Unimaginable threat

Beneath the surface of the virtual world, a new threat lurked—a malevolent force known as the Kami.

Rumors whispered of the Kami Linsidious plan to plunge System Ascend into eternal darkness. It was said that he had amassed an army of corrupted players and was amassing power to unleash his wicked scheme. 

“You should run away instantly the moment you see anyone wearing this musk and badge.” Lisa shows David a few pictures of the members of Kami organization.

“So, they are the bad guys? Why can’t the developers just get rid of them?” David asks.

“They do not want to for some reason, they are using those bad guys to make this world even more competitive and hard to complete. The owners of this VR are very powerful, even above the government. Which is why the government cannot force them to do anything. The Kami organization is aiming to take over this VR and they might do it one day. The only thing that has the power to completely stop them are the developers. I heard that the Kami are working to even tackle them. They use different methods to hide their identity. For instance, they don't usually wear their musk and badges unless they are on a mission. The developers does not have the power to watch over every players. So it is easy for them to hide. Many Kami members are high ranked System Ascend players, so they are highly dangerous for us.

A few months ago, the top 3 player got beaten by them and his rank dropped from 3 to below thousand. All of his assets were stolen.” Lisa explains everything to David.

Lisa takes David to another area to take challengess. They entered an elevator and reached a jungle type area. 

No tall building or any man made objects can be seen. Only gigantic trees and mountains on far. David and Lisa leaves the elevator site and enters the jungle. Suddenly a light comes out of the shadows and comes in front of them. It is a fairy.

“Welcome players, I am Agatha the fairy. I give out tasks for the players to complete. 

You are player David and Player Lisa. Solo task completion will give you more rewards than a team completion. Would you two like to take individual tasks or would you like to take on a task together?” The in-game NPC introduces herself. 

“We would like to take on the challenge together.” Lisa tells the fairy.

“There are three tasks available at the moment. First one is the easiest with less reward. There is an old turtle who lives on the north part of the jungle. You have to cook him some delicious food and serve it to him

before he dies. If he like it then you will be rewarded with turtle shell. You can exchange it to get B ranked shield. 

The second one would be finding a dragon nest and steal an egg. You have to deliver it to the YinYang restaurant at North Macedonia city. You will receive a thousand zenny as a reward.

The third task is the hardest and more than fifty-five players are already given the task to complete it. It is to defeat the underworld boss Thanatos. 

The reward is the Holy sword, an S rank sword. Since the reward is big, completing the task is also very hard. Players from level 5 to level 30 can all participate. Only twenty days remain until the deadline. Tasks like this only appear once a year, so you better try hard and win it.” Fairy tells the two players.

David gets a bit nervous but also excited for the next adventure.

 Lisa grabs his hand and starts leading him through the dark jungle. He is not sure what she is doing but follows her anyway. ‘What else am I going to do?’ He thinks. The longer the journey goes on, the more nervous David becomes.

“An entire guild can participate in this task, right?” Lisa asks the fairy.

“Yes, the prize will be distributed among all the guild members upon completion. There's only one sword, so value of the sword will be distributed and nobody will be able to receive the sword. A guild must have ten players Max and at least five players in order to participate. You two do not seem to be in any guild, would you like me to suggest some guilds for you? I can search the web and find public guilds for you to join.” 

“No it's fine, I know a guild we can join. We will be back with them.” Lisa holds Davids hand, making him blush. Lisa takes David and starts walking through the jungle.

Finally, after about 15 minutes of walking through the maze of jungle, Lisa stops. David walks up behind her and sees a giant statue standing near the tree line. “Wow, this looks really scary. What does this mean?” David asks, concerned. Lisa turns around to face him. “It means we have reached our destination. I knew about the task, so I was prepared. I know of a few people who recently created a guild. This is their hideout spot. Let's go and meet them. ” She says. Her voice sounds a bit cold. He wonders what the problem is. Lisa pulls out a scroll from her pocket. Se holds it in front of the statue and it starts scanning it. In a second, the statue starts changing form. Suddenly, a girl appears in front of them. Lisa gives her a small bow, and David bows too. She giggles slightly. The statue changes again, showing an older boy. Another girl appeared with the last one.

He recognizes her instantly. “Hi! It's Alice! The one from my dream! How come we never met before? What is going on?” Alice says with a surprised voice. The older boy softly slaps Alice for being a weird.

Lisa and David turns around and notices that there's another girl who was previously invisible. “Oh, hi Zack! It's good to see you.” Lisa hugs Zack and smiles widely.

“It's so nice to see you all, it has been a month since we met in the game. Thanks for letting us in.” Lisa thanks them.

“He is Steve, the guild leader. That is Zack and this right here is Alice.” Lisa introduces the three to David, who is being shy. 

“Hey dude, glad you came along! But you didn't answer my question. Is something wrong? Your faces look a little down.” Zack asked David.

Alice and Zack look confused. “Lets go inside our base, the outside is not safe. There have been a few spies from other guilds who are trying to steal our valuables.” Steve leads everyone inside the hideout.

Meanwhile, a spy was watching over them from far. He had two of his friends with him.

“So, that's where they are. Hehe, now I am even more excited to defeat them.” The spy is none other than Maxim, the same guy from before.