Sitting under the shade he built, Galax updates me on everything, and it expands my horizon even more as information is key to progress. A guild has a base structure and leaderboard division between them. A guild is made up of 6 official roles.

• Guildmaster
• Vice-Guildmaster
• Officer
• Veteran
• Member
• Initiate

A guild can make a custom role out of these but they will have to assign it to have a specific perk belonging to the official role. As for the leaderboard, it is split into three divisions. Local, National, and International. Within the real world, Local means the “Island” they’re in. National is the entire sector while International means all 4 sectors or the entire world.

The Top 10 Internationals.

• Jormungandr / 1^st / 4B+ Points
• Elven Monastery / 2^nd / 3B+ Points
• Kalash Backlash / 3^rd / 2B+ Points
• Heavenly God Union / 4^th / 2B+ Points
• Seven Warriors / 5^th / 1B+ Points
• Black Gold Practitioner / 6^th / 1B+ Points
• Ruling Sky / 7^th / 1B+ Points
• Drake Mega Blast / 8^th / 1B+ Points
• Holy City / 9^th / 1B+ Points
• B.B.W / 10^th / 1B+ Points

“I mentioned our guild is sub 10k, that was the 'Points' that have been accumulated from a lot of questing, resource gathering, upgrades, dungeon, etc. Lots of stuff, we’re even building a guild housing which will make it official for us to enter the leaderboards.”

Guild Housing. Part of what makes Ekolia special is that people can truly live in it. Galax mentioned that the top 5, all have guild housing so big they had to manage and pay the top-ranking members/officers like an employee. Jormungandr and Elven Monastery even have large enough housing to rival the most prosperous kingdom in this region.

Switching it to individuals however, is where everything becomes foggy because the strongest player never listed themselves in the leaderboards. I know this because it’s the first thing my shitty-ass manager told me when I joined the league back in my previous life.

Not only that I was recommended to unlist myself from all the rankings, but I was also constantly being told to lay low. There is a valid reason for this. If you’re well known, people will know how you play, how you do things, your style, and almost everything. It’s good to advertise yourself by becoming a ranker, but you will not know the extent of the pro league players who sweat themselves to no end while rankers out there stream their cute personalities.

So, rankers and pro league players are living in a different world entirely. While the former enjoy the glory and fame of having their name bringing so much exposure, the latter have to live in caves before they get their hands on a trophy.

I used to be at the top 1000 as a pro league player, and that is enough achievement for me to publicize myself but I never won big tournaments.

Current Top Rankers

• Mona / 1^st / Level 370
• [PAGN] Everblade / 2^nd / Level 331
• Hanbin / 3^rd / Level 328
• 00008992382123 / 4^th / Level 311
• Tikshun-Oppa / 5^th / Level 306
• Kun Ta Mere / 6^th / Level 302
• Xiao Liao / 7^th / Level 295
• Andre / 8^th / Level 295
• PP2k / 9^th / Level 288
• DrakeBlaster13 / 10^th / Level 273

Going by these rankings, the average players in the game should be something around Level 80-200, which means, they’re still babies. It takes 4 years for these numbers to go around 3000-5000 and of course, there are those who have reached max level.

‘Rakuri and Kurira, if those two settled on just one avatar, they would’ve reached max level considering how active they are. All in the dream of reaching the Capital.’

There is one thing that enables people to have a high level, it’s Ekolia’s biggest expansion. Transcendental Realms of the End Kings. Ekolia’s expansion comes out yearly, but none of them opens up without a pioneer. The first is Mechanical Technology, which brings many numbers of improvements and unique mechanics to the game, pun intended.

Not only that it introduces several new subclasses, but it’s also a dream come true for the crafting community. Particularly since the system allows for limitless item creation. I’ve seen what people can do with it. The scariest part about Mechanical Technology, or rather, the people that invented a system based on it. The so-called Automation. People can build metal ships with turrets that can blast a sea dragon in no time without even using many human resources.

It also introduces several explorable areas, unique monsters, raids, and many other things. And it has been opened, it seems. But Ekolia shines the greatest with the Lost Realms from the Transcendental Realms of the End Kings. It’s a huge raid area that takes tens to even hundreds of thousands of people to complete, and it takes months to finish. It's like exploring and conquering another planet.

And to add to that, the entirety of Ekolia itself will become fully explorable.

“Thanks for keeping me company, man. I was almost bored myself to death walking out here alone, and if fate allows it. Ey, hope I can meet you again.”

I shook his hand, “Of course.”

“…” shocked face, “Geh?! Why can’t I send you Friend Request?”

I don’t even know why that happens, ‘It's probably a bug because I haven’t gone through the normal gate's portal and maybe once I finish the stuff in Prison Realm where I can then explore Ekolia freely, will make things go normal again.’

‘Just in case, I’ll send a ticket when I return.’

I waved the man goodbye as he leaves with his elephant monster to the west side. Thanks to him, this journey to find the ruin will become a bit more bearable.

“Haah… I’m lacking in time but those are useful info, alright,” glancing at the black orb in my palm, I narrowed my eyes down, ‘If Replica is there, she must’ve heard all of that. Not that it’s really a problem as I never said who I was or my name or anything. Her not saying anything must’ve determined that I’m in the clear also.”

After looking at the map, I decided to head south. Further into the desert.