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Vol. 8 - Chapter 419 - Max Level! Rare-Boss Time!
Vol. 8 - Chapter 419 - Max Level! Rare-Boss Time!
After the guild battle, ‹Eden› was now a full fledged D-rank guild.
With promotion comes the perk; the guild we moved into had one big room and four small rooms. Honestly, this was one of the best things I could ask for. I was relieved that we could finally have some spare small rooms for usage.
The one we had now was simply either used for Hannah's mana stone room or as a materials storehouse, or—actually, yeah, they were basically reduced to mere storehouses. I had wanted to make a production room all this while, and I now finally could have one!
The first thing that I did was use QP to order ‹Room Facility - Item Box LV10›. It was the biggest space item present, you know. Now I could move forward with more things, kukuku.
Anyway, with the imminent effect, I no longer have to worry about where to store materials.
The next thing to cross my list was the Intermediate ‹Alchemist Set› I ordered—which comes with a multitude of fittings and all—and turned one of the small rooms into a dedicated Alchemy Room. And Hanah nudged me that she also wanted somewhere to cook, so I also set up a kitchen in a corner of the Alchemy Room while we’re at it. It was almost like the room was exclusively for her. Well, there is no need to mull over it.
Ahem, forwarding to our next thing was the most important aspect of promotion—the member limit now had increased and we could now have up to 20 members.
We've finally reached that milestone. Recalling it, it was really a long yet transient journey, wasn't it? And—calm down, me. It's too early to drown in sentiment.
Let's see, with now five spots open, it was almost time to promote the member from ‹Arc-Arcadia›. One of the roles of our sub-guild was precisely to fill in the ranks. Right, Misato also asked me about the interview for sub-guild. Hmm-mm, my plate was really brimming with all these tasks.
For the time being, I still hadn't had enough time to look at all the sub-members so I guess I would be postponing the internal promotion time to after the exams. The words of advice from our sagious Sierra were to first wait for how they fare in this term-end exam—but not the sole criteria though—and then choose who to pull in.
Certainly, if we took a member in only for them to fail and get caught up in the make-up exam loop, then that would hinder the progress of ‹Eden› for the plan I had for summer vacations. No marks, no dungeon. As such, I explained the same reason to our sun-members that red marks mean no promotion. This served as a source of motivation for them, though. Well, I also saw some whose knees buckled up upon hearing the news.
This was the basic gist. For the next week, we would often have exchanges with ‹Arc-Arcadia› and score them accordingly for promotion. What about ‹Eden›? We busied ourselves with our own tasks before the exam, enjoying the final bout of dungeon.
Last weekend, we were currently at the ‹Beast Gathering Dungeon, hunting ‹Battle Wolf (3rd Form)›.
"Hurrray, LV75! This princess is now level max!"
"Congratulations, Lana-sama. I have also hit the level cap in this fight."
"Oh, you too, Ester?! Good job!"
"Your kind words are enough!"
By the time (Saturday's lunch time) ‹Battle Wolf (3rd Form)›—who supposed to be a symbol of liveliness—had its tail drooping and crying like a puppy, 'woo...', some of the members finally struck the level cap.
The first one was Lana, Ester, and me—we were already at LV71 after all.
The battle just now had been tackled by team B, which Lana and Ester were part of. I was a step earlier in reaching the level cap.
"Lana, Ester, congrats." (Zephyr)
"Congratulations, Your Highness Lana, Ester." (Celia)
"A merry congratulations!" (Lulu)
"Congrats, you two." (Rika)
"Hn, con-con." (Karua)
Once the team was out of the gate, we bid them congratulations. It's just the end of that... Was it Karua's way of greeting? ...... Right. It's the feeling that counts; there's no need to hang up on minor details.
At the end of the day, they were now at their maximum level at their jobs.
Max level job holders were basically dime a dozen in the C-rank battle. Heck, the promotion to C-rank required fifteen members all to be at their max level, and it was the basic prerequisite. And that had been just a step closer to C-rank, even though we had crossed the D-rank hurdle.
Besides, it was also our next step for Int-high dungeons. The general level limit to dive into Int-high was 60, but the bosses were in fact LV75. And get ready to say your prayers if you face a rare boss unprepared, unless you were a max leveled 'High-ranking' job holder.
Yes, all of this was our groundwork to conquer Int-high on our next step. Other members weren't far away from hitting level cap either. Alright, keep it up, guys. Let the levels roll!
What continued after the boss battle was another boss battle. The next in line were Sierra, Karua, and Rika, who had become part of the max level gang by the evening. We kept that pace, and the afternoon of the next day—Sunday, 3:00 PM—Lulu, Celia, Shizu, and Pamela hit the limit.
All ten members are at level cap; mission complete! Just as I was congratulating others, Sierra came over.
"What's the plan here after, Zephyr? Return?"
"Not yet. We had just hit the level cap, so don't you think time is ripe to try out Int-high's boss strength?"
"Wait, that's it! I am in full support!"
Just as I was replying to Sierra, Lana, who had arrived at my side without any notice, chimed in with approval. No, seriously, I didn't feel her presence at all, y'know?
"By that, you mean summoning the rare boss? We were already being prudent in our level up spree, so I presume the boss really needs to face a max level party?"
"The boss of this dungeon, ‹Battle Wolf›, counts among one of the most difficult bosses in the Int-mid. So you can sure expect the rare boss to be much tougher. Level caps are just sort of a way to prevent any mishap."
"I see."
Well, Int-high were famed as perversely difficult dungeons, which had prevented many guilds from making any progress. The reason was simple; straightforward approaches, aka brute forcing your way, were no longer as viable as they were before. Plus, they no longer could hope for level up benefits to further make themselves stronger after reaching the max level at int-mid. Until Int-mid, the process was simple; stuck in progress? Level up. Except they no longer could use that lifeline.
The next problem was variable difficulty in dungeons starting there. As a point of reference, ‹Summer Prairie Dungeon› was one of the dungeons with the lowest difficulty among all Int-high, making it possible for even the low-ranking job holders to clear it. But on the other hand, even a decently difficult dungeon like ‹Four Season Spirit Dungeon› was nearly an insurmountable wall for them.
The dungeons starting here had been given a rank due to this. Dungeons that even low-ranking job holders could clear, albeit on the edge, were graded ‹Rank 1› ~ ‹Rank 3›. ‹Summer Piarie Dungeon› was graded ‹Rank 1›, while ‹Four Season Spirit Dungeon› was graded ‹Rank 5›.
Since advanced dungeons were practically out of question in this world, they usually used their conquered dungeon’s rank to compete. You know, boasting like, 'Haa, just xx? My guild is ‹Rank 6› equivalent, y'know~?'
On a side note, ‹Flash of Flower›, the examiner guild for our D-rank promotion exam, was ‹Rank 5› equivalent.
Ahem, back to the present scene. The rare boss version of ‹Battle Wolf (3rd Form)› was, of course, ‹Battle Wolf (4th Form)›, which was graded ‹Rank 7›.
Honestly, high-ranking jobs were just the bottom condition, which was also why I waited until everyone hit the level cap just to be all prepared. I also brought a re-pop the boss item if, by stroke of luck or unluckily, we drew the rare boss. I was glad my preparation was all for naught.
Alright, it's finally time to see the fruit of our training.
Once everyone had finished allocating their status point, I held the flute in my hand and announced it to everyone.
"Everyone, we're going to tackle a rare boss now!"
" " " "Let's goooo!" " " "