Chapter 384: Test of Worth

For a long time, the Tier 5 Advancement Quest had remained a mystery to the billions of players of H&G—a coveted goal, far beyond reach!

Ever since the introduction of Pets, more and more capable players, with the assistance of high-level Pets, brought to bear their greatly enhanced combined might to break through much sooner than should otherwise have been possible.

With the appearance of ever more Tier 5 champions, the Tier 5 Advancement Quest was starting to seem like no big deal to the players in general.

Various solo players had also extensively covered the circumstances and challenges that would be faced during the quest, along with an in-depth analysis which made the path to Tier 5 seem like a well-lit road!

However, once players actually started the quest, they discovered that the Tier 5 Advancement Quest was no joke after all.

Of those who managed to make it through the madness, not a single one was not an expert player who had nevertheless fallen and gotten back on their feet again and again, eventually finding their way out only after countless failures.

It was a fact of life!

For those players who were facing the test for the very first time, or those who still had not made sufficient preparations, the Tier 5 Advancement Quest was a waking nightmare!

Take a first-timer like Qin Ruo, widely held on the game forums as someone who was guaranteed to make it through. Upon beginning the quest, the situations he had to face inside, not to mention the endless tasks that kept cropping up, all had his head spinning, unable to keep up.

***

“Damn it!”

From behind a broken wooden carriage, a voice rang out through the pitch-dark forest, uttering curses which no one should have to hear.

Someone peeked out from behind the carriage. His expression serious, Qin Ruo’s gaze found the burning village in the distance. Patrolling around outside the flaming buildings were numerous Demon Faction parties.

His frown deepened.

According to the guide, as well as the information in his Quest Journal, the burning village up ahead was situated on the border of Angel Faction territory. Due to its proximity to Demon Faction lands, it regularly suffered raids by enemy adventurers.

The Demon Faction warriors, currently assembled outside the village like a proper army, were actually just a rag-tag band of bandits pretending to be part of the actual Demon Faction military.

They were criminals, under the Demon Faction’s thumb. Most of them were high-level warriors of only mediocre skill, but their leader was something else: a Demigod Champion, cast out of the Demon Faction.

In the light of the blazing fires, the leader of these bandits appeared to be pleased. He soared about on his Demonic Wings, a silhouette against the full moon, like a demon that only appeared by moonlight.

He enjoyed the solitude of flying through a moonlit sky, and was always up to no good, hence his nickname as the ‘Moonlight Demon.’

The Moonlight Demon was also the main reason for Qin Ruo’s powerlessness!

Upon his arrival in this region, the quest he received was to assassinate a certain Mage among the pillaging bandits, without alerting their leader, the Moonlight Demon. Then, using his victim’s clothes to disguise himself as one of the Demon Faction’s bandits, he was to step through the one-way warp portal that the Moonlight Demon had set up in the village!

The time limit for this quest was forty-five minutes. If he had not completed the task by then, he would fail to Advance. If he managed to make it through the warp portal as instructed, he would pass this test and receive his guide’s approval, permitting him to undertake the actual Tier 5 Advancement Quest.

***

This test his guide had given him could perhaps prove a simple matter, but from what Qin Ruo could see of the village grounds, the Demon Faction bandits seemed to be all over the place, their formations interwoven together. It was an extremely complicated situation, with pitfalls at every turn. One wrong step and it would be all over, the Moonlight Demon descending on him.

First things first: there were no traces of magic around the outskirts of the village.

Qin Ruo realized that before he killed the Mage and disguised himself as him, he would first need to ascertain where that one-way portal was. The disguise might be effective on whoever was on the other side of the portal, but it probably wouldn’t hold up around these bandits, who should be familiar with the Mage.

The longer he remained within the village, the greater the chance of being exposed!

Qin Ruo had already inspected the open areas nearby, but he had not been able to find the Warp portal. That meant it had to be inside one of the two buildings which had not been put to the torch.

Light shone from within both buildings, one larger than the other, about twenty meters apart. Qin Ruo had yet to find out whether anyone was inside. However, there were two of those accursed bandits standing guard outside the entrance of each building.

***

Never mind finding the warp portal, the three teams of criss-crossing bandit patrols guarding the village interior were also a horrendous headache for Qin Ruo.

Eighteen Demon Faction adventurers, split into three groups, ceaselessly combing through the village along three separate routes. Whenever two teams met with each other, they would stop to chat for a brief moment, which gave him a chance to slip inside. However, the window of opportunity was dangerously narrow, and there didn’t appear to be anywhere for him to hide once he got past them.

Under normal circumstances, Qin Ruo was certain he could easily wipe the floor with these Level 50 bandits with less than two thousand HP apiece. They were just your garden variety high-level warriors, the whole group barely equal to common Tier 5 monsters.

But Qin Ruo was wary of the ‘Moonlight Demon’ overhead.

According to the Quest Journal, these Demon Faction bandits were frightful cowards. Qin Ruo was worried this meant that they would yell for help at the top of their voices the moment they came under attack—or discovered him.

Shouting left and right for all their buddies to come to their aid, and perhaps even drawing the attention of the Demigod-tier Boss, their ‘Moonlight Demon’… that would be game over!

Even a surface assessment was enough to let Qin Ruo know to fear the Demigod Champion. That wasn’t an adversary he could hope to defeat.

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Although he was curious to see what it would be like to do battle with an NPC Demigod, his Advancement Quest took priority, and he decided not to fool around. Taking another look through his Quest Journal, he made a few notes to himself.

‘This test is about disguise and infiltration, not about eradicating enemies. As far as possible, I have to avoid laying a hand on these miserable little wretches! Keep it together, think of a way to avoid their notice. Once I’ve gotten past this trial, the true battle for Tier 5 awaits!’

As he committed these mandates to memory, Qin Ruo continued to examine several figures amongst the bandits who were clothed in the black robes of a Mage. Some information from his Battle Log appeared in his mind.

These adventurers had been exiled from the Demon Faction, most likely for committing unforgivable crimes. Wanted as criminals, they had fled to these desolate borderlands, looking for a place to hide.

As marked criminals, their Soul Imprints were prohibited from the resurrection portals of any city. If they were to die, they would be lost forever to oblivion, with no hope of return.

This also explained their cowardly nature, acting only at the command of the Moonlight Demon.

There was some further information which suggested that killing off any one of them would erase their soul from existence permanently, leaving behind only a lifeless corpse with all their equipment.

With this in mind, Qin Ruo was able to come up with several ideas for getting one of the Mages’ stuff. The first was to lure one of them into the woods so he could bump one off in private. Sadly, this plan didn’t have very good odds of success.

Besides that, he could also try finding a blind spot where Poochie could quietly take one down without him using any of his own magic. Then Poochie could bring him the clothes he’d need for his disguise.

This was slightly more plausible, considering how powerful Poochie had now become: not only was it extremely quick, its ability to Stun had also been enhanced. With its Clone Shadowstrike, it could quite possibly perform an instant kill on any one of these Mages, who had HP inferior to a Tier 5 monster!

But it was still too difficult to avoid the notice of all the other patrolling enemies! Besides that, Qin Ruo also had no idea how sharp the senses of the Demigod Champion were. What if he was able to detect Poochie’s presence?

“Ah damn it, if only I could talk to someone about this!” Qin Ruo lamented under his breath.

Before this, he had received some reminders from Slayer’s Heart and Violet Orchid, which was how he had known that the ‘Test of Worth’ in the Tier 5 Advancement Quest would be anything but ordinary. The number of skilled players who’d been bested by this task were beyond counting!

Even so, Qin Ruo hadn’t imagined that a mere ‘Test of Worth’ would leave him so perplexed, at a complete loss as to what he should do.

Agh, this was too depressing!

***

A few minutes later, when Qin Ruo felt he’d gotten a pretty good understanding of the playing field, he thought about the role he was being asked to play in this quest:

An infiltrator—an assassin.

It was right around then that something went wrong.

“Who’s there?”

In the distance, a passing Demon Faction patrol had happened upon the broken wooden carriage. Now, someone was shouting in his direction!

The hoarse, unexpected hollering broke the hush that had settled over the village. With a jolt, Qin Ruo suddenly remembered all about the carriage!

His heart was doing somersaults now. ‘For crying out loud! How could they have found it? It’s so far away!’

His face turned ashen white, and in his panic he unconsciously curled himself up into a ball, pressing himself up against the back of the carriage. A million thoughts hurtled through his mind as he desperately tried to decide what to do.

In no time at all, a commotion of footsteps could be heard, closing in around his hiding spot.

“Behind the carriage!”

There was that annoying voice again, calling out to the approaching bandits. “Two of you, around the left! The rest of you to the right! Surround it!”

Footsteps rang from all directions, closing in from both sides around the back of the broken carriage.

In the village, the other two teams—including the Mages—turned in alarm to peer at the carriage in the woods.

Anxiously, the six adventurers investigating the carriage activated their Combat Auras and Berserk Fury!

***

“There’s no one here.”

“You need help, Matthew!”

“Matthew, you wimp. We were fools to take you seriously.”

“I’m pretty sure all you saw was a ghost.”

Five bandits put their weapons away once more, and dismissed their battle skills. Indicating the empty space at the back of the carriage, they shouted at their humiliated compatriot, “Good thing Mr. Moonlight didn’t have to come over here, otherwise you’d be dead meat!”

With oaths and curses, the group moved away, leaving behind a lone Matthew, still scratching his head in bewilderment.

Some moments later, he abruptly turned and ran after his fellows, shouting, “Hey, don’t tell the boss about this!”