Chapter 278: Rise in the Status 3
There were a total of six people gathered in front of the castle at Ian’s appointed time.
Among them, Remir and Hoonie were the users that Ian had directly contacted, and upon Ian’s request, the other four were high ranked users that were recruited by Herz.
What was funny was that there were three of the best top-ranked users in this party.
First was the highest ranked user in the summoner cla.s.s—Ian. Then Remir who was the highest ranking mage, and then Hoonie, who was unofficially the highest ranking warlock. Lastly was ‘Levya’ the highest ranked priest who was recently accepted into the guild by Herz.
This was surely a super luxurious party.
And the three remaining users had the skills to be ranked in the top 100, and there was no option but to accept them into this party.
“By the way, why hasn’t Ian Hyung here yet? There are only 2 minutes left before the appointed time…”
Herz responded to Hoonie who was muttering under his breath.
“Kid, did you ever see Ian come late to any appointed mission? Who knows when he’ll pop out like a sharp knife?”
Herz had always shown remarkable growth in his level, he was currently ranked in the top 80 to 90 in the official ranking.
Even then, Ian had hesitated to include Herz into his party.
Though Fiolan was more powerful compared to Herz, she had decided to stay back and defend the Central Continent at the Pyro where the battlefield was almost insanely chaotic.
Fiolan was the commander of that place, so she had a lot of responsibility on her shoulders.
On top of that, Ian already had a trump card, the top-ranked Mage Remir who filled the Mage position.
“Well… that is right.”
Hoonie just went along with what Herz said.
Hoonie wasn’t a guild member yet. It was almost as if he didn’t belong to a guild, and Herz was the guild master.
There was a reason as to why Hoonie hadn’t become a guild member.
It was because there was no vacant position in the Lotus Guild.
Of course, the incompetent and skill lacking guild members could have been removed, but according to Herz, that wasn’t the proper way of running a guild.
There were a lot of users who had been waiting to hand over their form of admission into the Lotus Guild.
Herz was scheduled to receive all the forms once the Lotus Guild was promoted into a great guild in the country after pa.s.sing a certain criteria.
From the Great Plain, the maximum number of guild members that could be recruited would be increased by several hundred, so there would be enough room.
“Hmm, This is what I’m nervous about…”
Listening to the mumbling of Remir, Levya asked for the reason.
“What are you nervous about, Remir?”
As Levya inquired, Remir had a bit of twisted look.
“No, I was just talking to myself, you know… myself. By the way, how did Levia get into this party?”
Levya answered by scratching her head.
Levya was really beautiful, but there was something that was dull about her.
“Well… I am in need of Ian’s help to complete a very important quest. And if I help Ian out, maybe he’ll help me out in my quest too… well, he will help out right?”
“Uhm… I think so…”
It wasn’t clear, but Remir thought of her as a strange person. She started to use mind control on herself.
She felt that it was necessary to use mind control especially if she was going to hunt with Ian.
“Inner peace…”
But then.
The nerve-racking appointed time came, and the air in front of the six users started to change.
Woong- Woong-!
Hoonie—who was the first one to notice the changes in the atmosphere—was fl.u.s.tered and pulled out his wand.
“What, what is this? Is a new wave starting here too!?”
Looking at the scared expression on Hoonie’s face, Herz shook his head and answered.
“Ian is opening the portal, just wait and see.”
Once Herz was done talking, everyone looked at the distorted air in front of them with intrigued looks, and after 10 seconds, a blue light s.h.i.+ned as the portal began to open.
Weeing-!
From the portal came out a man whose body was completely filled with mud.
“Hey yo!”
It was none other than Ian.
He originally planned to keep an eye on the dimensional beads until they get charged, but he decided to hunt for a while till the beads were charged.
Ian looked at all the users that gathered before him and smiled brightly.
“Wow, you guys are all here. Thank you for coming. You’ll all be blessed for this act.”
“…”
The moment she saw Ian, Remir knew that something felt off.
‘Huh… that monster asked us all to rest, but it seems like he had been hunting till now.’
Ian saw Levya and reached out his hand towards her.
“h.e.l.lo, I am Ian. I don’t have a good memory, but… are you a member of our guild?”
Levya smiled at Ian’s question and shook her head. Herz who was right behind her laughed and spoke out on her behalf.
“It was Levya who had helped our guild a few weeks ago during the Dimensional War. She was the highest ranked Priest.”
“Oh… is that so…?”
Though he couldn’t remember it that much, Ian—who didn’t show much interest on highest ranked users—seemed to remember something about a certain Levya.
And if she was the same person that Ian had thought, then she would certainly be of tremendous help to this party.
‘Nice, I think I can collect around 6000 points from this party.’
Ian extended his hand towards the direction of the portal.
“Okay then, you can all go into the portal now. Hurry up, we only have 2 minutes till the portal closes.”
As Ian had stated the obvious, all the users quickly started to move into the portal, and Ian also went back into the portal.
And as all the users had moved into the portal, around a second later the portal’s entrance started to diminish and then it disappeared into thin air.
* * *
“Okay, So let me tell you the plan.”
Ian had successfully brought six people excluding him into the Southern Island of Buju.
Ian had been working on what he should say to the party members he invited and about the quest sharing.
He had given out a detailed explanation about the quest, but to conclude what Ian had said he just wanted them to help him hunt.
“So to put it simply…We need to hunt down as many monsters as we possibly can, as soon as possible.”
“Hmm…”
“It takes about a week for the Dimensional Beads to charge, and I need to acc.u.mulate a total of 6000 citizen value points in the Empire.”
Herz—who had listened to Ian’s explanation—asked something important.
“So we should collect the citizen value points and raise the status in the Mauryan Empire? And, does it have any advantages?”
Ian nodded and answered Herz’s question.
“In order for you to raise your status, you will first need to complete a quest that will give you a citizen ID… we don’t have time for that stuff. Apart from me, you all won’t be able to raise your citizen value. However, it doesn’t mean that the points you acc.u.mulate are worthless. You won’t have a citizen value, but you will be able to exchange those points and good items in return.”
“Aha…”
After a while, Ian added a few more additional information. Remir—who was listening until now—was curious about something.
“By the way Ian.”
“Yes?”
“Then are we…”
“Go on.”
“Do we not have an option to go back if you don’t open the portal?”
They all looked towards Ian to know the answer, and Ian’s mouth slightly tilted up.
“Bingo…!”
“OMG…”
Looking at Remir’s desperate expression, Ian added another word.
“So, let’s hurry and do it as fast as we can. After collecting 6000 citizen value points, it is my responsibility to send you all back whether you like it or not. Well, you all are important users who are needed to stop the monster invasion.”
Remir rolled her eyes and spoke.
“We are fortunate that you understand that.”
Ian replied.
“Now, let’s go out, shall we? There are quite a few dungeons that will be of your interest.”
Hoonie who was still there asked Ian.
“How many average level dungeons are here hyung?”
Ian calmly replied.
“Well… around 350 to 400”
“…?!”
Everyone’s faces started to glow with what Ian said, except for Remir and Levya.
Remir wasn’t so surprised as she had previously hunted level 300 monsters alongside Ian, and Levia seemed to have no idea on what was about to happen.
But Herz was fl.u.s.tered and stutteringly asked Ian.
“Yah, isn’t… isn’t it dangerous?”
Ian lifted his finger and responded.
“No, no. Our level is more than enough. If I can coordinate my movements in the right manner then I can attack a level 450 monster instead of a level 350 one.”
“…”
“And from tomorrow or the day after, I will go into higher level dungeons, so make your hearts strong.”
“… huh… what…?”
Ian ignored Herz’s mumbling and began to move towards the dungeon.
And the moment they all entered the dungeon, the eyes of Remir, Hoonie and Herz changed in an instant.
And just like that Ian’s party began to hunt like Spartans.
* * *
“Hoonie, Walk across a wide slope and stay back! Death Knight manage your vitality! Remir be prepared to cast your wide area spell!”
“Kay Hyung.”
“Yes, Ian.”
Party play, as the number of people in the party increased, the more difficult it was to control the members.
Surely, it wasn’t much difficult to find a position that would suit a member, but the kind of party play that Ian wanted wasn’t such a basic one.
‘Wow, I never thought of the Revenge of the Dead, but Hoonie definitely has some amazing game sense.’
However, Ian’s party wasn’t a regular party.
It was a party that literally had top-ranked players that gathered to help another ranked player, and the ranked players instinctively knew what they were supposed to do without receiving any instructions from Ian.
They were individually outstanding players.
Ian’s party had only been hunting for 30 minutes, and as Ian expected their teamwork was perfect.
‘Well, this isn’t so frustrating. I thought that Herz would be a burden to the group.’
Ian’s party consisted of a total of 7 members.
However, if their powers and skills were all combined, it could be compared to a party of 70 to 80 members, this almost looked as if a small war was taking place.
“Ian, it looks like a boss, over there!”
Levya who was standing in the front and casting heal had shouted over to Ian.
Ian turned his head and nodded in agreement.
There indeed was a giant and it had a golden hood, it definitely looked like a dungeon boss.
‘I came into the easiest dungeon and yet… they all seem to be much skilled than I had thought.’
The fact that the dungeon boss had appeared means that over 95% of the dungeon had been cleared, and the clearance rate of the dungeon was much faster than what Ian had been expecting.
In particular, Ian was very impressed with the Levya’s abilities.
Till now, Ian never had the opportunity to hunt alongside a top-ranked priest cla.s.s.
A few priests did help Ian in the Pyro temple, but he wasn’t able to experience their full abilities as it was a hectic and ma.s.sive battle.
And Levya a first ranked priest, had a whole different level of control when compared to them.
‘I don’t remember witnessing an Over Heal before.’
Average ranked priests tend to waste a lot of skill in worthless situations.
The more members a party had, the more responsibility the priests would have, and if they use spirits without possessing any skill, then it could create a much higher chance of making a mistake rather than helping out their allies.
But Levya was different.
She didn’t waste any of her energy on basic recovery skills, and she was using perfected recovery skills and was executing them perfectly.
Though Ian was the greatest when it came to coordination and control, Levya’s control was on an amazing level as well.
‘I guess we can do a riskier play.’
Ian called Halli; he climbed onto its back and pulled out the Judgement of the Spirit King.
Till now he had mainly played in the back-lines of the battle by commanding and supporting the others, but Ian was ready to get aggressive from this point on.
Anyone could feel that they could fight with the fullest of their abilities without thinking twice if they were in this party.