Since I knew that the ghosts were all illusions, I ignored them and continued doing my own thing. I scanned the city plan and formulated a rough plan for my City. To establish a City, we had to apply for it at a Shrine, of course, I would never go to a Light Shrine, bringing my Phantom Knights into a Light Shrine to apply for a City would only lead to us fighting those Battle Priests!
Thinking about it, the number of cities that had Dark Shrines were few, the majority of the Cities established Light Shrines, especially for the Three Great Cities, none of them had any Dark Shrines! But I remembered that Wayne had talked about a City called Blackwater that had a Dark Shrine, it was also where he had changed his class into an Undead Mage*.
I activated the Ring of Teleportation and directly arrived at Blackwater City's Teleport Station. At that moment, I was already Level 345.
Lucky, Phiona, Tank, Epidemic, Crystal, and Aldeina were also Level 345.
Loong'er and Night Shade were Level 340.
Phantom and Rosa just reached Level 327.
And finally, Dart, only at Level 311!
Although Blackwater City was small, the population size was huge, practically all the narrow streets were packed with people! But that was with reason. The number of Dark Cities set by the system were too few, but the number of Players that had applied for Dark Faction professions was close to a quarter of the total number of Players (Another quarter remained in the neutral faction with the rest joining the Light). There were plenty of Players that needed to find a Dark Shrine to change class, accept quests, learn spells, and many other important matters, but with the lesser number of Dark Shrines, it resulted in the few Cities that had Dark Shrines to be filled with people! Furthermore, it was 8:20 pm when I entered Blackwater, that was the period where the number of Players online was the highest, thus Blackwater City was so packed that there was no space to even stand!
I moved cautiously on the narrow roads, aside from the thorns on my Dark Dragon Lord Set, the knife blades did not help much, it was tough squeezing through the crowds trying not to prick others. Although I did not switch to the PK mode and pricking them would not lose HP, but it was still painful! Warriors with their armors were fine, but Mages or other classes that dressed in Light Armor or Robes would definitely feel the pain!
"Ouch!"
Sh*t, I messed up! The armor near my elbows had many long blades and I had accidentally cut onto a young girl's face! The problem was, all ladies viewed their appearance as the most important thing ever, although the Game would heal wounds and never leave scars, still, I was the one to have cut her face!
"What are you doing?!"
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! It was accidental, there are too many people here, the blades on my arm are non-retractable, I'm truly sorry!"
"Brat, you don't want to live anymore? You cut her face and you think you can get away just by saying sorry?" A suspicious young man suddenly appeared from behind the girl, judging from his appearance, he looked like a college student, but his appearance did not come across as an intelligent man to me, or should I say, he looked more like a gangster!
"It was really an accident, can I heal her?"
"You don't have to heal her, your equipment looks good, gift them to us as an apology!"
You b*tch, you're not even considering and planning your words right!
"I am truly sorry for this matter, but you better not cause trouble here!" I no longer cared about the hooligan, and turned to speak to the young girl: "I am sorry, can I heal you?"
The girl covered her face and looked as though she was fuming. "You don't even look like a Battle Priest, how can you heal me?"
Before I could even reply her, the hooligan came between us. "Bro, you're treating my words as air, aren't you? Where are you from? Don't you know the rules of Blackwater? Do you believe that I can trap you here in Blackwater City and not leave forever?"
"What a braggart!" I offered my apologies and tried to make amends because I was in the wrong since I had hurt the other Player, but that did not mean I was easy to bully!
"I entered a City to change class with a Red Name, and not even the thousand City Guards could stop me, you think you can do better?"
"Brat, you're still talking shit, you don't want to live anymore?" The hooligan's words became even more aggressive. "You want to test me, you mutherf*cking try to speak one more time!"
"I have other things to do and don't want to waste my time with you, you better not give me any trouble!" I turned to leave, I had my own matters to attend to and it was pointless quarreling with them.
Even before I could walk two steps away from them, a sword hacked down onto my shoulder. The powerful force caught me off guard and sent me flying, but although it was powerful, it did not induce much damage, resulting in me falling without losing much HP!
"SCOTT!"
"It's useless trying to call for help!" The hooligan shouted out arrogantly. "I, your daddy…..!"
He was suddenly split into exact halves by Scott, and his body which was separated fell to the left and right. The body that was split into halves was still speaking, but no more sound came out. The spectators around were startled for a moment before screaming like girls, the hooligan was not alone, aside from the girl that I scratched, there were two other girls and three guys. The girls screamed for help while the guys had their weapons out and thought to rush at me, but after that retreated.
Hooligans, people I looked down the most. Thieves and robbers are ultimately forced to perform such acts to survive, but hooligans were doing it in the name of fun and excitement. Taking advantage of the weak and hiding from the strong was another way to call them, kicking their benefactors in the teeth were their motto and double-crossing their employers was their most favorite past time.
I turned and looked at the remaining people. "If you don't wish to do right, then go and join a real organized crime syndicate, if you can't, then just be normal citizens, don't ever let me catch you guys acting like hooligans around again, otherwise it won't just be a blade through your bodies, I will kill all of you until you return to the beginner town!" Without waiting for their reactions, I turned and left, leaving the dumbstruck group behind.
Blackwater City was not huge thus finding the Dark Shrine was not difficult. After crossing two streets, we saw the pitch black structure. The Shrine looked small, from the exterior, it looked like a movie theatre without any grandeur or majestic sense coming from it. I walked to the Shrine's stairs to realize that the Shrine looked extremely worn down without any repairs done for years, the exterior looked so dilapidated! It became even more strange inside the Dark Shrine, its name was not just for show, it explained how the Shrine was! The entire Shrine's interior was pitch black, and if not for my night vision, I would never have known how it looked inside!
Many players had come to the Shrine, groping about in the darkness hoping to transact with the Shrine, some might have been frequent patrons, as they had brought fire with them!
"Can I ask why is it so dark here?" I stopped a Player passing by and asked.
"I don't know, don't disturb me!" The player ran away and instantly vanished.
I could only walk further into the Shrine. Towards the back of the main hall was a small door that had the title 'Base Registration' written on it. Scott took the lead and opened the door for me. I walked into another room which was equally dark to the outside, but I was able to see clearly inside. The room was not big, with a work desk and an old Dark Mage seated behind the table, but at that moment, he was sprawled over the table and I could even hear the sound of snoring! Behind the old Mage was a large file cabinet, which was the only appropriate looking thing in the room! The work desk had two wooden stools, but they looked so unstable that I would rather stand!
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I walked over and knocked on the Mage's table. "Hey, is this the place to register the authorization of building a base City?"
"Huh? What! Oh! You want to build a City?" The Mage finally woke up, he turned to the file cabinet and flipped through it while wiping the drool from his mouth. Thinking about how he would use both of his hands to hand me the documents made me feel disgusted!
I took the opportunity while the Old man was flipping through the files to ask: "Can I ask why is it so dark here?"
"Isn't this the Dark Shrine! If it's too bright, won't it become a Light Shrine?" The old man answered without turning back.
The old man was talking nonsense, I had seen the Dark Shrine over at Lost City before, although I still had to use night vision there, it was not as dark and unlit as this Dark Shrine! "Can you even see in this darkness?"
"I'm used to it!"
You're talking bull!
"Why not install a few Magic Crystals here? They are not bright and you can use them to see." I summoned Phiona to sit on my shoulder, if I did not produce any light, I reckon the old man would only find what he was looking for the next day!
The moment Phiona appeared, the room instantly lit up. The old man quickly took out a large folder and opened it up, then took a quill pen from the drawer. "Alright, what's your Guild name?"
"Blizzard Rose Guild!"
"Have you chosen the venue for your base?"
"Yes!"
"This is the map, please indicate your venue!" The old man handed over a map and a pen to me.
I quickly located the Fortress, then used the pen to draw a circle. "Right here!"
"Thank you!" The old man took the map and had a look, his eyes suddenly grew large. "Hmmm? You want to build your base at Modu's Iron Fortress ruins?"
"Is that impossible?"
The old man kept the papers into the file in his hands. "It is possible, but our small Dark Shrine here do not have the authority to approve this!"
"What do you mean?"
"The Dark Sanctum is constructed in a concealed location and we are just a small branch. Although the Iron Fortress has been destroyed, we are still talking about Modu here, the significance of the land there is different, we can't make the decision! IF you really want to build your Guild Base, it is best for you to choose a different location, or you can head straight to the Dark Shrine General Headquarters! Of course, it's location is also rather covert, it is not that easily found!"
"Isn't it located in the ravine behind Lost City?"
"Ah! You know of it?"
"I've been there three to four times! If I had known about all these complications, I would have gone straight there. I came here because the road there is rather troublesome, who would have thought that you Dark Shrines have differences, if I had known, I would have gone straight there!" I turned and brought Scott out of the room.
Once out of the Dark Shrine, I instantly used the Ring of Teleportation to Lost City, the Dark Lord Shrin**e could only be assessed by Lost City, which still required a distance to travel. If only Domergor had a Teleport Station at his Shrine, it took a toll on me every time I had to travel there!
Out of the Teleport Station, I went to find Clark, I wanted to embed the Gems that I found onto my Armor!
When Clark saw me entering, he welcomed me back happily. "Where have you been recently? You haven't visited for a long time!"
"I'm here now!" I took out the Gems and handed them over to Clark. "Check these out, guess what are they?"
Clark took and scrutinized them carefully. "Black Water Gem, Poison Gem, Ice Crystal! What did you go through to get them? And they are all in the Ultimate Grades!"
"And there's something else I need you to appraise!" I handed over the Fire Gem that had turned silver. "When I was in Japan, I encountered some Magic Silver Vial where I dropped in accidentally. When I came out, the Fire Gem became like this!"
Clark placed the three Gems down and looked at the Fire Gem. "This Gem is formed from the silver liquid mixing into the Fire Gem. The Fire Gem wields Fire Attribute Poison while the silver liquid wields Cold Poison, the Fire Gem perfectly suppressed the Silver liquid, thus it was absorbed by the Fire Gem, and became like this!"
"While on the way back, I encountered an ambush whereby the opponent actually used a missile on me, but the silver liquid that flew out from the Fire Gem actually protected me. But when another person used a weapon to attack me, it did not activate, what about that?"
"That's because your Fire Gem has not completely taken control over the silver liquid. I can help you bring the silver liquid into your armor, the Fire Gem will still suppress the Cold Poison of the silver liquid, but the Silver Liquid will essentially reside in your armor, that way, you can use it to repel against melee attacks in the future! But, it needs to be controlled, I am afraid that you can't do it alone."
"Can I get Phantom to control it? Phantom doesn't really have a lot of things to do when he possesses me, allowing him to control the silver liquid will supplement everybody's fighting strength!"
"Of course you can! Leave Phantom and the armor behind, I'll integrate Phantom's spirit link into the armor so you can allow Phantom to help you control the silver liquid in the future."
"Don't forget about these gems as well, help me embed them into the armor!"
"Where do you want them placed at?"
"Place the Ice Crystal onto the gear on the right arm and the Poison Gem on the left in the same position. As for the Black Water Gem, embed it into the Fire Gem's original position on my helmet, then shift the Fire Gem onto my belt."
"Alright, not a problem! It'll be done in a few hours! Want to wait here?"
"No thanks, I need to find Domergor for a few matters. I'll be heading over now and will be back tomorrow morning to grab the things."
"Alright!"
After leaving Clark's store, I summoned Night Shade and the 10 Phantom Knights and sprinted towards the Death Valley. We ran all the way there without any troubles, the Phantom Knights protected me against all the Undead creatures and small monsters all the way to the camp. I had been there for so many times that even the door guards recognized me! Without a need for a report, the door guards brought me into the camp.
Domergor was training his troops at that moment, and when he saw me, he ran over. "Why're you here again?"
"What do you mean? Am I not welcome?"
"No way, no way! Even if this place rejects guests, we will never reject you! We earned a large sum from you the last time, allowing me to be praised by the higher ups!" Domergor suddenly realized that my equipment looked queer. "Where did your armor go?"
"It's being repaired over at Clark's!"
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"Oh! And here I thought you were robbed! So what's the thing you need me for this time?" After finding him for so many times, Domergor knew that I would only come when I wanted something!
"You're spot on! I really need your help!"
"Then let's talk in the tent!" Domergor led me to his tent. "Speak freely here! What do you need?"
"I want to build a base, so I need to approval from the Shrine."
Domergor anxiously replied: "Then you must definitely come to our Dark Shrine! The Light Shrines are our mortal enemies!"
"Of course, definitely! Look at me, if I were to build a Light Shrine, I would be cleansed and baptized by those Priests forever!"
"That's the way!" Domergor became overjoyed upon hearing that I expressed interest in joining the Dark Shrine. "Then why don't you just go and apply for it, why did you come to me?"
"I'm here to apply for it!"
"You're here to apply for it?" Domergor was slightly surprised. "Isn't there a Dark Shrine at Lost City? Why did you come all the way here?"
"I have a reason for coming here!" I took out my own map and showed Domergor where I wanted my City to be. "I want my city to be built here."
When he saw the location, Domergor jumped in shock. "You want to build on Modu's Iron Fortress ruins? That is an Ultimate Grade Evil Zone! Once you finish building it, the Allied Light Cities will send out their Allied Forces to attack you! You need to defend your City for 3 days to ensure that your City will continue surviving!"
"There's such a thing?" It was the first time I heard of such a thing, the System would send out armies to attack a Player's City. It was a normal occurrence for monsters to siege on the Cities, but for the Iron Fortress, it would actually be the System sending out Armies! "What kind of army will they send? Don't tell me they will send an army with troops that are like the Level 800 units in the Cities?" If that was true, I had to consider other locations, an army that consists of Level 800 NPCs was not only high level, but their discipline, skill, coordination would be far more powerful than Players, our City would not even last a single siege from the great difference in level!
Domergor appeared sullen: "Why not you follow me to the Shrine first! There are some things that won't count if I'm the one to say it!"
"Fine!"
I followed Domergor out of the camp and headed deeper into the ravine. After coming here for so many times, it was my first time in the camp and I could no longer hold back my curiosity and looked up. The ravine's terrain did not have many changes from before, just that the walls by the sides were even taller! There were guards all along the path, to the point that it was not a joke that they had a mound every five steps and a sentry in every alternative mound!
What shocked me, even more, was that all the guards were level 850 Phantom Knights. After about halfway through the ravine, the guards actually turned from Phantom Knights into level 900 Bloodied Knights. As expected of the Dark Lord Shrine, they were all High-level BOSSES. The Phantom Knights that followed me were considered experts of the experts in other places, but in here, they were all equals!
As we continued walking, a gigantic structure entered our eyes. Above the extremely long flight of stairs were large doorposts with 27 black obelisks that emitted extremely imposing and terrifying auras, the pressure enough to make Players go weak in their knees!
I was practically held up by the Phantom Knights and Domergor all the way up the stairs, and we finally saw how large the Shrine was. There were actually 13 doorposts that were all over 100 meters tall and more than 10 meters thick. I stood there feeling extremely insignificant! (Imagine the Doorposts from the Great Hall of the People in China but at a much larger scale.)
"Don't just stand there, come in quickly!" Domergor had already walked in but realized that I was still standing outside gazing around like a grandmother.
"Oh!" I quickly followed up. But when we arrived at the real door, we were actually stopped. The guards were two Level 950 Apollyon Knights, and I did not dare act rampantly in front of them, after all, even the 10 Phantom Knights behind me were unable to fight with the two of them!
"This is my brother, we want to enter the Dark Lord Shrine to apply for a Subordinate Guild Base, please let us pass!" Although Domergor had a high rank, his level was not enough and had no choice but to speak politely to the two guards.
"He can enter, but not the Phantom Knights!" Whoever heard the Apollyon Knight's indifferent voice would feel a chill up their spine and their hairs raised for sure!
"Then, you guys just wait for me here!" I turned back and ordered the Phantom Knights.
"Alright!" Scott replied. The Apollyon Knights levels were too high and were even the superiors of the Phantom Knights in the past. No Phantom Knights would dare be impolite to them here!
I followed Domergor through the large door and realized that the hall did not have a very high ceiling, from the outside, the Shrine looked to be almost 200 meters tall, but the hall inside was only around 10 meters tall, most probably the Shrine had more levels to it. In the middle of the hall stood a statue of a beautiful young lady that had six Demon Wings. Strangely, the young lady did not have any weapons, but was holding onto a baby! I did not understand the profundity of the sculpture, or why the Dark Lord Shrine would actually have such a statue for!
Could it be that the baby is the Dark God? And that young lady is the mother of Evil? Like how important Mother Mary is to the Catholics!
Domergor realized I was stoning again but this time, he did not shout at me and instead came up to me and pulled me along. The black slabs on the ground were all extremely glossy and smooth, which allowed me to be dragged through the hall into a side door!
I entered the room, to realize that it was a stairwell. Domergor let me go and allowed me to follow him up the stairs. The railing of the stairs was a type of black wood that was extremely durable with engravings all over it. At the corners of the stairs were actually human size statues, causing me to be attracted to them once more. In the end, I was pulled up the stairs by Domergor!
We left the stairs and entered a long corridor that had rooms on both sides. From our point of view, we could only see the rows of doors! Domergor led me through the corridor and stopped at the biggest door in the middle. It was a two-sided door like a cathedral's, the gold doors were sculpted with many things, but a pity Domergor did not even give me time to have a glimpse of them! Domergor lightly knocked on the door and we waited for a moment when a weak voice came from the inside. "Enter!"
Only after hearing the voice did Domergor push open the doors. As the doors gradually opened up, I got to see more of the room's interior. The very first thing that I saw was a beauty lying down on a large throne facing the door. Her beautiful appearance, the way she lied on one side on the throne, and her languid expression, mixed with her perfect beauty were enough to turn any man into a beast of instinct in a second.
Domergor silently stomped on my feet, causing me to awake from my daydream, but I could not remove my eyes from the perfect beauty in front of me. I could not find any flaws in her! She was a being that I deemed as never to exist in the real world, humanity could never be so beautiful and perfect!
Suddenly, a thought flashed past my brain. The reason why she was perfect was that she was not a human, but a Goddess! I suddenly recalled the statue in the hall downstairs.
Isn't she the statue in the hall! What should I call her, Mother of Evil?
"Your Empress Dark Goddess, This is my younger brother Ziri, he wants to build a City under the Dark Faction."
Dark Goddess? Did Domergor just call her the Dark Goddess? Then isn't she the Master of all the Dark Shrines and the most authoritative and most powerful figure in the Dark Faction?
"Why are you coming to me for such an insignificant matter, if that is the case, why do I even need the Dark Shrines?" Her voice was beautiful even though her tone was cold and had sent a shiver down my spine!
Domergor looked as though he was extremely afraid of the Goddess. "The location in which Your subordinate's younger brother wants to build his city is slightly troublesome, he wishes to build his City at the former Modu's Iron Fortress!"
"What? You want to your City at the Iron Fortress?" The Goddess sat up, and the languid expression instantly disappeared! "Why do you want to build your City there? Don't you know that the City was destroyed in the past? Even if you successfully construct your city, the Three Great Cities will join forces and attack you. It is a scale in which you cannot ever imagine and something you cannot defend against, my advice for you is to change locations! It is not suitable for you!"
"If they are willing to ally up and attack, it means that the Iron Fortress is a strategic and valuable location, so what if I can occupy a Land in which my enemies don't care about!" I would never be swayed by an NPC!
"You should just accept my request!"
The beautiful Goddess suddenly revealed a smile, although her smile was extremely beautiful, it made my heart tremble, I knew that something was up!
(*) Previous translator wrote Wayne as an Undead Wizard, I'll change it to Mage. but back when Ziri learned that Scott could summon skeletons in Cursed Lands, Scott said that he was not a Necromancer. I am as of now unsure whether Thunderstorm intended for Undead Mage and Necromancer to be the same class, as the difference between both classes in Chinese is just one word.
(**) So, there are the usual Dark Shrines, the Dark Sanctum in which was a name I gave to the Iron Fortress' dark tower because it is rather unique, and the Dark Lord Shrine, in other words, the Dark Shrine General Headquarters. Despite the Dark Lord Shrine and General Headquarters being in different names, the Dark Lord Shrine is the term used by the Phantom Knights, as it is sort of their personal land, while others call it the General Headquarters.