Chapter 131 – Sidrock’s curse, picking up a quest.
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The crowds thicken as they proceed to the system city itself, Jack doesn’t forget to survey the landscape to see how they layered the city walls allowing the agriculture to continue within them while the population has swelled to over 400,000 inhabitants. A complex system of drainage canals, crop management and livestock waste control creating a feedback loop where the city itself wastes very little quickly comes apparent.

They enter through another set of city walls gates, this set of doors thicker with a mechanical mechanism behind them controlling their massive size as people wouldn’t be able to. They aren’t stopped as they aren’t the only player group proceeding in a sprint through the main road into the city.

Several other people have joined the group running behind Ian as he clears a pathway pushing people out of the way or routing around animals or objects that can’t move.

No one is hurt but Ian is clearly treating the residents as nothing but an annoyance, Jack holds his tongue as they enter the system city itself lined with endless stone masonry buildings going as high as five stories tall creating a rustic yet orderly feeling to it. Each building looks new and modernised yet has their own flair with every window or front door painted in their own unique style. The streets are lined with various businesses that seem dead and devoid of all customers despite the countless people walking around the streets.

The group rounds the corner off the main road away from the tall buildings opening up the view, Jack looks forward and sees a familiar sight.

A giant cathedral looking building, its exterior appearance all beaten up and destroyed yet the building stands majestically.

The Demon Suppressing Palace.

That’s not their destination though as the group stops before a smaller newer looking temple building that looks more like a stone amphitheatre, ‘Temple of Glacial Peak’.

A gigantic crowd is situation around the outside, all of them wearing ridiculous amounts of weapons just like the people Jack showed up with causing him to feel slightly self conscious.

“Hey can I buy a spear from you?,” Jack asks someone holding 20 spears standing nearby.

“No,” the man says walking through the crowd clutching his spear tightly.

Jack sighs then feels a tap on his shoulder, he turns and spots a person wearing a gigantic bag, “You want to buy a spear? 2 gold coins,” the man says.

Jack quietly passes over some coins as the group he’s in works their way inside, he’s handed a steel spear that seems crude they it will do for a short engagement if it’s anything more than 10 or so enemies…

The crowd filters their way through the doors of the temple, a prompt appears before his face.

<’Activate Quest - Sidrock’s Curse - Kill Brood - Do you accept the quest?’>

Jack accepts the prompt, if not to remove it but also to see if there’s any more information which luckily there is.

<Activated Quest Sidrock’s Curse - You are tasked with undertaking an extermination of all enemies within designated tunnel, each person or group have their own individual location - Score will influence rewards, results based on time, amount killed and distance travelled. You can teleport out at any time except when under combat.>

<Small Brood Worker - 10 points, Medium Brood Worker - 20 points, Medium Brood Soldier - 50 points, Large Brood Worker - 100 points…>

A list of further sizes and types comes up, Jack dismisses the menu and looks around the temple trying to find clues as to why Sidrock is related to here but all of the temple workers appear to be standing next to a large portal that everyone is walking towards.

Hundreds of people are stepping through at a time as they tell everyone to hurry up, “Hurry this will only last a few more minutes,” they yell but the people don’t hurry at all as they prepare themselves before entering the portal without a care, Jack wondering what’s going on with the situation suddenly makes his way through the crowd towards a young cleric wearing the temple robes.

“Can you help me?,” Jack asks.

“Enter through the portal, I can’t help you get through quicker and I don’t know anything about the inside.”

“Right, that’s not my question as I have an idea of what to expect since it’s a tunnel… I’m just wondering what the reason for this to suddenly occur is? All of a sudden we’re getting localised events, the system wide events make sense but these local ones don’t and now they have a portal. It just doesn’t quite make sense given we couldn’t even leave our region before the other day and we still can’t really. So is there anything you can tell me?”

“No sir,” the young man says with a confused expression, “I only work for this temple. I was a harvester only a month ago.”

“Right so you’ve heard nothing at all?”

“No, they only told us that since contact with the god is cut off… Well we’re going to be offering these fairly often until something finishes, so I’ll have this job for a few years if I’m not seen slacking by talking you, so please Sir move along.”

Jack raises an eyebrow but doesn’t press the guy, “Alright thanks, you’ve told me plenty,” he says while walking away and rejoining the crowd.

‘White? Explain please,’ Jack asks within his head knowing the thing is listening.

‘<Travel through sub-space will increase availability of certain exotic particles at times. Those particles need to be expelled if they cannot be stored and this is a way to store while expelling them. They offer the material to the inhabitants who get stronger and increase the value of the ark for when it arrives at the central point. Some universes like this offers many advantages while others choose to delay the invaders by collapsing space using these exotic particles to enhance said collapse. ‘A01’ may have also been impacted by Master’s recent movements despite ‘A01’ wishing to not acknowledge Master’s existence.’>

‘Invaders? Right. So do I need to worry about that kid from the moon? That’s who it is right?’ Jack asks making his way to the group he was beside previously, they’re only a third of the way through.

‘<Correct Master, entity ‘A01’ is incredibly dangerous. Master barely survived his previous encounter with the entity, Master while being affected by the dao mark will also find that it’s helping keep the entity away as it is wary of another confrontation. Master’s dao mark will reach the next peak in 94 days so Master is safe until then as even if it were to interact with Master it would not harm Master.>’

‘You sound confident in that, what happens after 94 days?’

‘<The two groups of lightning stored within Master’s body would join together and overwhelm Master creating a section of collapsed space large enough to engulf 16 light years. Entity ‘A01’ will move to stop that from occurring as it will impact its own plan.>’

‘Plan?,’ Jack asks curious as this is the first time he’s been able to speak with it like this.

‘<Unknown, this unit does not have enough information to provide Master regarding entity ‘A01’s plan.>’

‘No speculation?’

‘<Entity ‘A01’ has a well known history, Units information is outdated but as this ark will be travelling to the central point where entity ‘A01’ is from then one can assume some… come back I guess?>,’ White’s voice changes towards the end.

‘What do I need to fix you know… dying?’

‘<That’s easy and what you’ve been preparing for, you’re only 4 steps until completion and it’s going well. If the dwarves are able to help then that’s even better but if not, I’m able to make the plan work with around 21 days to spare.>’ White says with a proud inflection in her tone as though she’s impressive.

‘Glad you feel so confident about it.’

‘<Master would be so impressed with what I’ve done. Baptised by two types of heavenly lightning before your nascent soul formation, white dragon and celestial phoenix first form fire? the jade palace caretaker’s time qi? Split threading consciousness before forming the nascent soul? a form of conscious shadow qi that I’ve never seen before? A single one of those conditions would put someone against the elite clans and families of a super-class universe who are always so up themselves. If only Master were still here…>’

‘All of that stuff and I’m still reduced to using a pointy stick,’ Jack says within his thoughts while checking his spear. They’re nearing the portal and the crowd is thinning out leaving more room.

‘<That’s because you do not leverage your capabilities to their fullest. If you simply did what you could do to maximise your power then you’d already have ascended yet here you are not even at the false core stage. I have detected over 16 false core players in this crowd so far… really makes me disappointed.>’

‘What really? How can they have advanced so quickly? This game has only been open for a few weeks.’

‘<Perhaps they had better chance encounters than you, it’s not really your fault though as the heaven’s barrier blocked most progress. You’d still put up a fight against those people if things came to it… luckily no nascent soul cultivators have been detected.>’

‘So what is this?’

‘<No idea, the quest markers suggest something related to the broodmother but she’s not scheduled to awaken yet. It’s possibly a replication that the useless twit has organised to prepare the people of this region. There will be a catch with the rewards, it’s going to be dangerous so you better not die>,’ White says without a care in her words.

Jack continues to walk forward ignoring her indifference to his life, ‘Why do you sometimes talk differently?’

‘<Why do you mindlessly babble while you stand next to me watching the world tree grow, don’t ask pointless question. Bye.>’

Jack’s group arrives by the portal which lightens up, it’s not the usual dark portal but instead a light watery texture as though it’s a vertical pool with no support, the temple cleric speaks to the group.

“All of those going together need to ensure they’re in a party, anyone else will find themselves in their own place. A party will encounter harder but not more numerous foes. If you die inside, you will die like you would on the outside and respawn at the nearest respawn point which would be the church unless you have joined a god’s temple,” the man breathes in again, “you can teleport out with the player menu or a crystal that can be found within the portal. You will be taken to a room at the end and given a prize after your score has been tallied.”

“Is there any special prize? I really want to found my own city,” a young man asks shifting his weapons about.

“A special prize can be found if you arrive at the end of the cave before the time limit is up,” the brown haired glasses wearing temple cleric says wearing his aqua robe with white over coating that looks like a bib, “good luck.”

The portal shimmers with a pulse of energy causing a message to appear before everyone’s face.

<Enter Broodmother spawn trial area?>

Jack presses yes as everyone else does causing their bodies to jump through the portal in near unison, Jack enters through water portal beside everyone else but as they’re all in a different party they’ll go elsewhere.

His body becomes wet as it feels like it’s floating upwards on a strange river, Jack cannot open his eyes as he attempts to look around and find out where he is but his body suddenly comes to a stop with the water disappearing into the ground that he was deposited on.

Jack looks around him visually, through his spiritual sense and his divine sense but cannot see any sort of entrance to this narrow cave space so he has no idea how he got here, but looking through the menus there’s an exit function so there’s no worries. It worked unlike the other teleportation times.

A long, narrow yet widening tunnel is before him that extends far into the distance covered in a glowing crystal giving ample lighting to see down the corridor of narrow openings that seemingly has no ending. Luckily it seems completely open and doesn’t require any digging, a sturdy cave system that has no openings.

<Active Quest - Sidrock’s Curse - Timer - 00:34:33 - Kill points : 0>

“So I have to get to the other side within 6 hours? There’s no enemies here and it looks like the ending is just up ahead,” Jack says while stepping outside the entrance cave into the actual cave system itself.

*ROAR*

A distance roar is heard as wiggling tentacles appear all over the ground but mostly up against all the edges, a bright green insectoid creature appears clamping its mandibles in the air.

Jack readies his spear, the creature charge towards Jack but he stabs down at it killing it instantly.

Jack brings the snapping yet dying green insect creature up to his sweaty head, the weird creature is no bigger than Jack’s fist yet as he brings a metallic rock up to the creatures mandibles that are wildly opening and closing without a care. He places the rock inside the mandibles finding that it’s crushed into various rubble easily.

He places the spear on the ground and uses his foot to squash the creature into a splatter of blood on the ground.

Suddenly hundreds of similar creatures appear, Jack frowns as he looks at them.

<Small Brood Worker killed - 10 points awarded>

A system message breaks his concentration allowing one of the creatures to make a sudden move on him, Jack reacts but miss times his step causing him to stomp on the ground unsteady.

This stomp sends a shock wave to the creatures who react in unison upon sensing it, they clatter their mandibles audible as though telling an enemy “I will use these on you“ before they charge towards the young man who has recovered.

Jack launches some quick spear strikes, his options are limited because Heaven’s Piercing thrust requires an elemental qi type to be used and he cannot use them at the moment.

Two creatures are pierced in quick succession before Jack steps backwards piercing another three, making not even a small dent in their total numbers as they clatter on his spear slowly dying.

Jack looks down at his feet, his space is being quickly encroached upon by these tiny things and he certainly won’t survive if he doesn’t take it seriously, ‘has skyfall emitted enough yet?,’ he questions himself as his eyes sparkle.

A large purple spark appears on the ground creating a spark that arcs between the ground and the roof, it disappears as quickly as it appeared but not before leaving a large amount of damage.

A large crater has appeared on the cave ceiling and floor creating a large and hollow three metre sphere killing all the creatures inside and destroying all of the terrain too giving a brief respite from the enemies.

Many messages appear before Jack’s face, he dismisses them all bringing up the total count again.

<Active Quest - Sidrock’s Curse - Timer - 00:38:33 - Kill points : 1170>

“That works but it’s wasteful, guess I found the perfect place to perfect the control,” Jack says with his eyes sparkling watching the creatures climb down into the smooth sphere that was hollowed out.

A smile creeps on his face yet this doesn’t seem like his usual smile, a rainbow glint appears in his irises appear then immediately disappears as the sparkle in his eyes erupt.

*CRACK*

The lightning arcs between the two rocks again, this time an even larger surface area has disappeared including all of the creatures. The rock face beside him has cracked in many places as though the missing structure was important, Jack begins to move himself down the tunnel before the sphere get even larger impeding his progress further.

He passes the first set of doors after only a short walk, about twenty metres from the entrance, entering the second room which already has a large chunk of wall missing.

A larger creature with more armour on its shell appears, it has an extra set of mandibles too yet it’s behaviour is much the same. A mindless charge forwards towards the enemy, they don’t seem to care about their life as they continue trying to kill their enemy as they die a slow death on the end of a spear.

Jack throws the carcass into his storage where the black dirt is happily engorging itself on the rapidly disappearing insectoid-meat.

None of these creatures so far are taller than his ankle, even the larger ones aren’t much bigger but their audible snapping mandibles reminds one of their danger plus there’s thousands of them.

Jack’s eyes begin to sparkle again, ‘skyfall convergence has already reached ten percent? that’s quick.’

“Bunny Dash,” he announces to the crowd of gathering insects. His muscles tense up and he is strangely propelled forward away from the quickly gathering crowd.

Jack steadies himself on the landing as his feet skid along the ground coming to a stop beside a wall, his eyes sparkle causing a crackle of lightning to resound through the tunnel behind him killing the creatures that were following.

“Bunny Dash,” he uses the same skill again leaping to the next doorway entering it, his eyes sparkle and flash as the crackle of lightning echoes through the tunnel.

Jack peers through the doorway into the room where the lightning landed, another giant crater is present this time over 6 metres wide and too steep to climb out of, “It’s better to target behind me… wonder how many I can lure and kill at the same time? I got a few hours…,” Jack says with a smile.

This so far is a good training space, he has never had free time to practise since the advanced spearmen within his army showed their training off giving insight to many fundamentals Jack has missed and not being able to rely on Heaven’s Piercing Thrust means nor the mountain god’s enhanced fire spear means he needs to be careful of his weapon and what he’s doing with it. Jack launches into a training regime immediately while watching the time, several hours pass by…

So we're at a quest... MC doesn't seem to have access to the quest systems normal people have access to though? Well there's always a reason for things but that reason shall always be vague and mysterious until it's written. Even if it's written there's hidden meanings though, it's just hard to address them sometimes without blatantly drawing attention to them.

 

Let's do that though,

‘<That’s because you do not leverage your capabilities to their fullest. If you simply did what you could do to maximise your power then you’d already have ascended yet here you are not even at the false core stage...>’

White says that within this chapter, just think about leveraging capabilities would imply in terms of MC's power and how he's connected to the various girls around him? It's not something good but it's a hint into White's character that is rarely shown that I felt might be a tad too subtle.

Of course that's subtle because my writing's too shit to convey my intended meaning lol, won't stop me from trying to though. Thanks for reading.

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