Jack landed on his butt after getting shoved through the portal. The portal immediately vanished after he passed through.
"What happened?" Paytowin asked. "We didn't see you come out from that portal for quite some time. Mihos tried to go back to check what was wrong, but he couldn't get through. That portal was a one-way passage."
Jack didn't answer. He just shook his head. He was still thinking about Callan's expression just before the enemies came into the chancel. Was the divine priest about to agree to go with him? Or did Callan steel himself to stay on his hara-kiri path? Jack guessed he would never know now.
Jack stood up. "Where are we?" He asked.
"Near the capital of Hydrudond, Messephyria," Mihos answered. "If you go in that direction, you will arrive at the capital soon."
"You will not be coming with us?" Jack asked.
"No. The divine priest had given me the task of gathering my fellow members, I intend to carry it out." Mihos then turned to Paytowin. "I can't bring you with me. My path is too dangerous to bring you as a burden."
Paytowin didn't feel offended by Mihos' blunt words. He was indeed weak compared to the native. He nodded and said, "I will keep our faction's legacy safe."
"I will hold your words to it. It is our leader's last request, after all. I won't forgive you if you fail the task. Call me whenever you find yourself in danger."
Paytowin nodded again.
Mihos then turned to Jack. "Thank you for having come to our aid. Even though in the end we are still defeated, your courage is appreciated."
"Don't mention it," Jack replied. He then added, "Sir Mihos, we have the same enemies. Please don't take the burden of defeating them all by yourself. We are working to build a strong enough force to take the fight to them. When that time comes, I hope we can do it together. As divine priest Callan said, please do not be careless. Do not attempt on a revenge path before we are both strong enough."
"Don't worry, I'm not stupid. After fighting them, I know how strong our enemies are," Mihos said. "You both take care of yourself."
"You too," both Jack and Paytowin replied.
Mihos took a whistle and blew. A horse with wings appeared.
'A Pegasus?' Jack said in his mind.
'That is a unique-grade steed. The same grade as Pandora,' Peniel informed Jack.
Mihos climbed onto the Pegasus. The winged horse started by running before slowly taking up into the sky and flew away with incredible speed.
"In terms of mobility, his steed beats mine since it can fly through obstacles," Jack remarked.
"But Pandora has the nightmare aura that drives most monsters away, Pegasus does not," Peniel responded.
"Well, if it can fly, there is no need for a fear aura, isn't it? It can just fly past all the monsters on the land."
"On the land. There are flying monsters in the sky too."
"Hm… Well, I guess they have their own strong aspect that sets them apart. Hey, I've been meaning to ask before, you seem to recognize Master's bloodline. Demon bloodline you called it, what grade is that bloodline?"
"I can't tell by just seeing him use the first skill. Same as your Gold Dragon bloodline and Divine Gold Dragon Bloodline. The two are different grades but their sets of active skills are the same, the legendary grade just has more skills and better passive effects."
"Then the skill is between unique and legendary grade?"
"For that demon bloodline, there is also the super rare version."
"Knowing Master, I doubt he will settle for anything other than legendary," Jack said, remembering Master's attempt in drawing Syndrillis' essence for creating a legendary-grade bloodline. He turned to Paytowin. "What are you going to do now?"
"I… I seriously have no idea…," Paytowin said. "What's certain is, I have to keep this legacy safe."
"In that case, join my guild," Jack offered.
"Huh?"
"You will be safe inside our Guild Headquarters. We also have many facilities that allow you to improve without heading out into the wilderness. If you need to go to the cities, you can teleport directly there. You won't be safer anywhere else."
"I…"
"Grace has also joined. What are you being hesitant about? Oh… talking about the girl, she must be worried sick. I need to send her some words first to let her know I'm fine. Hm…?"
Jack had just sent a message to Grace but he received a notification that Grace was unable to accept any messages.
'Where is she? Did she go into a place that blocks communication?' Jack wondered. At the same time, he saw many unread messages from Jeanny and the others from the past few days. He was out of contact for a long period, so it was not strange to find all these in his inbox. He had been notified about these messages when he was pulled out of Greed's sanctum by Paytowin's recall plate, but he had no time to read them because the situation then was not exactly ideal. He decided to check them out later after his talk with Paytowin.
"So, what do you say?" Jack asked Paytowin again.
Paytowin had been pondering deeply about this. He would prefer to be independent as he always was, but it was different now. He had a responsibility. He couldn't be sure if he was able to keep Callan's legacy of courage safe all by himself. For all he knew, the World Maker and Fear's cult might have invaded the Council of Virtus for this legacy. If they found out this thing was with him, he would need protection more than ever. Jack was right, he needed a place to lay down, at least until he was strong enough.
"All right, I will join. But I can't be afforded to be given tasks that sent me out into dangerous places. My first priority is to my quest."
"Your quest?" Jack asked.
"Yeah. When Callan asked me to safeguard this faction's legacy, I received a quest notification. The quest is to help restore the Council of Virtus. It is classified as an SSS-difficulty quest."
"SSS-difficulty? Wow! So, you get one too."
"Too? You have one as well?"
Jack told him about his SSS-difficulty kingdom faction chain quest.
"I see. Well, as I said. My priority will be to keep this legacy safe. I can't be bothered by guild matters, and once Mihos has gathered all the faction's members, I will go with them to help them out."
"Fine by me," Jack replied. "I will make you a core member of our guild. No one will give you any tasks for anything, don't worry about it. You can just stay at our headquarters and used its facility. I will share my guild contribution points with you. I have so many of them I don't know what to do with them. I never truly use the guild facilities anyway."
"Thank you, brother…," Paytowin said. He was sincerely grateful for Jack's help.
"Come on, man. I know you will do the same to me if our situations are reversed." Jack sent him a guild invitation, to which Paytowin accepted.
"Now… How about we deal with the truly important thing here," Jack said.
"What truly important thing?" Paytowin asked with a confused expression.
"That golden orb Callan has given you. Aren't you curious about what's in it? Callan said it contains items that his faction had collected throughout the ages since the founding of their factions. There should be many cool things inside. There might probably even be some legendary equipment!"
"Considering they are the Council of Virtus, I say there are sure to be some," Peniel commented.
"Hear that?" Jack said.
"Dude! That is something for me to safe keep!" Paytowin uttered.
"I know. I ain't asking you to take them and give them out, man. Just a peek. Hey, if there is legendary equipment, what's wrong with you wearing them? Just consider it borrowing. You can put them back into the orb whenever you want. They will keep you safer than your current gears, then you can better carry out your duty in keeping the legacy safe, right?"
"You truly know how to make an excuse for this kind of thing," Paytowin rolled his eyes at Jack.
"But I ain't wrong, am I? Come on, I'm curious," Jack urged.
"All right, just a peek… But don't you try to persuade me to give you something from this golden orb!" Paytowin warned.
"Do you think I'm that kind of person?" Jack gave a hurt expression, but he soon added, "Not even a super rare tool? How about one evolve seed?"
Paytowin gave him a sideways glance without saying anything. He had Callan's golden orb in his hands. He tried to access it mentally to see its content.
"Huh?" He uttered.
"Something's wrong?" Jack asked.
"It said I need permission."
"Permission? Hasn't Callan already transferred the possession of this orb to you? You should be its owner already, why should you need permission?"
Before Paytowin could answer, an apparition suddenly appeared before the two of them. This took them by surprise. Paytowin even fell to the ground. Jack almost did as well but he had a better body balance due to his martial art training so he managed to stop himself midway.
The apparition before them was the ghost version of the divine priest. Callan was staring at them with a stern gaze.
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