Orui's Oasis

When Adam got back in his room, he was still stunned, processing what happened was… hard. Although the chances of recover were high, they were 100% sure, there was still a chance that it had been too late, and recovery was impossible for his brother.

They had been expecting the call, which was why they were so tensed, but now that Matthew's recovery was assured, the last burden disappeared, and he could now truly relax, and nothing held him back anymore.

When he checked the time, he saw he still had ten minutes before the end of the patch, so he decided to wait until then. Adam meditated in the meanwhile, forcing himself back to a calmer state.

After ten minutes, Adam entered his cabin, curious about what the new update would bring to the game.

When Adam actually entered the game, he looked around, trying to find any difference with before, but he couldn't see any. He also looked at his attributes, his status page, but nothing had changed from chat he could see. Since he was unable to find any difference, and he couldn't see any kind of surprise, he wanted to log out.

But when he clicked on the button, he received a warning, and once he read it, his face became cloudy. Those fuckers.

Adam, like many other players, found this 'surprise', they had been trolled by the game developers. They also found one of the things changed by the patch.

[Be careful of where you log out, as your avatar will sleep where you logged out. Find a safe place to sleep at, or you might get eaten by monsters.]

Because people had wanted their surprise, they had logged in, and everyone, like Adam, who was in a dangerous location, wanted to curse at the developers. Adam closed his system with a sigh and summoned Neith. They would have to find an oasis, and sleep there.

This was actually a good update for the game's realism, but it would make the game much harder, and probably lengthen the gaming session of many players.

Neith was surprised when she was summoned by Adam, but he quickly explained to her why they would be traveling at night. Of course, he replaced every gaming term with otherworlder stuff, for example it wasn't the game having an update, but the gods that sent him here changed their ways.

Well, it didn't really matter much in the end, as the NPCs and monsters seemed to be unable to understand anything related to a mention of a video game, players had already tried to tell the NPCs they were just that, NPCs within a game, but the NPCs were hearing different things, the player's speech would be transformed in their ears.

Anyway, Adam was quite lucky. Only an hour after setting out, he saw a settlement in the distance, and as he approached he confirmed this was an oasis.

Neith and him strode toward the entrance of the village, a group of six orcs approached him and Neith. When they saw his face, Adam saw them tense a little, but the leading orc still said with a rather neutral voice "Are you perhaps in search of a shelter for the night?"

Adam nodded and jumped from Neith's back, landing in front of the Orc. Orcs had a rather similar build to Northmen, except that their skin was greenish, and they had a lot less of hair.

Actually, orcs were depicted as really ugly in most games and movies, but in Epoch they didn't differ too much from human standards, and many orcs were quite attractive.

Adam said to the leader "Do you welcome strangers? Northmen in particular?"

The leading orc replied "As long as you don't cause any trouble, then you can stay. It won't be free of course."

Adam grinned and said "Good, as long as you don't try to rip me off then I will leave as soon as I have slept"

The orc seemed to hesitate a little before he said "I'm not sure you will want to sleep though. Don't you know where you are?"

Adam shook his head and said "No idea. I found this place by accident, I was just searching for a roof for the night." This seemed to shock the orcs, and one of them even said "Liar! You can't have found this place by yourself!"

Adam looked at the orc weirdly and said "It's just an oasis, what's the big deal about finding it? And I would advise you to lower your voice, I won't cause trouble, but I won't let myself be insulted either."

The orc was about to retort but the leader gripped his shoulder, making him shut up, and said "My friend didn't mean to insult you, it's just that finding this place is very hard… Have you ever heard of Orui's Oasis?"

Adam looked at the leader shocked, and asked "You're kidding. Don't tell me this is where we are?!" The leader orc nodded with a helpless expression, he really didn't know what to say. Countless orcs would spend years to find this place, and this Northman found it without even meaning it.

Orui's Oasis was one of the most famous places in the entire Mirage Desert, partly because of it's mysteriousness. It was a very hard place to find, because it was covered with illusions and spells that made it impossible to be placed on maps.

There were only two ways to find this place. One was to stumble on it randomly like Adam had done, but people had already searched for their entire lives without finding it. As for the other way, there existed a special item that could guide someone to the Oasis, but those items were very rare.

Actually, they were so rare that there were said to be less of those items than there were Legendary Items in the world. That rare. So of course, Adam was stunned to find this place by accident, and understood why the orcs were confused by his presence, and why they didn't believe him when he said he came here by accident.

A Northman shouldn't have one of those items, only the highest ranking Orcs had them, and some were even lost.

But this place mysteriousness, although intriguing, wasn't the reason why this place was known worldwide and literally everyone dreamed for a chance to get in.

It is because of the Oasis itself, which was said to have been blessed by the Orcish God of Knowledge himself, Orui. The name came from that God. And thus, if one soaked in the water of the Oasis, they would enter a deep enlightenment state, a state of epiphany, which would strength the person by a great deal, and allow them to master their skills.

Even monsters desired to soak in this Oasis' water, because it would also make them stronger, awaken their bloodline and what was hidden in it, like the skill Neith had unlocked recently.

Adam and Neith followed the Orcs inside, excited. They thought they wouldn't see anyone other than the guards, who were actually priests of Orui, but they were surprised to see another Orc. That Orc also looked at them in confusion, but Adam was quite shocked when he looked at his status.

[Yokgu] (Bronze, Level 40)

HP: 35000/35000

Being Level 40 wasn't anything amazing by itself, but the power this Orc was releasing was much more powerful than it should be. Adam could feel this Orc was about as strong as he was himself…

This could only mean one thing, he was facing another Sovereign. The Orcish Sovereign.