Endless Abys

System: Unique Quest "Steel Fortress Barrutia" completed. Rewarding 1 Blacksteel Insignia. Obtained Blackbeard's Recommendation Letter. Obtained Advanced Book of Magic. Rewarding 10.000 EXP. Reputation at Stonehammer Town has reached Worship.

Now having everything he needed James bid farewell to Blackbeard and set off for White River city once more. With this Recommendation Letter, he could gain a Villa inside White River city relatively close to the city center, a prime location for his guild residence. That was only a byproduct though, the real reason he needed this Villa is that there was an entranceway to the Forgotten Lands in the basement, if he destroyed the seal on the abys there the Legendary main storyline quest would start, an expansion pack would also drop.

"Hello sir, how may I help you?"

The receptionist at the front desk of the mayor's office in White River city said.

"I have this recommendation letter given to me by the mayor of Stonehammer Town, he said I could exchange it for a residence in this city."

James said while sliding the recommendation letter across the counter. The attendant took the letter to some sort of magic crystal at the other end of the counter and then came back with a light smile.

"I verified your letter, you can come with me to the waiting room, it will be about half an hour before Magistrate Weissman can see you."

"No problem, I know Weissman is a busy man."

James said with a light smile while following the receptionist.

Waiting wasn't a bad thing at the moment, he had gotten a few interesting items from the Unique Quest "Steel Fortress Barrutia" that he still needed to check out, both of them being related to crafting. This was a good thing because he was currently in need of money, James barely had enough Gold to make it through the auction in a few days, not to mention the 30.000 he needed for Brown's quest.

[Blacksteel Insignia] (Fine-Gold rank)

Unique Equipment

The Blacksteel Insignia is the highest medal of honor amongst the Blacksteel Dwarves. After equipping it:

-The forging success rate increased by 5%.

-Proficiency has a 10% chance to increase by 1 extra point.

-When forging, there is a 1% chance to increase the forged item's Attributes.

James was quite pleased with the insignia, Iron could make good use of this. He was even more pleased with the Advanced Book of Magic, it contained the forging design for the Armor kit and the strengthened version, the Mana Armor Kit. If he released those to the public in his shop he would definitely be able to solve his money problem.

At that moment the same secretary from before walked.

"Magistrate Weissman is ready to see you now."

James nodded and proceeded to walk toward the big wooden door at the end of the waiting room and knocked 3 times.

"You may come in."

A deep voice said from inside.

James opened the door to the middle-aged Weissman sitting behind his wooden desk with a warm smile on his face, upon seeing James Weissman motioned to the chair opposed to him.

"Please sit mister…"

"One sir, the name is One."

"A, okay, mister One, please take a seat, I heard you have a recommendation letter from my friend Blackbeard."

James nodded and placed the letter on the desk.

"Hmmm, yes, I remember this, it would allow you to get a specific Villa located in my city, but there is a slight problem."

Weissman said with a reluctant face.

"Please inform me, sir."

"Well, there are paranormal activities going on inside the villa, so I am quite reluctant to let you enter it, a friend of Blackbeard is my friend, after all, I couldn't put you in danger. How about this? I will send you on a mission to test your strength, and after that, we can discuss the villa."

Before the quest prompt could even show up James lifted up his hand above the table and coated it with a yellow divine-looking flame. When seeing this Weissman's eyes nearly popped out of his head, as a [Tier 4] he naturally knew of Mystical Flames, but not once in his life could he have ever imagined that one with this powerful of an aura existed.

"I think this is enough to prove my strength sir Weissman."

"It is indeed, but if I may ask, what kind of Mystical Flame is that, I have never seen such a magnificent one in my entire life."

James just lightly shook his head, he knew Weissman was just curious and nothing more, but he really couldn't go around and tell powerful NPCs about all his treasures right now, at his Tier that was nothing more than a death sentence.

"I'm sorry sir Weissman but I can't, I'm sure you understand."

Weissman just let out a deep sigh.

"Yes indeed, I am sorry for asking young man, here is the deed to the Villa. Take good care of it."

James proceeded to make his way toward the Villa, showed the deed to the 2 guards standing in front of the gate, and entered the Villa. It looked run down, but that didn't matter, he would have to demolish this building first anyway before he could buy a guild hall. All of that was for later though, the first thing James needed to do was make his way downstairs to the basement.

The way down was incredibly dark, not a single torch was even on the wall until suddenly a bright land with a mountain made out of 7 luminaries crystals.

System: Player has discovered the Forgotten Lands. All communications with the outside world have been disabled.

James remembered what he had to do here, he had to find some magic nodes that held up the magic array that sealed the abyss, this would unlock the quest to Remove the seal. To any other player, this would probably take days if not weeks to search for such things, but James's world affinity of 4 coupled with his universal eyes made it so that he could not only see the densest places of mana in the array but feel them with extreme accuracy.

With all of those advantages, it only took an hour or so to locate 3 magic nodes, after finding the third one a notification popped up.

System: Unique Quest "Miracles Unsealed" activated.

Quest details: Remove the seal on the Forgotten Lands.

Quest rewards: unknown.

James took a sigh of relief, there were more nodes in the Forgotten Lands, and he didn't know how many he needed to find to get this quest, luckily it was only 3.

Now that he had the quest James didn't waste any more time and went to the core of the magic array that he had discovered while searching for the nodes. It was located in a small side cave of the gained cave that was the Forgotten Lands.

In the side cave there stood a pillar of 7 luminaries crystal that seemed to be sucking mana from a never-ending pit that was in the form of a blood-red stone.

Upon closer inspection, James recognized the stone, and he was truly shocked, it was a part of the philosopher's stone. He couldn't believe that this was the place of one of its fragments, James had racked his brain for a long time about the location of the remaining 6 fragments but he never remembered, nor was it in the info that he bought from the flower of the seven sins. The philosopher's stone would be of great benefit to Iron after all.

Taking Killing ray James popped the philosopher's stone out of the pillar, and when he did so his happy expression became even bigger, this was an extremely big piece, and to his estimation, it should be 25% at the very minimum. Coupled with the piece that he would buy from the auction in a few days, he would have around 45% of the stone completed.

After a few seconds of being in a trans while looking at the stone, James popped out of it when he noticed the magic array crumble below his feet. He also got a notification at the same time.

System: Unique Quest "Miracles Unsealed" completed.

Quest rewards: 1,250,000 EXP, 48(96) Free Attribute Points, 48(96) Free Mastery points.

System: The Endless Abyss has come into existence. Activating a new expansion pack, "the Great Catastrophe".

System: Legendary ranked Main Storyline Quest "Seven Treasures" activated.

Quest: The Endless Abyss has been unsealed. You are required to immediately notify the War God's Temple in order to have them reseal the Endless Abyss.

"Pffff, finally"

James said with a sigh, he had also leveled up to level 21 from the quest rewards, but that didn't matter anymore. One of the items he was planning on buying with his war gods merit points had skills that could be leveled up with EXP, so he didn't need to worry about losing out on attribute points due to his tier.

While everyone was going wild on the forums, trying to find out who caused this new expansion to be released, James used a return scroll to go back to Star-Moon city, where the headquarters of the War God's Temple was located.

When James arrived at the War God's Temple he went straight to the front desk and informed the clerk about his quest and that he would like to meet the council. The clerk, already being informed that someone would be arriving to meet the council directly let James into the elevator and sent him up to the ninth floor, also known as the Eternal Throne room.

Upon entering the room James saw all the Thrones standing high and mighty, 1 of them being purple, 9 golden once, and 50 silver.

"He opened the Endless Abyss? Quite interesting isn't he, but I don't think he is ready for the task ahead."

"Well, we can't just disqualify him for the way he looks, now, can we? Why don't we give him a little test to see if he is qualified to receive our aid?"

"And how do you suppose we can test this young man here?"

"Isn't it obvious? The 12 Trials, of course, this is a perfect opportunity to use them."

"It has been rather long since we last used them, hasn't it? What was it, 900 years? A perfect time for a comeback if I were to say. You are truly blessed, young man to be able to take the twelve Trials, and I thank you for letting me witness it."

Now that their discussion had come to an end James was approached by a young man who was previously sitting on one of the silver chairs.

"We know why you're here young man. The Endless Abyss has been opened and you have come to inform us to seek our help. To seal the Abyss, however, we need to find the Seven Treasures, that's where we need your help. But to see if you are worthy of such a big task we will test you with the Twelve Trials, if you make it far enough, we will grant you a blessing to help you on your journey."

The youth was about to turn around and leave but suddenly turned back.

"I almost forgot, you can earn Merit points in the trials that can be exchanged for items, those will surely help you on your in this difficult quest. The first Trial will give you 100 Merit Points and with each subsequent trial the points double, if you do really well, we might reward you with some extra points."

At that moment an elder on a silver throne shouted something while smiling.

"yea kid, you might even get a Divine item."

"O, come on don't go tempting him with those things, even we wouldn't be able to get them if we took the trail."

Now that all the rules were explained, the youth turned his back to James and started drawing countless lines on the floor, eventually, big golden doors appeared in front of James.

"This is it, young man, the beasts are beyond that door, after every trial you will get the option to leave or continue. Be careful out there, I wish you success."

James made a light bow before stepping towards the doors.

"I will, elder, thank you for this opportunity."