Hearing Lohan’s question, Lisa also fell deep in thought.
What initially brought Astralis into the spotlight were the achievements they completed while players were still arriving in the open world.
Now that so many people were arriving, various achievements were popping up every week, with Players or Guilds completing something unique that caught the attention of other Players as well.
This meant that Astralis, which hadn’t publicly achieved anything in a few weeks, was slowly being overshadowed by these new guilds.
Among the achievements that other players and guilds managed to accumulate, some were quite simple, such as the announcement of the first player to reach level 15, likely using a large number of players to boost his experience, something the group behind him made a point of flaunting on the Syn forums to attract players and investors.
Other individual players gained notoriety by completing basic reputation quests in human settlements and securing the first official minor leadership positions among the people of this world.
There were also slightly more complex and attractive achievements, such as a group from a Dwarf Player Guild that managed to become the first group to forge a Rare-quality item in Elysium, which earned them the title of "Pioneers of the Forge" and attracted hundreds of players interested in elite gear.
Other mid-sized guilds focused on public combat feats, such as defeating the first Level 11 Open World Field Boss, thereby claiming the first kill.
Although it wasn’t a full dungeon clear like the one Lohan and Lisa had accomplished, seeing a global announcement that a group of humans had taken down an elite beast in the Open World was enough to leave the masses of players, who were still fighting low-level goblins, in shock and eager to join the ranks of these organizations.
Unlike Dungeons, where there was a large number of high-level to elite monsters, with an extremely challenging Boss, a battle against a Field Boss was a fight where typically a group of hundreds of Players would coordinate against a gigantic and extremely powerful monster.
According to reports they read online when this news broke, of the 150 players gathered for that battle, only 20 survived until the end.
Certainly, this was a battle that brought more loss than gain to the participants, but the prestige earned from this victory likely more than made up for it.
Unfortunately, due to such a high mortality rate, Astralis had no interest in engaging in combat against Field Bosses like these, since the risk of death was extremely high, and if Lisa, Lohan, or Dylan were to die, regardless of the prestige gained, nothing would make up for the lives they would lose in the process.
So after a long brainstorming session between the two, Lohan sighed. "Okay, it looks like we’re going to have to, at least for now, focus on clearing the first dungeons and do our best to monopolize that series of achievements."
Lisa nodded. "Yes, the other achievements are completely out of our reach right now. Maybe in the future, with more members, we’ll have the opportunity to compete with other guilds in other areas, but for now our greatest strength lies mainly in our ability to handle dungeons, so focusing exclusively on that might be a good path for now."
Lohan then spoke up. "We’ve already secured the first open-world dungeon achievement; we can aim for the first Level 15 dungeon, and then we’ll only need to worry about the first Level 20 dungeon. Obviously, the difficulty of the Level 20 dungeon, with a possible Level 21 boss, will take quite a while to overcome, so by securing the Level 15 one, we’ll open up a significant window for growth of at least a few weeks or months until we reach that level."
Lisa agreed; with experience doubling at each level, reaching Level 14 might take only a few days at their current pace, but to handle the next dungeon, the time needed to reach Level 20 would be several times longer. And that wasn’t just considering their personal levels, but also taking into account helping guild members level up for that.
Suddenly, Lohan remembered something. "Wait, Lisa, now that I think about it, we had three achievements after our first dungeon raid. My achievement for the first Open World PK, where I received the title [Predator], the achievement of Astralis being the first guild to be formed, which earned us the [Astral Chest], and what was our reward for the first Dungeon Clear?"
Hearing that, Lisa also realized that with all the things that had happened back then, the remaining reward for the achievement they’d completed had completely slipped their minds.
"Wait, you’re right... we received the Dungeon Core when we cleared the dungeon, but that was for our own merit, it wasn’t the achievement reward. Where is our reward?" Lisa asked, confused.
Suddenly, a glowing window appeared in front of them.
[Congratulations, Astralis Requiem, on...]
-xXx-
A few minutes ago, in the Divine Realm floating above the endless layers of Elysium’s clouds, the goddess Astraea found herself in a state that few mortals would dare imagine for a deity... absolute exhaustion.
Her long hair, which normally oscillated between immaculate white and a translucent cyan like liquid starlight, now seemed to have lost some of its vibrant luster, spilling haphazardly over a crystal table carved from a single pure stellar fragment.
Astraea was practically sprawled across the divine piece of furniture, her chin resting on her crossed arms, letting out sighs that caused the small translucent creatures, resembling mana jellyfish that floated around her, to react with pulsations of bluish concern.
The initial idea of bringing billions of humans from another universe to save Elysium, offering rewards for every notable feat, had seemed a brilliant and tempting strategy a few months ago. Now, faced with the bureaucratic burden of monitoring every action of over 4 billion players, the goddess was beginning to consider that perhaps it was a crazy idea bordering on insanity.
"Why didn’t I just have automated systems handle everything?" she muttered to herself, feeling the weight of the golden crown studded with shooting stars press down on her forehead.
With so much work, the goddess’s dignity had vanished a few days ago, leaving only a young-looking girl looking around with longing and worry.