The Dragon Gorge battle was a massacre.

A few hundreds settlers died that day, and their souls (minds) were successfully “confiscated” by the Goblin Empire. On the Empire’s side, less than five could be counted with the dead. The Empire didn’t even have had to show any of their ace cards. The fact that the gorge remained a gorge and not flat terrain was proof that no really powerful skills were used.

Later, they would make a list of who got caught and ask for ransom. However, Orc King Goblin Emperor Marcus wasn’t happy.

To his understanding, Jack Hooligan was a soft-hearted person. A really butter-heart. He even helped him at one point in time, and that was taking in account that he tried to steal his goo tank back then.

Had he been successful, and Jack wouldn’t be alive today.

Still, a little bit of crocodile tears and heart-shaking pleas of mercy seemed to be enough to make him open an exception.

He not showing up once his colony got attacked was unexpected.

- Tsc. Start plan B. We need to take him out of the dungeon.

It would be impossible to deal with Jack while he remained inside his dungeon. Even if Marcus were to use his ultimate ace, the Demon Dragon King, it would be useless.

Angering Jack ‘till the point he couldn’t resist but attack was, therefore, what he hopped for.

***

[- I don’t want to know.]

- Jack, that’s unacceptable. Do you even know what this people have been through?! The least you could do is read the battle report!

Yrwin tried to persuade Jack through the Communication Crystal Screen which connected the dungeon to the Council.

[- I said I don’t want to know. It would make me want to get involved, and I won’t! I have said it hundreds of times - they won’t enter the island, but that is everything, and it isn’t because I’m “King” as you guys like to pretend, but because I like some of the people who live here!]

- Jack, please. We need your support. Without you, how can we settle with what happened? They destroyed our homes, they took our people’s souls! Your people’s souls! You have to do something! - This time, an old half-human-half-tiefling tried to persuade him. She was the Mayor and Governor of the Dragon King Colony.

[- I said no. Don’t call me again because of this.]

Jack turned the crystal’s spell off, cancelling the communication.

Soon, however, the crystal lit up again.

- Jack, please… - Yrwin tried again.

[- NO!]

With a sweep of his hand, Jack destroyed the crystal - closing all means of communication with his dungeon.

Usually communication spells would be able to get to him, but his dungeon had been reinforced with all kinds of spells, barriers and protections - all at level 100. Nothing could affect It, unless someone was to try and use deep code changing - and even that would be difficult, since Jack had used the highest administration credentials possible (the General Administrator ones) to lock every single aspect of the place - as well as reinforced the deep code in the place with a little trick were multiple keys to start the Auto-Repair program had been inserted on the code all around the island. If one tried to access the deep code, then the Auto-Repair program would be fired at the exact same time their minds touched it.

It would be extremely difficult to do anything against his will while he was there. He might not have been a programmer back on earth, but he was a Max-Level player with extremely high basic stats.

That’s not to mention he and Elicia were still grinding main levels to this day - in order to increase their basic stats, even if no new Skills could be gained.

One had to remember that Another World had a very complex leveling system, so designed in order to allow one’s real-life brain to adapt to the changes one’s mind would force it to go through. Skills could be gained by repeating certain actions. Resisting external or internal interference and keeping one’s concentration while casting spells for a cumulative amount of three hours, for instance, could give someone the “Mental Fortitude” skill.

However, that was only if someone had their Mental Resistance skill three in a high enough level.

That is, for example, one had to have Mental Resistance at level 5 to be able to unlock the “Mental Fortitude” skill at Mage level 20.

Then, there were also Elementary Skills, which determined how well could you use your skill. For instance, the Concentration Elementary Skill would determine how many thousand of hours would your brain be wired to receive once you gained a certain skill like “Mental Fortitude”.

An Elementary Skill at level 5 would make the “Mental Fortitude” skill be wired on one’s brain as if they had expended 5000 hours concentrating while casting spells. To get this skill at level 5, one had to expend 5000 in-game hours concentrating at doing something plain and boring - or 1000 minutes (16 hours) in high hyper-focused battles to the death (each minute in hyper-focus counted as 5 hours).

No one would use hyper-focus to train Elementary Skills in Another World anymore, though, since battles to the death and other such situations where the only where one could achieve a hyper-focus state, that is, until reaching the Level 100 psion skill “Hyperfocus”.

Then, all of that would be useless without enough Main Levels. The Main Levels gave someone skill points - which could then be allocated to unlock skills. So, even if someone had three hours of cummulative spell-casting concentration, they wouldn’t be able to unlock the “Mental Fortitude” skill if they didn’t have enough Skill Points to do it.

Every Main Level gave someone 10 skill points, and every skill, except for those at levels 90-100, cost 1 point.

For those at levels 90-100, they would cost 10 points at level 90 and 10 more points from there on, so at level 91 it would be 20 points, at level 92 it would be 30, and so on until 100 points at level 100.

Main Levels could be obtained only by getting Exp - which was obtained by slaying monsters (be them with a soul or soulless) and absorbing the Fairy Dust in them.

Then, last and not least, there were also Stats - a player would get 10 points to expend on their stats (such as Intelligence) for every Main Level, and such stats would increase one’s basic capabilities, like damage, armor and so on.

That said, this meant that, for instance, for someone to use the “Mental Fortitude” skill to ward off an incoming mental attack which intended to disrupt their thoughts, one would have to have at least 3 main levels, 5 skill points allocated on the Mental Resistance tree, 20 on the Mage tree in the right skills in order to progress until “Mental Fortitude”, and 1 on the correspondent Elementary Skill - that is, Concentration.

Then, that as well didn’t mean the mage would be able to do it with a 100% success rate or even totally, because the “Mental Fortitude” skill gained bonuses with their Intelligence Stat, which meant the person had to have a number of bonuses applied to their “Mental Fortitude” skill (by their Intelligence stat) which countered the bonuses the opposite party had on their attacking skill.

So, even if they had all Skills one could possibly have, Jack and Elicia kept on grinding levels by killing monster wave after monster wave inside Jack’s dungeon. This way, they could guarantee to have really high basic stats, allowing for them to use their skills to the maximum.

That is not to mention that, the higher one’s basic stats, the higher the concentration of Fairy Dust making the connection between their brains and minds, and so the depth and strength they had to access and change the Game Code - it had become clear to all in the world that fairy dust had something to do with the very basis on which Another World was constructed, and seemingly formed the Hardware on top of which the Software (the Code) was built.

Getting a lot of fairy dust around your mind meant getting a lot of power over the Code. And that was gained by slaying monsters. This was something hard-coded into the deepest recesses of the Code, so one could only slay and slay and slay all day long.

Jack’s dungeon, therefore, was night impenetrable on all senses - be by the Code or by Brute Force.