Hidden quest
The challenge began and James sprinted forward, the first 25 yards weren't anything, he had to make minimal to no movements to dodge the arrows. After he passed the 25-yard mark however the goblin started activating rapid fire, shooting 5 arrows at a time, making it extremely difficult for any normal player to dodge the arrows, for James however, who was in the beyond Domain Realm, this was barely any different than the first 25 yards. At the 10-yard mark the goblin started just rapid shooting, most arrows were still easily dodged, but some he couldn't physically dodge, even if he knew they were coming, he simply didn't have enough speed.
Klang-klang
James took out his sword and deflected them, the arrows weren't powerful after all, the goblin focused on speed, not pure strength, he didn't need to, after all, he needed a hit, not damage. Now that the goblin saw James blocking his arrows, he started to panic, but it was all meaningless, James had already passed the finish line.
System: you are the first to complete the Golden goblin runner challenge, you will be rewarded with 2 levels, the rare skill book for the Swordsman class [lightning discharge], and 50 gold coins.
James quickly put everything in his inventory and took a look at the skill book before leaving to go and meet up with Iron forge.
[Lightning discharge] (Action-type) (rare)
Requires: Sword
Charge your sword up with lighting, when you proceed to stick it in the ground the lightning will discharge in a radius of 30 yards around you, doing 175% damage and having a chance to stun every enemy hit.
Cooldown: 1 minute
James instantly learned the skill book and thought about the distribution of his 16 newly gained attribute points, he didn't really have any specific thing that he needed them for at the moment so he decided to disturb them the most common way for Swordsman, a 2/1/1 split between, strength, Agility, and endurance. Making it so that he had an extra 8 in strength, 4 in Agility, and 4 in endurance. These new attribute points elevated James, attack power to 29 while increasing his attack speed and movement speed both by 1, and elevating his HP to 180.
Now that that was all taken care of James was about to walk out.
"Excuse me, do you have a moment."
When he looked over he saw a young lady with long straight red hair, of course, he knew that someone was there from the beginning, but they didn't seem that strong so he let it go.
"yes, what is it, I'm in a hurry."
The young lady then got an arrogant frown on her face.
"I am the Vice guild leader of the dragon-phoenix pavilion, and I would like to invite you as a core member"
James didn't even make it look like he thought it over before replying.
"No, I'm not interested, but I can add you as a friend, you can let me know if you need help."
The dragon-Phoenix pavilion was a super guild, if they ever encountered a big opportunity that they couldn't take on their own, he wouldn't mind taking some of it.
"that is too bad, and sure, I'll add you."
James then quickly went on his way to the town center where he would meet up with Iron forge.
When arriving at the town center it wasn't that hard to spot iron forge, his big stature stood out amongst all the other.
"Iron, over here."
Iron forge then turned around and immediately walked towards James with a big smile on his face, he had just gotten the title, [Fastest forager], which was a title given if you managed to become the first forger in your world and craft any equipment within 5 minutes of creating your account, the higher the rank of the equipment, the better the title, in the greater gods Domain only 2 people have ever managed to get this title, and both of them had done it with common equipment, normally even getting the forger subclass within 5 minutes would be an impossible task, but James knew of a special unique quest in brown forest town that involved finding out how the daughter of the blacksmith died, it would reward you with the subclass forger, and a foraging design for a Bronze one-handed sword, if you did it quick enough your relationship with the forger might even get high enough to where he would lend you his workshop and some materials. Even then, with only just having acquired the forger subclass, Iron forge was only a basic Apprentice forger, which means that his chance of actually crafting a Bronze Tier weapon was slim to non, James had told him beforehand that if he didn't manage to craft it within 4 minutes he should give up and craft a common one.
"How did it go?"
James asked with anticipation on his face.
"I GOT IT, I crafted the Sword."
James just stared with wide eyes, he then quickly took Iron forge to some ally way so he could tell him the effects of the title in privacy.
"So, what does it give you."
Iron forge was kind of puzzled when James asked this, he was reincarnated, shouldn't he know already?
James picked up on his expression and answered.
"no, I don't know, this title has never been gotten with Bronze equipment, and frankly I didn't think you would do it, the chance of you crafting that sword was slim to non."
Iron forge then let out a quick proud laugh before revealing the bonuses.
"I get a +10% crafting chance on everything, a 5% chance anything below legendary grade goes up a grade, and a bonus 2 forging proficiency for every item crafted."
James just looked at him, he couldn't rap his head around it, as far as he knew the only bonus for the common title was a 2% crafting chance bonus, and that was already considered the best-forging title in the greater gods' Domain, after all, most forgers didn't even have a 0.5% chance to craft legendary equipment, while holders of this title had close to 3, but with this new amazing title, Iron forge could get up to 11%, that was insanity. While still in a daze iron forge's call woke him up.
"here is the Sword, it isn't much use to me"
Iron forge then proceeds to push the shiny silver blade inside his arms.
[Decent iron Sword] (Bronze rank, One-handed Sword)
Level 3
Equipment Requirement: Strength 10
Attack Power +25
Strength +3
Agility +2
Additional passive skill: increases attack power by 5%
Durability 50/50
Restricted to Swordsman.
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James was impressed, even amongst Bronze grade weapons, this one was extremely good.
If he reached Level 3 and equipped this Sword, his attack power would be a whopping 60 points.
Thinking about this James started consoling with Iron forge about what they were going to do next.
"okay Iron, before we leave on the trip for my legendary quest with Merlin there is 1 more quest we got to complete in town, follow me."
They started walking through the big medieval town, whit countless players all frantically trying everything to get a quest or find a good grinding spot, James just ignored them and went straight to his next quest, this was a hidden quest involving the auction house master.
When arriving at the auction house James walked straight to the guards posted up next to a door at the back of the auction house.
"What business do you have here, the master isn't currently in the mood to talk."
This is why it was considered a hidden quest, to get it you had to find out about the missing family heirloom that the auction master was currently in distress about. The only way to know about it is to build up a good enough relationship with the townspeople so they start sharing town secrets with you. This would naturally take a lot of time, the guy who found this quest in James's previous life only did so after a week, but James didn't have to worry about that. He came closer to the guards and whispered something in their ears.
"Tell the auction manager that I can help whit the problem he is currently having, you know, with the heirloom."
The guards didn't say anything, one of them had just gone inside the office to much surprise of the crowd in the auction house.
"hey, why do the guards just do what he asks, when I got there they just turned me away."
"this shit is unfair man, the game has been out for like 15 minutes, he can't have a higher status than us."
Ignoring the crowds James patiently waited for the guard to come back, this didn't take long as the auction manager was in quite a desperate situation.
"You and your friend can come in, hurry up."
James and Iron then passed into the luxuries office of the auction manager, getting a percentage of every auction made didn't seem to pay that bad, but in contrast to the neat luxuries room was a man sitting behind the desk, he looked disheveled, totally in distress, when the man saw him and Iron enter he quickly motioned them to sit.
"young men, from what I heard from the guards you have a way to get my family heirloom back, please speak up, how ate you planning on doing this, as you can see my situation isn't in the best place, so I will reward you handsomely if you can bring it back to me."
At that moment a system prompt appeared before James and Iron, signaling that they were successful in triggering the quest.
System: hidden quest "heirloom retrieval" accepted.
Quest Details: the auction house manager of brown forest town is in distress over the family heirloom he recently lost, find out where it is, retrieve it, and bring it back to the auction house manager.
Quest Rewards: Blackwing city royal tome.
Quest Failure penalty: bared from the brown forest town auction house for life.
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When the 2 of them looked up they could see the auction manager holding back tears while trying to talk to them again.
"Thank you so much for your help, please go now, I want that heirloom back as soon as possible. I wish for your quick and safe return."
The guards were about to open the main door when James stopped them, if he went out that way he would have tens of people following him, asking him questions. It was not that these people could endanger him, but it was just annoying to deal with, and would probably also slow them down, so he deserved to ask for another way.
"there seems to be a lot of noise outside, could we maybe take the side entrance, these people outside would only slow us down in getting the heirloom."
After hearing slow and heirloom in the same sentence the auction house manager quickly replied with a slight shudder in his voice.
"Of course, follow me, follow me."
James and Iron then left the vicinity of the auction house to not be seen by the people looming around the auction house, they went straight to some shop to buy health regeneration potions. Their price wasn't a problem thanks to James's big winnings, he was probably the richest player in the whole empire at the moment, the game had only been out for 20 minutes, after all, you would be hard-pressed to even find a super guild with more than 1 gold.
After the shopping was done they left town, when they were away from prying eyes Iron forge decided to ask about the quest, he hadn't been studying after all.
"So, where do we get this family heirloom exactly?"
"Well, it is located in the bandit camp around half an hour away from town, the auction house master didn't lose it in fact, it was stolen. The bandits shouldn't be a problem, from what I recall there were 50 bandits in the camp, all of them being level 5, and one bandit boss, him being level 10."
Iron looked a little worried at the mention of 50 bandits.
"Are you sure we can take 50 bandits that are 3 levels higher than us?"
James just smirked at his question.
"You have been fighting too many strong opponents over the last 2 years, these guys aren't even close to the Refinement Realm, the only advantage they have is raw power. Now, do you think you can't take some combat noobs even if they have some more power?"
Iron looked relieved after hearing that, it was just like James said, it didn't matter if they had more raw power, they probably couldn't even touch him.
On the way to the bandit camp, 2 of them went through a level 3 wild zone, most of the monsters here were just some wild wolves, they couldn't even put a scratch on James and Iron, nonetheless, they took their time and killed every monster they saw, bringing Iron forge to level 1, and filling half of James's EXP bar to level 3.
It didn't take that much time to deal with the wolves, after only 45 minutes they arrived in front of the bandit camp, ready to start a bloodbath.