Chapter 4 – Alter Ego: Unique Quest

Yone arrived at his destination almost instantly, appearing on the temple of life, a sacred place where players resurrected and NPCs worshipped the goddess of life.

As he walked out of the temple and reached the stairs leading inside the town’s hall, he gazed ahead as he spotted hundreds, if not thousands, of players already ahead of him despite his fast character creation.

“Nothing changed. That’s great news.” He heaved a sigh of relief as he examined his surroundings for a moment.

Most players headed out of the gate and then sped into the forest without taking a second to glance back or wait for their friends. Their speed was astonishing, but Yone knew better than to follow them.

There will literally be no monsters available for him to kill when so many players are ganging up on them, and with the addition of the respawn rate of monsters that took five minutes, leveling up this early on in the jungle was a challenge in itself.

As for the minority of players, which numbered hundreds and the number was increasing with each passing second, they were lining up and choosing random NPCs to start a conversation with, hoping to get a quest from them.

‘Both strategies are out of the question for me. Let’s not talk about the high NPC intelligence that requires a significant amount of time and effort to pick up a quest. It was known throughout the first day inside the game that only one guy managed to get a quest out of the npcs, much less with so many people lined up.’ Yone didn’t bother much with any of these players as he opened his panel.

Player Name: Requiem

Class: Assassin

Starting Town: Crystalized Stone Town

Level: 1

Title: None

Attributes: Strength (STR): 8

Agility (AGI): 12

Endurance: 7

Intelligence (INT): 5

Dexterity (DEX): 11

Luck (LUK): 4

Free Attribute Points Available: 5

Skills:

Shadow Step – Instantly dash 3 meters in any direction, blending into the shadows. Cooldown: 10 sec.

Silent Edge: Increases critical strike damage by 15% when attacking from behind.

Evasion: Enhances dodge rate by 10% for 5 seconds. Cooldown: 20 sec.

Stealth: Conceal yourself from enemies for 10 seconds (breaking stealth by attacking will deal +20% bonus damage). Cooldown: 30 sec.

Yone nodded, finding nothing strange or unusual. Yet, the thought of the robot delivery earlier still lingered in his mind. That hadn’t happened before.

In fact, many players initially found the number of skills unusual and were even shocked by it, but they then realized the reason behind the system implemented in the game.

The first reason is that skills were only given with each of the first five levels, so it basically means that each player will get two skills from levels 1 to 10. The second reason is that players acquired skills independently after that point.

One had to acquire skills for their class through the dungeons, ruins, or secret locations, while another method was through NPCs’ training, quests, and other methods. Eclipse Online basically made acquiring skills based not just on personal skill level but also on luck and determination.

Hence why the luck attribute was there.

Yone then gazed at his bag, which contained ten copper coins, a basic map of Crystalized Stone Town, a beginner’s cloak, a pouch that increased the size of his bag by five, and his most basic and important possession: his weapon.

[Rusty Dagger] (Common – Low-Grade Weapon)

Type: One-Handed Dagger

Attack Power: 3 – 5

Durability: 15/15

Right before he was to start moving, Yone received a friend request, which he immediately accepted. He sent a message immediately, obviously familiar with the person inviting him.

“Isma, which kingdom and city are you placed in? Mine is a crystalized stone town,” Yone asked without introduction.

Isma took a second before he replied, his face distorted into an ugly form,” I was placed in the same kingdom but under the Nightmare City flag and Destruction Town, Yony. These names alone give me goosebumps.”

Hearing his words, Yone chuckled but wasn’t surprised. He would have felt the same if he were in his shoes, but still, he didn’t want to change the timeline this fast, and he wasn’t willing to throw his second chance out the window right off the bat.

He would repay his friend without a doubt, but not now. Not yet. Before they met, he needed strength, resources, and a solid foundation.

“Let’s meet later. I don’t know how hard it is to travel from one city to another, but we will see after we leave town and reach our cities. See you then, Isma. Die as little as possible, hehe.”

“Yeah, I guess our duo will be placed on hold for now. The system of not allowing us to contact friends before choosing our cities is truly unfair, but we were at least placed in the same kingdom.” With that, Ismail closed the chat message.

Time was gold, especially in the first weeks of the game, where one’s speed meant getting ahead of others and securing things later that players could never hope to lay their hands on again.

Equipping the clock and the dagger, Yone locked his eyes into the town’s hall right in front of him, his lips curling into a smile.

Currently, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that about fifty players were lined up in front of the mayor who stood on the town’s hall, all of them frantically trying to get a quest out of him since such a chance is as rare as a phoenix feather.

Yone slowly walked to the line, but instead of heading to the end of it, he chose to go right at the start.

As Yone stepped past the long line of players, he felt their eyes on him, glares, whispers, even some quiet cursing. A few looked ready to protest, but before anyone spoke, the Mayor’s gaze shifted toward him. For a moment, Yone held his breath. If he was wrong about this, the guards would throw him out immediately…

While quests were a pain to get and a day would pass till one was given out, that was only the case for regular quests and people who had no knowledge of the future.

Yone knew things none of the players here knew, and one of those things was a unique quest that is right in front of everyone’s eyes the moment they leave the temple of life.

Quests were divided into different categories: common quests, which are commonly given by random NPCs and rewarded for a measly amount of copper and common items and weapons, and rare quests plus unique ones.

There were only ten rare quests in the whole town, and each held decent rewards for the players in here, who could elevate their strength by leaps and bounds upon completion. Alas, those were so hard to get, and only after weeks did new players who had recently joined the game stumble upon them by chance.

In fact, stumbling upon the special quests enabled them to acquire loot beyond that of anyone of their same level and increased their leveling speed by threefold, quickly catching up to the players ahead.

As for the last category, it was unique quests, but such a quest was only one of a kind in an entire city domain, and one of those was in the crystalized stone town.

Alter Ego Quest!

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep