33 Explosion of Comments
"Alright. It is now time for you all to take your pick."
Luke had already planned out the pathways of the people present, expect WeedGod. He could not get anything from his name, and so decided to allow the players to choose their pathways themselves. Naturally, he would chose for his slave. He chose the Hunter pathway for his slave, so that he has the ability to scout out ahead, and also run away if required.
Although a player's equipment would not be dropped when dying, anything they were holding onto that had not been named as their equipment by the system would be dropped. This included anything Luke made him carry. Therefore, having the ability to run from danger was incredibly useful to Luke.
Soon, all the players had chosen.
OriginalMagus chose the Magician Pathway, SwordSlasher and WeedGod chose the Warrior pathway, SaintessKatrina chose the Priest pathway, and VidBro chose the Hunter pathway under the instructions of Luke.
"Since you all have joined my faction, I will give you the first set of knowledge to become a superhuman in each of your pathways. But all the later knowledge will have to be purchased using faction contribution, exp and money. Let me inform you about something else. You guys are free to join any other faction except the resistance, and if that factions become an enemy of ours, you are to leave said faction unless specified not to do so."
"Now that all instructions are done and over. I need to move on to the most important aspect of this meeting. You guys should know the current situation of Gamin right?"
"Yes" replied all the players, including VidBro, who had also glanced through the forums.
"The thing is that The Leon Kingdom is too big and is frightening the other two much smaller nations. Therefore, they will be waging war with the Leon kingdom soon. However, they are highly unlikely to be successful in this war. Therefore, they had conspired against Leon in the shadows by funding a terrorist organisation in Leon, creating instability on the kingdom."
"Therefore, what must be done is the complete destruction of this organisation called 'The Resistance' before the war starts. Or else the Leon kingdom is highly likely to lose!"
"Alright, so here is the plan. I will be heading out to increase my strength, since I am currently too weak. And I hope that you guys will also try and increase your strength as quickly as possible."
At this moment, a new mission appeared on the player interfaces.
============
Hidden Mission- Stronger
War will be upon this land soon, and The Sage requires you to grow stronger, just the same as he does.
Task: Reach Level 10 before the end of the Beta period
Mission Completion Reward: 1,000 exp
Mission failure: Loss of Hidden Main Storyline Quest- The Resistance
Mission difficulty: D-
==============
With this goal given to the players, he turned and looked towards the window, his eyes distant as though he was looking into the future as he sighed,
"This war will result in the death of countless. And countless more will lose their loved ones. Homes will be destroyed and families ripped apart. Lives ruined and children abandoned. The entire Gamin continent will be in peril for at least 20 years."
This was an estimation he made regarding the war. This estimation included the fact that The Resistance was destroyed, removing the cancer growing within Leon. With Rachel out of the picture, The Leon kingdom's chances of winning the war greatly increase. The war might just end up as Leon's victory, with it being over rather quickly due to all focus being on the war instead of spread over the countless battles with The Resistance, that was an organisation with a member number equally as large as Roland's or Islesat's military.
He then looked back at the players and said,
"This will be all for now. I will be staying in Sozra for some time. You guys are welcome to stay or leave. But my room is my room, and the living room is yours. There are plenty of sofas to enjoy your nights"
'Not that you need any' Luke added in his heart, since the players could just log-off for the night. However, naturally none of them would waste such precious time on something as mundane as sleeping when they could be out collecting levels.
With this, Luke turned around and walked into his room.
His room was rather spacious, about half the size of the living room, and he had his 'Lukemobile' inside here with him. Strapped in the back seat of the bike, was a bag, inside which was the dragon egg.
Currently, Luke had enough exp to level up and reach level 25. However, he needed the blood of the dragon, else he would be stuck between choosing Human II and the second race evolution of the observer pathway.
Therefore, he was waiting for the dragon to be born, and then secretly extract a drop of blood from it, or the indie of the egg, whichever had the blood.
Naturally, he wouldn't do something like break open the egg to get the blood, since that would be as stupid as killing off a potential legendary creature, for a drop of mythical blood.
Therefore, he took out the egg and placed it onto the sofa next to his bed, as he lied down and began to read through the forums.
Currently, he could not type anything into the forums, since the send button was greyed out. But he could read everything.
At this moment, just as Luke refreshed his page, a new thread came up as 'hot'.
"The Sage's identity! The First Protagonist NPC in Ultimatum!"
In it was a video created by playertag 'VidBro'.
This was uploaded 2 minutes ago, and it somehow made it to the hot list? Is VidBro that famous? Luke was interested in what other's thought of him, and so he clicked on the thread.
"Hello Friends. This is VidBro reporting from The Sage's house. Now there are a lot of things I wish to speak about, however, I will keep those for future videos, so subscribe to my thread."
"Oi Oi Oi! Faster dude."
"No one wants to waste time with this sh*t!"
"Yes, yes. Move one"
The comments began exploding to the right of the video
"What I will be showing you is exclusive footage. Now there are reasons for which I had to beep out certain parts of the conversation, which I will explain in the next video, but please enjoy."
"Come one!"
"Stop wasting time!"
"Let this master guide you mortals; You f*cking piece of sh*t, bull-"
Player NoobMaster420 has been banned from the chat for excessive abusing
"Respect dude! XD"
"Hope to never see you again!"
"F"
Suddenly, the screen changed from VidBro's rather bleak looking face, which sort of resembled his real face, to a black screen.
All players in the game were able to adjust height, weight, and other measurements, but faces were meant to remain extremely close to reality. This was done to prevent the creation of fake accounts, but with time, human trolls were able to fool the sensors of the capsule and change their appearances.
The screen then switched to a bunch of clips showing The Mysterious Sage in his usual black-hooded wind-breaker.
The comments had already completely stopped as everyone began to concentrate.
"Before I explain about The Sage's past, here are some fun facts"
The screen changed to the scene of wind blowing open the hood, exposing The Sage underneath.
"The Sage has silver hair, and seems to be rather young for such a name"
"Huh! He… his charisma stat is too overpowered!"
"Kyaa~ I've fallen in love"
"I thought The Sage was an old man!"
"I hereby declare the Sage Fan club open."
"Accepting members now!"
"I join"
"Me 2"
"+1"
…
In this chaotic scene of comments, the scene changed to one of The Sage speaking.
"The Sage's voice is rather melodious and soft."
"Is this a girl or a guy?"
"Femboy Friday is today right? Did the game devs do this on purpose?"
"So what if his voice is sweet. His build is sort of muscular, and his jawline."
"That jawline so sharp you can get cut just by looking at it"
"I wonder if he is ugly behind the mask?"
This one question created an uproar in the comments. Some were expecting it as true, while others where completely rejecting. Most people were just enjoying the show while adding fuel to the fire from time to time.
The scene changed to blackness once more,
"Now, we move onto what you have all been waiting for. But before, that, do not forget to subscribe to my thread. Its free for now."
"You son of a b*tch! Get on with it!"
"Let this big brother here teach you a lesson"
Just as the comments were getting more heated, the screen changed to one where Luke is explaining his plight.
"Go back. I won't be returning to MI9 for the time being. Once I grow strong enough, that is when I will return. And I will avenge our fallen comrades, as well as my parents. I will destroy *** **********. Not only did they kill my parents, they even forced me into slavery. Thankfully, my owner allowed me to buy my freedom after some years of labour. But now is not the time to take action. I must bear with this burden for some more time. Until I can make a difference. I need to become stronger."
"With this, we can assume that there was an incident, which was caused by the Sage's enemy, who I am not privy to reveal currently. I will explain why in the next video. But this incident caused the death of his parents and friends. The enemy later forced The Sage into slavery, where he supposedly spent 5 years working at a plantation. Later, his owner allowed him to buy his, and his friends' freedom which he was able to accomplish. Not he is on a mission, working with the Leon Kingdom's Intelligence agency called MI9 to destroy this enemy, who has caused the deaths of countless lives in the Leon kingdom, in order to destroy the kingdom itself."
"I see! It really is a protagonist NPC"
"The classic you killed my parents and friends main character who will take revenge"
"Beware *** **********, for I will have my revenge!"
"I shall smite you off the face of 'Ultimatum!'"
"Omae Wa mou, Shineiru"
"We got ourselves an otaku here!"
"Hmm. To know that word, you should also be one."
"You are correct, my fellow man of culture."
The conversation soon digressed from the main point.
At this moment, the screen changed back to VidBro saying,
"Also, there are a few players with me, who have all been given a Hidden Main Storyline quest by The Sage, proving he is a protagonist NPC. Furthermore, these players are the world famous pro players OriginalMagus, SwordSlasher, WeedGod and SaintessKatrina. More will be uploaded with the next video. Bye."
At this moment, comments section exploded as the views skyrocketed from 1,954 views to 9,759 views. It should be known that only around 200 players entered Gamin, and exactly 10,000 players entered 'Ultimatum' for the open betas.
This means that nearly the entire player base in 'Ultimatum" was paying attention to this video while it was streamed 2 minutes ago!
