Sacred Souls: Genesis

Jiang Qiao was finally done with the character model of the Faerie Merchant NPC, with its use being to exchange magic stones with it to obtain new skins.

The siblings of this merchant would be accompanying the players for a long time in the future, because every time otherworldly dungeons appeared, they would appear and allow players to exchange items for skins or mounts.

After setting a Decomposition Machine by Miss Enhancer, Jiang Qiao added some small tweaks to the Player System itself. He set it so that when players broke any records, the data would not only be recorded on the stone slab but also be able to be seen through a player’s system interface.

After making several tweaks to enhance the players’ gaming experience, Jiang Qiao opened a Teleportation Gate back to the Astrology Tower in order to prepare for the unveiling of the new dungeon.

“Where should I place the entrance of the dungeon?” Jiang Qiao muttered to himself as he opened the main map of Sacred Souls.

As of now, Sacred Souls only had one continent and four cities, with an endless sea surrounding the mainland.

Lionheart City was at the heart of the four cities, with Level 1~20 monsters spawning around it as well as a Level 20 dungeon. To its north was Hawktalon City with Level 20~30 monsters spawning around it, as well as four dungeons of varying difficulty. Moving back south, there were Wolfheart City and Frostdeer City, with a total of eight dungeons.

Same with the level progression from above, the frost-and-snow styled maps were the last exploration points for players in this version of the game, with Level 50 monsters and four Level 50 dungeons.

There were also dozens of small towns and villages scattered around the map, but Jiang Qiao didn’t take them into consideration.

The exploration and discovery aspect of Sacred Souls was quite fleshed out. Just the class-changing system and secret missions were enough for players to spend almost half a year, Jiang Qiao however still needed to continue updating with new versions.

The update this time was on the new dungeon, the Tower of Trials.

“I’ll set the entrance at Lionheart Harbor.” Jiang Qiao chose this location as he scrolled around the main map, the harbor itself being a Level 15~20 training area while the Tower of Trials was a Level 25~50 dungeon.

As Jiang Qiao decided to place the entrance of the Tower Plane Fragment at the harbor, a miniature tower appeared in Jiang Qiao’s palm like a chess piece, and as if he were playing a game of chess he set it down on the shore nearby Lionheart Harbor.

After he did so, he shifted the position of the tower frivolously, and he even took out a ruler to check the angle between the tower and the lighthouse in Lionheart City before pointing at the tower with a finger.

As he did, the gray tower filled with color and Jiang Qiao felt a slight tremor from the Astrology Platform.

Jiang Qiao quickly made his way to the edge of the Astrology Platform and cast a gaze into the distance, and on the horizon a pure white tower appeared at the harbor, its spire reaching the clouds along with the tremors from the earth and splashing waves.

“Alright, now to set the dungeon challenging limit to infinite, and make the first level available for Level 25~35 players, the second level for Level 35~40 players, and so on and so forth…Now what’s left is to just let the players test this dungeon out.”

The first person that Jiang Qiao thought of was Zhao Mingwei, and because he only came online at night, Jiang Qiao decided to send some private messages to him after some thought.

He was going to ask whether he wanted to ‘challenge a dungeon later?’ but after some thought he deleted it and changed it to ‘I’m going to make a guild, wanna join?’

There were already three guilds in Sacred Souls, but there weren’t many members in them. While Jiang Qiao had wanted to create a guild, not to contest for the greatest guild but just for the sake of having a good time with a bunch of close-knit friends.

Jiang Qiao had created a guild back in War, but there weren’t much people that joined, and after Jiang Qiao stopped playing, the few people that he had been keeping in contact with also went AFK.

Jiang Qiao wasn’t a solo player. He was plenty clear about the importance of having fun with a group of friends—That was the point of a multiplayer online game, after all.

‘Alright, wait for me to get online.’ Zhao Mingwei quickly replied to Jiang Qiao.

This reply was given from the Sacred Souls App which enabled players to replay to their in-game friends through it.

After he saw the reply, he paced around the Astrology Platform looking at the harbor, seeing that several players have already discovered the dungeon entrance.

The Tower of Trials was actually set to be a dungeon for guilds, because most of the equipment and loots from it were mainly Sacred Relics for guilds and manors.

Solo players that didn’t want to join any guilds could also place the Sacred Relics in their own manors to the same effect.

To increase the limit of the server quickly, Jiang Qiao didn’t set a limit on the number of times a player could challenge the Tower of Trials, while for normal dungeons the limit was five per day. Normal dungeons had boosted drop rates on equipment and EXP, while the Tower of Trials did not, in some ways similar to training at regular spots at the over-world.

That being said, the Tower of Trials had a rewarding system for players that passed levels to a certain degree, and so it could completely serve as a spot for players to test their skills and show their abilities.

Jiang Qiao used his free time to stay hidden as the GM, checking on how well the players did in the new dungeon.

There weren’t a lot of players that had entered the Tower of Trials since an hour ago. Most players that were actively playing the game were around Level 25, while the highest leveled players on the Level Leaderboard were already Level 32.

There were three dungeons for players in the range of Level 25~30, and clearing one would require around half an hour to an hour. Most players at this point were busy with those dungeons, and the only players that noticed the Tower of Trials were newbie players who were still active in the area of Lionheart City.

The first batch of players that attempted challenging the Tower of Trials had already appeared, and one of the first players was the streamer that Jiang Qiao had come into contact with before, the ModaoSwordsman.

He seemed to not have any real-life friends in Sacred Souls, so he only shouted in front of the Tower of Trials for more than ten minutes before he barely managed to enter the first floor of the dungeon with a ragtag four-person party.

The first level of the Tower of Trials was harder than what Jiang Qiao had expected, and in the party only ModaoSwordsman had passable skills. It was clear that he had switched off the Battle Support system and was using his own movements to activate skills, while the rest of the players used their minds to activate the skill using skill shortcuts.

Both of these ways had their pros and cons, and the party used an hour and twenty-four minutes before barely managing to scrape by the first level.

After they passed, the maximum number of players allowed on the server increased by around thirteen people.

As soon as ModaoSwordsman exited the Tower of Trials, he received a system notification.

[Your level-clear record is in the forty-third place among all challengers]

“We got on the leaderboard? We did so terribly though?”

ModaoSwordsman was stunned when he saw this system notification. After all, this makeshift team of his didn’t even have a healer, and even the last boss was defeated by stalling it out.

Normal dungeons had leaderboards too, but only the top ten players were shown.

“The dungeon clearing records are here… Wait, are these all NPCs?”

The Elemental Mage came to the first stone tablet from the guidance of the system, and the names displayed on the stone tablet were a bunch of western names.

These standard names were definitely not made by players.

“So the record that we broke was a record set by the system, and we’re even in last place…Why do I feel embarrassed?” A Lancer in the party said, scratching his cheek sheepishly.

They were feeling embarrassed because every record set by the system were all set to be easily broken by players. In other words, these records were what the system deemed to be easy.

“The highest limit of this dungeon is six people, and there’s a reward for breaking records too. Do any of you have Level 25 friends online? Should we invite them, or should we just find two more random players?”

ModaoSwordsman watched as another party entered the Tower of Trials, and he knew that they should move fast to break all the system records before all the strong players came in and swept the NPC records.