finally found a way, idiot!].
"Maybe AncientSigma already found a counter to my def-strat that was unchanged for a month already?" The cashier wondered, curious but in a mocking way. "Heh, as if!" He pridefully shouted as he was going to press the button that would lead to the Pyramid of Genesis. However, a red dot suddenly appeared in the inbox.
"Ugh, again? What is it gonna be this time?" Not caring much about it the cashier quickly pressed the inbox button. It's the fifth time since the daily reset, in which one of these was an announcement about the 1st-ranked player replacing him in a certain spot in a resource gathering content. "He still has a grudge on me, doesn't he?" The cashier got a little bit worried about it.
But instead of finding a similar notice, he got a [You have received a universal item!] instead. "Wait, what?" His expression was a mix of shock and disbelief, as it was an item that players never imagined to be an actual item, let alone receiving it out of nowhere. The last time he showed a face like the one he's having right now was when he knew for the first time that males could actually insert their thingy into the female's thingy and be happy after releasing white glue or something.
[Zenith Portal x1]
The cashier shook his head (too much), and closed the inbox section but re-opened it again. He grabbed his phone closer to his face, reading the message: [You have received a universal item! Congratulations! --Zenith Portal x1--] His mental capacity was drained despite not even going to the PvP contents yet. That was how unbelievable of a moment it was.
But he still hasn't claimed it. Instead, he went to the global chats and asked about it. A player in another server, who has always claimed that he has access to future content, replied that it's just a ticket entry (+1 attempt) to some new upcoming event or content.
[Why did they give this now though?]
[Duh, the current events' ending, bruh. And Garden of Wars was put a month ago already, bruh.]
"What, really? Damn, here I was expecting more on it." The cashier sighed in disappointment. The other player's thinking is also accurate since the game keeps on producing new content every month and new events every one or two weeks. That's how p2w it was, or so he thought. But what he wanted it to be was just that by using this item his account could change servers.
"Why did I even think it was similar to RoK or Grand Cross? Fuck." The cashier gritted his teeth. It's all because this server is widely known in the game as the "Den of Krakens and Titans". If in the game there is an actual T.Babel monster named "Kraken" and in T.Machina monster named "Titan", then in the server that I am in, it is full of those shits, or so he thought in anguish.
"Ugh, fuck that." He muttered as he carelessly opened the inbox and claimed the item Zenith Portal.
However, there is still this other side of the cashier where he thinks that it can make his account change servers. That's how much he hates [server 5 - Miscelania]. During the early to almost-late stages of the game, the leaderboards of most cross-server PvP contents are usually occupied by players with [server 5] labels, with the usual occurrence being 15 [server 5] players out of 20 in the top 20. The cashier barely occupies the top 20 spot in most cross-server contents.
"Please, just please!" The cashier looked above and begged for his life in this game. He never wanted to be on server 5, but because of his carelessness in spending a huge chunk of money some stranger had given him on the day he first started playing the game (where he coincidentally was at server 5), he now had to work two part-time jobs and sleep for 5 hours a day just to sustain his spending spree and maintain his top 14 spot in that chaotic server.
"Please be server transfer! I wanna taste top 1!" The cashier presses the inventory button and there it is, the item [Zenith Portal x1]. Instead of the highest-rated item tier with the color white as the background color, the [Zenith Portal x1] is covered in black. The design of the portal was just like a portal from Manhwas with hunters or something; the blue one. But the one part that made the cashier shed tears of happiness was that the button [Use Item] was present (meaning it is usable now) and the description of the item itself.
[Zenith Portal x1 - When using the item you will be able to transfer yourself to a different world]
Just as he read the "different world" the cashier instantly pressed the [Use Item] button with no second thoughts. "Server 8, here I come!", he started grinning.
[Are you sure about this, player? There is no going back] A message on the screen popped up.
"That's weird, there is just the confirm button though. Devs are still shitty as ever."
He pressed the confirm button and a large loading bar on the screen popped up next, with a text below it saying: [transferring you now: 1.00%]
"What the hell is even this? Can't they go straight to the point instead? These devs really want to be unique too much."
An hour has passed, and the percentage finally reached 99.89%.
"What is even this shit? For devs' sake, it's just a server transfer!" He shouted in dismay as if he was burning in hell. He had it now, however, within that hour before, if he was really burning in hell then he was burning with an aura called "patience" since he never wavered and moved a finger, just for the sake of getting away from server 5. Luckily for him, there were no customers within that period.
Twenty minutes have passed, and the percentage went up to 99.95%
"Really, this is too much...
"This is too much, you motherfucking devs!!" The cashier shouted in frustration. He looked above and put both of his fists into the air as if punching air.
"Fucking...luna..."
There was a blue portal above him all this time.
"...tics-what the fuck is tha-"
Before the cashier could finish he got sucked into the portal, never be seen once more.
The phone and the blue portal itself disintegrated into dust thereafter, leaving behind no traces of abnormality in the whole convenience store.