64 Chapter 64. Finding the Cult

With these two upgrades Jack had increased his fighting prowess a good deal, but he still didn't feel it was enough. He then took out his Apprentice Hammer and Mobile Anvil. He used all of his available iron ores to upgrade his new magic staff all the way to level 12, making it the same level as his sword.

He was lucky that all of his upgrade attempts had succeeded. Starting from level 8 upwards there was an increasing probability of failure. When his staff was level 11, upgrading it to 12 had only an 80% Probability of success. Maybe his luck stat was helping him after all.

*

Repeater Staff, level 12/25 (uncommon magic weapon)

Magical damage: 38

Range: 10 meters

Attack speed: 1

Energy: 50

Energy automatically refills when out of combat

*

"Confident enough now?" Peniel asked him.

"It will have to do," Jack answered as he stored his Hammer and Anvil. "I don't have any more available resources for another upgrade attempt. However…"

He took out his Cooking Stove. "Don't forget about the buff from meals. Every bit helps."

He made Chicken Soup which would increase his attribute points for a time, but didn't immediately consume it. He put it inside his storage bag for later. He took stock of his restorative items; he still had some leftovers from the Tutorial world which should be enough for now. If he still had any iron ore, he would have made a Whetstone as well.

"All right, let's head out," he said.

"It will be getting dark soon," Peniel said. "Aren't you going to rest for the day and start tomorrow morning?"

"Why wait when I can get it done today?" Jack replied. "I'm not tired yet, and we're going to be sneaking into private property. Won't it better if we do it in the dark?"

"Why are you saying we?" Peniel said as she hid back to her separate dimension. "Good luck," she said.

"@#$*"

Amy offered him a basket of bread as he was leaving. Jack gently turned it down saying, "give it to me when I bring your mom back." Her eyes filled with tears when she heard the confidence in his voice.

Jack followed the directions on his map to get to the place Amy had indicated. With a clear set of directions, he didn't waste time by getting lost, though he still sometimes had to circle around blocks of buildings when there were no roads that went in the direction he was heading.

The sky was already dark by the time he arrived.  It had taken him almost two hours to get there as the slum was a different zone of the Capital and he was not going to spend coins to hire a carriage in order to save time.

The slum was significantly different from the Business and Residential districts. The streets were narrow, filthy, and unattended. There was also a marked decrease in activity on the streets. As he traveled, Jack was wondering how a sweet girl like Amy was safe traveling around such a place.

Occasionally Jack would see some ruffians sitting by the side of a street, eyeing anyone that came through, like owls waiting for a rat to come by. Jack's armor surely got their attention. However, it was not tempting enough for them to decide to try robbing him. If Jack wore merchant or noble clothes, then it would have been a different story. Robbing an adventurer was too much of a gamble; there was no telling if they had anything worth stealing and, sometimes, you could even end up being the ones that got robbed. So they left Jack alone.

When Jack reached the place marked by Amy, there didn't seem to be anything special about it. It was a street with slum houses along it. There were still a few people hanging around on the street despite it being evening. He looked around for a person who seemed to be the friendly type and asked him about the cult that had recently come to this part of town. The guy blanched and made some excuses and disappeared inside his house. The others on the street who heard Jack's question turned their heads to look elsewhere when Jack looked like he might talk to them.

'They are afraid of the cult?'

Jack was clueless now. He couldn't ask around, so how could he find out where to find this cult? As he stood there at a loss, his God-eye monocle made some noises. An object by the side of the street was highlighted in his view.

Jack approached it and found out that it was a loaf of bread that had already gone stale. Some small text appeared beside the bread as the monocle analyzed it. The text said that the bread was connected to the Find Amy's Mother quest, and then traces of footprints were highlighted on the street. The monocle identified the footprints as belonging to Amy's mother.  They went from where the bread was all the way to the end of the street, then disappeared at the turn.

"Damn! Your monocle is good stuff!" He heard Peniel's excited voice. "It can even do high-level tracking. Usually tracking can only be done when a Ranger gets their advanced class. And even then, they can only do low-level tracking at first. You are really cheating, man!"

"Of course it's good stuff, that's why its name is God-Eye. With such a domineering name, you wouldn't expect any less, would you?" Jack said with pride as he responded to Peniel's comment, but the fact was he was quite amazed by this monocle himself.

He followed the highlighted footprints along the street, until they led him to a deserted warehouse surrounded by wooden fencing. The front gate was barred with wooden blocks. The footprints disappeared inside a small door on one side of the fence. There were several rough-looking guys hanging around the door.

Weirdly, the radar picked out these guys with the red dots that identified enemies. All the NPCs he had encountered thus far in the capital had been represented by white dots, so this red color came as a surprise. However, these enemy guys didn't immediately attack him when he came into range like monsters would have.

They did, however, all look at him hostilely. Jack walked even closer to check their reaction. One of the guys growled in menace. Another one spoke out, "What are you doing here? Don't you know this place is a restricted area?"

"Oh? I'm sorry, I didn't see a sign," Jack replied innocently.

"You want a sign? How about I give you one?" The man brandished a hand axe.

"I don't want any trouble," Jack said as he lifted up both his hands.

"You don't? Then piss off!"

"All right, all right," Jack said as he backed off. When he turned the corner of the street and out of their view, he circled around to the back of the warehouse. There he found a similar situation with a small door in the back fence and some sentries keeping watch. Jack figured that having so many people keeping watch meant there was definitely something important in the warehouse. He scanned the sentries. Each of them was a level 8 Ruffian (Basic Human).

'Level 8, not too strong,' Jack thought. He was half expecting them to be level 50 like the guards, but that would be unreasonable. He would just have given up on the quest if that had been the case.

'Hey, Peniel,' he called out telepathically.

'What?' She answered.

'We were forbidden to fight in the city, right? But what about natives who are marked as red dots? Red dots indicate enemies, right? Will I still get a penalty if I kill them?'

'If you are attacked first, or they are already registered as red by the system, then no, you will not get a penalty.'

'Well, that's a relief,' Jack said. 'That will make things simpler.'

He took out the Chicken Soup he had prepared earlier and promptly consumed it to  increase his stats. He pulled out his sword and magic staff. There was no need to conceal his dual-class from NPCs or monsters. He could unleash all his abilities. He snuck cautiously along the fence line, keeping to the shadows, until he got as close to the sentries as he could without being noticed.

'Let's test my new weapon now, shall we,' he thought as he aimed his staff and cast Energy Bolts.