Chapter 45 - 45. Level 13
Hearing this, the teenager scolded, "you, prick! Who do you think you are? Do you think you are those famous expert players? I haven't even heard of your name before in the gaming world. You dare to talk like you are some sort of a big shot?"
Jack was steadfast. He kept his silence after giving out his answer and just stared at Silverwing, waiting for his response.
Silverwing was deep in thought. His face was still slightly wearing the smile, while his hand was caressing his chin. After a while, he finally said, "you are a straightforward and a courageous man, Mr. Storm Wind. Even if we can't recruit you, befriending you can be considered as a win as well. My guts tell me that you are worth offending those Death Associates lots. All right, I will take your deal. But I hope it will not be limited to just one favor. Of course, we will compensate you when we indeed need your help, and we will not force you if you are inconvenient at said time."
His aide, Bluedaze, who was sitting by his side, lifted her eyebrows. Honeycomb and Dashrunner, who were standing, wore an ugly expression but they didn't interfere since their leader had spoken. Only the old man, Sinreaper, wore an indifferent face.
Jack was also surprised by Silverwing's generosity. It was basically saying he had saved them out of goodwill, that they had no obligations to compensate for it. His impression of this leader of the city's largest guild had increased significantly.
"You are too kind, Sir," he said.
"Please, drink the wine. It will be a waste otherwise," Silverwing said.
Jack saluted him with the wine. However, before he drank the wine, he didn't forget to scan it first with his God-eye monocle. Seeing it was only a normal wine without any effect, he let the wine enter his mouth. They chatted for a bit more while about some casual topics. The sky had gone dark as night arrived, but due to the light beam from the sky, it was still rather bright outside.
"I'm sorry but we have to retire now," Jack said.
"Certainly, I will have someone bring you to your room," Silverwing said. "There are plenty of bedrooms in this city hall, and you don't have to worry about safety, we have people patrolling the building constantly."
"I can't thank you enough."
"If I may ask, what is your plan tomorrow? It was still two days until the given time limit."
"If there are no complications, we would like to go out from the safe zone and hunt some monsters for experience."
"Oh? I would suggest against it. What if Death Associates or Weary Wolf came looking for you outside the safe zone?"
"Don't worry, we will be careful, they caught us off guard today. As long as we noticed their approach, we can easily avoid them."
"It was high risk. If you insist to go, I'll ask some of our members to accompany you."
"We're grateful for your goodwill, but no, thank you. We can't owe you more favor, and also, more people will reduce the experience we receive."
Silverwing seemed reluctant, "I don't feel fine about this… But if you insist, then I won't force the matter. Please at least hunt in the area around Southwest from here. That is where most of our members are hanging around. If you encountered a problem, you can call for help. I'll notify our members about this."
"That is too kind of you."
After exchanging some pleasantries, Jack followed the servant girl out. Once the door to the office was closed, Dashrunner immediately expressed his disapproval. "Why are we lowering our heads like that to him? He is just an arrogant nobody who doesn't know how big the world is!"
"I agree, it is completely unacceptable," Honeycomb added.
Silverwing just closed his eyes, his mouth kept a faint smile. He didn't interrupt his subordinates' tirades and just let them vent their displeasures.
Bluedaze didn't vent like her comrades, she approached Silverwing and asked him seriously, "I seldom question your decision but I also can't see the benefit of the action this time. It would be understandable if he is a famous expert, or the guild we offended is just a small fry, but they are not.
The report said that he had defeated two opponents of level 10 and 9 within seconds. That might be impressive, but those two opponents are simple newbies. Several of our stronger members can also achieve the same result if put under the same situation. It is unnecessary to become enemy with Death Associates just for a random nobody."
"That might be true," Silverwing opened his eyes, they were clear. "Then let me ask you a question, Blue, what's the highest level of our strongest member?"
Bluedaze was confused by the irrelevant question, "you mean Grimclaw? He just got to level 12 yesterday."
Silverwing nodded, "and how did he get to such a high level?"
"Because of his martial skill of course. Also, we have many members who helped him kite the monsters and weakened them before letting him deal the killing blows. It's a standard procedure to strengthen our main core members as we had practiced in every VR RPG game."
"That's right," Silverwing agreed. "And what if I told you that random nobody is level 13? And not just beginning level 13, he is halfway over to level 14 already."
"What? Impossible!" Bluedaze blurted out. Dashrunner and Honeycomb who were still grumbling also stopped after hearing it.
"It's true," the old man, Sinreaper spoke, he took off his glasses and gave it to Bluedaze, who promptly received notification of equipment stats sharing. Bluedaze was astonished, the glasses were an equipment piece?
Hermit Glasses (rare equipment)
Passive ability: Increase vision range
Passive ability: Increase Inspect skill by one grade
Bluedaze was stunned. Rare equipment, the best equipment that she had was of uncommon grade. She heard that Grimclaw had found a rare weapon recently, but this was her first time coming into contact with rare equipment.
Sinreaper continued, "as you know from our experimentation, Inspect skill cannot inspect player which is higher level than us. However, that is only true for Basic Apprentice Inspect. Above Basic Apprentice is Intermediate Apprentice. Above it is the Advanced Apprentice, once you reached this level you can inspect player one level higher. If you increase again you will reach the next grade of Basic Expert Inspect.
In Expert grade you will receive additional info from the skill, you can see how far in the experience bar the player is. Then after that is the Intermediate Expert grade, which is the maximum I have experienced. My Inspect skill is Intermediate Apprentice, the glasses increase my skill a full grade to Intermediate Expert. At this grade, I can inspect players who are two levels higher than mine."
"And you are level 11 currently," Bluedaze said.
Sinreaper nodded, "yes, hence I was able to inspect his level 13 skill. Otherwise, even with my Intermediate Expert Inspect, I might still not be able to identify his level."
"But… how could this be?" Bluedaze was unwilling to accept.
"Do you understand now?" Silverwing said. "Grimclaw managed to blitz on his level due to our many member's support. But what about him? His support was only two average players, and I had a suspicion that even the two had just met him recently. If it is so, that means he had managed to level up all by himself. It makes sense though, if he is alone, then all the experiences will be taken by him. That will explain how he got to such a high level. But think about it, how many people can survive out there by themself? If he is not a real expert, do you think it is possible?"
Bluedaze was deep in thought, he still had trouble believing someone who was not known could achieve such a result. Could he be those hidden experts, who liked to change their names every time they changed VR games?
"The data from the Inspect skill is indisputable," Silverwing added. "Even if you doubt that, please trust my intuition. You guys had followed me for long, so I asked you to trust me on this too."