Game’s Dogma

Booksy Swordsman was the guild master and a decent fighter, but in terms of reputation and status in the guild, Handsome Scholar and Idyllic Poet came really close to him.

Handsome Scholar was the number one cleric in the entire game. His dominating combat technique and exquisite skill deployment was worthy of his rank. Idyllic Poet was no simple girl either—she was the top mage in the guild. Specialising in fire spells, she had earned herself the nickname ‘Pyrowitch’.

The two of them never got along with one another. Still, they knew better than to argue at a moment like such.

‘The guild master… He seems a bit off.’

Idyllic Poet showed a helpless look on her charming face as she said, ‘Probably too much pressure? That’s how the world works. The higher you climb, the harder you fall. Like the siege event, Terrafirm would have been under our control if we had succeeded. But look at us now, basically dead in the water.’

Handsome Scholar also let out a rare sigh and said, ‘Power corrupts the mind.’ He then turned around and left.

‘Where ya going?’

‘To level up.’ He ended the conversation without even looking back.

A war of attrition followed afterwards. Every day, they cleared the dungeon until they had reached the daily limit, and even Drako Yau found it tedious and boring. Nothing but the skeleton king in Hell difficulty could put up enough of a fight to make him feel like he was actually in battle. Unlike other monsters, it attacked and defended like a person with self-consciousness. Normal monsters had predefined patterns, which made them predictable and repetitive to deal with after a few runs.

After getting an idea of what to expect in the dungeon, their squad never suffered any deaths in subsequent runs. They even let Drako Yau fight the skeleton king alone after it summoned its minions to get him pumped up. A Level 15 player dueling a Level 20 boss… No one would believe them even if they posted it on the forum.

Their days of farming the dungeon came with decent rewards for everyone. Apart from the gold earned by selling useless equipment, Hades and Soulsmith had also received their own epic-grade equipment. Hades was even lucky enough to have gotten a Level 20 epic weapon which ranked fourth on the Weapon Rank list. Night’s Venator and Moon Gazer had dropped out of the top 10, replaced by a myriad of Level 20 epic weapons.

Drako Yau also got the Skeleton King Helmet, adding another piece to his collection of the Skeleton King set. The rest of the drops were rare equipment that none of them needed, so they sold them all and split the gold instead.

As for their record, it had already been broken on the second day.

‘Empyreal Spire. Time: 30 minutes 34 seconds.’

It was a record which spelt despair for everyone else. Plenty of players believed that it was basically the limit of how quickly the dungeon could be cleared. Drako Yau and the squad also tried to challenge the record, but they never made it past the 33-minute mark. Three whole minutes was an unbridgeable gap. As such, they never received two pieces of epic equipment in a single run again.

Their levels also saw some improvement after farming the dungeon for several days.

Drako Yau, Level 16.

Zephyrwolf, Level 16.

Hades, Level 19.

Soulsmith, Level 18.

They asked Greenstone about his level enough times that he gave in finally and told them: he was Level 18.

The major guilds would definitely fight over a genius cleric who was Level 18, yet here he was, farming the dungeon together with them. Strangely enough, his name wasn’t visible on the cleric rankings. Greenstone didn’t explain the reason behind it, nor did they further inquire about it. If there was something like the Mask of the HIdden Dragon which could block others from detecting someone’s name, it wasn’t much of a surprise for an item which could prevent the system from registering someone onto the public rankings to exist.

On the surface, they had all levelled up once, but the truth was that Zephyrwolf and Drako Yau had earned enough experience to fill almost two whole experience bars, bringing them close to Level 17 from Level 15. The same amount of experience was only enough for Hades and Soulsmith to level up from Level 18 to Level 19 with half their experience bar filled beforehand.

Higher levels were more difficult to attain, such was Real World.

Near the demon cities of Evergrand and Terrafirm, Drako Yau’s and Booksy Swordsman’s squads were gathering outside their respective dungeons.

It was the fifth day since the dungeon was made available. In the past few days, many had challenged the dungeon in Hell difficulty, but none had encountered the mysterious Demon Castellan.

In contrast to the impatient Booksy Swordsman, Drako Yau and his squad were as cool as a cucumber. It was a matter of luck anyways. They thought if they were meant to encounter the Demon Castellan, they would meet it eventually.

‘All set? Then let’s go’, said Drako Yau, as calm as always. The squad then stepped onto the teleportation array.

Booksy Swordsman, with a tint of anxiousness in his eyes, exclaimed, ‘Into the dungeon!’ Handsome Scholar, Idyllic Poet, and the other two members silently followed behind him and entered the dungeon.

The moment Drako Yau and his squad entered the dungeon, they heard the system’s voice. ‘Discovered the Demon Castellan. Triggered hidden quest: Liberate the Demon City.’

The same voice announced the same words to Age of Scholar’s squad members at the Terrafirm dungeon.

The two squads had coincidentally entered the dungeon at the exact same time and received the notification together. Booksy Swordsman didn’t even have time to celebrate as the system made another announcement in quick succession. ‘Another squad has also triggered the hidden quest. Entering hidden mode: Where Rivals Meet. Members will be teleported in 10 seconds.’

‘Ten, nine…’

The 10 of them vanished from their original spot before they could comprehend what the announcement meant.

For a moment, they were in a half hazy, half conscious state. The scenery had already changed completely when they focused their eyes after recovering from their hazy state. The two cities were nowhere to be found, replaced an endless, dark purple plains with ups and downs all over the place.

A pearl white, disc-shaped dome covered the players, acting like a protective barrier. Drako Yau tried to give it a push, but a gentle force repelled his hand. There seemed to be no way out of it.

The system didn’t make them wait too long, and it soon made another announcement.

‘The Demon Castellan resides and lies dormant in this place. There are five Towers of Imprisonment, and each can be claimed by occupying it for 15 minutes. The squad which claims three or more towers will be the victors. The losers will be teleported out of the dungeon, while the victors will be healed and resurrected to challenge the Demon Castellan.

‘Mavericks can be resurrected as well.

‘When occupying a tower, the timer will reset if an enemy member enters the tower. The timer will not restart until only one team remains in the tower.

‘System protection will end in one minute. Where Rivals Meet, now commencing.’