Chapter 464

James was a hypocrite. Well, maybe not a hypocrite, but something close. And honestly, he didn’t care. Not this time at least. It had been for the greater good… totally that, and nothing else. At least, that’s what he told himself as he sat back in the hot springs of the fifth floor safe zone, as a player, not a dungeon core. He’d earned the drink he was sipping, and everyone around him had earned a relaxing moment in time. After all, they’d been grinding the fourth and fifth floor for the past 10 or more hours, and it was definitely getting late. Though, judging by the energy in the air, you’d never guess.

“I can’t believe we all made it past 80.” Oak said as he took a sip from a green colored drink. It was an apple-tini, which James knew purely because Faust had given Oak crap for it the moment he ordered it. Though, Faust had ordered a Dirty Shirly, which immediately elicited even more jokes and comments, with Z asking Faust something about a cat named Donut? James hadn’t caught the full gist of it.

“It was going to happen sooner or later.” Z said with a grin. “The fact we got to grind out levels with the developers made it even more satisfying.” Z lifted his glass towards James, and James returned the motion. Beside him, Rue sipped happily on frozen margarita, a perfect contrast to the warmth of the hot springs.

“That djinn of yours Nyx is something else.” Elm added. “Really, if I had to choose, I’d pick Ifrit over Z’s pets any day.”

“Hey. Badgy is a hero.” Z said with a laugh. “Did you forget his sacrifice to Sergeant Jenkins.”

“I love Badgy,” Elm said, hands up defensively, “but compared to a giant, monstrous Djinn like Ifrit, you’ve got to admit, Badgy is a bit underwhelming.”

“I’m going to tell him you said that.” Z said in response. “Don’t expect him to save your ass next time you get in trouble.”

James took a drink and laughed, settling into the hot springs, allowing the warmth to flow into him. He kept glancing at the in-game clock, knowing any moment now, the notification would be going live. The notification that, to be fair, should have gone live hours ago…had he not adjusted it. After all, if he was going to make the most of the debut siege event, everyone needed to have the appropriate levels. And that meant, giving the players enough time to level, and allowing more players to reach the fifth floor. It totally had nothing to do with James and Rue wanting to get as close to level 80 as possible, before the event went live.

Unfortunately, even with 10 hours of grinding, they’d not managed to reach 80. The experience bonus teetered off the closer they got to the top percentages of players, after all, and while they got bonus experience for the level differences of the mobs the party was killing, it had slowed down the closer they got to even. And then, once they climbed past level 65, the going had slowed even more, considering the fourth floor mobs were no longer giving as much experience as previously. That had resulted in a change of farming, and the rest of their day had been solely focused on farming the fifth floor. Once they’d clear all the mobs they could safely, they’d return to town, wait for an hour, and then dive right back in. The Knights, had managed to reach a range in the low and mid 80s, while Rue and James, had reached level 77.

The real fruit of the labor, on top of the levels and improved class skills and such, was Ifrit’s evolution. The Djinn had managed to claim his finishing kills on the fourth floor, aided quite a bit by the Knights. Between Z, Elm, and Faust’s ranged attacks, they were able to consistently bring enemies down to the red of their health, allowing Ifrit to dispatch the mobs without much difficulty and danger. The summon had as such, evolved once more, changing from a Molten Djinn, into something called a Cyclonic Dervish. The way the Djinn’s worked, James was finding, was they evolved differently depending on the threshold.

When Ifrit had first been summoned, he was a Djinn, with the class Dervish. The first time he leveled up, his class changed to Inferno Dervish. The next time he evolved, his race changed to Molten Djinn, while his class was still Inferno Dervish. This time, his class had been the one to change, and James theorized, the next time he evolved, it would be into a new type of Djinn.

For now, the cyclonic dervish change seemed to have focused on the attack speed of Ifrit, as well as perks to increase his survivability. The Cyclonic Djinn came with class perks that granted an additional, stacking, attack speed bonus to Ifrit based on consecutive hits he landed, maxing out at a 100 percent increased attack speed, if he could reach a combo of 20 or more strikes. Meanwhile, that same stacking buff, increased his movement speed, and granted him an increased chance to dodge. This bonus was 2percent, per hit, topping off at a 40 percent chance to dodge if he hit max stats. All of these, James saw put into practice, were due to the faster, swirling, spinning nature of Ifrit’s attack patterns. He was a literal, fiery, blur of movements as he danced in strange, almost trance like state from attack, to attack, never staying in one place for too long, his rapidly moving form leaving traces of dancing flames in its wake.

He’d wanted to push the start time of the siege events even further to the right, originally, so Ifrit could evolve once more. However, the next evolution required Ifrit to reach level 48, and then have a staggering 2000 final blows. There was no way in hell they were getting that, at least, not this time around. James was too impatient to start the siege events, and he really didn’t feel like taking the time necessary to farm up that many final blows for his Djinn. Even if he ‘cheated’ and changed the first floor to purely be made up of dickens, that would only be 200 dickens on the first floor. Assuming it was an instance of just James and Rue, meaning the mobs would respawn twice, that was a total of 600 mobs. Meaning four runs on the first floor, purely slaughtering dickens, and waiting around, twiddling their thumbs, while they waited for the mobs to respawn. Add in the work to create such a floor, and the possible questions and blowback over such an event… and it seemed like more work than James wanted to deal with right now. It was like one of those side quests that people put off purely for a time when they literally had nothing better to do.

Honestly, had Ifrit’s stats been less impressive, he might have considered it. However, even though his Djinn’s level was currently only 40, stat wise, he could easily go toe to toe with higher level mobs. This, in part, was thanks to not only the massive stats buffs he got each time he evolved, but also because it seemed each time Ifrit ranked up, the gains he saw across his stats, for each level, amplified as well. Add into that the buffs he got from James’s own stats, and then of course the further stat increases James could apply to Ifrit, which had expanded thanks to his own class growth, and Ifrit was, in fact, a fiery monster of destruction.

James grinned to himself as he thought of the monstrous creature, and its eagerness for battle. He’d of course consulted the Djinn, about his plan for the Siege event, to ensure the proud creature was in the loop. While Ifrit had been behaving, for the most part, ever since Rue’s speech, James still wanted to treat the summon as a companion, and not a tool. After all, he’d much prefer the AI of the Djinn to be eager and willing to work with them. He’d been right, too, as the Djinn had been more than willing to forgo its next evolution, in exchange for the promise of being able to fight all out during the Siege Event. Even if he did go down, he’d only drop back to being a level 1 Cyclonic Dervish, meaning all of the progress they’d made so far, wouldn’t be a waste. The levels, after all, were relatively easy for Ifrit to gain, and as it stood, he wasn’t very far on his final blows progress.

All in all, it was all going perfectly to plan. Unexpectedly so, actually. Word had spread quite quickly about all three developer’s in the instance racing ahead to the fifth floor, which had begun to cause speculation amongst the other players. James’s dungeon immediately saw a massive increase in players joining large groups to rush to the fifth floor as well, to secure it as a teleportation option, just in case the developers knew something they didn’t. It also lead to a large push amongst James’s players to level themselves even more. It was a pleasant turn of events, as not only would it make for a more exciting Siege Event, but the level push would greatly benefit his dungeon in the upcoming, 48-hour dungeon war extravaganza that had been announced. That event, which James still couldn’t believe had been approved, was already the talk of all the town.

[System Announcement Incoming]

The message appeared in his chat bar, and the moment it did, everyone around him grew quiet, everyone’s eyes immediately darting down and to the left, where their chat bars were. It was, after all, an instance wide event.

[Siege Event Countdown: 00h 10m 00s] A siege event will begin in approximately 10 minutes. All players wishing to take part in this event should make their way to the fifth-floor safe zone. This event will be a wave based siege event. This event will have five waves. Further details can be found in the siege events information tab, now available to all.]

The message lingered; its presence having created a very noticeable buzz of energy around the hot spring. James glanced at Rue, a grin on his face, as he took in the Knights Who Go Ni. The players had massive smiles on their faces, their eyes shining with eagerness. Not only was this something else for them to take part it, in it was more than that. It was another new thing, for them to take on, and conquer. For the guild which focused on instance firsts, this Siege Event, was the perfect new, shiny thing, to get their attention.

“Whelp, what are we waiting for.” Z said, standing abruptly in the hot spring, splashing water everywhere as he did. “It seems the Goddess of Luck herself has blessed us. Between the grinding, and our current location, why don’t we get started right away?”

James couldn’t help but laugh, the sound escaping his lips at the same time as Rue’s own snicker. The sound brought a momentary look of confusion from Z, which James waved away. The player just didn’t know how close his statement was to being correct.

“Let’s do it.” James said, holding a hand to Rue as he did, helping her to her feet. “Let’s see just what the dungeon has in store for us.”