Astre sat next to a fountain edge, staring at his inventory in glee.

Violet Scale Poison - Mythical Poison gathered from the scales of Cuélebre. Deals 2 LP every thirty seconds for ten minutes. Doses: 7

He had bought it for a steal from the marketplace. It must have meant one of the big guilds farmed the boss hard. He didn't have much intel on the boss, but he was sure someone was doing this for the incoming tournament.

Not even a day after the finals of the last tournament, they announced that the next one would happen in a week. He, as one of the finalists, received an invite to it. Ticket to it laying in his inventory tab labeled 'Important.'

Great Tournament Invitation #5 "Don't worry. This time you will have the chance to showcase all your abilities. :)" - DevTeam

He wondered what kind of tournament would it be. Everything was being shrouded in mystery, even the number of participants. This description gave him some ideas, but it meant that the dev team paid him some special attention.

In the end, he shrugged, maybe they watched him in case he found any more game-breaking exploits. Though the game was well made, to an absurd level, Astre still always thought about how he could make the best use of his tools. That led him to the creation of few items combinations and dungeon strategies that got patched later.

Once, still in the early game, he kept collapsing the floor under one of the first dungeon grand bosses. Then one day, he received a warning saying that every action has consequences. Next time when he applied his strategy, a giant archfiend climbed from the hole he just made. Without being able to do anything, he got executed, and a zone-wide event started.

Still, he wondered if the tournaments were really such profitable endeavor that they could throw one after another. Once again, the first place reward was one million dollars. Second place would get half of that and then third place half of the second place's. His objective was, of course, the first place, though if he got the second place, he could probably get a loan somewhere, then pay the rest from his savings.

Astre looked at his inventory and wondered how else he could prepare. Since the tournament details were being kept secret, he had no idea what he could even take. The last tournament only allowed weapons and armor, but he doubted that would be the case this time. Otherwise, it wouldn't suit his style.

With one more day till the tournament began, there wasn't even that much he could farm, with all the big guilds rampaging everywhere. At least Astre always made sure that he had everything he needed in stock, and then another stock saved up in a warehouse he rented.

He opened his status screen to look for any ideas or something he could have forgotten about.

Player Name: Astre Title: Eternal Adventurer LP: 7 Skills: 5/5 Swordsmanship LVL 5 Archery LVL 4 Camp Making LVL 4 Trap Making LVL 4 Sense LVL 4

Most of his skills have been stuck at level 4 for more than a year now. Still, even if annoying, it didn't cause that much of a problem. Only one player till now had more than two skills at level 5, and it was some pure assassin build.

Though most of his skills were designed around careful planning and execution, he wasn't completely helpless in direct combat. Each new rank in skill gave one active or passive ability and occasionally some LP. LP, standing for Life Points, informed how many times one could receive a fatal amount of damage before final death. For example, getting stabbed in the throat would usually take one LP unless some skill involved. Superficial wounds would still reduce LP after enough of them accumulated.

Most of his skills were ones that depend a lot on technique. Meaning that instead of using predefined system movements, they supported the technique or movement he was using when activating abilities. It made it easy to waste the skills, though. And it wasn't like system movement was worse. The velocity and acceleration of a high-level shield charge could be compared to a heavily tuned sports car.

Opening the details of his skills, he wondered.

Swordsmanship Abilities: 5/5 Slash (Active) Infuse your next slash-type attack with your internal energy and increase damage dealt to enemy's LP by 100%. (Technique Dependant) Cooldown: 10 seconds. Stab (Active) Infuse your next stab attack with your internal energy and increase damage dealt to enemy's LP by 150%. (Technique Dependant) Cooldown: 15 seconds. Parry (Active) If activated when an enemy strike or projectile is within melee distance damage will be nullified or significantly reduced. (Technique Dependant) Cooldown: 5 seconds. Evasive Footwork (Passive) Your footwork in melee combat focuses heavily on dodges and parries. Increases full-body movement speed when using Evasive Footwork in battle. Trick Blade (Passive/Active) Your sword art is the craft of deception. Each move you make is made to either confuse, disrupt, or puppet your enemy. Passive effect: Your weapon and body movements are covered in a shroud of mystery. Active effect:...

Before he finished reading his skills, someone clapped him on the back. He closed the window visible only to him and looked at who it was.

"Yo!" greeted a tall man responsible for the distraction. He was an assassin/ranger type built wearing leather armor that excelled in ranged combat. "Did I interrupt something?"

Astre shook his head, "No, I was just lost in thought. Sit down, unless you found another great restaurant."

"Sorry to disappoint, but nope, all great player-run restaurants are empty anyway. Those big guilds want to maximize even cooking buffs now," the man, known to Astre as Cherry, announced as he sat down. "Brought some skewers, though."

As Cherry looked through his inventory, Astre asked, "Any good info on the tournament?"

"Hurrying back to grinding? Not even going to ask how my day is going?" Cherry asked jokingly, passing him a skewer.

"I already did, didn't I? Information gathering is all your life has in it," Astre remarked, taking a bite from his skewer. "Quite good."

"Wow, rude. You sure that 24/7 grinder like you knows anything about life?" Cherry said, taking a bite himself. "It's a new stall, some newbie level two cooking skill. I only decided to try them because the guy just retired from a four-star restaurant due to wrists problems."

"A lot more of retired people finding their second life in the game lately," stated Aster. He noticed that more and more quality of life and social items sold on the auction house. He did make quite a sum on grinding those.

There were two ways to earn real-life money through the game. First was selling gold directly by the in-game system. Causing it to disappear from the game world forever, lowering the total amount of gold. The price changed according to many factors, but the most important one was the entire value in gold held by players and how much gold was being sold. In a way, it worked as the stock market.

The other method was the one Astre utilized the most. By selling items on the marketplace website handled by WGames. People could action or sell items for a defined price. One could also sell gold there directly, but while there wasn't a limit to how much one could sell, there was a limit for buying. Also, once an item was bought from the marketplace, it could never be traded again, either for real money or gold. Lately, a lot of retired workers joined the game, causing previously unpopular items to be exchanged more often.

"Good for the economy," noted Cherry. Finishing his skewer, he added, "Sorry to disappoint, but no one knows anything about the tournament. Even my insiders are kept blind."

Aster nodded, in a way that was a piece of useful information by itself. It meant that most likely, even the biggest guild, Order of Sun, probably knew nothing. The guild was the biggest sponsored guild in the game. It started as some kind of meme, but after gathering a few thousand members, the leadership changed, and the guild became basically an in-game company. "Any info about players' movements?"

"Actually quite a lot," Cherry told, opening a trade window. "The usual rate."

The usual rate meant a thousand gold for friends, around a hundred USD when exchanged to real money. Considering how much the informant paid his contacts in different companies and guilds, it wasn't much. Astre wondered how much an informant earned; whenever he asked, he was told someone like him wouldn't make a good one no matter how hard he tried.

After accepting the gold trade, Cherry used some skill to make sure he wasn't overheard by anyone. The area around them darkened slightly for a while then returned to normal. "Let's start with your girlfriend..."

"For the last time! She is not my girlfriend!" Astre shouted, annoyed. He received enough teases and death threats as it was.

"Forum says a different story," Cherry declared as Astre gave him a death stare. "Fine. Blaze the Blazing Symphony leader. The idol of all teenage and adolescent boys. The one who in the last tournament thanks to some tricky swordsman ended falling and tripping so many times people started laughing. The one who got played around by the nefarious Astre so many times that some spread rumors that she is secretly letting him do that."

Astre hid his head in his hands, "Did you have your fun?" Sure he did meet her few times. Sometimes they targeted the same boss, so naturally, they settled it with some friendly PvP. Dropping them in a chasm of acid or him being burned and fried alive was just a natural occurrence of that. And it wasn't his fault that her idol company forced her to use swords in the tournament. If she stuck to a quarterstaff, she would have fared much better, maybe even won the whole thing instead of getting third place.

She still cooked him in the end once she used her area-wide firestorm. It's not like he pulled punches too. She was simply too agile for him to win with sword skills alone. Her skill set centered around keeping defensive and at a distance while grilling opponents with spells. He wondered why her company forced her to use such inefficient methods, looking cool was one thing but wouldn't winning be better?

"Yes, quite enough. Anyway, it seems Blaze is quite sure you will partake in the tournament and made you her enemy number one."

Astre groaned at that. He wasn't all too surprised. Still, having the whole guild after him didn't spell anything good. "Any info on how many people she got tickets for?"

"Thirty-nine."

"Really...?" That made Astre worried. "How many players were invited anyway?"

"For now, I counted confirmed five hundred separate invites. Sunnies' alone got around ninety."

"Wait!? They still only drop from legendary and mythical enemies? Right?" Astre asked wide-eyed. This wasn't a number he was expecting. It tournament maybe really deserved the title of Great.

"Yep, though there was some confirmed info about bosses dropping them more often. Like once every two to three kills on legendary ones and nearly always on mythic ones," answered Cherry. "Anyway, I will send you a list later. The bigger problem is Black got a ticket. Murdered a whole guild just to get it."

Astre gulped, he only met the famous Black twice. Once he died without knowing what was happening, once he escaped with only one LP left. Black's identity was unknown, even their gender. Their only distinguishable feature was a black cape. Other widely known fact was that they were the only player with three skills at level five, which was announced globally by the game. There was never a second announcement, and all other prominent players shared their skill levels, if not their skill set. Even Astre's chosen skills were somewhat known. People rumored that he was level five in swordsmanship. No one yet figured out that he had Camping and Sense taken, though.

In all of that, Black's skill set was a mystery. They used multiple weapons, so there was no way to know if they had specialized weapon skills. People only guessed which skillset they used for stealth. Whatever it was shadow magic, stealth, or hide. How their surprise attacks could deal up to twenty LP, one-shotting even tankiest of tanks, was another mystery. All everyone knew was that once you realize Black is behind you, you are dead.

He only got away once after barely parrying their surprise strike, palm striking their chest and teleporting away with his Trap Doll Substitution skill from the trap skill tree. He actually gained some information about Black back then. Not that it was anything useful, so he kept it to himself.

Still, Black was one of the most hated players. Always dropping in after someone killed a worthy boss and stealing their loot. Astre could hope that they died to someone else before they met in the tournament.

"Thanks for the info," Astre spoke. "Anything about any good spots to farm for the last day?"

"No problem mate. Don't hope though. Everything is busy. Even some of the more unconventional legendary bosses and bullshit mythical bosses. They are even trying against that joke boss Cathulu." Cherry shook his head before adding wistfully, "I really hope they add some content after the tournament. Everything is so dry. No secret dungeons, no hidden quests, it has been half a year since last content drop."

"True, I'm beginning to worry that the interest in the game is falling," stated Astre.

"Don't even joke like that!"

"Yeah, it's my life too..." Astre murmured under his nose while looking at the sky, feeling both worried and determined.