Notoriety, page 17
In ED, Xeal and his party continued to spend one 16-hour session of every three days grinding in the kobold mines, except when Nanami was able to log on more often. This allowed Xeal to balance things quite well thanks to the bonuses from fighting foes that were above his level at all times. Though since they crossed into floor 120 and beyond, their progress was slowed as tier-6 enemies became more common each floor. Still, Xeal was happy to see his level continue to climb at what he thought was an acceptable rate as he reached level 125 and was well on his way to level 126 before the end of day 204.
When he wasn’t dealing with guild business or grinding in the kobold mines, Xeal was spending time with his wives and other ladies. This included watching each of his NPC wives start to catch up to Sam and Nicole in reality, as by the end of day 204 they were only three to six weeks behind in their own pregnancies. The excitement as the time for them to give birth grew closer filled their home as the four of them looked forward to being able to return to honing their skills. They hadn’t stagnated completely due to them each working on a craft and getting experience from tasks associated with running a settlement that would normally be part of a player’s reward for doing a good job. However, they were only around level 95 and would need to take an accelerated path to catch up while still ensuring that they were ready to complete their tier-6 ordeal. It was this that Xeal’s main focus was on as the top members of FAE were all starting to approach this threshold and were spending more time training with the mirror shards in the still incomplete arena.
With the quickly approaching arrival of tier-6, Xeal had also called a meeting with Amser on day 181, who at Xeal’s request was holding off on attempting her own ordeal as she had just reached level 129. The reason she had been willing to do this for Xeal was largely due to her accepting that she was still way ahead of anyone else and that she wouldn’t be to the point she was without his help. It didn’t hurt that Xeal had her and her team focused on a dungeon that was perfect for players like her, who were focused on the arena tournaments that would soon start. It was with this in mind that Xeal had called the meeting.
“Amser, I take it everything on your end is going well.”
“Yeah, though it feels weird to be holding off on reaching tier-6. I just hope you aren’t holding me back to snag the first-clear bonus for yourself.”
“I won’t lie and say that it wouldn’t be nice to secure it again, but no, it has more to do with the arena than anything.”
“Oh, how so?”
“The moment 1,000 players reach tier-6 the first official league will be announced, according to what is available to the public. However, I expect that a countdown to that will also start the moment a single player reaches tier-6.”
“So you want to delay the time the other guilds spend preparing for it, but what does that matter if they don’t have any tier-6 players?”
“It’s their teams that will participate in the tier-5 matches that I want to hinder them on.”
“Okay, why?”
Xeal paused as he thought on how best to word his response.
“I want them to overreach at trying to recruit those who do well, as their teams fail to show what they think are adequate results.”
“While FAE dominates everything,” commented Amser with a frown as she gave Xeal a hard look before continuing. “I want a challenge, not to simply dominate the competition. If things aren’t close, the betting will suffer and the arena will fail.”
“You’re right, and while I expect tier-6 to be ours easily, tier-5 will be anyone’s guess as I expect many players to jump in both team and individual events without thinking. In fact, I think the tier-5 competition will be so crowded that I only want us to enter a single team into it. As for the tier-6 events, I am thinking that we will leave those as only a small part of our eligible players to participate in. After all, we don’t want to give up too much.”
“Oh and will I be held out of the competition?”
“Absolutely not. I need you to throw down the gauntlet for future competitions as you lead all of FAE’s arena efforts.”
“Wait, what?”
“Amser, I don’t have the time to even think about the arena. The rest of FAE’s official leadership is tied up with other stuff and haven’t given the arena more than a passing thought. While you have been focused on it since day one.”
“Aren’t you worried that I will leave you once I start getting offers from other groups? After all, my contract is one of the few that will let me just walk away in the guild.”
“You’re free to do so if you wish to, just know that I will happily make you regret doing so when you fall from being the perpetual arena champion to just one of the best.”
“Oh, you would step into the arena yourself?”
“No, I would simply develop someone for the sole purpose of becoming the arena champion.”
“Oh, and you believe that you could pull something like that off?” asked Amser in a challenging tone.
“Yes, though it would cost far more than I would like.”
“Alright, so how would you do it? After all, I should know your technique so I can use it when training our members who will be on my team.”
“It’s simple. I would throw credits at the problem and recruit the best challenger I could and give the same advantages that you currently get from me, only at an increased rate.”
“So you are holding out on me.”
“No, it is about priorities and availability of the mirror shards, as well as other resources. As I said, it would cost more than I would like. I am speaking about the players who wouldn’t have the chance to train against copies of themselves.”
“I know,” responded Amser before sighing and shifting tones to a more serious one. “I want a new contract, and I want it to be one that I can only get out of if you lose sole control of the guild. If I am going to officially take up a position as one of FAE’s pillars I can’t leave things as they are, or I will never be free of other guilds’ recruitment efforts.”
“Are you sure that you’re ready to commit to being in FAE for the long haul?”
“Ha, the womanizer of a guild leader makes me worry about my chastity, but other than that, it’s a pretty great group of people.”
“Yah, that guild leader just doesn’t know how to avoid picking up more women, though he seems to be slowing down.”
“Just get me the new contract and have someone other than Kate write it. I have no interest in finding her twisting of words having obligated me to being your bride or something.”
“She wouldn’t do that. She would just make you have to hit on Ignis any time Nanami was around or something,” quipped Xeal.
“Oh great, but really, I know that she always tilts things in her favor somehow and I don’t want to be looking for how she is trying to do it, especially as it can be extremely subtle.”
“Fair, I will write it myself…”
Xeal and Amser shifted back to discussing what would be expected in her new role and about how Xeal planned on waiting until they had 2,000 players ready to challenge their tier-6 ordeal to start. They also discussed the first-clear bonus that would go to whoever could complete it first in a boasting manner, as Xeal and Amser both knew that it would come down to them and Takeshi in all likelihood.
With that taken care of, the only other events of note for Xeal were the birthdays of each of his princess wives, as he made sure to take the time to celebrate each of them. For Enye, it came when she was still just 25 weeks pregnant and on the two-year anniversary of Xeal meeting her and Dyllis. As it was the year prior, Xeal spent a few hours with Dyllis before devoting the full day to Enye as they enjoyed a simple day together in their home as they talked about the future, before a dinner with everyone. After dinner, Xeal found himself being led to what he knew as a guest bedroom as Enye explained that it had been decided that it would be used for special occasions. Inside the room was a bed that was only big enough to barely fit three people if they really tried as Enye enjoyed a night of it being just them.
When it was Lingxin’s birthday on day 172, Xeal found himself spending the whole day talking about his fights with kobolds recently and snuggling. Nothing seemed to make her happier than having Xeal feel her 28-week pregnant belly whenever she felt their child moving as she talked about how she couldn’t wait to meet their daughter. She also pulled out all of the baby clothing that she had embroidered with protective runes for not only hers, but for all four of the little ones on the way. When the evening came, Xeal found himself at a group dinner once more before spending the night as just the two of them.
On day 182 it was Mari’s turn to have Xeal all to herself, but unlike the others, she dragged him to a forge and made him work on learning the skills needed to forge a katana. Xeal smiled as he learned them as she went into everything from selecting the best steel before forging the blade, to the application of the clay before hardening the blade and more. She talked about how only smiths who had reached gold rank would even be allowed to assist in the process. Though only once a smith reached mithril rank would they be permitted to learn the techniques that involved combining engraving and forging a blade. While she let Xeal know this, she also made it clear that she didn’t know the exact technique even if he wanted to learn it from her. She also stressed that he would need to become a master at creating katanas before her mother would even consider allowing him, or anyone in FAE, to learn from their swordsmiths. It was a few hours later, before dinner, and Xeal had just completed what he would call a failure of a katana that was only possible thanks to the assistance of the system in speeding up the process, when he spoke.
“This is definitely far more complex than anything else that I have ever forged, and I feel like it would almost require me to focus on only forging this style blade if I wished to become even halfway decent at it.”
“Good. So now do you understand why even after our child is born, that you shouldn’t ask my mother about learning the technique?”
“Mari, I never intended to learn them. My goal is only to ensure that the technique is not lost by allowing a few of my kind the opportunity to.”
“Xeal, that is even less likely to happen. Please understand that even if you were to master this craft and were able to produce the best katana-style blades, that you learning would be the most our ministers would allow.”
“Mari, I know and I don’t expect it to be an easy sale. It may even cost me one of my best smiths to learn it and I may never see a return on the investment. However, if the Muthia empire falls, what will happen to the technique right now?”
“It would be lost with it. That is why I am focused on learning it and my hope is that it will become something our children can learn as well.”
“Mari, what rank of smith are you?”
“I am only silver ranked, but once our little one is here, I will be focused on it as more than just a pastime, as I agree that it needs to be saved and I believe this is the best way.”
“Fine, but you only have until I reach tier-7 to convince your mother to let one of the masters of the technique come here to teach you. That will include traveling with you to Cielo city should I send you there when war breaks out.”
“Xeal-”
“Mari, I understand. You don’t think they would allow one of them to leave Muthia, but I will not have you where I can’t protect you with everything I have. Especially as you would likely bring our child with you.”
“Very well. Now I think I have worked enough on my birthday. I think that a bit of relaxation would do us both some good.”
Xeal was happy that Mari had accepted his proposal, but he also suspected that she was just delaying another conversation about it. Even so, he had gotten a lot of useful information as even though he had a few players in FAE who used a katana like Takeshi, he had many smiths who wanted to learn to craft them in ED. However, up until now, failures like what Xeal had made that could barely be called swords, was all that had been created. From everything that Xeal had learned today, it seemed that even getting the right materials would prove difficult as there was a whole supply chain built around masters of each step in the Muthia empire. From the smelters who turned metallic sands into the special alloys that had the needed qualities, to the smiths who crafted the blades and even the polisher who would complete the blade’s preparations for its final assembly. It was through all of this that Xeal realized why so few player-made katanas had ever been made in his last life, beyond the inability to enchant them. By the same token, Xeal was convinced that if FAE could produce katana-style blades that could be enchanted and had a master enchanter do so, that they would be among the best swords in the game.
One thing had almost always been true in Xeal’s last life in ED. The harder something was to master, the better a perfected product would be. The only exceptions had been a few items like katanas, as the inability to enchant them had placed them at the top of mundane swords, but not worth the effort needed to make them. Especially as it seemed that it required even more work than Xeal had realized beyond just the forging of the blade. While Mari worked to master the craft of forging a katana, Xeal knew that he needed to have players master the whole process of forging the blade as well. Especially as Xeal was sure that the smelting process that was needed only existed in history books now, as it was beyond labor intensive and machines had taken it over. Luckily, just as Takeshi still kept a version of the samurai mentality alive, others did the same with sword and katana smithing, even if it was only a few.
As Xeal filed his thoughts away to be addressed another day, he enjoyed a few lazy hours with Mari as they talked about current events and the future. By the time dinner time had arrived, they had successfully lost track of time and it had taken Aalin and Gale coming to find them to get them to enjoy Mari’s birthday dinner, before they retired to the spare bedroom to simply enjoy themselves once more, before they would both return to their routines.
(*****)
May 24, 2267 & ED Year 3 Days 205-207.
When Alex stepped out of his VR pod at 5:00 AM, he stretched as he watched Sam and Nicole do the same as he gave them hugs and kisses. Due to how far along they were, neither of them could fly and would be staying here while Ava, Mia, Kate and two of her bodyguards joined Alex for the trip. Harrison and several other employees from FAE’s headquarters would be coming along with Tara and them as well. Dan had asked to come as well, before he had been shut down by Mrs. Bell and Amanda, as they both had called him out on only wanting to see Anna and needing to be better at his job first. Alex had just smiled before agreeing and telling him it was only a little over three weeks before Anna would be returning for good.
Once he had given both Sam and Nicole one last kiss, they made their way downstairs, to find everyone was already moving as they quickly got breakfast before saying their goodbyes. A quick shuttle ride later, they were all at the airport where they met up with the rest of those who would be going with them on the trip and boarded the plane. As they flew the short flight, Elizabeth and Rose took care of their inflight needs while chatting about current events with Taya and the twins. Both were looking forward to spending a few more days hanging out at Alex’s mansion as they would have a few days of downtime after this trip and would be staying in Colorado for it.
Upon landing around 9:00 AM in Los Angeles, Alex bid the Brewyses farewell for the time being, as they found themselves on a few luxury shuttles which were taking them to Alex’s old high school. He knew that it was going to be an interesting experience for him as to all of them it had only been a year since he had been there, but to him it felt like a lifetime ago. He had already been working through his senior yearbook to put names to faces and jog his memory as much as possible, but he knew that there was only so much that he could do and just hoped for the best.
They arrived around 11:00 AM at the school, giving them almost two hours before the start of the presentation as they were greeted by Principal Judy Lee and several staff members. Alex remembered none of them save for a very vague recollection of Mrs. Lee, who had become principal in his second to last year and promptly made everyone hate her by the end of his senior year. This had started with a program for those with poor grades to have half an hour of a study period during lunch. The seniors and all the students with good grades had loved it because they got a full hour lunch instead of just 40 minutes, but when it became mandatory for all students the following year they all hated it. Especially as half of the students would be in it for the first half hour and half in the second, causing friends to not be able to hang out at lunch unless they were in the same study period. The justification had been about how it was embarrassing for students to have the fact that they were doing poorly in a subject advertised and how it would improve the whole school’s test scores. This had led to things like her car being found on the outdoor stage after being lifted and carried by a group of students, though it had helped that she drove a tiny thing that weighed less than half of a normal car. Alex could still remember the increase in rule enforcement that had followed and hearing that those responsible had been given detention for the rest of the year. Now he had to smile and act like those weren’t the only memories that stood out to him of the middle-aged woman as she talked.
“Alex, it is nice to see one of our alumni returning after finding success in their ventures so quickly post-graduation.”
“Thank you. It has been an enlightening and enjoyable experience for me, though my free time has been stretched thin as I build it up.”
“Of course. Now I don’t see any of our other students with you. Are they coming later?”
“No. Unfortunately, my guild can’t afford to have so many of us offline at once and as this is the only presentation I can give this year, I selected my team accordingly. Though you will see a few of them at presentations next year as they do more focused ones on the areas that they are more involved in.”
