Second World

"In the past, I wouldn't have. But now after learning the stake, I would have done it myself," Jack replied. "But why did these divine treasures so easily gain? That means all have been gotten so early in the game."

"That is also due to Master's tamperings. Originally only players with levels over 70 have the chance to get and fuse with these Divine Treasures, but Apollyon is not someone who has the patience to work his way up to that level before getting his desire of becoming a God. So he altered the divine treasures and weakened them to enable a low-level player to fuse with them and also make it so they appear in fixed quests of his choosings. The core system made it so that these divine treasures only appeared in SSS difficulty quests. He disguised an originally A or S rank quest into an SSS quest by adding an impossible boss to defeat, yet incorporated a mechanism that can weaken the boss, providing a chance for him to defeat the boss since he knows how to activate this mechanism."

Jack thought back to the purple lightning balls when he fought Eldingar.

"Then the Ice God Blessing has now returned to a proper SSS quest?" Jack asked.

"Yes, as I said, it is not easy for Apollyon to make changes. He practically has to fight the core system my partner developed every time he made any changes. He only had the time to plant these divine treasures each into a single fixed quest. If he loses them, he will have to wait until he was strong enough to search for them again."

"Why didn't he make it so he could go at them once the world turned?" Jack asked. "With all the plannings he has done, it seemed rather sloppy that a lot of these divine treasures ended up in the hands of random players, such as me for example."

"That because he didn't have the time to," Wilted replied. "He initially still has many other preparations to make. For example, making all twenty-four Second Soul Remnants to give him all the twenty-four elite classes. But creating each of these Second Soul Remnants took a lot of time due to the core system's restriction. The one-month cooldown for fusing with that item is also imposed by the system. Also, he couldn't place them all nearby where he will have easy access to, the core system made it so that he had to spread them out. He was doing a lot of circumventing to fight the core system.

"He didn't have enough time to arrange everything and minimize risks because he found out that I have been onto him. When I learned that he knew I was snooping around, I panicked. I took what information I have gathered and planned to go to a journalist friend of mine to release it to the public. Although it won't make the authority start investigating him, it will make a lot of people ask about his machine. His plan would be in jeopardy if the public somehow demand his machine to be studied. He didn't want to take the chance, so he operated his machine prematurely."

"That was on the day of the planned beta test," Jack asked.

Wilted nodded.

"That guy is nuts," Jack said. "Just getting all twenty-four elite classes is already enough to make him a God amongst players. He still wants the power of all the divine treasures?"

"In the time he had, he managed to produce eleven of those Second Soul Remnants," Wilted informed. "Five he had absorbed. Two were stolen by us recently. One by you at the start. The other three had the same fate as you where it had fallen to other players. However, to my knowledge, two of those players were unlucky enough to perish and their second class was gone, high possibility World Maker was behind it. The remaining one I have no idea where. Maybe this last one had perished as well."

"Apollyon's machine at that fort can't pull out the Second Soul Remnant as he did with divine treasures?"

"It cannot. Those Second Soul Remnants are completely alien entities. Once they are gone, they are gone for good. It has no place in the original programming."

"Hm… In that case, Apollyon will always be the player with the most classes, I won't get another one to catch up to him."

"That's true," Wilted nodded. She agreed that such a fact did not bode well for them. But when she looked at Jack's expression, she was surprised to find out the guy was grinning.

"What are you smiling about?" Wilted asked.

"Oh? I am? Guess I am just excited," Jack replied.

"Excited? About Apollyon having more classes than any of us?"

"It means a worthy challenge for us to surpass. Many others always thought that I can beat them because I have more classes than them. Well, that is not wrong, but now I can prove if the situation is reversed, I will still be able to come out on top."

"I can't see where your confidence comes from, considering he has kicked your ass twice," Wilted said skeptically.

"That's easy, because he has one major weakness."

"What's that?"

"The dude is not a gamer."

Wilted eyed him for a while, trying to make sure the guy was not joking. She then said curtly, "What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"The guy takes too many shortcuts. He probably has studied all the information to get the best weapons, best armors, best skills, and such. Though those will be a huge problem, true gaming experts spend their time grinding, studying every equipment, exploring the unknown, experimenting with every skill, find out what is best for them personally and what is best for each situation. In short, he doesn't have the tenacity of a true gamer. In time, we will find a way to beat him."

Leavemealone didn't have any comment, but his expression said that he was completely lost on the logic that Jack had just said. The guy was spouting nonsense for all he knew.

Wilted, however, was having a melancholy expression. What Jack had just said reminded her of what her partner had said before. Both she and her partner were gamers first before they worked on creating the Second World for Trigitech. The game was the result of their love for gaming. She could see this Jack fellow shared the same passion as her partner.

"I'm just sad about one thing though," Jack continued.

"What?" Wilted asked.

"The natives that I have befriended all this time, so they are truly just NPCs?"

"They were at first, but this world has become as real as ours. Who is to say that they are not as real as us as well? For example, that Liguritudum prince, although we did write him to be someone ambitious. He was never coded to start a rebellion, and yet he did. He has become someone with desires and feelings as any of us players. Another example is that third prince of Themisphere you befriended. I heard you are helping him in claiming the throne, aren't you? He was never meant to fight against his two brothers, he was programmed to be a pacifist that stand by the side while his two brothers vie for the throne. But somehow, he has become determined enough to fight for his fate.

"However, those with fewer codes in them were probably still a bit unreal, for example, the low-level monsters and outlaws. They still act following the basic rules we instill in them. For example, the hideout's outlaws. The boss and its aides always stayed inside the hideout. Only if an enemy approach that they stepped outside. What do you figure they are doing inside there when no enemy approaches? Chatting with each other? Playing cards? Or just stand still like puppets waiting to be activated? No one knows. But I figure with how this world becomes reality, they will evolve as to how our previous world does. Probably in the future, those outlaws will act differently from what my partner and I have encoded them."

"That was… some food for thoughts, but not important. What about the deals with the Gods and Goddesses? Why did Apollyon want to mess with their programmings?"

"Because the Gods and Goddesses are what we have placed to ensure the system remained in balance and the rules we have set for players remain in place."

"I have met the God of Fear, he didn't exactly portray someone who gives a damn about rules."

"He is part of the bad Gods," wilted said.

"Why the hell do you need a bad God?" Jack asked.

"To spice things up. The original plan was, once the game was up and running, it will mostly be controlled by AI. Changes can happen to the environment. Even quests will be randomly generated by the core system depending on the situation. If nothing ever changes, it will be dull and players will become bored. The bad Gods were meant to create havoc. They are programmed to always think of a way to upset the balance, creating obstacles for players to overcome. But of course, too much havoc will instead make the games unplayable, so we also have good Gods to put them in check. There were six good Gods and Goddesses, and three bad Gods. The good Gods are doubled in number to make sure that they always come out on top."

"Let me guess, Apollyon wants to cull the number of the good Gods," Jack said.

"Yes. He had originally wanted to erase all the good Gods, leaving only the bad one," Wilted said. "The bad Gods are easier to manipulate since they have desires, as had been proven by how he exploited the God of Fear. I myself didn't know what he did to convince that God to assist him. The good Gods, on the other hand, will have to interfere if they find out that Apollyon can become more powerful than them and upset the balance of the world. In the short time I had, I have only managed to save the God of Hope and Goddess of Love, the other four were lost."

"Uh… I saved the Goddess of Serenity. This dude has saved the God of Pride," Jack said while pointing at Leavemealone.

"You did? How?" Wilted blurted in surprise.