Second World

”How do I know you are not going to set up a trap to gang up on me there?” Jack asked, yet he still opened up his map interface and received the coordinates.

”If we do, are you afraid? Didnʼt we do that already at Crestfall Plain and you still came?” Red Death retorted.

Jack shrugged, ”I was forced to come, somebody held my friends hostages, remember? By the way, now that you mentioned it. Why didnʼt I see you during that battle there?”

Red Death was back to her silent mode for a while before answering, ”I was tied up with important matters at the time.”

”Oh… I guess I was not considered important enough then,” Jack commented.

”Enough with the crap, are you going or not?”

”Are you planning an ambush or not?”

”No.”

”Okay, itʼs a date then,” Jack said.

”Itʼs not a date. Itʼs a duel,” Red Death corrected.

”I know… I was just teasing you. You donʼt need to explain, you know.”

”Donʼt be late,” she said, then turned around and walked out the door.

Such a no-nonsense woman, Jack commented in his heart.

”Is she your friend?” Amy finally spoke.

”No,” Jack shook his head.

”I should have scolded her then, I thought she is your friend. She was so rude, coming in without knocking even though we are closed already.”

”Well, you should have locked the door then,” Jack said, then turned around. ”Oh, Iʼm beat! I will take an early rest. Need an early start tomorrow morning.”

The next morning, when he woke up, he was greeted by a system notification, ”congratulations on reaching the age of 1 month, receive skill: Limitless potential.”

”Huh?” He was still drowsy from waking up. He reactively opened up his stat window. There was a new category under inherent skill, called Race Skill. There was one skill under this category.

Limitless potential, Level 1 (Passive skill). HP +100, Stamina/MP +20, all attributes except luck +1

”Race skill?” He asked absent-mindedly.

”Itʼs a skill you get when you reach one month of age. You will get an upgrade to the skill or another skill altogether when you reach the second month and so on,” Peniel flew beside him and explained.

”Doesnʼt that mean every player gets them as well? Whatʼs the advantage then?”

”Yes, for every human outworlder, they will be the same. Another thing, if you die, the age is set back to zero. You have to start all over again.”

”Hm, ok,” Jack said off-handedly. He didnʼt give this race skill much thought. He had an appointment to keep this morning.

At the appointed place. It was in the woods outside the capital, where Warriors of Solidarity had hunted Bowler and The Man in the past. Inside these woods, there was a small clearing. Jack came out to this clearing to find out a small crowd there.

He was rather startled to find this many people here. The last night he only had some message conversations with Flame, Bowler, and The Man. He had asked them to keep it a secret. They had expressed their interest to come and watch, so it was normal to find them here. From Red Deathʼs side, it was also normal to find Death Associatesʼ big shots there, and also a few from the coalition guilds.

He even saw some of the leaders who he had killed before, they were sporting him a rather hostile look. They were around level 7 to 10. He was rather surprised to find out about their levels, he had expected those guild leaders to be wearing Amulet of Rebirth. Guess they had never bothered to wear one considering they never expecting anyone to dare to kill them.

He also saw Earmouth among them. The guy was a mage now, he had just managed to recently become one at level 20.

Those folks were roughly the ones he had expected to see here. However, apart from them, there were also John, Silverwing and his team, William of Wellington and Radiant Phoebe from Saint Edge together with several of their people. There were even the people from the Black Cloak guild. Jeanny and his friends were also present. Together with several other people who seemed to not associated with any of the guilds. Why did they all come here?

For the guilds, only their highest executives were present, which was a good thing. Otherwise, the clearing would not have enough space to hold all the crowd. However, there was no telling that some of their members might be hiding within the woods, in case if something went wrong. You could never tell with these scheming people.

The one he knew nodded to him when he approached. It seemed like he was the last to arrive. He came to his friendsʼ side and his attention was taken by a small creature beside Fierce Flame. It looked like a cute small cub.

”Whatʼs that? A dog?” Jack asked.

”Itʼs my pet, and its kind is called Savage Wind Wolf,” Flame answered. ”It is a variant from the Silver Wolf. I found it when I was raiding their nests looking for a suitable pet.”

”Wow, so you managed to tame one?” Jack knelt down to look at the wolf more closely.

ʼIs this monster strong?ʼ He asked Peniel in his mind.

Peniel gave her answer, ”your friend is pretty lucky to find this cub around here. Savage Wind Wolves rarely frequent this part. They are usually of Special Elite grade. Since your friend raises it from a cub, there is a chance that it can even grow into a Rare Elite grade.”

ʼThat does sound like a good one for a pet,ʼ Jack thought.

The cub gave Jack a curious stare as well. Jack offered it his hand. He said, ”its name does sound imposing, but it doesnʼt look so dangerous.”

When Jackʼs hand got near, the cubʼs maw snapped open and tried to take a bite. Jack instantly retracted his hand.

”I take my words back,” he said.

Flame chuckled, ”it was still a youngling. Ainʼt you the one that said it will be better to raise them from the infant stage? I have been feeding it expensive pet foods. Its growth was rather rapid. Perhaps in one weekʼs time, it should reach its mature stage and I can bring it out for battle.”

”Hope it grow into a strong wolf,” Jack said as he stood up. He observed the crowd again and asked, ”where do all these people come from? Did the coalition invite them all?”

Bowler made an awkward laugh. ”Well… I sort of have some conversation with White Scarfs people last night.”

Jack lifted his eyebrow at him, he sort of understood what had happened here.

The Man came to him and said apologetically, ”you see, boss. I also had talked a bit about this with John. We were hanging out at the tavern at the time. So, it kinda happened…”

John appeared behind them, with a not so apologetic expression. ”Friend, Iʼve brought along everyone to oversee this match, so you have nothing to worry about.”

”What do you mean?” Jack asked him.

”You have to be vigilant about this. What if they try dirty tricks? What if they use numbers when they canʼt win? With these many people watching, they will not dare to cheat. I have invited Saint Edge and White Scarfs guild, also the Black Cloak guild.”

”What about those independent players?”

”Oh, I invited Jeanny as well since she seemed to be such a good friend with you. The others, we met them along the way when we were on our way into this woods. They were just curious about what we are doing. With so many famous guild members, I would say we were quite eye-catching. So I invited them along as well. I told them there will be a match between the famous Red Death against the Demon of Crestfall Plain. Weird thing was there were only a few of them initially, they seemed to have grown in numbers.”

”Weird my ass! Of course it would grow if you told them like that. I bet they were calling their friends over even as we speak.”

”It does seem to be the case,” John said innocently as he saw several more players emerged into the clearing.

”You did this on purpose now, didnʼt you?” Jack said to him.

”Friend, there are strengths in number. The coalition would not be able to do anything with these many spectators.”

Jack shook his head, the guy did not even bother to deny. There was no use complaining about things that had happened. He turned to Red Death and walk towards her. The crowd around had positioned themselves into a ring formation with an empty space in the middle. Jack stopped halfway through this empty space.

While Jack appeared and had a chat with his friends. Red Death spoke to Scarface on her side without looking at him, ”remember what I said before. If you dare to interfere in any way in this match, I will not give you any face. Do you understand?”

Instead of answering her question, Scarface said, ”is this match really necessary? It does not really profit the guild much. Many people are still skeptical that Storm Wind is the Demon of Crestfall Plain, or even such a demon exists. Even if you beat him, people will just consider the rumor as false, it does not really help with our reputation. On the other hand, if you lose, not only will it drag down our guildʼs reputation even more. It will also cause a severe setback on that quest. You know how important that quest is to our guild. We have no time for distractions.”

”Distraction? Like that fiasco you arranged at Crestfall Plain?”

Scarface winched at her words. That operation was truly a massive failure. He was confident that their numbers at the time were more than enough to settle this small problem called Storm Wind. How could he know that person to be so monstrous? If he had known, he would not have wasted his time and effort on it. He still shivered when he thought about the battle.

”You were not there when it happened. If you know, you wonʼt be requesting this match,” Scarface said.

They saw Jack came out to the center of the clearing at this time.

”Whether I win or lose, this is for my own. Iʼm not doing this for the guild,” Red Death said, her hands were folded on her chest. She was still not looking over to Scarface when she talked. ”And make no mistake, Iʼm still furious you have gone after him behind my back. I donʼt care for your reason. If you deny me this duel by interfering it in any way, or if any of your underlings did, I will say it again, I will not show you any mercy. Even if I am on the verge of dying, I will not, let me repeat again, I will not forgive anyone who interferes.”

😉