Epoch: A Berserker's Rise

Adam suddenly began laughing, stunning everyone around. Realizing what he just did, Adam excused himself "Sorry, it's just… fate."

Of course, Adam knew better. This so called Fate, was nothing else than the system pushing him into a quest. He was rewarded for going against near impossible odds and winning the battle.

Henry smiled and said "True, fate can be quite tricky… Anyway, in all my years I may have only found one of the hearts, I found something else, something much more important, and something I wish to give you."

As he said that he disappeared and appeared right in front of Adam.

Adam was taller and buffer than the King, but he had no doubt that if they were to ever fight he would get his ass handed to him.

Henry said "Your hand."

Adam complied and showed his hand, which Henry grabbed. Adam suddenly felt his hand burn, and almost took his hand back, but seeing he wasn't losing HP and Henry didn't have any killing intent, he gritted his teeth and endured.

A few seconds later the pain disappeared, and Henry took his hand back. A tattoo had appeared on the back of his right hand, it represented a flame.

[Godslayer's Mark: Reacts when it senses any of the Godslayer's Heart fragments.]

Adam suddenly felt a strange feeling, which made him look at the heart. He could feel its presence, the feeling was very strange, but no doubt useful.

As if it had recognized its owner the heart floated to Adam, stopping in front of him. On the side, Henry said "Here is my reward for saving my daughter, use this to find the others and recreate the heart."

[Ding! New Quest detected, 'Godslayer's Heart'!]

Quest Detail: The Azure King Henry I has given you the remains of a powerful artifact and has tasked you to find the remaining fragments to recreate the heart.

Quest Level: Irrelevant

Quest Difficulty: SSS

Objective: Find all the fragments of the Godslayer's Heart to fuse them together. 2/25

Reward: Godslayer's Heart, ??

Failure penalty: None

Adam nodded without hesitation, this quest didn't even have a failure penalty, even if he failed he would lose anything. As Adam accepted the quest, the heart finally landed into his right hand, and he saw its attributes.

[Godslayer's Heart] (Common)

All attributes: +8%

Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 4 hearts.

Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 7 hearts.

Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 10 hearts.

Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 13 hearts.

Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 16 hearts.

Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 19 hearts.

Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 22 hearts.

Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 25 hearts.

Fusion: For this artifact to regain its power all the pieces must be fused back. Fusion rate: 2/25.

(Can't be stored)

(Dropped if killed by another owner of a Godslayer's Heart.)

Adam's face was all smile as he looked at the heart, this was without a doubt the strongest Common item he had ever seen, and it had so many powers sealed.

However, Adam knew that gathering all the hearts would be no easy task, moreover he couldn't die or his efforts would be for naught. And the item couldn't even be put in the bank to make it safe, one could only keep it in their inventory or drop it.

As Adam willed to put the heart in his inventory though, the heart didn't and fused into his tattoo instead. Adam simply shrugged it off, it wasn't his concern whether the heart sat in his inventory or his hand, as long as he got the bonus.

Henry then said "Make good use of this, and maybe you really will be able to find them all. Now, you should go, I still have a long day in front of me."

Adam nodded and took the letter out of his inventory and said "Right. Before that though, I have this letter from the chief of Rosewatch, this was my original reason for coming here."

Henry took the letter and read it quickly before handing it to Sarah with a nod. Sarah nodded back to the royal family and grabbed Adam before teleporting away.

Adam and Sasha appeared in the guards barracks once again, except that this time there was another woman acting as the secretary, and this one was only Bronze Rank.

She was stunned seeing her big boss appearing in front of her, and unconsciously straightened up. Sarah didn't mind her and said "Well that was unexpected. Now, give that head to the girl there, she will give you your money. If you need anything in the future, or want to continue our conversation… my door is opened. And for your guild, come see me when you reach Level 15 and I'll register your guild for free."

She winked at him and disappeared, leaving Adam with the real secretary. He closed the notification about completing his mission and went for the secretary.

It didn't take long for her to find the bounty and gave him 1 Gold in exchange of the head.

Now Adam was free from his duties, finally. He headed for the Adventurer's Guild first as this was the best place to get a good quest.

Fortunately for him his map had already uploaded the whole city so following his map he was able to find the guild's base.

An endless flow of NPCs came in and out of the guild, all of varying levels and ranks ranging between Iron and Gold. Adam joined in too and once again was impressed by what he saw once inside.

The Guards Barracks exuded might, the Royal Palace exuded majesty, and this Adventurer's Guild had a the free spirit of the adventurer to it, with several beautiful paintings of either heroes slaying beasts or simple works of nature.

Adam tried not to gawk at those for too long though, he had already experienced how advanced the AI of the NPCs was, and his instinct told him that if he acted like a country bumpkin, he would be treated as such.

The layout of the guild was simple but big. Here, on the first floor, there was a corner in which four boards stood, one for each rank: Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold. On theses boards were quests of varying levels, the lower leveled ones were at the bottom while the higher ranked ones were above.

Once one had chosen their quest, they would then need to head to one of the counters and register their identity to the quest. Apart from that, there were also tables in another corner where NPCs sat around, they were there to look for possible teammates for hard quests.

Speaking of them, Adam saw one of them get up from his table and head in his direction. Adam didn't care at first, he was literally in the middle of a crowd of dozens of people, and so just went for the Iron Board when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Adam acted against his reflex which almost made him send his elbow in the guts of the one holding him, and turned around. This was the guy from the tables.

[Eddy Grun] (Level 20, Iron)

HP: 1500/1500

Eddy was a Kartian, and a Swordsman judging from his twin scabbards. Eddy was a head or two smaller than Adam, but he had a smile on his face as he asked Adam "Are you searching for a good quest? If you do then come with me, my friends and I are searching for a Berserker like you for one of our quests. Interested?"

Adam shrugged and said "Lead the way." Adam wasn't sure what to think of this. In any other game it would have been weird to have an NPC come up to you and ask to team up for a quest, but once again the AI was so advanced that Adam knew they could really be searching for help.

Eddy led him to the table at which he sat before. A party of five was sitting there, all of different races and classes. There was one Cleric, two Monks, one Assassin and a Knight.

Eddy picked a chair for Adam and the two sat down, with Eddy introducing everyone. He then said "So, Valiant Heart, as you can see all six of us are at least, not far from becoming Bronze Ranks, so I will be straightforward with you, I didn't come to you for your power."

Adam nodded, he wasn't offended but actually glad he said that, if he hadn't then this would have most definitely been a trap. He still kept his guards up though, they weren't free of doubt.

(Author's Note: For the ranks and levels, one needs to be at least Level 20 to try to Rank up to Bronze Rank. However, this doesn't mean one can't XP once they hit Level 20. For the weaker players who can't complete their rank up at Level 20 then they can wait to become higher leveled. However, this will lessen their potential and strength. For example a Level 100 who completed his Bronze Quest at Level 20 and his Silver Quest at Level 50 will absolutely slaughter a Level 100 who completed his Bronze Quest at Level 30 and his Silver Quest at Level 60. You will understand this more when Adam does rank up.)