33 Lucrative Rewards

Concluding their deal, Astur hands a small book over to Blaze, The Basics of Alchemy. If it wasn't a player that Astur was interacting with, she probably wouldn't have tried to teach anyone alchemy. As a player, Blaze only needs to skim through the book and wait for the System window to pop up and give her the choice of selecting Alchemist as her Main Class.

A few minutes later as Blaze finishes skipping through the book and getting duped into becoming an Alchemist, Elizabeth walks in, waving a couple of papers around.

"Astur, there are some reports that I need you to look at," Elizabeth says before noticing Blaze sitting on the sofa. "And who might you be?"

"Good timing Liz. Meet my newest slave-- I mean disciple, what was your name again… Blaze, yeah that's it. I'll be teaching her some things and she'll also be assisting us," Astur says.

"You... teach?" Elizabeth questions, "Blaze, right? If you're being blackmailed into something, just say it, and I'll create an opening for you to run.

"Just what do you take me for?" Astur asks.

"An insane drug addict with a drinking problem who enjoys the misfortune of others," Elizabeth says.

"Yeah, and you're not wrong. But I'm also a beautiful woman with great assets, unlike you and your great wall."

"Ah, and you're very narcissistic too. But more importantly, I'm still growing!"

Watching the exchange between Astur and Elizabeth, Blaze mentally questions for the second time today as to whether or not she made the right choices.

After another minute the two stop arguing as Elizabeth then introduces herself to Blaze.

"I'm Elizabeth Tepes, a pleasure to meet you, Miss Blaze. I hope we'll get along well from now on."

"Likewise," Blaze says as she inspects Elizabeth status.

[Elizabeth Tepes, Forest Saint, Level ???]

"As expected, I can't see much," Blaze thinks.

"Now that the two of you are acquainted, go get some work done. I'm gonna go take a nap. And Blaze, once you're a bit stronger, come back and I'll teach you some skills, but remember to bring to helpers like I originally asked," Astur says giving Blaze a new quest as she retreats to her room. But before she walks up the stairs she turns back around to say, "oh and you probably shouldn't take the Elixir I gave you right now, I mean unless you want to kill yourself that is," she says before actually leaving this time.

Since Astur isn't going to give her any time, Elizabeth places the papers she had on the table, hoping that Astur will at least look at them later. Turning towards Blaze, Elizabeth asks, "since you're here, do you mind helping me with a few things?"

Knowing this is a common way that NPCs would say before giving out quests, Blaze agrees. Elizabeth wants her to ask around the construction sights to make sure everything is going as planned and to assist with patrols once the first part is done. In return, Elizabeth offered one of the spare bags that Astur had made, the same kind of bag Elizabeth uses that can seemingly fit anything inside. Seeing how she didn't have any kind of portable storage like Astur's ring or Elizabeth's Bag, Elizabeth gave the spare bag over to Blaze as a form of advance payment before leaving the island with her.

Meanwhile, as Astur confirms that both Elizabeth and Blaze have left the house, Astur makes her way over to her workshop. She is going around the various items she has around on the floor and putting them into her spatial ring. But this isn't because Astur felt like cleaning, but because she wanted to sell off all the random junk she made to the players, but not for money, but EXP instead. One of Astur's plans from the beginning was to charge items for EXP rather than money. This was one of her plans to accelerate her growth.

But compared to Astur, whose taking it easy cleaning and Blaze who is walking around the central area of the forest while enjoying the scenery, the official forums for Eternal Universe Online have gotten a little worked up. Various screenshots of quests have been posted, but there were some posts that stood out from the others. Screenshots from Blaze's stream when she had been showing her quests. Compared to the other quests, which showed rewards that had at most 500 EXP, nearly all of Blaze's quests have had a minimum of 1,000 EXP, and this isn't even taking into account the extra rewards she's been given. Naturally, many of the beta players saw this and lamented not choosing a race that starts on Planet Vopal. But the players that did start on Vopal, a small handful of players began to rush to the Sea of Trees for the rich quests from there. But while some are jealous while others are running, there is a small subset of the players on Planet Vopal who are regretting their choices so far, the players who had gotten the privilege of joining the joint investigation team of the Towns of Dawn and Hadrow. This group is hoping that their mission won't completely lock them off from the rewards coming from the Holy Oulvgar State.

As the joint investigation team of Dawn and Hadrow finish their final preparations before setting out, a small group from the cathedral in the Town of Dawn also sets out, the destination of both groups, the Sea of Trees.