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Forgotten Lands - Chapter 39 (Book 1)
🕑 Added 2024-02-21 11:00:06 +0000 UTCIt was impossible to recall every little detail about Forgotten Lands. Too much time passed since Zayn played Forgotten Lands, and it was not like he had known that the game would merge with reality at that time.
The descending domains were also not the same as the scenery in Forgotten Lands. Certain things and events were different.
This made it increasingly more difficult to remember some of the places he had only heard about from news and forums in the past.
Zayn heard a little bit about Emberfall and the Tower of Nature, but most information was either about major events, or interesting details that spread like wildfire due to their immense use.
The Tower of Nature was the latter. However, news about the Tower of Nature didn’t spread that far. Not everyone was interested in a hidden library, after all. Only a small circle of invested Players was interested in the hidden library of a Grandmagus, who was also a Researcher.
Zayn recalled bits about the Tower of Nature. It was enough for him to remain calm and composed as he traveled through the Arylin Forest until he reached the Tower of Nature.
The Tower of Nature towered in the middle of a large clearing. A crystal-clear stream passed by the tower, which was covered in crimson moss, and dark vines.
“Impressive right?”
Zayn’s head flicked to the right as he heard a familiar voice. He had barely passed through the thicket to enter the clearing when Melanie approached him.
Her eyes glimmered brightly as she waved to him. Zayn returned the greeting with a faint smile, while his eyes traveled to Melanie’s equipment.
Melanie Zetner wielded full-scale leather armor, firm leather gloves, and even leather with a similar pattern. The Leather Armor didn’t seem to be a Ranked Armament, but Zayn perceived subtle energy fluctuations that connected the leather boots, gloves, and the rest of the leather armor. Her armor was incredibly close to being considered a Ranked Armament.
She wore a belt with a potion pouch and two dagger scabbards attached to it as well. Potion pouches were rather ordinary pieces of equipment, but her daggers attracted Zayn’s interest. He could only see a small glimpse of their blade, but one of the daggers was sapphire-blue and shimmered lightly, while the other dagger had a crimson blade.
‘Ranked Daggers? Not bad.’
Since nobody stole her Ranked Daggers yet, Zayn guessed that Melanie was already pretty powerful. Or nobody dared to approach her because her comrades were too powerful.
“It’s very impressive,” Zayn responded to Melanie while his eyes flicked past her.
Two female Players clad in cloaks and a brawny man wearing a thick metal chestplate entered his view.
The brawny man stared daggers at him. He wielded a heavy double-bladed War Axe and smiled menacingly at Zayn. It didn’t require much effort to determine that the brawny man was not a fan of him. The Players, whose appearance resembled a Berserker, flexed his massive muscles as he stepped by Melanie’s side.
“So, you are the little prince?” He bellowed, his voice containing a trace of discontent, “You look like a stickman. What a disgrace.”
Zayn raised his eyebrow and glanced at the Berserker for a second, but there wasn’t much to see. He scoffed inwardly and his attention returned to the remaining cloaked Players.
Both were females, and wielded wooden Staffs. The wooden Staffs looked similar, if one excluded the intricate patterns that revolved around the large gemstones embedded at the staff’s top. One of the Staffs had a white crystal that looked like quartz embedded at the top of her stuff, while the other staff had multiple smaller gemstones etched around its top.
They didn’t look particularly impressive but all properly working Staffs were known to be Ranked. However, Zayn presumed that their Ranked Staffs were at the 1st Tier and of Common quality, at most.
“Your team’s set-up is quite good. You have an Assassin, a Berserker, a Healer, and a Sorceress. If you know how to wield your Ranked Weapons properly, we shouldn’t have any issues conquering the Tower of Nature.”
Zayn’s words caused the two female Players to raise their eyebrows. He just shrugged and continued.
“My name is Zayn, and I’m no prince. I’m a dirty player.”
The Healer of the group chuckled lightly, and the corner of Melanie’s lips curled upward. The Berserker, on the other hand, groaned.
“Let’s not waste anymore time. We’ve waited for him way too long already.”
He stepped past Melanie and walked closer to the Tower of Nature where several teams had set up their camps to wait for their allies to come. Some Players had already conquered the Tower of Nature’s Normal Difficulty and news spread fast. Everyone was eager to procure valuable Cards and Ranked Armaments to use or sell for a fortune.
Melanie smiled apologetically at Zayn.
“Don’t think too much about it. David has been excited all day. One of his old friends dived into the Tower of Nature once and they procured some valuable Cards apparently. A Common Spell Card, and some Uncommon Card Shards, if I remember correctly,” She shrugged, “Either way, David is quite nice. He is a good Player as well. He is well-trained because of his job in real-life. His combat knowledge helped us a lot in the last few days.”
“Why are you telling him about my job, Miss?” David, the Berserker, asked without turning around, “I thought you said that we would leave behind our real-life titles and occupations when we’re in Forgotten Lands.”
‘Is David her bodyguard?’ Zayn eyed Melanie, but he didn’t ask aloud.
David turned around to Zayn, still frowning, “I hope you’re decent. I want to shove a few Uncommon Crystals deep into Merlin’s throat!”
A new voice appeared next to Zayn, “Merlin is the friend Melanie was talking about. Well, David likes to call Merlin his rival.”
The female Healer arrived next to him. She removed her cloak, which caused hte Sorceress to click her tongue, but the healer didn’t care. Her golden hair cascaded down her back. Her ocean-blue eyes stared deep into Zayn’s eyes as if she was trying to find the door to his soul.
“My name is Natalia. Nice meeting you, little prince.”
‘Natalia…why does that name sound so familiar?’ Zayn wondered. It took him a while to recall her, but his eyes widened slightly once he recalled her.
“You’re Melanie’s cousin,” He mumbled. Natalia rejoiced and gave him a thumbs-up.
“Nice deduction! You’re a smart one, little prince!”
Zany rolled his eyes internally but controlled his expression as he turned to the Sorceress.
She didn’t remove her cloak and didn’t introduce herself.
“Just call her Blake. She will introduce herself to you once she warmed up a little bit,” Natalia said lightly, “Blake is a shy little kitten. But that makes her even cuter~”
Blake grasped Natalia’s shoulder tightly and pulled her back. She said something in a hushed voice, which sounded like a cat hissing at Natalia.
“A fierce little kitten. I see,” Zayn smiled lightly.
Blake froze in her tracks and Melanie chuckled.
“Jokes aside, how about we share some information? I can roughly fathom what you guys can do, but I don’t know much about your Cards and combat style. How about we–...”
Zayn was interrupted by David, who glared back at him.
“It won’t be necessary for us to share any information. I can sense that your Foundation is a little bit weaker than ours. That’s all I have to know. Just don’t be in my way!”
Zayn had 21 Soul Essences left to integrate, but he kept his Foundation at the same level as before to lower the average strength of their enemies in the Tower of Nature. He could say that, but Zayn didn’t bother.
“Don’t mind him. He’s a little bit tense because it is our first-time diving into the Tower of Nature. He doesn’t want to make a mistake and become a laughingstock in front of Merline.”
‘First time?’ Zayn expected that Melanie and her team had already conquered the Tower of Nature a few times given their equipment.
Was it really a good idea to dive into an unknown dungeon with a stranger as their fifth teammate? Zayn didn’t mind, but it didn’t sound plausible.
“Hard Difficulty, I presume?” He inquired even though he knew what the answer would be.
“Of course, we will ride Normal Difficulty. We’re not going to skip straight to the hard mode before others clear it. Dying in a dungeon will result in the loss of most of our equipment. We spent a fortune to buy our equipment, and I don’t really want to tell our family that we lost everything,” Natalia shook her head. She sighed deeply.
“Fortunately, David studied the professionals’ guides of the Tower of Nature’s Normal Difficulty thoroughly. He knows what he’s doing!”
Natalia sounded like a proud girlfriend, but Zayn thought that she was quite naive. In fact, Melanie and the others were quite naive. They had yet to understand that conquering a dungeon was going to be several times harder than dealing with some monsters in the wilderness.
A dungeon was created to work against Player and play in favor of the monsters. If they were really concerned about dying, they would be more willing to share information with each other.
‘Not that it matters much. Normal Difficulty should be a breeze with my Card Set.’
Zayn decided to observe Melanie and the others first. He wished to conquer the Nightmare Difficulty of the Tower of Nature with them, but if their performance was not good enough, it might actually be better to enter the Tower of Nature with four newbie Players, who would lower their Foundation’s average. He could carry them through the Tower of Nature’s Nightmare Difficulty in that case.
The Tower of Nature’s gate opened with a loud creak as the group of five Players in front of them entered. The strode inside the tower full of confidence and excitement. Zayn smiled in response to that. If he considered Forgotten Lands a mere game he would, probably, be like them as well.
He wouldn’t have played like he did in the last five days. Instead, Zayn would have enjoyed himself while earning a small fortune.
However, Forgotten Lands was not just a game. It was much more than that.
Their group had to wait a minute before the Tower of Nature’s gate opened once again. The next group could enter. David took a large stride toward the gate and the others followed silently, their bodies trembling in excitement.
Their first dungeon raid was about to begin.
