( Meanwhile Luke and Cervantez )
The past two months seemed to have passed by in a blur for Luke and Cervantez, who saw their gaming time being completely occupied in preparing the guild and the Barony for the demon invasion.
Just like on the Eastern Front, in the past two month's time, the demons had also made significant progress on the Western front, managing to salvage roughly 100 square kilometers of land, as they found themselves on the doorsteps of Silver-Pine Barony.
From the beginning, it was Duke James's intention to only mount their first real defense in Silver-Pine Barony, as while he tried to buy time and slow down the advance of the Demons into the Empire's land, he never really gave them a proper fight until now.
Just like on the Eastern Front, there were hundreds of thousands of players who had flocked to the Western Front too, with the Silver-Pine Barony now turning into a large-scale military camp, with the demons camping downhill only a few kilometers from their border outposts.
Seeking a heavy monetary loan from Leo, post the loss of his regular mining revenue, Cervantez tried to ensure that he finished all the active construction and training projects that he wished to undertake before the demons arrived, and thanks to the timely monetary aid by Leo, he did manage to complete them all.
Cervantez transformed the Barony into the ultimate war-zone, as he established powerful supply lines and retreating stations, to ensure that the Demons found it impossible to over-run his lands no matter how hard they tried.
Drenches and traps were dug in the open fields.
Pikes and roadblocks were set up at regular intervals, and the Stonebridge connecting the main town of Silver-Pine to the Stonehenge village was laced with explosives, ready to blow up whenever the need arose.
Overall, with the assisting players, the Duke's NPC army and the DarkSky guild, the total number of forces defending Silver-Pine Barony were 1.2 million, which in itself was a huge deterrent for the demons to not try anything funny.
However, while preparing the territory to face the demons was the main project that Cervantez undertook, it wasn't the only one.
Over the last two months, Cervantez also focused on establishing a robust information network throughout the Empire, as with the times growing more and more tumultuous, he understood the importance of having a fast and reliable source of information.
It was through this information network of his, that he found out about the Uprising's plans on attacking the Southern Duchy before it happened, as amongst the myriad different factions within the game, Cervantez tracked the moves of 'The Uprising' with utmost attention.
To Cervantez, the leader of the uprising guild 'ChaosBringer' seemed like a visionary man, as he could not even begin to fathom how he had managed to raise an army as big as he did, or how he had managed to rope in 'TheBoss' into his organization, when the man was nothing more than an elusive shadow.
While most of his focus was on the Demon War at his gates, he did track the movements of 'The Uprising' and their rebellion too, as he had a strong feeling that sooner or later, he and his guild were going to find themselves on the wrong side of that rebellious group.
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At the same time that Cervantez focused mainly on completing the construction projects and preparing the guild for war, Luke found himself embroiled in a slightly different project.
With his main task being to train the guild members in war formations and large scale maneuvers, most of his time was spent training his men, however, a few days ago as one of his guild members came across a hidden piece of information, Luke felt compelled to check the rumors out.
Apparently, one of his guild members had a friend who had acquired a 'Meditation Scroll' from clearing a dungeon, and according to him, that scroll was not only usable within the game, but outside the game too.
As per the claims of the guild member, the meditation scroll allowed his friend to gain levels without having to kill monsters, when he meditated within the game and while it was slow and tedious, it could be practiced outside the game too, with the leveling benefits carrying into the game even when one meditated in reality.
As per the guild member, his friend swore that he was level 102 when he logged out of the game, however, as he logged back in after meditating in reality, the first thing that he returned to was a notification that his level had increased, even though he had taken no action within the game world.
If true, this claim could shake-up the entire gaming meta, and since Cervantez had no explicit idea about it, he tasked Luke with getting to the bottom of these claims.
Hence, when Luke was not busy with training the guild members, he spent most of his time looking for meditation scrolls or any mention of them on the servers, however, so far he had no success.
The guild members friend who had allegedly claimed to have received the meditation scroll from a dungeon, refused to specify as to which dungeon he obtained it from and refused to verify whether or not it actually helped gain levels even when used in reality, as he seemed to be wanting to monopolize these gains himself.
The whole situation left Luke scratching his head for answers, however, he had a strong feeling that the story that he had come across was true, which made him persist in his hunt for a meditation scroll despite not getting any hard proofs that it existed.
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/// A/N - Chapter 15 of 15!! End of mass release—
I hope you guys enjoyed this mass release event, because it was fairly difficult to fulfill even though I committed to it in a spur of a moment decision.
Hopefully, we can do more such events in the future, however, not this month for sure. ///