Noodle Time II

"Get your lazy ass out of bed and join me for dinner!"

Felix was abruptly awakened by a loud voice. As his shutters were not down, Felix noticed the sun had already fallen from the sky, so he forced himself out of bed.

Thankfully, his headache had now completely disappeared, so Felix headed out of his room, where he was greeted by the scent of food. Good food too.

Stopping by the bathroom to splash his face with cold water and wash his hands, Felix walked into the kitchen, where Yasue was serving beef noodles into two bowls.

Rubbing his hands together, Felix said, "I'm famished! Thanks for cooking."

Yasue let out an amused grunt, "You would starve to death if I didn't."

With a swift move, Yasue moved the two bowls onto the nearby table, and as they sat down, he asked, "So, how is it going in Epoch? Still Level 1?"

Digging into the noodles, Felix replied, "No, actually. I managed to get to Level 10."

Yasue paused for a second, before commenting, "How come?"

Felix shrugged and replied, "A dude came and summoned a bunch of monsters to attack my town. I grouped up with a few other players and kicked his ass."

Yasue, who had not even touched his food, snorted in amusement, "So that's how you got that bounty on your head."

Felix froze, his eyes widening as he asked, "What?"

Yasue finally started eating as he shook his head and revealed, "You got a bounty of 100 Gold Coins on your head."

"100 Gold? Who the hell is that wasteful?"

Yasue chuckled, "I thought the same at first… Do you even know who you killed?"

Felix shrugged and replied, "His name was Euron. Level 27 Apostle of Izrath. Nasty fuck."

Tapping on the side of his bowl, Yasue revealed, "Well, this 'nasty fuck' happens to be an Elder of the First Tier Guild, Blue Light."

Gulping, Felix asked, "Blue Light, as in the Blue Light that is a contender for the Super Hundred?"

"The very same."

"Crap."

"Indeed."

To better understand the trouble Felix found himself in, an overview of the Guild System was needed. For now, no Guild had been formed in the game yet, so the only ones who rated the Guilds were players.

And these Guilds were classified as Unrated, Third Tier, Second Tier, and First Tier.

For the ranking of a Guild, many factors were taken into account, but as a general rule of thumb, numbers were a pretty good way to categorize Guilds.

Any Guild with less than 3000 members was classified as Unrated. Between 3000 and 5000 was a Third Tier Guild. Between 5000 and 10000 was a Second Tier Guild. Between 10k and 100k was a First Tier Guild.

Those were huge numbers, but as time passed, more and more First Tier Guilds appeared, and so an additional ranking was added.

Super Hundred.

Divine Ten.

To enter the Super Hundred meant to be one of the strongest Guilds in the entire world, and simply entering the Guild was something worthy of respect. The vast majority of the Super Hundred were backed by a Fortune 500.

As for the Divine Ten… they were on an entirely other level. Actually, there was a saying about Guilds to express their power.

'You run from a First Tier Guild. You surrender to a Super Hundred. You're already the Divine Ten's bitch.'

It was a bit of a meme, but at the same time, no one contradicted the saying.

And now, Felix had killed the Elder of a First Tier Guild. And not any First Tier Guild, as Blue Light had been on the Super Hundred until a year ago, and were among the most probable to get back on the ranking.

Scratching the back of his head, Felix asked, "What about Silver Fall? I was with three of their members when I killed him."

Yasue smiled and replied, "Nothing on the surface, but I happen to know the leaders of both Guilds have met. Reparations were paid, so there won't be a war."

A frown sketched itself on Felix's face as he mused, "You mean I can't rally to their camp to shift the pressure."

Yasue broke into a feral grin as he replied, "Exactly. Moreover, I heard that if someone manages to bring you down to Level 1, the bounty is 1000 Gold. Quite enticing, don't you think?"

Sighing, Felix returned to his noodles as he said, "Speak of an Elder. We killed that cunt easily. I would have soloed him at Level 1."

Yasue's eyes squinted with his smile as he remarked, "I would say bullshit, but for him to set a bounty of 100 Gold for a nobody, you must have quite the skills. So, I have a proposition for you. One that will pay for the money you owe me, and even more."

Felix scowled, "You better not propose to kill me to Level 1 to pay for the money."

Yasue broke out into laughter as he replied, "Nah, I'm not a pussy. However, before I can even tell you about my plan, I need proof of your strength. Prove to me that you would be a worthy ally."

Felix tilted his head at the odd request, and after a moment, he took out his phone and looked at the recent screenshots. His game account was connected to his phone, so any screenshot taken in game was moved to his phone.

And as luck would have it, Felix had taken a screenshot of some of his recent gains. Taking a screenshot of his most recent Status, he passed his phone to Yasue, who read it.

As his eyes rested upon the screen, his grin turned savage as he whistled, "Would you look at that? Those aren't the stats of a Level 10. Even I'm jealous of them. Good. But not good enough."

Felix knew Yasue for long enough to understand him. And right now, he knew that what he had shown was enough. But Yasue wanted to know more.

Thankfully, Felix didn't care much about hiding most of what he did in the game, so he moved to another screenshot that showed his Innate Perfection skill. An S Rank Skill.

Yasue, upon seeing it, had his smile freeze as he stared at it dumbly for a second, before asking, "How?"

His voice was more serious than Felix had ever heard him. In response, Felix shrugged and replied, "Came naturally. Satisfied?"

Yasue placed a hand on his hairless chin as he remained silent for several seconds, trying to raise some tension, before he finally relented, "While this does not directly translate to combat ability, those probably did not come from nowhere."

Yasue took a mouthful of noodles before saying, "Many years ago, I used to be at the head of an organization of a few thousand members."

"You mean you led a gang."

Yasue tapped the side of his bowl with his sticks as he refuted, "Nothing more than a derogatory term used by corrupt officials."

"Of course."

Yasue gave Felix a stink eye, but he continued, "So, we started talking again with the release of Epoch, and we naturally decided to start our own Guild."

"How many of you are there?"

"Close to 10 000."

Felix nearly choked on his noodles as he asked, "Ten thousand? What the fuck, are you really a Yakuza? You're not gonna chop my limbs if I don't pay the rent, right?"

Yasue rolled his eyes and replied, "I'm pretty sure they don't do that. And no, to both questions."

"Good enough. So, what is your plan?"

His savage grin returned as Yasue asked, "Tell me, what do you think would happen if a Guild no one ever heard anything of before were to wipe out a peak First Tier Guild… say, Blue Light?"

Felix's face was blank, two noodles dangling off his lips as he asked, "You do realize Blue Light has more than 90k members?"

"That only makes this a better achievement! This would allow us to become, at least, a First Tier Guild, and if we do things right, we may even get that precious spot on the Super Hundred."

Felix leaned back against his chair as he rubbed his eyes and questioned, "Alright, let's say you would win in a fight against Blue Light, as unlikely as that is to happen. For your battle to really make big waves, you would have to wipe out the entirety of Blue Light in a fight. How do you intend on gathering their entire Guild?"

"Excellent question, for that is exactly where you come into play."

Going back to his noodles, his interest having waned, Felix pointed out, "I already killed their Elder, and all they did was put a 100 Gold bounty on me. I mean, that's a lot, but we're quite far from baiting their entire Guild. Besides, what kind of Guild would send their nearly 100000 members after a single player?"

"In normal circumstances? No one would do that. However, the competition to enter the Super Hundred is intense right now. So if you were to kill their Guild Leader, they would be humiliated. Something they wouldn't want. Then, if you add some goading and pressure from the company behind them, it wouldn't be far-fetched for them to make a show of force, using you as an example. Of course, it would help if you showed yourself to be enough of a threat that a small squad won't be able to take you down."

"So, to make things clear, you want me to somehow find the Guild Leader of Blue Light, a world class expert, kill them by myself, terrorize their elite squads and then have them send their entire Guild after me so that you may fight them while being outnumbered 1 to 10."

Yasue radiated arrogance as he replied, "I would be the one to find the opportunity to fight their Guild Leader, but basically, yes."

Normally, Felix would not even have gone this far in the discussion before categorically refusing. But there were special circumstances here.

First, killing the Guild Leader of Blue Light was not as impossible as it seemed. While he most certainly was a veteran of battle, as were most Guild Leaders of big guilds, Felix had become quite good himself.

But more importantly, he had access to the Staff of Long Winter, which would increase his Magical Attack by 415. While numerical values were to be used as reference rather than absolutes, it couldn't be ignored either.

Of course, Felix wasn't exactly sure yet the staff could increase the strength of his Runes, but even if it didn't, the skill on the staff, Winter Wrath, could deal 40 damage per second for 10 seconds, so a total of 400 damage. Moreover, it silenced whoever was within, meaning they wouldn't be able to use skills.

This skill, by itself, was already plenty strong, and should be more than enough to give Felix the edge needed. The result of the fight wasn't 100% decided, but Felix did feel he had his chances.

But the problem never really lied there either. Instead, it was the rest of the plan. For Yasue's gang, or Guild, to win against Blue Light, would be a miracle, no matter how confident he looked. And in case of failure, which was by far the most probable option, Blue Light definitely wouldn't show mercy to Felix, and his account would be crippled.

That's why, in any normal situation, Felix would refuse without any hesitation. Yet, he didn't.

Because if his account was already crippled, why not follow his heart to the end?

"Do you know anything special about Level 50?"

Felix trusted Chris, but it frustrated him that the man hadn't told him why exactly he wouldn't be able to level up past that level.

Yasue looked surprised at the question that came out of the blue, but he thankfully had an answer.

"I do, actually. You do know there are 300 levels in Epoch, right?"

Felix nodded.

"Well, something not many people know is that these levels are split in Tiers. From Level 1 to 50 is Tier 0, 50 to 100 is Tier 1, 100 to 150 is Tier 2, and so on. I also heard that the difference between Tiers is quite large, and they can't be skipped. You can't get to Level 51 without first upgrading your Tier. As for how to do so, no one has found yet. Maybe it happens naturally for players, or maybe we get a Quest. Go figure."

These were precious info, but hearing them, Felix only felt like sighing. Although he didn't know the details yet, it was obvious now that ranking up to Tier 1 was what Chris deemed to be impossible for Felix.

Although Felix still couldn't trust Chris' words 100%, it seemed more and more likely that leveling up beyond Level 50 would be impossible.

"Alright, I'm in."