Chapter 203: Hidden Quest (Part 3)
Zhou Ning thought for a moment, then slightly modified the [Aiden's Whereabouts] quest—changing it so that the player only needed to return and report to him once they found Aiden's trail.
Compared to the other quests, this one carried more potential danger and thus a higher chance of failure.
An NPC as considerate toward players as he was truly one of a kind.
As for the other quests, they were mostly fetch and puzzle-solving missions, which, even at the players' current modest power level, should be relatively easy to complete.
His reason for doing this was simple.
Back during the Meteorological Tide event, he had deliberately tested something—he accepted a patrol quest, then delegated it to Qingbai Wild Sake to complete. When Qingbai Wild Sake turned it in, Zhou Ning received the reward as well. It was essentially free rewards for doing nothing.
If players could be the ones running errands, why should he bother himself?
Although the game limited the number of available quest slots for each type, the total still added up to a considerable income.
It saved him time and effort, letting players handle all the tedious parts while he focused on other things. Players, in turn, enjoyed the gameplay and earned hefty experience. This kind of win–win was exactly how he preferred to operate.
Once the quests were set up, Zhou Ning reviewed them again carefully. Confirming there were no mistakes, he leisurely clicked "Publish."
Although no one had discovered these quests yet, Zhou Ning wasn't worried in the slightest. He didn't believe anyone could resist the lure of a main storyline quest.
Meanwhile, the players of the Starry Sky Guild were enthusiastically tackling the "Gnomeregan" dungeon.
Glancing at the group finder info, Zhou Ning saw that this feature had once again brought him a windfall.
Surprisingly, the team with the fastest progress was XB's party, called the Wolf-Dog Squad. Their completion rate was at 68.9%. The party—comprising him, Jinse, Wrath of Thunder-Chasing Winds, and Sunken Star Beneath the Water—was a rare one-wolf-one-dog dual Devil Fruit ability user lineup. By Zhou Ning's estimation, they had the best shot at the first clear.
With Zhou Ning providing anti-poison potions and various buff elixirs, clearing the dungeon had become much easier. After sustained effort, more and more players had gotten past the Viscous Fallout, earning plenty of experience and quality gear.
However, the price of transcendent gear like the Water Vine Staff remained high, even trending upward on the trading platform, making the dungeon even more sought after.
The reason? This staff had the transcendent ability of underwater breathing. NPCs seemed to particularly favor it. The first player to get one used it to complete a hidden quest, earning an invitation to the "Booze and Wolverines" bar to join a fight club—which was essentially an underground arena.
At first, he thought he'd been tricked, but soon realized that, as a player, brawling in such an arena was actually quite fun. Opponents varied from strong to weak, and winning was naturally satisfying—yet even dying earned him money. Getting paid your own death benefit? Now that was fun.
But compared to other gear, the Water Vine Staff had a very low drop rate. Many players bought large amounts of antidote to get through the Viscous Fallout, only to come up empty-handed—effectively paying for experience points. They, too, eventually got stuck at the dungeon's second boss: Grubbis the Trogg.
This boss didn't deal high damage, but constantly summoned trogg reinforcements during the fight. The sheer swarm made underpowered players despair, quickly drowning in the sea of enemies.
Currently, fewer than 10% of teams could beat Grubbis, and even they only managed by buying Bull Potions and Stone Shield Potions from the faction store or Zhou Ning's shop.
Most groups stalled out from lack of damage. Zhou Ning's shop had effectively become the "main city" for Darkland players, with shouts of "Gnomeregan needs high DPS—no warriors, no warriors, no warriors, repeating three times" ringing out all day.
The indignation was real—had even the most basic equality between people disappeared? Did being weak mean having no human rights? Many warrior players were heartbroken; if it weren't for the three-day cooldown on deleting characters, some would have already rerolled.
By this time, Jinse's squad—the fastest in terms of progress—had reached the second-to-last boss, Electrocutioner 6000.
This was their eighth raid attempt, meaning they had already burned through three group finder lockouts on this boss without success.
Electrocutioner 6000 was a spider-shaped mini-tank piloted by a green-skinned leper gnome.
The tank's damage was high, and its attacks had a paralysis effect. Occasionally, like a Pikachu, it would unleash high-voltage discharges. Even the dual Devil Fruit users' superb defenses were pushed to the limit.
Worse still, every so often it would summon four Mini Spider Mines that homed in on players and exploded.
This required everyone's constant focus, with no room for mistakes.
Fortunately, four of the players were roaming gunners, and the other was a weather mage specializing in long-range control, so the mines weren't hard to deal with.
Only XB, distracted by streaming, made several mistakes, nearly causing wipes and earning plenty of chat mockery.
"XB, can you focus a little?"
"I came here because I heard this streamer leaks more than the dance section streamers—I thought it was true, but turns out it's leaking mobs."
"66666, XB, you're amazing."
XB: …
His chat always made his blood pressure spike.
Honestly, his old-man reflexes were slowing down! And what's wrong if a guy leaks a little more, huh?
While shooting and furiously arguing with his viewers, he let another Spider Mine slip through.
The fight dragged on for more than ten minutes, and just as everyone was running low on ammo and supplies, Electrocutioner 6000 finally let out a death cry and collapsed to the floor.
Finally! Everyone let out a collective sigh of relief.
Just as XB was about to loot the boss, he suddenly saw a flood of messages in the faction channel: "Holy crap, everyone check this out—the main character just posted a main storyline quest!"
Instantly, it was like a rock thrown into a pond, sending ripples everywhere. Players erupted in chatter.
"Whoa, it's true!"
"My god, five main storyline quests, and there are still people who think Wayne isn't the MC?"
"One quest reward is 60,000 EXP—that's huge!"
"Quick, grab the quests!"
But when they tried, they discovered it required 3,500 contribution points. Everyone was stunned.
3,500 contribution points? Was this daylight robbery?
At this stage, who could afford that?
Players were furious.
Even XB, Jinse, and the others in the dungeon were taken aback. As the only two employees of Zhou Ning's shop, they had more contribution points than most—yet even they barely had around 800. Still, as pro players, they would do anything to get stronger. Give up the main storyline? Impossible.
"How about we pool resources from both our clubs?" Jinse suggested to Sunken Star Beneath the Water after the Deep Blue Club manager whispered the idea.
"Sure," Sunken Star Beneath the Water agreed without hesitation.
Even for him, spending that much to accept a quest was painful—but since it could be shared, it was worth it.
"Wait, what's that?"
Suddenly, Wrath of Thunder-Chasing Winds pointed to a black speck in the distance.
As it grew larger, they saw a massive dragon soaring over Gnomeregan.
Its vast wings beat the air, whipping up a violent wind.
The game's normally calm BGM shifted into the protagonist's exclusive execution theme.
What was happening?
Everyone present stared in shock at the sudden turn of events.
The livestream chat exploded right along with them.
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