The Immortal Player

After hours of experimentation together with Ragas, Pedro was able to craft an arrow with an ice blue tip that has a pebble-sized magic crystal attached to its tail. At this moment, Pedro was sweating all over his body, while his face wore a frown as he carefully transfers the arrow with an ice blue tip, to a metal box with the use of two metals gripping the arrow to avoid direct contact with it.

Then, when the metal box was closed—sealed, Pedro can't help but to take a deep sigh of relief and said, "I can't wait to try the Ice Tip Arrow! Would it be able to freeze a human or a monster on the spot? Or would it be able to freeze a whole Kingdom at once? Whatever's the case…  It is one of the biggest arrows that I made so far!"

Ragas—who was working with Pedro with the runic formation, could only nod in response. He leaned comfortably to his chair as he took a deep breath and said, "I have reached my limit, young master! I'll be taking a rest for now to replenish the magical energy that I lost along the way. That said… Don't hesitate to wake me up in case something odd happens."

Pedro simply nodded in response whilst retaining his calm demeanor. Then, he glanced at Ragas and said, "It's alright for now! Thanks, Ragas! I'll call your help in case the opportunity arises. Good job!"

Without wasting another second, Ragas went to sleep in one of the desks in the workshop area. Pedro could not help but scratch the back of his head and say, "Runic Formation can be easily established as desired. However, the weapons all have a common issue that is probably because of the Runic Formations established! The more the runic formation gets complicated, the more it consumes magical energy from use. In any case… I can't help but wonder how weapons like his Pen-Knife were created."

That said, Pedro did not dare to mess with his Pen-knife's runic formation. He was afraid that one of his best weapons would become useless if he encounters a problem along the way. So, just to be safe, Pedro preferred not to conduct any more experiments regarding the weapons. 

Besides… He would need Ragas—who just went to sleep, in setting any runic formations. So, the weapon development could only stop for now. At this moment, Pedro could only slide the metal box with the Ice Tip Arrow into his inventory bag. Afterward, he went back to his room and simply slept the night out to rest before he returns to the Axutar Village.

~~~~~~~~

While Pedro was in deep sleep, the current players and aspiring players from the Asian Server burst into excitement in playing the game as more and more of them get hooked by the videos regarding the Adventurer's Guild.

At this point, even major guilds or gaming organizations were starting to move their asses and head towards the Tarala Kingdom to join the Adventurer's Guild. Something that Pedro and Weyron had predicted to most likely happen.

That said, they had long prepared for such situations. So, even Weyron was able to calmly rest at this point.

Even if there were too many players for the current staff to manage, Weyron could just simply issue a management quest to the existing members of the Adventurer's Guild or, at the same time, ask aid from Duke Albert—and either obtain loyal slaves or hire people from the slums area.

That is why even Weyron did not even worry about such things that much. Yes, he would have a lot of things to do. But… The things he would gain from this were worth the price of his hard work. Imagine controlling the actions of the adventurers, as well as monopolizing the materials they gather… It was something unheard of in any VR Games!

Of course, some people tried to probe how did Weyron and his little guild know about the existence of the Adventurer's Guild. Unfortunately, those ill-intentioned people were not able to find any lead about it because most of Weyron's men were, first of all, loyal to him!

On top of that, only a handful of Weyron's men knew about the truth. Thus, the ill-intentioned people could not find out anything about it—consequently making them think that they learned about the Adventurer's Guild by luck.

Since it was a game, and there was competition amongst players and their respective gaming organizations, they could also only mobilize their men to head towards the Tarala Kingdom and join the Adventurer's Guild as soon as possible.

On the other hand, those who knew about the truth on Pedro's Side—like Aldo, Sabrina, Lony, Roval, and Mathew, were mostly busy with in-game matters. So, they did not have that much spare time to get interaction outside the game besides their family—the same case to those who are on Pedro's side.

On top of that, all of those who were with Pedro was bound to an information secrecy contract that has a severe penalty to the point that their contracts might get terminated and they might get fined for a very high amount of money. And if possible, they might get criminally charged and be sent to jail.

So, there was not much question regarding the leak of information on either Pedro or Weyron's sides. This was one of the benefits brought by the lack of trust of Pedro to other people—shaped by the depressing events in his past life.

Moving Forward… The reason behind the hype of the Adventurer's Guild was the new videos that were posted online. One of the most famous videos discusses the benefits of joining the Adventurer's Guild. Of course, it highlighted the great treatment of the management of the Adventurer's Guild to the players—which some of them were mistaken as NPCs too.

On top of that, various facilities such as bank, market, training, and resting area were available. Something important to an ordinary player.

Add up the quests that are posted that allow players to earn a decent amount of coins regularly… It definitely gives the players a chance to experience a life out of a magical world that only once existed in stories.

There were some similar formats to other games. However, none of the other VR games provide great freedom to their players to the point that they were in control of which path or in what way should their character develop.

Most of the other games similar to Bearth Online provides restriction to the players like the selection of specific classes—which can't be changed later on in the game. On the other hand, Bearth Online gives every player the freedom to choose in which way should they character develop to conquer that world.

Unfortunately, this kind of freedom comes with a great degree of challenge as the difficulty of the game spikes up compared to other games. Probably the reason why governments all over the world had advertised this sole game to their citizens. Probably…

Other than the video that discusses the benefits that they would obtain in joining the Adventurer's Guild, a popular video—advertising the Adventurer's Guild, was focused on the food available in the market area.

That video was as if it was a food-related blog that made the stomach of people in real life grumble and feel hungry. Considering that it was recorded from inside the game, the current players from the Asian Server could not believe their eyes from what they were seeing.

The Continental Quest was in fact a calamity that befallen the whole Aquari Continent. Thus, the food supply of every stronghold was inevitably affected. Consequently, since adventurers were the least priority in being allocated with food—together with the peoples living in the slums, it was as if a blessing to them to know that an organization was kindly taking adventurers in and was even providing decent food that was not even comparable to the food that was available for them in other strongholds.

Expired Bread, Raw Meat, even rotten meat! The players could only hold their disgust and eat anything available just to survive in the harsh environment of Bearth Online! It was something that they need to resist by themselves in order to become a strong player!

As for the so-called casual players… Well… Those who did not want to eat the rock hard bread nor the left over or rotten meat just simply got their characters die out of hunger. Although in Bearth Online, there was magical energy, it does not mean that humans—one of the mortal beings, are exempt from not eating for a certain period of time.

They were still humans like the majority of the NPCs in the Aquari Continent. So, it was only natural for them to seek food. A good food. After all, at the end of the day, food is the fuel for the humans' physical strength.

That is why, although it was hard to believe but, the players were even captivated and hyped by a mere reason such as food. Something that did not even happen on other games. Well… It was probably one feature that would show how hard or tough a life of an ordinary player in Bearth Online compared to other games.

It was as if you are living in another world with nothing on you but your own talent, knowledge, and/or wit.