"Peter, have you talked to Eric? He was supposed to meet me at your workshop an hour ago." Sicily called Peter as she stood outside the front gate waiting for Eric to come. As the security didn't know who Sicily was they couldn't let her in and Eric was MIA. Sicily had no choice but to call Peter who was painstakingly raising his alchemy levels.

"Eric's not in the office? Hold on I'll be right there." Peter quickly got out and changed to something semi-formal to wear and left for the workshop. There were little to no traffic and his taxi soon drove into the workshops parking lot. "Sorry, I too couldn't reach him. He must have left somewhere urgent." Peter picked Sicily and went inside introducing her to the rest of the administrative staffs. Peter went back to his place leaving Sicily in charge of the place soon.

By the time Peter reached Port Blair, Anya and Mary were waiting for him at the gate.

"Sorry, Sicily will be with us shortly. She went over to the workshop to sort thing out." Sicily had enough rights to run the guild even without Peter's help. After signing a few papers the workshop can also be managed by Sicily making it easy for her to do the jobs.

Peter took the girls to the shop to check out the sales. The arrows were selling at an extremely high rate causing a massive increase in gold coins. The front of the ship was heavily crowded and Peter and the girls entered through the employee doors at the side. After a twenty minutes wait, Sicily was finally free and joined them from one of the workshop cabins.

"Great, let's go then." Peter took the girls and walked in the direction of Delford.

"Sicily, what were you doing in the office anyway?"

"It's for the tournament. Since it's going to be a guild event and a massive one at that we had to register for it. I already requested all members to fill an online form. From what I saw, we have at least twelve thousand members participating."

While the three girls walked towards the temple, the powerful monsters that resided in the western forest fell under their feet. "The arena had to be made instanced. There are just too many participants. I contacted a GM and they agreed to the event. With something this big, there are bound to be some issues at their side."

You killed the black bear. Your party gained 240 experience, bear pelt.

You received 60 experience.

The party walked further in and the map cleared to see a temple that stood clean and well maintained. The walls were high and held strong with the roof standing high in contrast to what it appeared to be just a few days ago. The broken huts and abandoned shops remained the same being the only remnants that help to affirm Peter of the place.

You reached Delford Settlement.

"Well, we are here. I hope this was worth it." The twenty-five minutes long walk came to an end as the girls followed Peter into the temple.

"Well, I hope I get something awesome." So the three girls walked in with Peter. The skeleton guardian Zenith was sitting on the throne. Seeing three cute girls walk-in, he was hyper excited. Then he saw Peter...

"Ahh, is she coming here again?", screamed the guardian jumping up from the throne that doesn't belong to him. "No, she should be in Eldercreek. I brought these girls so they could change their races as well."

"This..." Zenith stopped starting at Peter. "I'm afraid that's not easy. If it's just common races, then I can help you but to receive anything beyond rare I'm afraid you need one of the elders of the temple."

"You can help us change to rare ones?" Sicily was happy and a smile blossomed on his face.

"Yes, I can help you change races to anything up to rare. Anything beyond that is outside my purview." The skeleton stopped for a second and then said, "unless you want to change into an undead. Then I can help you. I have full autonomy over the undead races."

"Undead? Will we get into any trouble?", Mary asked sceptically. "Its strong against everything apart from light mana. Well, you can check through the races on display as well." He hit the ground with his casting staff and the floor trembled slowly to reveal stairs to a hidden bottom floor.

"If you are weak against the light, then how are you outside now?" Asked Peter following the guardian descending the stairs along with the girls. "Weak against the light? No, I'm just weak against light mana, not light. Light is just energy. If there is no mana mixed in it then it's fine."

The room got dimmer and Mary cast a light spell causing Zenith to flinch. "Sorry", apologised Mary. "Force of habit." Muttered her in a soft breath ready to extinguish the flames. "That's fine. It doesn't hurt me. I just dislike it." The undead skeleton with a wave of his hand invoked a spell that caused the low flame lanterns to burn lighting up the place in blue. Mary exhausted her spell and walked around the place looking at various figurines that made her gaze in awe.

"They look amazing." All girls had a stunned expression as they looked at the different statues present in the underground hall.

"Why did you not let me in here?" Peter asked Zenith. "It wasn't up to me. Vayazi brought you here. I'm not sure if she would let you become undead even if you want to."

"Isn't undead hated by the world?" Asked Sicily. "Would we still be able to enter the human cities as if nothing happened?"

"That shouldn't be a problem in Garesian Empire. Although the elves don't particularly like us they also don't hate us. But there are indeed some places that are taboo to us undead. If you are playing alone then this is the best race for you. Even in a group battle undead have a superior advantage since we don't have a stamina drain."

"No stamina drain?"

"No. But it's understandable if you don't want to be an undead. Also, the healing is lost on the undead. So you can only recover with your natural regeneration. I can tell you guys aren't delighted. Well, I can always show you the other races."

"Are there any undead legendary races?" Asked peter suddenly.

"Legendary? Yes, three hundred to be specific. But most of them also have other attributes so I can only grant 13 of them directly to someone."

"Are there any non-undead races that you can grant?" Anya joined in.

"Without the undead element? Yes, but you will have to go through a mental strain test for them like Peter. Are you sure about it?"

"Eh, if Peter can pass it, so can we", said Anya pumped up.

"Well then, we need to open the hidden chamber upstairs." Zenith led them back to the hall above.

Similar to how Peter entered the white chamber, the door behind the throne opened letting everyone enter the place. Peter stood outside waiting for the girls to complete their test and emerge victorious.

While the girls were inside Peter was left out alone with Zenith. The skeleton broke the silence between them.

"You shouldn't bring people in here like that," Zenith said to Peter who was checking out the different runes etched on the walls of the temple. The golden decor regained its lustre as if someone had recoated the whole place.

"Well, how else are we supposed to race change?" Asked peter.

"You can always find other races in other in the open. It's not ideal but that's how it's normally supposed to be." "Sorry to be a bother then."

"While we are waiting, tell me. What are you working on now?"

Peter hesitated for a bit then said, "we are looking for a place to build our guild."

"Guild territory? Can't you just buy one from the city lords?"

"Yes, but they have all been bought by others." Replied Peter.

"Well, early bird gets the worm." Zenith kept looking at Peter and asked, "do you really want a territory? It will be hard to take over but there is one that shouldn't be owned yet."

"One not sold by the city lords?"

"Yes. Its called the Frozen Battleground. I'm not certain you can take over the place but it should still be available. It has a guardian that you should defeat. Once you defeat and control its soul, you should be able to occupy the territory."

"Where is this place at?" Peter started to get excited. Without a territory, a guild doesn't have that many perks which help in guild wars, a PVP monthly tournament. This was a great way to gain guild experience and level up faster.

"Its a bit north from here. But you won't be able to enter it easily. The front gates should be frozen shut and you will have to burn them down. Also even if you could, the guardian inside should be a corrupted sentient level 120 monster. I'm not sure your party of four will be enough to kill it."

"I want to check the place out. If it's really good we can try and take it over."

While the two were chatting, the girls were done with their meeting with Al and all there of them spawned next to the throne elated from their expression.

"How did it go?" Asked Peter excited for them.

"High elves, all of them," said Zenith with a smile. "That's rare and amazing. You three must have a strong sense of loyalty." Zenith kept staring at them. "Light, lightning and earth elements? You lot must be super lucky."

Zenith approached the girls. "I expected a light element from you. You are a healer after all. The lightning element for an archer? I doubt anyone can dodge your arrows. And you an earth element..." Zenith's skeletal jaws curved into an unnatural smile. "This is really fun. I haven't seen an overseer with earth element in a long time."

Zenith looked over Peter and said, "maybe you might have a chance. Here take this skeleton with you. He should be able to take you to the location.

Zenith summoned a skeleton from thin air and gave it some direction.

Skeleton Knight LVL 150

???

"Well, I hope you visit me again someday Peter." Zenith walked back to the throne after shooing them towards the front door.

The skeleton ran outside and Peter and the girls followed it barely keeping up. After thirty minutes of running north, they ended up against a cliff. The skeleton kept running along the side and soon they reached a pass. The narrow space was well placed making it difficult to spot if not for the skeleton helping them.

The skeleton knight stopped and crumbled into dust while the three girls stared at Peter looking for an answer.

"Its a territory."

The words excited the party as they went through the pass only to suddenly find the temperature dropping a few degrees.

You have entered The Frozen Battleground.

Register party to activate territory conquest quest.

The surrounding smog cleared showing an endless frozen plane. At the furthest, their eye could see stood a fort larger than the city of Port Blair. Peter received an invitation to join the party.

*****