Chapter 83: Empire Quest (1)

TL: Haku

Editor: Hungry Panda

Sponsor: Fullmetalj4cket

Whatever the process, Ian, who had safely cleared the quest, returned to Iriel.

"Oh, Ian. I see you've returned?"

"Yes. I helped Wisseun as you've asked."

Iriel nodded her head.

"Yes, I heard from Wisseun. Thanks for your hard work."

Ian mumbled to himself.

'That's right, it was a lot of trouble. I never want to do a quest like this again.'

There were no physical troubles.

He had just returned after an incredible amount of mental labour.

While Ian complained inwardly, a system message notifying him that he completed the quest popped up.

And Iriel stood in front of Ian.

"As promised, I will give you part of my abilities. I hope that you can help Gripper and succeed in crossbreeding the ancient monsters at any cost."

Iriel lifted her beautiful hands and spread it out.

As she did so, a marble of white light appeared in front of her palm, and it began to be absorbed into Ian.

'I'll be able to differentiate the gender of the monsters?'

It was a little bit of a strange message, but Ian accepted it shortly after.

Now that he thought about it, he felt that he had never seen any information relating to the monster's gender in the monster information window up until now.

Ian was suddenly curious of his Familiars' genders.

'Does it just appear in the information window now?'

Starting from Ly, Ian began to check the genders of all his Familiars.

'Yeah, it does, it appears in the information window. Ly is a male.'

And Ian, who had checked all of his Familiars' genders, was slightly taken aback.

'What the h.e.l.l, why are all of my Familiars' genders male?'

Now that he thought about it, he felt that he didn't have any Familiars that had a feminine personality.

Ian asked Iriel.

"Iriel, is there originally a higher ratio of males than females with monsters?"

At the random question, Iriel blinked her large eyes and asked back.

"Sorry? No. From what I know, all monsters have a 1:1 gender ratio aside from a couple special ones."

Ian felt uncomfortable for some reason.

'Well, it probably just happened to turn out like this.'

Anyways, since he was done working with Iriel, it was time to return to the Dimensional Tower.

"In any case, thank you for your help, Iriel."

"Yes, Ian. Please let me know if you ever need my help again."

Iriel handed Ian something that looked like a blue crystal ball.

At the somewhat familiar visual, Ian felt puzzled.

"What… is this?"

Iriel laughed while she responded.

"If you have this crystal ball, then you can send me messages."

"Huh? Why are you giving this to me…"

"I cannot tell you yet, Ian, but I feel like I'll have to ask a favour from you soon. Could I contact you then?"

And it was a little random, but a quest window with content which had a strangely familiar part appeared in front of Ian's eyes.

Ring-

Iriel, the caretaker of the Forest of Love and an exceptional Elf Summoner, has been worried about something for a long time.

Once your abilities are stronger, you will be able to listen to her worry.

Quest Difficulty Level: ?

Quest Condition: A Summoner with a G.o.d Dragon's spirit.

Summoner Master lv 3.

Time Limit: None

Reward - ?

*If you do not take the crystal ball from Iriel, then the quest will automatically be rejected.

If the quest is rejected, your favourability with Iriel will drop, and your Charm stat will drop by 20.

The Evil Dragon Khalifa part caught Ian's eyes first.

'That, that's a name I've heard somewhere before…'

And shortly after, he was able to remember that it was a name that he heard from the Legendary Dragon Tamer Oakley.

'It's not like I can always get hidden quests, and there's no time limit, so there's no reason for me to reject it.'

And while reading down the quest window, his gaze stopped at the 'Quest Condition' part.

The fact that it was a quest related to the G.o.d Dragon's spirit was parallel to saying that it was a quest that no one else would be able to receive besides Ian.

Ian was even more pleased.

And at the same time, a strange part also caught his eye.

That was exactly the Summoner Master lv 3 part.

'But what is this? Even after becoming a Master, was it possible to raise the Cla.s.s Proficiency further?'

'Summoning' was the Proficiency value that was the foundation of the growth of all his skills.

In the case of a Warrior or Knight, a Proficiency value called 'Martial Arts' existed, for a Priest, 'Faith', for a Magician, 'Magic Power', and for an Archer, they had 'Archery'.

However, as there was no user with any cla.s.s in Kailran that had raised their Cla.s.s Proficiency to a Master, Ian had never heard how it worked after that.

'I only vaguely thought that once you became a Master, your Cla.s.s Proficiency didn't go any higher…'

Based on the phrase Master lv 3, it seemed like it was saying that even after becoming a Master, the Proficiency value could still be raised.

It was possible that there could be another stage after that.

'Hm, it's still far away. My Summoning is now at High-cla.s.s lv 2, so to become a Master, I'll have to reach almost lv 150.'

Ian, who finished thinking, firstly received the crystal ball from Iriel.

"Of course, if I could be of help, I will gladly do so."

Iriel smiled brightly.

"Thank you, Ian!"

As Ian returned to the Dimensional Tower, Gripper greeted him with a welcoming expression as if he was waiting for him.

"Oh, Ian. Welcome back. Did you resolve everything well?"

Ian nodded his head.

"Yes, firstly, I've received the ability related to Familiar crossbreeding."

Gripper wore a pleased smile.

"Good job. As expected, I knew that if it was you, Iriel would like you as well."

Gripper took Ian to the low and s.p.a.cious hill behind the Tower.

While Ian was gone, that area was changed to look just like a farm, and the ancient monsters that Ian had restored were huddled together.

"Oh, but Gripper. Aren't there some monsters missing?"

Even if the Hallikan was excluded, as Ian had received him, there were a couple of monsters that made Ian suffer which he didn't see.

At Ian's question, Gripper nodded his head as he responded.

"I just have the herbivorous ones gathered here. I've separated the carnivorous monsters and left them somewhere else."

"Ah, so there are problems like that as well."

The quest proceeded with lightning speed.

Ian checked the genders of the monsters in the field one by one and picked two of them that were the same species but different genders before bringing them out.

And to use the crossbreeding skill, he needed to first make them his Familiars, so he registered the two as his Familiars.

'Hm… Do I just need to use the skill now then?'

While looking at the two ancient Clopsys monsters that blankly stared at each other, Ian gulped.

And Bbookbbook, who was next to him, watched with eyes full of antic.i.p.ation.

Bbook-!

'Euh, this won't be X-rated, will it?'

Ian slightly covered both his eyes with one hand and casted the skill.

"Familiar Crossbreeding!"

However, the thing that Ian was imagining didn't happen.

A white light flowed out from the chests of the two Clopsys, and shortly after, a large, white egg appeared in front of them.

"Whew, I worried for no reason."

Ian, who was worried that he would have to see an embarra.s.sing image, let out a sigh of relief, while Bbookbbook wore an expression that looked somewhat disappointed.

And a message popped up.

Ian clenched his fist.

'Done. Finally, I'll be able to do the Griffin Hatching Quest!'

He checked the t.i.tle he received.

Rank - None

*All effects are applied even though t.i.tle is not equipped.

It was a useful t.i.tle.

It wasn't a t.i.tle that helped him become stronger immediately, but it could be considered a t.i.tle that opens a lot of opportunities to raise a good Familiar.

The rank was written as 'None', but it was most likely because there was no part that raised combat-related stats.

'I like the fact that you don't need to have it equipped the most.'

Ian used the Crossbreeding skill on the rest of the ancient monsters where pairs existed.

As there were monsters that couldn't be crossbred amongst the ones with at least two restored because their genders were either all male or all female, there were a total of 5 kinds of monsters that succeeded in crossbreeding.

'There are some monsters that produce an egg after succeeding in crossbreeding, while there are cases where a baby monster appears from the start.'

Because the cooldown time for the Crossbreeding skill was 30 minutes, three hours had flown by once Ian succeeded in crossbreeding all five kinds of the monsters.

However, it seemed that Ian felt that he had overcome a large obstacle, as his expression was brighter than ever before.

"Good work, everyone. We'll finish today's lecture here."

At the end of the Professor's last words notifying the end of the lecture, the students started to stand up in small numbers.

Of course, Jinsung, who had already packed his bags, was the first to stand up.

No, he tried to stand up.

"Jinsung, wait. Why are you in such a rush?"

While looking at Yoohyun, who had grabbed his arm, Jinsung slightly frowned.

"What do you mean why am I in a rush, it's because I have to quickly go do this quest now."

Yoohyun shook his head.

"No, what kind of quest are you doing for you to not even show yourself once at the base lately?"

The reason why Yoohyun had grabbed Jinsung was nothing in particular.

As the preparations for the base promotion were almost complete, he felt he needed to know how Ian, the most talented individual of the guild, was getting along.

Jinsung scratched the back of his head.

"There's a lot of work I've left lying around, so I'm busy trying to patch it up. Please be a little understanding."

"You can't tell me what kind of quest it is?"

"No, why wouldn't I be able to? I have one more quest left, but it's an Empire Quest. On top of that, I have no idea how much time I have left, so I need to do it as fast as possible."

Ian spoke without much thought and moved to head out of the lecture hall quickly, but at Jinsung's words of an Empire Quest, Yoohyun's eyes rounded.

Yoohyun quickly caught up with Ian and asked again.

"What? An Empire Quest? What's your Fame right now?"

"Ah, it has nothing to do with Fame. Unrelated to my Fame, I received this Empire Quest when I was the very first lv 50 Summoner before. Because I had no way of clearing it back then, I had it lying off to the side."

Although Jinsung also had Fame that already pa.s.sed the fulfillment requirement, because he didn't want to particularly explain that, he didn't mention it.

This time, Jinsung wore a quizzical expression instead and asked.

"Yo, but why are you so shocked at the words Empire Quest? What else is good about Empire Quests besides the fact that your Fame goes up well when you do them? Ah, I think I've heard that you can place NPCs under your order and command them if you gain the Aristocrat t.i.tle."

However, Yoohyun wasn't surprised because of the advantages that Jinsung mentioned.

He was surprised because he realized that it was a situation where Jinsung could become the core key to the promotion of the base.

"Yo, dude, did you have any idea that Kroban hyung has been desperately going around doing quests in order to get the Empire Quest?"

"What? Why is Kroban hyung?"

"That hyung had the highest Fame in our guild. Unless it's a special case like yours, you know that you need to have 400 thousand Fame in order to get the Empire Quests, right? That hyung probably barely reached 400 thousand Fame yesterday or the day before."

However, as Jinsung had no idea of the fact that there needed to be a guild member with an Aristocrat t.i.tle for the base promotion, his questioning continued.

"Yeah, so, why? If you adequately did the required quests while leveling up, you would have eventually reached 400 thousand Fame anyways… I don't really understand. Are the Empire Quests that important to that hyung at this point?"

Yoohyun nodded his head.

"That's right, dude, it's not important to Kroban hyung, but it's important for the sake of our guild right now. One of the requirements in order to promote the guild base into a Domain is 'a guildmate with an Aristocrat t.i.tle'."

"Hm…?"

After a moment of silence pa.s.sed by, Jinsung was able to understand everything soon enough.

And he wore a bitter expression.

"What the h.e.l.l? That's why Kroban hyung had gone around just doing quests continuously in order to meet that requirement?"

"That's what I've been saying."

Jinsung wore a wry smile.

'If I also told him right now that it's been a while since I've had over 500 thousand Fame, I'll probably get hit, right?'

He realized he had only diligently solo-played for the meantime while in a state where he had cut himself off from the guild too much.

'Once I succeed in the Griffin hatching, I should pay more attention to the guild from now on.'

There was now another reason why he needed to clear the Griffin Hatching Quest as quickly as possible.