New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

The other big subject Phoenix lingered on a lot was the strategies used by each officer on their respective fronts, or during the trap zone phase.

She especially paid great attention to Declan, who seemed to have some real tactical experience. She asked him to spare her some time for more details on a later date, to which Declan nodded yes.

Next came the subject of Exp distribution. But as she was about to open the panel for stored Exp, a notification rang in all the officers' ears.

They all opened it simultaneously, reading it with wide eyes.

*Special Guild Announcement, for Paragons!*

*For fighting off forces that could have toppled small kingdoms, with only enough men to hold a village in the wilderness, the system has generated a reward, to compensate for your heroic actions and ingenuity.*

*Generating Reward*

*Ding!*

*Rewards generated!*

5 million gold added to your guild treasury

5 million Exp added to your Exp stored points

Various resources have been added to your treasury

10,000 world reputation points have been added to your kingdom

Special Teleportation Device instant construction blueprint added to the treasury

*Congratulations to the guild Paragons, for your exceptional resilience in the face of adversity!*

All of them were momentarily stunned. Khalor was sporting a larger grin than usual.

He hadn't expected these rewards, since no one had done such a stupid thing in his past. The top guilds usually stayed in their corner, trying not to fight too much with each other.

There were some wars, but never had someone challenged all of them and lived to tell the tale. In his past, any guild that alienated the top guilds was wiped out of New Eden.

Their players were hunted down and killed until they couldn't play anymore under that character. They burned the bases to the ground and plundered their resources among themselves.

Khalor was half expecting retaliation from the top guilds. But he imagined it would take a while to mount, since the next stage of the game would take a while to stabilize.

While the other officers were discussing how to use their new resources, Khalor was already thinking about the next update and its effect on the game and out of it. Astaroth could see the gears turning in the undead's head.

He raised his hand, commanding the silence of everyone. Phoenix was almost surprised that Astaroth butted in.

"Khalor. Mind telling us the next step you had thought of?"

The other officers were curious why the guild leader asked this of Khalor, except for Phoenix and Violette. Both girls looked at Khalor too, wondering what his grand plan was.

"Hm? Honestly, my previous plan has to be almost entirely scrapped. So many unforeseen events took place that I will need to think of new plans."

Astaroth scratched his chin.

"In that case, can you shed a bit of light on the next update? I think it would be better if everyone in this room could prepare a bit in advance. Or at least, be ready when it hits."

Khalor looked at Astaroth with a look of disapproval. He would rather have the least people know he had access to information from the game that he shouldn't have.

Declan then interjected. His head was on the table, making everyone talking to him have a hard time knowing where to look.

But as he looked at Khalor, the latter looked directly into his eyes.

"And how would you have access to such information? I've been trying to get inside information on New Eden ever since it came out, and always came out empty-handed."

Khalor smirked

"I have a reliable source. Calls himself Mr. Future. He hasn't lied to me once, yet."

Declan looked unconvinced, his eyes squinting at Khalor. But he didn't pry further.

"As for your question, Astaroth, yes I could throw you guys a bone. There would be no harm in that."

"Then go on. What should we expect?"

"Before I tell you anything, I should show you something. Would you all mind following me somewhere? Especially you, priest."

He looked into Silent Light's eyes as he said those last words. The teen almost shivered at the intensity of Khalor's eyes.

'So gloomy, yet so cool!' he thought to himself, maintaining his poker face.

Silent nodded his head, rising from his seat. The other officers followed suit, wondering what Khalor wanted to show them.

Khalor walked out of the room, remaining silent from then on. He turned to the left, heading deeper inside the center of the tree palace.

Astaroth almost found it weird that Khalor knew exactly where he was going, although no one had the time to fully explore the palace yet. But he guessed that was another bit of information from his past.

Reaching behind what would be the wall directly behind the throne, in the throne room, Khalor started passing his hand across the wooden surface. He did this for almost a full minute, before he finally smiled.

"There you are."

Pushing his hand on the wooden surface, a small part of the wall suddenly sunk inwards. It had been so uniform with the wall before that, that no one could have found it without knowing where to look.

The wall, made out entirely of bark, suddenly started cracking and popping, before it retracted on itself, revealing a hidden staircase.

"Please follow me down here. And, priest, have some holy magic ready."

Everyone nodded, Silent Light clenching his jaw, too.

As they started walking down the stairs, Astaroth felt something familiar coming from below. His mana sense flared up, his eyes suddenly seeing every mana particle floating around.

Strangely enough, there wasn't much mana flying around, which was weird, considering magic had just opened the passage. But the lower they went, the scarcer it was, until something else became visible to him.

"This mana signature! How did it get under the tree palace?!"

Astaroth jumped on the wall next to him, somersaulting over Khalor. As he landed on the stairs in front of the group, he darted forward.

'This shouldn't be here!' he screamed internally.

"Wait up!" everyone behind him screamed.