Chapter 270 - Ian and The Mauryan Empire (1)

Irahan was the first user to succeed at transforming into ‘Noblesse’.

And that status has tremendous advantages and combat ability.

It was a kind of power and ability that only an Asmodian could possess.

In a normal scenario, an original ranking character will possess about 10 to 20% of the buff.

Though it might not seem like much, but 10 to 20% is quite a useful amount.

It wasn’t possible for a level 200 user to possess the skills and abilities of a user in the 240 level.

So, this was a tempting enough offer for Irahan to give up all the skills and ranks that he had worked hard for.

Now that the skills were all replaced; he would be in the initial levels and the skills would be weaker, but they are bound to get stronger over time.

Anyway, Irahan who got stronger this way wanted to have all the benefits for himself.

‘How am I supposed to get a hidden piece that no other has?… something that isn’t easy for the other users to possess.’

There was one, it was a quest that he had been postponing.

This was the quest that Irahan had received from the Devil King Mahamu, right after he had turned into a Noblesse. The ‘Wisdom’s Birth’.

This wasn’t a quest that could be deemed as very hard, and the rewards of the quest were also quite satisfying but there was one problem.

As soon as the ‘Wisdom’s Birth’ quest was completed, there would be a chance for the normal users to become a ‘Noblesse’.

According to the information content given in the quest, as soon as Irahan completes the quest of Wisdom’s Birth, the dimensional magic tower at the north end of the Central continent would be activated for a certain period of time.

And it is said that all the users will get the quests that would allow them to be a ‘Noblesse’.

Of course, the initial user who had completed the quest would be benefited the most, but this wasn’t something that Irahan wanted.

‘I will take away everything that I can take, and then I will finish the quest.’

However, there was one part that Irahan hadn’t thought through.

That was, the person who became a Noblesse wasn’t the user Irahan.

[User Seikun has completed the quest ‘Wisdom’s Birth’.]

[The quest ‘Wisdom’s Birth’ that is in possession will be extinguished.]

[Failed to clear the quest, ‘Wisdom’s Birth’.]

[Affinity with the Devil King Mahamu reduced by 10.]

Irahan’s face had become pale with speculations that were running in his mind.

‘What is this? Was there another Noblesse apart from me?’

An additional system message came.

This time, it was a common message that came up to all the users in Kailan along with Irahan.

[The quest ‘Wisdom’s Birth’ has been completed and the ‘magic tower’ that was hidden in Hippia valley of the Central Continent, has been activated.]

[‘Magic Tower’ has been activated, and the selection of a new character race ‘Asmodian’ has been created.]

[From this moment, till the end of the month, those who go to the ‘Magic Tower’ can receive a quest that will enable them to turn into a ‘Noblesse’.]

The common system messages came one after the other.

And as soon as Irahan had read it through, his face became more and more hard to read.

‘Damn it! I was the one who was supposed to get the reward!’

Because of not being able to complete the quest, he had fallen down 10 affinity points with the Devil King Mahamu, he lost the hundred thousand fame points that he could’ve achieved through the quest, and he had also lost the powerful weapons that were dedicated to the Asmodians.

After realizing all that he had lost, Irahan’s lips started to shiver out of anger.

“Sh*t…!”

There was no way he could grab onto a quest that had already left his hand, and all that he could do now was to clear out all the other quests that were related to ‘Jinma’.

‘Hu, Does it make sense that I had a competitor? I’ll hunt a little more and build up the tempo.’

Irahan picked up his sword and stepped into the hunting ground.

He believed that after reaching his target, he would need to recover from the damage he just got now by joining the Dimensional war.

* * *

“I don’t get it, why open the magic tower at this moment?”

In the meeting room that was dedicated to the LB’s planning team.

LB was a company that invested heavily in game planning when compared with other gaming companies.

LB corporation was a 20-story high building, and one floor was entirely made up of planning teams, with around a hundred planners for Kailan.

In fact, it was because of this wide-scale planning that such a large scale virtual game could be well executed.

“Huu, Team leader Park. We haven’t thoroughly thought this part through. A user gets the quest and deliberately clears it.”

The new content called ‘Devildom’ appeared shortly after the event of ‘Dimensional war’ had started.

In fact, the planning team of LB was thinking of adding a new race called ‘Asmodians’ through this Dimensional War.

The process of adding the race would be in such a way that the users would have to clear the quests, and until Irahan turned into the first Jinma, everything seemed like it was going along with the flow.

The team leader of the Balance Planning team, Park Yoon-sung, was muttering something by looking into the documents in front of him.

‘If it was the original manner, by now, a lot of users should have already begun the quest to becoming an Asmodian. A new user who would have been chosen as the head of the Asmodian should have been there.’

It couldn’t be explained in just one or two words, but the ‘Asmodians’ had something that the human race did not, on the contrary, they weren’t even a human race.

It would be easy to say that it had both advantages and disadvantages to it.

The LB’s planning team wanted to create a scenario where the humans, Asmodians, and Centaurs that existed in the central continent would turn against each other for battle.

In order for such a scenario to rise, the users playing as the Asmodians in the Dimensional War need to increase in rapid speed.

When a new race is formed, the presence of the already existing race would be overwhelmingly high, and this will lead to low merit for the new race.

In order for this balance theory to be true, this Dimensional war which had the monster wave needed unconditional victory to be tilted towards the Asmodians.

Park, who was in charge of the Balance Planning Team, assumed that the minimum amount of race changed into Asmodians would be around 30%.

At least 30% of the users had to turn into Asmodians.

All these plans need to intertwine with the other, for the expected outcome made by the planning team to arise.

However, a few unprecedented variables were mixed with the LB’s planning team.

“That Irahan user, was he trying to monopolize the Noblesse quest all for himself? I should have predicted such a thing would occur.”

Park Yoon-sung who was sitting in front of Kim Wee-han, mumbled to himself with a sigh of frustration.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t think of the other possibility.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, despite the opposition from many users about the dimensional war, I had to raise the difficulty of the Monster Wave.”

“Hmm…”

“but it wasn’t just the users who were the unknown variables.”

“Hmm…?”

All the team leaders of the planning departments gathered in the meeting room and waited for Mr. Kim Wee-Hwan to speak.

“Phew… Is it wrong for me to say that there was always something wrong with the team? ‘That guy’ has become such a huge variable.”

From the whole planning team members, nothing but sighs could be heard.

“No way, what did that guy do again, that I wasn’t notified of!?”

“Huh… can’t he just not play the game?”

No one mentioned the name, but everyone in the room knew who this user that was being referred to was…

Of course, his identity was none another than Ian.

When it came to the planning team, the word ‘Ian’ had become like a taboo.

The word ‘Ian’ was almost immediately associated with ‘Night shift’.

Kim Wee-han was speaking.

“I was monitoring it until I entered the meeting room. But about thirty minutes ago it was confirmed that he moved to the ‘Mauryan Empire’.”

And once again, came nothing but sighs.

“Huh… Crazy…”

“What, did the development team finish developing the structure?”

“This isn’t like the test area that was created the last time, right?”

There voices of concern that were coming from here and there and Kim Weehan continued his words.

“Yes, it is fortunate that it isn’t. The development team was carefully keeping an eye on ‘him’. Thanks to him that the team had to spend day and night on it.”

“…”

“Hoh… such a burdensome work….”

Once again all the members in the room spoke, and Kim Weehan continued to speak.

“Anyway, from our assessment, it has been said that this dimensional war is once again in the favor of the human race. But our plans were different.”

From the corner of the room, someone spoke with their hand raised up.

“How is that even possible? Don’t say that ‘the guy’ was able to get Abyss Dragon before the dimensional war?”

Kim Weehan laughed and nodded.

“That is right. At the pace that he is going… the fastest would be around 23 days or at max it would be 28 days. He seems to be gathering the necessary things and heading towards the central continent.”

“… Oh My God…”

One word that came out from the mouth of one person.

And that one word represented the feelings of all the members in the room.

The monster wave was supposed to be an event that shouldn’t have been blocked by a user.

The human race was meant to be defeated in the dimensional war; and the original plan was to make the power between the humans and the Asmodians similar, just to create balance.

There was silence for a while—no other voices could be heard.

“Certainly, as Kim Daeri has said… Irahan wasn’t the only variable. And this time such a situation shouldn’t be created.”

And Kim Weehan answered.

“That is right.”

“What is it that we need to do now?”

At those words, Kim Weehan looked around and opened his mouth.

“Well, there are two choices.”

Everyone waited for the next words that were about to come, without a single word or noise.

“The first is to pray very diligently. For Ian to make a mistake during his quest. Or someone finds out the address of Ian and drops a beaker into his home. No matter what happens for 30 days, he should be on a death bed so that he wouldn’t be able to complete the quest.”

The content of the first one was a joke, but no one laughed nor did they retort.

And then came the option that was deemed to be serious.

“And the second option is that we are all heading back to our stations right now… and we will create new content that will naturally enhance the abilities of an Asmodian. And of course, the night shift… is essential…”

To every member of the planning team, that word felt like a death sentence.