MMORPG: Crowd Control

A knot seemed to have been cut from Candice as she shone a bright expression after realizing something that she had now deleted in her memory.

Lei Zhen was correct that even though he could revive, he wasn't much different than the rest. At the end of the day, Lei Zhen was still her Master and someone she respected a lot.

"Anyway, now that we figured out some of our mistakes, shall we have a final attempt?" Lei Zhen asked, ready for the last monster core to be hammered.

Candice nodded her head.

"Ready whenever you are, Master." She responded cheerfully.

And with that said, another few hours had gone by as the two of them worked on blacksmithing.

Meanwhile, on the surface of the wasteland field, Tang Qiaolian's group had finally managed to extract some information from their enemies.

"I swear that's everything we know. Please just kill us and make it seem like you didn't receive information from us- or even better, let us free." One of the enemies pleaded.

Griselda pondered for a moment, clearly not knowing whether to release them or not.

"Hmm, if only we could have Candice here, then she would have been able to decipher whether they are lying or not." She muttered softly to the group.

"I suggest we wait for Candice then. It doesn't harm us anyway if we wait a little longer." Tang Qiaolian commented, turning her attention to Liu Lingxin, who merely nodded her head.

After all, Smither Gary had notified them about Lei Zhen and Candice working on crafting the Bolten Artifact, so they were going to wait here until he was done anyway.

So with that said and done, Griselda decided to send Hilda and Melissa to leave the area to go elsewhere to hunt some monsters for experience points.

As for Howard, he shall remain to guard the enemies, preventing them from making any funny business.

Meanwhile, Griselda and Tang Qiaolian would then take a relaxing composure as they discussed possible cooperation between their guilds.

Tang Qiaolian was the leader of Miracle Wing, and Griselda was practically the de-facto leader of Zero Fear given Lei Zhen's constant absence of management.

Thus, the two of them have quite the experience of how to manage a guild and how to earn an actual profit in the real world as well.

"Tang's Group is a big multi-billionaire company, so I'm sure your Miracle Wing has received enough sponsorship from them despite being a small guild, right?" Griselda asked, going straight to the topic.

Tang Qiaolian smiled briefly and nodded her head.

"Indeed, it's one of the reasons why a small guild like mine could compete against a Zodiac Guild like the Aries Guild. Though I must concur that what we have achieved now was all by me and my fellow members. Not everything is supported by my family's wealth." She then said, correcting Griselda's words, and that she did not rely on everything from her family.

Griselda chuckled softly, "Don't worry, no one would be dumb enough to believe that you got to this point because of your family. Wealth is important to function a guild, but without the leadership and intelligence of knowing the trend, then no matter how wealthy a guild can be, they would still fail no matter what."

"Okay, that's enough flattery there, Griselda." Tang Qiaolian laughed and stopped her from speaking any more flattery. She understood that Griselda was attempting to compliment her first before going into her real motive.

Since both are experts in terms of leadership, how could they not understand each other's thought processes?

Griselda nodded her head and stopped the compliments that she was ready to say.

"In that case, then I hope we can work together for a high-level dungeon for new gear. With the recent incident and how Magnolia seemed to be increasing new functions without notifying us, I have a feeling that there is going to be a new update soon. And that update might change the whole structure or current meta of Magnolia."

What Griselda meant was none other than Magnolia might be undergoing a new update ever since someone had undertaken a Main Scenario quest- something that every player had failed to obtain in the past.

Sure, there might be a ton of quests given to them by NPC or Adventure Guild, but none of them are major-scale that could affect the Magnolia world effect itself.

However, the incident of Yors Castle which seemed to be nothing major to the players due to it being located in a low-level region had seemingly affected the structure of the world.

Data analysts of Magnolia had noticed a swift change in a lot of cities and areas.

"As expected of you, Griselda. You might sound humble and full of flattery toward me, but aren't you the same as me? Your information agency might be even far superior to mine." Tang Qioalian said solemnly.

"Happy to work with your guild soon."

"Heh, once this incident of players being unable to log out of Magnolia is resolved, I'll make sure to inform my guild members."

"Understandable. Although top guild players aren't worried at all because of their ego, some of the more casual players that held Unique Class are worried sick. After all, they could easily become the next target, and that would harm us in the future since we'll need their talents to boost our guild's power."

As much as Griselda wanted to move forward with her motive, the matter of this incident was higher in priority. Especially when they had managed to extract the enemy's information that these captured players are being exploited somehow.

The enemies they captured didn't know much of the internal details, but what they revealed alone was enough to alert them to make a move. What these culprits are planning was definitely anything but small scale.

Just when the two of them were discussing what they could do right now, Lei Zhen and Candice came out from the secret hideout.

"Where's Smither Gary?" Lei Zhen asked the moment he was on the surface. "I didn't see him in the secret hideout, so he should be around here."

"Smither Gary?" Tang Qiaolian raised an eyebrow and looked confusingly at Lei Zhen.

The same goes for Griselda and Liu Lingxin because they had been overwatching the entrance of the secret hideout whereas Howard focused his attention on the enemies.

Meanwhile, Lei Zhen was astonished to see that they hadn't seen Smither Gary.

"It couldn't be…" He muttered in disbelief.

"You know where he went, Master?" Candice asked from behind.

Lei Zhen sighed softly as he smiled bitterly.

"Although not confirmed, I have a feeling that he might have used the Bolten Artifact and left the area already." Lei Zhen said, revealing that Smither Gary had crafted one himself as a demonstration and left with it.

"B-But why would he do that?" Candice raised an eyebrow in confusion, not understanding Smither Gary's action.

"I doubt he would run away either since this is his secret hideout," Griselda intervened. Even if Smither Gary wanted to run away, there was no way he would leave all of his belongings behind without taking any of them with him.

Not to mention, the fact that Griselda was possessed by someone named Mistress Doreah should be enough leverage to make Smither Gary stay for a while.

Meanwhile, Lei Zhen closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on the words that Smither Gary had told him previously.

There must have been a clue or hint somewhere between his lines when Smither Gary was blabbering a lot to him in the lecture.

'Church… Mistress Doreah…what's the connection.' Lei Zhen wondered silently.

"Candice, does your elf species believe in a certain goddess or something?" He turned to ask her.

"Eh, beliefs?"

"Yeah, any beliefs of a certain person that you worship?"

"Ah, we worship Goddess Artemis because she was the symbol of nature in our hearts and what gave us the ability to survive in the wilderness," Candice answered swiftly.

'Goddess Artemis huh. The Olympian goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, virginity, the Moon, archery, childbirth, protection, and plague. Let's see which church is her worshiper.' Lei Zhen exclaimed inwardly, opening his map and looking up for the details.

A few minutes later, Lei Zhen found the location which is somewhat close to Cinderton. It was approximately 50 kilometers or 31 meters and is in a place called Sinos City.

"Did you figure out where Smither Gary had gone to?" Tang Qiaolian asked when she noticed Lei Zhen was back in a phase of him realizing something.

Lei Zhen nodded his head.

"I think I've got an idea and it's most likely still a test from Smither Gary." Lei Zhen calmly responded.

Sinos City was far away from their current location and it was clear that Smither Gary had no intention of staying in a certain place for a long duration.

This meant that Lei Zhen was required to successfully craft one Bolten Artifact to catch up to him. Otherwise, he could only curse his terrible luck in failing to accomplish the first task.