38 The Oracle's Treasury 2

[Compulsory Chain Mission : System Upgradation activated.]

[Rewards : System level up, System Upgradation.]

[Failure consequences : System disintegration. ]

[Second mission : Accept the mission for exploration of the Serpent's Valley and obtain the first half of the map to Celestial Palace.]

[Mission rewards : +2500 exp.]

The notifications about the second part of the chain mission appeared before Alex just as he was checking out the mission posted in the free tier section.

Free Tier ment that anyone in the guild could sign up for it irrespective of their batches or tiers, but these types of missions were usually related to beast waves where beasts from all tiers appeared, some manual labour or some recreational events organized by the United Adventurers Association or some guilds combined.

Alex looked at what was written in the paper.

" Free tier mission : head to the Death Valley of Celestial Palace in search of the treasury of the Stancer clan. Anyone who successfully reports about some new information will be given 2 gold coins and above depending on the usefulness and significance of the information. "

" Cyrin Stancer "

This mission was written so informally that Alex doubted if it was legit just at the first glance. The missions posted on the guild notice board were always very formal and detailed. But this seemed like the work of some five years old who came to know about the notice board where missions were posted and scribbled something out of curiosity and put it there.

But since the system regarded it as an official mission, he had no choice but to check it out.

Alex came back to the reception, " Hey Stephanie, do you know what that mission posted in the free tier section is about?"

Stephanie, the girl who had signed them the recent missions looked up at the mission in the free tier section.

"Oh that! It's the private mission that Mr Graham and the others had gone to. According to what I am told, it is issued jointly by the guild leaders of our guild and the other guild with whom we share this building."

"Issued by the guild leaders? Well that aside, what exactly is this mission?" Alex asked.

Stephanie gave a detailed explanation about the mission to Alex.

To summarize it, the purpose of this mission was to find the treasury left by an oracle that died centuries ago. The God who had ascended left all his treasures in a secret tomb that he had created. The map to this tomb was divided into two fragments. The two fragments were respectively handed to the Oracle that he had left behind to guard and manage his faith and the head priest of his religion. It was to ensure that the map wasn't used for selfish purposes and only in times of need.

When the religion was facing some threat that could possibly uproot it, the two individuals given the pieces could come together and join the two fragments.

The wisp of the God's soul would descend to confirm that the cause was legitimate or not. If the religion truly was in danger, the soul fragment would unlock the dome for them.

But it is said that the faith suffered a heavy blow when they least expected it. The mysterious enemy was so quick and so precise that before they could even know that there was a threat, the Oracle had already died and most of the believers disappeared overnight.

Later, the head priest had gone to the descendants of the Oracle to find the second half of the map, but no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't make heads or tails of the map when the two fragments were placed together. Also, there was no wisp of the God's soul to guide them.

Both the parties blamed each other for producing a fake map in order to hoard the entire treasury for themselves.

This led to them fighting amongst each other. This caused the already declining faith to plummet rapidly and by the end of this faction war, both parties had exhausted their high level fighters. The effects snowballed and at the end, the strength of both sides had decayed so much that they couldn't even last against a horde of tier 6 undead mana beasts that were attracted to the heavy aura of death seeping from the battlefield.

This led to the formation of the region called Death Valley of the Celestial palace. It was rumored that this was the last landmark that the joint party had reached following the map before they fought amongst themselves.

Later, the faction of the head priest recovered, though not to their previous glory, but some of them even became apostles of other gods. The two factions reconciled, but the faction of the oracle could not recover.

The guild leaders of these two guilds were a couple from the descendants of the head priest and they took it upon themselves to find the treasury. The two guilds organized these private missions twice a year and all the members were free to lend a hand, but they were bound by a contract that they couldn't hide any information they discovered and the treasure had to be surrendered to the guilds in return for rewards.

"Such a small world..." Alex muttered under his breath.

"But isn't the death valley full of tier 6 undead? Why would others risk their lives for this?" Alex voiced his confusion.

"Oh you don't need to worry about it. Many factions had come to know about the treasury and sent their people to search for it in the past, but they didn't find anything. Instead, they ended up clearing the undead and only mana beasts upto tier 3 are left there." Stephanie replied.

"They were supposed to try again after half a year, but they say that this time, they have found substantial leads. The guild leaders don't want to wait for long, so they returned back only to restock and will leave in a week. This mission is posted to find some more people who are willing to lend them a hand." Stephanie replied with a hint of excitement in her voice.

"Alright, register me and my party for this mission. " Alex said after a brief pause. He had a hunch that he would have to go and find this Oracle's treasury with or without those people, so it was safer to go with a group of people who had been there before.

"But..." Stephanie said in a disappointed voice, but stopped after one word. If Alex and his party left for this mission, she, who was in charge of the bronze ranked missions, would have to find someone else to complete them.

But then she remembered that most of those missions had already been handled by Alex and his party, and she didn't have any right to decide what missions they chose.

Stephanie registered Alex, Sheri and Lucas for the mission with a dejected look and handed a paper to Alex stating that he had been registered for this mission.

After registering for this mission, Alex and his party took another mission and headed out for it. On the way, Alex told them about the private mission and if they wanted to join or not. If they refused, he would withdraw their names and they could rest, but he needed to go there regardless. Just as he had expected, both of them immediately agreed to go with him.

********

At night one day before the commencement of the mission, in a big mansion in the central region of Lightwell city, a woman was standing in a dimly lit room, and in front of her was a man hanging from chains in a near death state. Behind her, there were two more people who radiated strong auras.

"Klarinon and Cecelia, you two better remember that I am helping you two with this matter while going against Lord God's orders. You two should have controlled that bastard Thomas, and it is completely your fault that he turned out to be such a shame to the family. Do remember to alter the memories of this city guard once you are done and remember, this is the first and last favour that I can do for you presently. " A man wearing the robe of Avelan's apostles said in a cold voice.

"Brother, how can you say that? Thomas was also your nephew. How can you call him a bastard?" Cecelia asked. Her brother had never acted so cold to her, so she was a bit stunned when he said this.

"Oh, are you telling me that he is your husband's son?" The man with a muscular body retorted in a disgusted tone.

"I...." Cecelia was left speechless.

Seeing the complicated expression on his sister's face, the man sighed in his heart and immediately walked away without turning back.

"It was true after all....." He whispered to himself while trying his best to restrain the anger in his heart. A few days ago, he received the news that Thomas had gone missing and decided to visit his sister and help her. When he was on his way to Klarinon's house, he saw Edward who should be searching for Thomas laughing hysterically in a tavern. He wanted to console the poor soul who had drunk himself to stupor, but when he went near Edward, the former refused to budge.

After some effort, he was able to persuade Edward, his best friend, to enter the carriage, but at this moment, Edward uttered some words that sounded like thunderclaps to him.

He had beaten Edward till he was half dead, but the suspicion was already seeded in his heart and today, he knew that Edward was right.

He wanted to kill his sister on the spot, but he controlled himself.

His sister had lost her brother today, this should do as a punishment for now.

"I did my best to hold them back on the orders of Lord God, but I couldn't stop them. Now I would like to see what you have got, descendant of a major goddess..." The man said as his carriage vanished in the darkness of the night.