Second World

"Daily mana upkeep?" Jack said.

Their guild's mana cell was currently at level 3. It produced 30 mana every hour. The mana was used for various purposes. Mana was used for the construction and training of high-level units. Some advanced structures and units even had daily upkeep of mana. Members could donate mana cores to increase the mana, but because of Jeanny's divine treasure, mana core donation was no longer used to fill this mana cell. Hence, their need for guild mana was also urgent. Luckily, mana was considered a resource, so they also received mana from the two guild hostage tokens they possessed.

Finished with the exchange, Jack summoned the portal that took him back to the hut. When Jack was about to exit, Janus called him, "Mister Storm Wind, if I may have a minute of your time."

"Of course, you may. What can I help you with, Mister young Janus?" Jack replied with equal poise.

Janus smiled at Jack's amusing response. He then said, "I've heard of your exploits. I wonder if you are willing to accept a task from the Order of Magi?"

"Oh? You have? Perhaps my exploits are great to my fellow outworlders, but I don't understand how they impress a high-caliber faction member such as you," Jack replied. "And why didn't you send your request to my guild? Everlasting Heavenly Legends will surely do their best to complete all your tasks! Well… Maybe not at the moment because we are all busy with the civil war matters."

"Because I wish this task to remain a secret, and I want only the person I trust to be on the job."

"I am a person you trust? I'm touched! Still, you already know that I have a civil war coming, right? I can't handle anything else at the moment."

"That's okay. You can deal with it after the civil war. Our task has no time limit," Janus said.

"I see. All right, let me hear your request first," Jack said.

"We wish you to search for an artifact, the name is the Eye of Illios," Janus said. At the same time, Jack heard the notification of a quest request, search for the Eye of Illios.

"The Eye of Illios?" Peniel blurted after hearing the name.

"You know what that is?" Jack asked Peniel.

"It is a legendary artifact," Peniel answered. "However, this artifact was dangerous as it will burn anyone weak that dares to come near it."

"How does the artifact define weak? Is it giving anyone that comes near it a test to check the person's strength?" Jack asked.

"No, anyone below level 75 that touched the artifact will be burned to ash," Peniel answered.

Jack turned to Janus. "You mentioned this task has no time limit. Do you mean to ask me to look for it later when I'm level 75?"

"We prefer to not wait that long. If you can confirm its location and let us know, we can consider your task completed," Janus said. He then produced a glass cube. "Or if you happen to come near the artifact, you can activate this cube. It will contain the Eye of Illios and prevent it from harming you. But of course, telling us the confirmed location and bringing us the artifact will give you different rewards."

"Hm… That eye something is a legendary artifact, right? What makes you think I won't keep it for myself if I find it?"

"As I said. I trust you."

"Then you are a very trusting person. Although we have known each other for a long time, we are not truly close. I'm not even sure if I have met the real you, considering there are a lot of you. Are you sure you can trust me that much?"

"I'm good at judging a person. You are not someone selfish who will betray someone's trust. Furthermore, the Eye of Illios is useless to you at your current level. Believe me that if you bring the eye to us, you will get the benefit as well in the long run. Aside from that, if we find out that you keep the Eye of Illios for yourself, we will hunt you down to the end of the world."

Jack gulped. "Hm… Fine then. I accept." He accepted the glass cube and received another notification informing him the new quest had been registered on his quest page. "Do you have any clue about that artifact? Or should I search randomly?"

"Open your map," Janus said.

Jack did as instructed. Janus marked a coordinate on his map. It was somewhere within the Republic of Palgrost. A place he had not yet traveled to. Janus' mark was a simple dot in a sea of fog on his map.

"We trace the energy of the eye to that place, but we can't find any other clues there. Perhaps an outworlder's set of eyes will see something that we miss."

"Is that place a city or a town?" Jack asked.

Janus shook his head. "It is the wilderness. A simple field of barren land."

"All right, I will check it out when I have the time. I can't promise anything though," Jack said.

Janus simply nodded and smiled.

Jack checked the quest on his quest page.

*

Search for the Eye of Illios

Difficulty: SS

Rewards: ???

Informed Janus of the confirmed location of the Eye of Illios or bring it back to Janus.

*

'SS? For a quest that involves a legendary artifact, I thought it will be an SSS-grade quest,' Jack thought.

'Perhaps because you can still complete it if you just confirm its location, so the difficulty is not that high,' Peniel offered her opinion.

"Will knowledge points be included in the rewards?" Jack asked Janus.

"That among other things," Janus answered.

Good, Jack thought. It took a long time to accumulate challenge points. More so for Knowledge points. So, if he got another avenue to obtain the points, he welcomed it.

"If there is no other matter, I will take my leave," Jack said.

"There is one other matter. In appreciation of your willingness for taking our task, we would like to grant you a gift," Janus took out another thing. Jack recognized it as a runestone. "We know that our patron, Rhemos had been slain by his older brother, but we can't involve ourselves in a country struggle. So, we can only aid indirectly in this manner."

Jack received the runestone and inspected it.

*

Runestone of Marching (super rare runestone)

Increase the marching speed of the army under command by approx. 50%

Elemental energy required for upgrade: 0/10,000

*

"Wow, this will be handy for the war!" Jack uttered.

"We heard that you will be leading a regiment, so yes, we hope that this will help," Janus said.

"It will! Thank you very much!" Jack said.

Janus nodded. "Good luck in the civil war, and be safe," He said.

Jack thanked him another time and left. He was done with his preparation. He must say that he got more than he expected after making the trips to the two prominent factions. The time was toward morning already. Jack teleported to Heavenly Citadel. He entered the Time Chamber to do his routine training in mana manipulation and martial arts. After that, he slept inside there, getting full rest. Normally, this was prohibited since the Time Chamber had a limited occupancy at any one time. But since it was Jack who was doing it, no one dared to complain.

In the morning after waking up, Jack gave John the rune diagram.

The two discussed what they should use it on. Jack asked Peniel if they could use the diagram to strengthen their guild wall. Peniel said they could. However, since this was only a low-tier diagram, it would only strengthen a small section of the wall, not the entire boundary wall, like what Duke Alfredo's protective diagram did to his estate. If they wanted to strengthen the entire wall, they needed to etch lots of diagrams in a set interval. However, doing this would mean an astronomical consumption of mana upkeep. They won't be able to afford it.

After some discussion, they decided to use the diagram in three critical parts. The wall's gate, the guild hall's entrance, as well as the Guild Core itself. After that, they would have the scrollmakers focus on making as many of the Enhance Defensive Ability magic scrolls as possible. Peniel informed them that this scroll would enhance the effectiveness of all defensive skills and spells in a fifty-meter radius. Both Jack and John believed these scrolls would help a lot in the war.

Jack was getting ready to depart. John said that he would join the army later. His steed would be able to catch up to the slow-moving army. He could also teleport to the closest city before catching up. He said that he still need to prepare lots of things before joining the army. Jack left him to his tasks and teleported to Thereath. He went out of the city to meet the reinforcement army that had started to gather.