Chapter 03

Tower of Sol

[Do you think they’ll really come?] The man’s voice in the communicator line was hoarse, as if he’d been on a fight that required him to use his neck as a shield.

As Thorn sat on his Victorian chair in the middle of the plainly designed room facing a large window, the vast orange plains filled his eyes as the dancing flowers moved with graceful waves that pulled his reply with a solid tone.

“They will. There is no reason to doubt that they will not use this chance to get what they wanted.”

The man on the other line let out a sigh of an old man. There were movements on the speaker receiver and his voice echoed after a sound with the impression of something with a liquid hitting a glass table. [But if they actually do that, will that only add up to their problems? Worst case, they may make TGG and Sylphs their enemies.]

“That’s also part of the situation that we don‘t want to happen. Imagine, if they succeed, then no one else, even the combined forces of the TGG and the Sylphs can match them. As of now, all I can say is that we are still in the disadvantage so moving on with our plans will have to take some few adjustments.”

[Then I will also prepare for their coming.]

Thorn put a hand on his left temple as he use that hand to support his head. Then he let out a sigh after a moment and minded a large winged monster landing on the veranda on his right side.

“Will you not join us this time?” He asked with pure and honest concern.

[Not now. Especially since my crew are hot on the trail of our failed quest last time.]

Thorn made a smile as he remembered that quest. He put a hand on the hilt of the sword resting on his chair’s right arm rest and played with his thumb on its tip. The clear bluish outline of the blade matched the bright orange light coming from the window. Thorn felt a sudden chill as his smile vanished and so stood up and went towards the window, stretching a hand as to touch and open the glass.

The fresh smell of nature entered his nose and that helped greatly to relax him. But that sensation was far from being real. It was just a bunch of electric signals that was created by the computer server and is directly fed to the brain to replicate the sense of smell.

But even though he knew that, the texture, the smell, the sight, the realism of the world called Virtual Reality was something that can be dubbed as the freedom that every person in the world so desperately seek out.

“You really won’t stop until you get it huh? You just remember my warning, Ronin, he is an unpredictable existence and I feel that he will become some sort of a moving gear and a blockade on our plans in the future.”

[Got it. But may I ask, why are you so cautious of a single man? If he really becomes a hindrance to our plans, you can always team up against him, right?]

The same sound of something moderately heavy in the hands echoed again in his ears and Thorn had an urge to get thirsty as he knew that Ronin was drinking wine again on the other line. But he just brushed it off as he went towards the veranda and stroked the head of the large monster who was waiting for him there.

Then at one corner of the room, an attractive woman appeared wearing what could be called an Elf’s outfit as seen in the LOTR.

He nodded at her and waved a hand as the woman made a Japanese gesture of bowing to a superior officer of a military organization. She took out a panel and the same appeared with a pop up sound on his vision.

Thorn studied it for a quick moment and nodded on the woman as he returned his attention to his dialogue.

“If he’s an enemy, then I will not hesitate. But right now, he’s still in the grey zone. Even so, something is telling me that he is moving in a world much different than ours. But that’s just me and my premonitions.”

[I don’t get you.] On the other line, Ronin drank with a long sip as the sound of glass hitting the table echoed back on his ears. [But I‘ll take your word as real warnings. Oh, by the way, I just saw the video for the launch of the Tower of Sol. Congratulations. You guys are now an official guild.]

This time, Thorn’s smile was natural. “Thanks. But I feel like I just added more pressure on them now that we are officially a Guild. I am worried that the enemy will make their move on the members.”

[Don‘t worry. I feel that nothing of that sort will happen since you have built your reputation long before you actually launched.]

“Heh. Reputation. Why do I feel like you’re just in a mood for sweet talks? Is the wine getting on your head now?”

[Hahaha…Yeah.]

“Well then, I’ll be looking forward for your update of the recent developments in the East. Can you do that?”

[Sure will, leader.]

“Heh. Good luck.”

[Yeah you too.]

As the line was cut, Thorn leaned back to see the red dressed woman waiting for him.

“Leader, the Union have finished their meeting. The news of the launch had spread throughout the Netizens just the way you planned it.”

She said while still bowing. Thorn put a hand on her shoulder and made her rise. He walked passed her and went for the Sky Wyvern that waited for him in the veranda. And while he worked on the straps on the neck and body of this 20m long monster, he spoke to her using a military commander’s tone.

“Alright. So what’s the Union’s general verdict?”

“The same with your overview. They recognized the threat of the brotherhood and the danger the Masked Organization wielded. A collaboration to retaliate is not far from happening now.”

Thorn faced her and smiles as she bowed her head to hide her reddened face. “Good work, Moonfang. Now what’s left is to prepare our forces.”

As the words echoed in the silent room, Thorn put his gaze back on the hologram panel that she gave him earlier. In it is a report of the incoming war videoed from the sky. It was the TGG’s forces’ report. A count at the bottom of the screen could be seen, 80000+, and the numbers were still rising.

It was the number of their forces, rallied all over the world. Mercenaries consisted almost 30% of their force and some are from the forces from their allies.

This war, as the video’s audio report said, was going to be one that will surely put a mark in the history of online gaming, and of course, in the history of Terroa. A grand view from above of an army of the same size gathered inside the walls of the greatest fortress of the Sylphs also told of the same threat to the Titans.

The reporter, the famous Kathleen Brew, logged in as a player reporter while riding a smaller Sky Wyvern with a white flag.

War preparations of the two groups are reaching their critical limit and who knows just how long until the real war actually begins. She had interviewed many famous players for their comments in this. She even did a special episode in the TV channel Terroa Day Today where the famous players expected to take part in this war shared their views and reactions.

The video in front of Thorn who now took his stance to ride the Sky Wyvern was just recorded a few minutes ago. Meaning, as of now, it’s just been broadcasted.

“I’m heading out to Dakar.” He told the woman as he boarded the creature. “You go get Cramer and the others and tell them to meet me at the base later.”

“What about Loni? She’s still investigating him.”

“Don’t mind her. I sent her on a mission.”

Moonfang bowed and retreated to the shadows and it wasn’t long before her presence disappeared. A silent cold wind crept over his skin as he ordered the creature to fly over the cliff facing the sea. The sight of their HQ that was a large castle overseeing the Clover Fields and Western Pacific Ocean came to his vision and he then circled around the tower where he came once and set course to the snow capped mountain range down south.

***

With a grand smile, FlowerLord waited for her very precious weapon to be finished with its last adjustments in the NPC shop in Dakar, the capital city of Senegal, a country founded by the first human settlements from Earth after the War of the Braves.

In Terroa, she was one of the few respected dignitary because of her unique style of snipe to melee combat maneuvers. In general, she was one of the strongest Engineers in the game.

She use Tier-2 AOE Ice Magic to hold back enemies from a distance, then quickly converts to sniping them with her S-ranked bow to finish them off.

When the enemies have high enough INT to at least cancel out a few points of the freezing effect, she then switches on using her Ceres to cut them down.

Her fighting style is one of the very first to actually start the trend of the Engineers who doesn’t have any specialty. She had many fans and followers. Her beauty is said to even match those who actually came from the Apollo Race and had 40% or more distributed points to their CHARM stats. But FlowerLord is just plainly a free spirit who, by chance, had a knack for fighting and is very observant of her surroundings, and not at all matched her “warrior” build.

She is a soloist, meaning she doesn’t actually go out with groups. She only have a few friends and those so called friends of hers are by no means weak players.

Since she was one of the first 100,000 players from all around the world, FlowerLord was also considered a relic from the very few surviving first generation semi-hybrid users. Her circles are all superstar players and of course that means that she is too. By now, she’s waiting in line for the Shop Keeper of the NPC Shop in the Production District of the city of Dakar to give her back her Ceres.

She made this place her base only six months ago because a new dungeon here was discovered that gave a lot of Alien artifacts as loot that was good as equipment modifier and enhancer. That said, after five months of hunting down the Boss-level alien, Cryptos, the Ceres who already reached the last stage of improvements as an S-ranked weapon now had a special privilege to add another stage on its improvements.

Of course, who wouldn’t be excited with this?

So when the Shop Keeper, a beginner user, took out the package from the opening that came from his side, he stared at the face of the owner and asked curiously.

“Where did you get this item?”

“Hm?” FlowerLord looked at him with a frown. “I hunted down Cryptos.”

“You mean that super hard mission from the kid in the Market Place?”

“That’s right.” She said with a smile and stepped out of the shop. Though the guy called out to her, she just ignored him along with the stares of the people waiting in line on the NPC Shop.

She went towards the direction of the plaza and read the new specs of her weapon.

The Ceres, her very own invention, is now officially an artifact and its various changes in properties proved to be worth the time and effort on going all out to get it.

Before, Ceres is a weapon she so desperately tried to improve into becoming an invention with at least a few or just a single magical attribute. She tried to create a part in the blade’s core from talisman materials but she failed countless times, wasting away effort, materials, and money along the way.

That’s because once a finished product is tried to be improved but the procedure fails, the whole weapon becomes a scrap equipment. Not only it looses a lot of durability, its damage output also drops significantly.

She had experienced it many times and learned a lot of lessons in them. But she still pursued and improved the designs until finally she landed on the design that would improve Ceres beyond her imagination.

The only thing left is an H-class item Black Ball that only commander level Type-1 aliens give out as loots for a few specific quest or missions. And considering its rarity, Black Ball is an item given only to those who are worthy of its gifts and surpassed the challenge.

The game’s system decides that.

As reference, Type-1 aliens are devils. Human sized, black skinned, snake eyed, sharp claws, two horns on the head, an arrow tip tail, dark wings, and a hunting difficulty of “Dragon”. Yes. They are as strong and as cunning to hunt as dragons. But, in all respect, Dragons are still the most feared creatures in Terroa.

Because even if Type-1 aliens are considered on the same difficulty as dragon hunts, the mere fact that a Dragon’s size and its reptilian muscular physique are few of its weapons itself, that proved to be a large variable compared to hunting down aliens.

For this goal, FlowerLord hired Players and NPC Mercenaries to help her hunt the alien.

She had invested an incredible amount of Zentra in the past six months just to be where she is now. So, it made her one of the very few who actually achieved the almost impossible task of improving an already rare S-ranked weapon to another level called Dark Weapon.

The Black Ball is an alien Dark Technology item and its only purpose is to improve already maxed out gears and armaments to becoming Dark Weapons —that gives out the magical ability of controlling Dark Matter —the aliens’ main weapons technology’s material.

Now, her Ceres can kill monsters much easily. Its we is now lesser, she can command it to change into its hybrid form, the Dark Spear, that she can control even without touching it, and do piercing strikes and AOE damages —in exchange for a staggering manna and stamina cost, as normal.

It was this boost in abilities that made Alien Hunts coveted in the game. But alas, the reason why only few players actually go for them is because not only the rank of the mission is ridiculously high, the fact that it was a mission in itself was actually worrying. Only players brave enough to stake losing everything they have can actually go against that mission. But in exchange for the trouble, the reward is really hefty.

As she reached the Plaza, FlowerLord saw the still on going recruitment of the TGG in their upcoming war against the Sylphs.

Honestly, she doesn’t care about these wars and such that players dig since what she desired ever since she played Terroa is to go on adventures and collect rare weapons and treasures.

But when she looked at the window in front of her again, a smile emerged on her lips from the idea that she just thought.

Practice.

There is no better practice than the real deal.

So she went on to the guy from the TGG wearing a white and red themed uniform and informed him that she’ll be joining their mercenary ranks. But the guy only did a fleeting glance at her equipment and replied that he only accepts strong enough players.

Offended, she equipped her Ceres and converted it to its hybrid form, Dark Spear.

She stabbed the ground and the tip of the black spear pierced the ground between the man’s legs. The guy staggered from fear and shock and the commotion bid a few audience that attracted more people.

“I offer my help to your cause and you decline me?! I sincerely hope that with the level of your arrogance and stupidity, your guild would win the war!”

Then she waved her hand as the Dark Spear tremble and vanish like water that evaporated in summer.

A moment passed and she was already fifteen meters away from the man when he called out to her, offering his apology. But she vehemently declined and continue walking without as much as a glance. The guy persisted to his apology, even offering to double the mercenary fee to her. This made FlowerLord stop.

Her plan succeeded.

Dark Spear wielders are players who can hold high respect wherever they go. Authority really is a powerful weapon against anything.

But she won’t waste this chance in just double the pay. She lost significant amount of money after all, she must take it back at all cost. In any case, her salary on her job as a Med-Tech in a hospital in the real world wasn’t enough to cover for her playing expenses. And so she faced the man with a wicked smile.

“One million Zentra per week. Z100k per head that I take down. All expenses free. VIP accommodations. 50 NPCs under my command. Take it or leave it.”

The man was dumbfounded. That was five times the offer he’s been giving out on normal players.

But he wouldn’t let this chance slip by. To win the war, strong players such as her is a big chunk of rolling fire against the enemy, the Sylphiadora Guild.

“Wait. I’ll contact my superiors.” He quickly dialled on his communicator with his hand and not soon after that he was talking to someone over the line. Then, his eyes widened and sweat flowed from his temple down to his cheek. She saw this and she felt that something was amiss but then the guy ended the call and faced her wearing a serious expression.

“So?” She asked to confirm.

“Z2M per week, VIP accommodations, Z175k per every head you take down, 200 NPC Soldiers and 100 A-ranked players from our guild under your command. We accept your offer with a condition.”

She was utterly shocked. Not only her offer’s been doubled, the conviction on the soldier was also a bit far from his initial reaction. But then, something else hit her thoughts.

Condition?

As the word came to her, she tilted her head and narrowed her eyes as she ask, “What’s the condition?”

“You will be in the front lines.”

The condition was a simple one, she thought, it was something befitting the might she just displayed.

“I agree.” She said with a strong diction and then the TGG member swiped a finger in mid air as a hologram panel appeared in front of her. The contract that they just talked about was written there and so she pressed the (Yes) button that confirmed the deal.

But the guy wasn’t finished talking yet.

“Do you happen to know people as strong as you?”

She paused for a moment before answering, “They still don‘t have Dark Spears but they are definitely as strong as me, actually, a lot stronger.”

“Well, fair enough.” The TGG member said as he smiled. “Same offer. Can you contact them?”

FlowerLord, considered the weakest on her circles, smiled as she replied, “Sure” that made all the people around them flock towards the TGG member, trying to be recruited under the FlowerLord’s command.