Epoch: A Berserker's Rise

Adam sat with his three friends, bringing back their attention to him. After a moment, Joe, one of his friends, slapped him and on the shoulder and said "Look at you, drawing everyone's attention. A real diva!"

Adam rolled his eyes and Joe got slapped behind the head by his girlfriend, Sarah, who sat next to him. She smiled at Adam and said "Don't listen to this idiot. Care to explain though? Did you join Aeolus?"

"What do you mean? How could I possibly join them?"

Adam's third friend, Laura, snickered "You didn't even hide your face, did you think we wouldn't find out about your achievements, Valiant Heart?"

He smiled and said "I guess I should have expected it. But to answer your question, no, I didn't join them. In fact, I am creating a guild myself. Divine Predators."

Laura whistled "Wow, impressive big man. I'm sure mommy's proud of her little boy!"

Adam sneered back "She sure is. What about you, I heard they run speed datings in a nearby bar. Is that why you're here loner?"

Laura clicked her tongue and said "Not my fault if they don't have taste." Adam replied "Even a masochist would get scared of you."

Laura screeched "What did you say!" Adam quickly raised his coaster, blocking a spit from Laura, and took a sip of his beer before saying "That's what I am talking about. You can't just spit at people, you'll get arrested once again."

She crossed her arms under her chest, making it a little bigger as she said "I didn't do much…"

Joe intervened "You broke that guy's knee Laura." She looked away and didn't say anything, she was ignoring him.

Joe said "You little…" But Sarah patted his arm and said "Don't be a child. So, let's…" She was about to speak when she suddenly halted, looking at the sit next to Adam, as did the others.

There, East Wind had taken a sit, handing her hand to Adam. She said with her graceful voice "Hi, I'm Samantha."

Adam felt it was quite rude of her to just sit next to him, but because she didn't seem to have any bad intention, and maybe, maybe, because she was beautiful, he didn't break her hand but rather shook her hand.

As expected, she didn't try a vain contest of strength because of what he allowed her to sense, so he said "Adam. What can I do for you?"

Samantha smiled and said "I want to know you. Or rather, I want to know why I don't know you." Adam replied "I would say because we never met. And you probably haven't been paying attention to the news recently."

She crossed her legs and wiped out her phone, which looked more expensive than Adam's house, and said "What should I search?"

Adam replied "Valiant Heart. Be quick, you are making this awkward." She looked up from her phone and said "Who cares what those people think, they've got nothing better to do than gawk at celebrities. Since you game me an ID, I guess you are playing Epoch. Which guild are you in?"

"Divine Predator."

Sam was confused, she never heard of that guild either. She knew the names of all the Super Guilds in the world, and although the same couldn't be said about First Tier Guild, she was at least familiar with the vast majority of them.

She quickly found everything about Adam on the net, and after a moment she said "So you are the newcomer who has been making waves recently… Interesting. My ID in game is East Wind, send me a friend request, in case you ever need help. Well, it was nice meeting you. Good night to you and your silent friends."

She got up and walked away under the stares of everyone, while Adam smirked inwardly. She was obviously talking about tomorrow's fight, offering her help in exchange of a favor. What she didn't know was that he didn't need her help at all.

Once she was gone, the last two of Adam's friends joined them, the were two guys, a Japanese and a Tunisian, Saito and Sami. They sat next to Adam and Saito asked "How? Why? What?"

Adam shrugged and said "It just kind of happened. And you don't need to be shocked, she's just the member of a First Tier Guild."

Saito took his head between his arms and said "She's not just the member of any guild, she is a member of Aeolus, and its potential guild leader. My guild is under Aeolus!"

Adam raised an eyebrow, so that's what the fuss was about. Since the moment he had created his guild, he hadn't even thought of inviting his five friends in it even once, because they already had their own guilds, and he knew they cared about them, and putting them in a dilemma by asking them to join his guild would be cruel.

All five of them were elite members of Second Tier Guilds, Saito was in Ronin, Joe and Sarah in Chrisan, Laura in Savage Land and Sami in Exodus.

Now all sat down, Sami said "The guild you are going against, Blue Cemetery, my guild is actually at war with them. If you want, I can ask my guild leader to help."

Adam shook his head and replied "I'm thankful for the help, but I really don't need it. I would have ignored them in normal times, but I accepted the challenge because I want to use this as an ad for my newly formed guild. Asking help would make this useless. And don't worry, I'm fully confidant I will win."

His friends looked at him with some doubt, but said nothing. They knew Adam had his pride, and he would rather fail than ask for help for such a matter.

Moreover, with his recent achievements, they actually felt like he could pull off a miracle. After all, they had seen too what he did in Rosewatch, including pulling off that super powerful spell from within the scroll.

Following that they all talked about the start of their own adventures in the game, which were smoother than Adam's since they already had guilds to help them, but they mainly got low ranks quests.

After some time, they decided to go home as it was getting late, and thus bade their farewells to each other.

Once back home, Adam saw both his parents were home, but they were already asleep. Adam walked to his room and started training.

He had two things to train in. First was the 4th Gate, the Gate of View, which he needed to open. Then, there was also his cultivation which he needed to improve.

For his Gate of View, he already knew how to train it. Once opened, the Gate of View would give its user a perfect sense of space and balance as well as a perfect equilibrium. Adam believed that this Gate was like the first two and the conditions to open it would be no different from those he already knew.

That's why, all he needed to do was to train his balance to the max. But that wasn't the only thing he needed to improve, he also needed to improve his cultivation.

Right now he was in the Bronze Realm, and in game one needed to gain XP to level up and get stronger in the realm. However, this wasn't an option in the real world.

Adam still had an idea though about how he could strengthen his cultivation. The name he had given his current realm was Bronze rank, but since he entered the realm a name constantly came back to his mind, and that was Qi Gathering.

In many novels Old Adam had read, the first two realms were Body Strengthening and Qi Gathering. And from what he saw, that was exactly what was happening. The Iron Rank would make someone strengthen their body to the max, and then the Bronze Rank would be about accumulating more and more Qi.

That would mean he is currently in the first level of the Qi Gathering Realm, and Samantha was probably in the last level.

What made him think like that was that she had just a little less Aura, or Qi than him despite not having opened the Third Gate.