After parting with Cherry, Astre wandered the cobblestone streets of his starting city that became his hub. Reading the list from his informant, he raised an eye. Every guild in the top 10 most prominent guilds had at least thirty members in the tournament. Nightshadow had the whole guild in the competition, not counting crafters that guild had sixty members.

Shaking his head, he wondered what kind of the tournament it would be. Just now, Cherry's list updated to six hundred confirmed participants. Hopefully, it wouldn't be a 1vs1 tournament. For one, it would take forever. Secondly, he would never win that. Though thanks to the message on his ticket, he was sure that wasn't the case.

That left some kind of big arena where all armies could dish it out, or maybe something in the wild. In both cases, Astre could think of ways to cause chaos.

Stopping in front of a big building, he sighed wholeheartedly. It was a long time due he visited his friend, it was never easy though. The man had particular tastes.

Without further ado, he opened the door and froze in his tracks. He knew that he was for one hell of a ride. The room was empty or at least seemed that way. Hoping that no timers started already, he activated two of his skills from Sense skillset. Once Eye of Details activated, he noticed slight protrusion from some of the stones on the floor. For now, his Danger Sense didn't tell him anything, but the ability wasn't that omnipotent. It only informed him of imminent dangers, and the skills prerequisites for activation heavily depended on the situation and his state of mind.

Avoiding the obvious traps, for now, he took his first step. As soon as he entered the door behind him shut tight with a loud bang. He couldn't spare it any attention as he was forced into a side jump to avoid five crossbow bolts heading for all parts of his body. As he landed, he noticed small crystals hidden in the walls shining in red. His eyes went wide as his Danger Sense informed him of the threat below him. The ability worked by giving him a weird sensation, akin to a jolt of electricity pointed in the direction from which he should expect danger. At that moment, a giant bear trap broke through the stone and aimed to crush him. Jumping up, he barely avoided the trap that would squash him into a pulp.

Balancing on the metal of the bear trap, he leaped and somersaulted in the air making sure to take a look at every detail in the room twice. His friend always had some mechanism to disarm all traps. Usually hidden behind more traps.

Landing at a large protrusion in the middle of the room, he caused it to sink in before jumping away. That part of the floor collapsed, revealing a hole in the ground. Then five runes on the ceiling, previously invisible, shined with red energy as some spell formed. He noticed other small crystals shining red in the room just before five fireballs headed his way.

Dodging them to the side, he was forced to avoid another set of bolts. He rolled to the hole that opened in the ground. There he saw a golden thread within arms reach. Noticing that another set of fireballs would rain down soon, he tried to reach it only for his Danger Sense to warn him again just before his hand got pierced by a spear.

Being left without much room to dodge, he was required to block one of the fireballs with his hands as he slid on the floor, reducing his LP by one, showing that it most likely would have reduced his arms to cinders if it was real life. He needed to act, or he would be overwhelmed soon. The fire runes seemed to be speeding up too. Probably from the room itself heating up.

Looking once more at the room, he thought up his plan of action. Pulling up his bow and arrows, he shot at the crystals in walls, creating a blind point in which none were in his line of sight. Then the fire runes formed the spells again. This time instead of the fireballs being aimed at him, the projectiles went straight ahead, hitting walls and floor. He couldn't let it go on as he was sure that after reaching high enough room temperature, the whole thing would explode.

He ran and stoped above the hole, making sure that some of the shining red crystals were within his sight. Then just as the fireballs were released, he used his archery ability Dodge Shot to fire an arrow and instantly dashing away to the blind zone he made, leaving a blue trace behind. Watching the fireballs entering the chasm in the floor, he nodded in satisfaction as, after the explosion, the magical runes shimmered down, and the whole room quieted down.

As silence settled in the room, Astre immediately broke, "DAMN YOU LOKI!"

He knew that the dwarf would be looking from somewhere. Just as he was preparing to shout again, he heard a hearty laugh and staircase dropped from the ceiling, opening a way to the second floor.

"My friend! I hopped you would fry to the crisp, jumping around like a monkey!" the dwarf named Loki laughed as he went down the stairs. He had silky black hair tied in a ponytail and a short, for dwarf standards, beard. Looking up at Astre with a devilish smile, he clapped the young man on the back, "Long time no see!"

Astre shook his head, "Would you ever turn your house into a safe zone? If I died here, I would only be able to get rid of the debuff just before the tournament started." The twenty-four-hour death penalty was something most players lamented, but developers never bent back on this.

"Could you win a tournament if you died to such a simple trap!? Don't be naive!" the dwarf scolded him. "Also, there would be no fun in that!"

"So those are your true intentions. Crazy dwarf," Astre declared as he clicked his tongue. "Anyway. Those crystals, did you finally finish that optical detection of yours?"

"Oh! Yes! Just recently! Those are quite a treat, aren't they! My babies will revolutionize trap making! Do you want a full stack?" the dwarf proclaimed excited, forgetting the insult.

"Yes, of course, also twenty of each elemental glyph scrolls," Astre answered as he opened a trade window. He wanted to fill his trapmaking materials chest to the brim. He burned through the scrolls like twigs in his trapmaking, imbuing his traps with multiple effects or spells. "How many for the crystals?"

"One hundred gold apiece, those crystals require some crazy materials," the dwarf answered, annoyed. Loki believed that the more common materials are used, the better was the crafter skill.

Astre whistled, the crystals were ten dollars a pop, still not having to use lines or strings would make it much more stealthy. Paying 2000 gold for crystals and 1000 gold for scrolls without batting an eye, he turned to the dwarf. "Thanks for that."

"Don't worry, return whenever you want to taste my traps."

"Geh, and you are surprised people are not coming here often," Astre responded to the invitation.

"Anyway, thanks for a visit, but I'm busy," the dwarf proclaimed, caressing his beard. "Special order."

"May I know for who?" asked Astre, wondering if it was going to be used in the tournament.

"Do you want me to sell your secrets to someone? Blaze would pay a high price for those." The young man groaned at that. "Also, you probably don't need to worry about this. It's for larger targets."

"Armies?" Astre thought openly.

The dwarf only gave him a smile and promptly kicked him out.

Astre went back to walking down the streets. Now without any objective, he just strolled down the familiar alleys. He remembered that when he was starting out, before his current build, Astre went with something he considered cool. Shadow and fire magic, sword, shield, and dodging skills. Suitable for party DPS, bad for soloing. Soloing was much more profitable in the long run, and he needed a lot of money.

That reminded him of how he looked for parties in the beginning. The first time they dropped a rare item from a boss, they ended up fighting over it. Later, Astre sold it for ten gold, which was worth around fifty bucks back then. He didn't feel bad about it, after all, he didn't start that fight.

Somehow wandering around, he ended up in front of the building he visited innumerable amount of times in the past. The adventurer guild that usually bustled with life today looked practically abandoned. Considering that all veteran players were out trying to get tickets, this wasn't that surprising.

Swinging the doors open, he entered the building. The familiar sight of everyday fighting for quests was exchanged for an unusually serene view. Even the NPCs seemed to be taking a break. Sitting down and looking ahead with their soulless stare.

*Thud* a sudden sound cut the silence causing Astre to look for the source. In the corner of the room, a group of players sat around a table. One of them, a tall man with red hair and a red bandana that kept them from his forehead, stood above all of them with his fist on the table.

"Ken, calm down," spoke one of their party members, a girl.

Women population in the game was around forty percent. Astre was quite confident she was a girl because, due to the physiological discomfort, most VR games only allowed you to play a different gender from your biological one if you got an agreement from a certified doctor. The ones that didn't have this rule were games that only supported hearing and sight without invading other senses.

"I... We lost to that boss five times already!" the red-haired man screamed. "We need to finish it today too!"

"Just sit down," another of his party spoke, this time it was a small halfling. "Screaming around won't solve this. Did your brother respond already, Milk?" he added, looking at the final member of the part, a white-haired elf.

"Nope, after he said he is busy grinding the ticket, he didn't respond."

After this, the team went silent. The hot-headed man looked around a bit and sat down grimacing.

Astre activated his Analyze ability from Sense skillset. It told him that the team was level 3 and 2 in all of their skills. When it wasn't that useful against people with higher-level skills, it wasn't its primary use anyway. Seeing their status, he could tell that the elf, Milk, was their healer, Ken was their frontline fighter, the girl was their mage, and the halfling was a weird thief build.

It was a pretty balanced party. All of this increased his curiousness. With nothing better to do, he decided to do some socializing. He indeed required some practice in that area.

Taking a step, he walked over to their table and greeted them, "Hello. I could hear you from the other end of the building."

The party looked at him and paused for a second. Then all of their faces went white, and the girl from the party even jumped up in fright.

She looked around and went even whiter as she noticed what she has done. She quickly bowed and screamed, "Sorry! Please! Don't kill us!"

Astre looked confused. His eyes widened open from the sudden plead. "I..."

Before he finished saying anything, the tall red-haired man, Ken, jumped in front of the girl and, with an equally loud voice, proclaimed, "I'm sorry for disturbing you, Sir Astre! If you want to punish anyone, punish me alone!"

Astre looked lost at them, tilting his head he wondered what was wrong with those people. "Sorry, but what do you know about me?" he asked in a confused voice.

"We heard of your great exploits across the lands! You are one of the most prominent adventurers! You even got 5th place in the last tournament despite your built being designed around a different type of combat," Ken shouted for the whole guild to hear.

Astre facepalmed, he was thankful there was no one else around other than the NPCs. This was embarrassing, he stopped paying attention to rumors about him a while ago, but they seemed to hunt him even here. Moving his hand to his forehead, he started his explaining, "Whatever you heard about me. Please forget about it. You didn't offend me in any way. I'm not going to kill anyone, I'm not going to set traps in your paths to hunt you for years, No not every trap in the dungeons is my doing."

"Also, no, I'm not dating Blaze. I don't even know her properly," he added after consideration. That question was always asked.

The party went silent for a moment, then the halfling laughed and tried to say something "Sorry... hahaha... but... ha... Milk here..." without saying any more, the thief continued laughing.

Astre looked at the elf who's face went red, "Sorry, my brother has extravagated some stuff about you."

"Oh, who is your brother? If you don't mind me asking?" Astre asked, quite interested.

"If you are going to hunt him, don't tell him it was me who told you. His name is Choco, an officer in Nightshadows, you fought him in the last tournament," Milk said. It seemed he didn't have any problems selling his brother.

"Don't worry. I don't have time to worry about petty grudges," affirmed Astre, he would instead make money rather than go after someone because of some words. Still, his brother was quite a veteran. He even kind of remembered someone named like that in the tournament. "Anyway, I didn't come here for that. From what I noticed, you have a problem with a boss. I'm quite specialized in that area, so if you need some help, I'm willing to give some advice."

The party seemed to have calmed down by now. Ken even smiled at him, and spoke welcomingly, "Sorry for the outburst. Milk here scared us with tales about you quite a bit. With help from a veteran like you, we are sure to win against that skelly wheel of doom!"

"I will only advise," Astre repeated. "But, the Wheel of the Reaper? That brings back memories."

Ken motioned him to sit down next to him. The man seemed quite friendly after all. The girl that sat next to the red-haired man beforehand, silently moved to the other side of the table, sitting next to the elf Milk.

"Did you fight it in the past?" asked the halfling. "Ah, I'm Blast, by the way."

"I'm Milk," the elf added. "It's an honor to meet you."

"Milk, you are too tight," declared the red-haired man. "I'm Ken!"

Finally, everyone looked at the girl. "I'm Sora," she introduced herself silently.

Astre nodded and introduced himself too, "Well, as you know, I"m Astre."

"Still, to fight that wheel," the blond-haired adventurer reminisced, leaning back. "Back when we first discovered it, it was like a rite of passage. It's the first grand boss that was discovered in this region that took over a month to beat."

"A month!? We need to beat it today!" Ken shouted.

Astre waved his hand to calm down the man. "It took a month with learning all its mechanics and secrets. You know its weakness and general strategy, right?"

Ken looked away, the rest of the party didn't want to speak too.

"Didn't your brother tell you anything?" Astre asked, looking at Milk.

"We asked, but he is busy trying to get more tickets," related Milk.

Astre took the information in, 'Didn't Nightshadows already have tickets for all their members?' He felt bad, but the information might prove useful. "Well, there is always the internet, didn't you check there?"

"It's hard to find something good on the internet, especially against this boss," answered Blast, the halfling. "Either people joke and tell you to 'git gut,' or tell you it's a trial of soul and determination. The videos for efficient farming just drown the boss in fire, which is not really an option for us. Even if my explosive deal massive damage, I'm the only one capable of doing it. Ah, I have Explosive skills."

"Huh," Astre didn't consider it. Fighting it the intended way was a bit of a pain. "Despite it, you are trying to beat it, and you want it done today?"

"We picked the request and decided on it," replied Ken. "After today, we won't be able to play together for a while since Sora and I are moving."

"I will also be busy with work," stated Blast. "Also, these love birds are moving in together finally."

Ken's face went a bit red. On the other hand, Sora complained to the halfling, "Are you envious or something? You keep mentioning it on every occasion."

"Of course, I'm envious!" proclaimed the small man. "You are taking my best bro away."

"My, If Ken is your best bro, I guess he can pay your fine for drinking in public during a night," said Milk.

"Men, don't say that!" lamented the halfling pretending to cry. "You can't be my best bro, though, so satisfy yourself as my best friend."

"And why is that?" asked the elf.

"Because..." the Halfing pronounced with a pause, "elves are gay!"

Milk wanted to say something, but Ken interrupted them, "Stop this, you two can flirt somewhere else, you are wasting Astre time here."

The friends stopped at that and returned their attention to Astre. It seemed it was something that happened quite often in this party. At least no one seemed disturbed by it.

"No, don't worry. I'm mostly here to kill my boredom since all grind spots are ultra-busy because of the tournament coming up," remarked Astre with a smile. "For now, it's working quite well."

"As long as you are happy," declared Ken clapping him on the back. "So about that skelly boi."

"Yes, what do you say I will be your strategist for this? I will come with you and help you plan stuff, give you information. I won't fight and also won't do all the planning, but if I point you in the right direction, I'm sure you will win."

The party looked at each other, then after a second, all of them nodded with a smile.