Game of the World Tree

【Players already participating in the event can expend their mana to summon other players in your contacts as a friend. For a cost of 500 MP, one player at level 31 or higher (minimum level 31) can be summoned.】

【Summoning Reward: For every player summoned, the summoner shall gain 1% of the summoned player’s EXP earned throughout the entirety of the event, until the summoner dies.】

【The official summoning feature will be activated once the first batch of other players enters the event.】

【First Batch of Players: Boxlunch, Calabash, Chopin, Optimist, IAmInvincible.】

As the system notification chimed, the new quest details appeared on the interface of every player currently online in the game.

Players, whose attention had initially been captured by the arrival of the Dragons, now shifted their focus back to Boxlunch and his group:

“Oh wow! Is this quest finally available?”

“We can be summoned? And anyone who summons us gets 1% of the EXP we accumulate during the event as a reward? Doesn’t that mean the summoner can just keep summoning other players to passively farm EXP?”

“Wake up! It costs 500 MP per summon. Plus, it says you can only summon players you’ve added as friends in your contacts, so you can’t just summon random people. Also, how much mana do you even have as a warrior?”

“Ugh…only 500 MP in total…”

“Hahaha! I’m a mage with almost 8,000 MP. Guess who’s laughing now? Haha!”

“Heh, do you even have high-level friends in your contacts that you can summon?”

“…Goddamn it! I barely know any!”

“Heh, I’m friends with Boss Chopin. I’m sure I’ll be able to be summoned in this event!”

“I’m so jealous! Hey boss, please take me with you!”

Excitement and anticipation rippled through the player base.

After all, the “Heart of Life” quest not only promised substantial rewards which amounts to 50,000 experience points, 3,000 contribution points, and 50 ressurection coins but also seemed to feature numerous new enemies to defeat.

This is already comparable to the rewards being given to main questlines.

Unsurprisingly, as a result, the friend requests for every member of Boxlunch’s team skyrocketed, quickly overwhelming their inboxes.

The numbers on their notification icons soon displayed “99+,” especially for the two spellcasters: Calabash the Mage and Chopin the Druid.

Calabash stared at the endless stream of friend requests he keeps getting along with the passionate private messages flooding his chatroom. He sighed dramatically and exclaimed, “Never thought I’d see the day when I’d become this popular. I’m so touched.”

Meanwhile, Optimist was checking his live stream dashboard, his eyes wide with excitement.

“Holy crap! Over 20,000 people are currently watching my stream! Isn’t this the kind of viewer count only top streamers can get?!”

“Don’t get too excited dude. They’re just watching your stream to see us summon other players. Believe it or not, your number of viewers will immediately plummet right after we start summoning people.” Calabash teased.

Optimist rolled his eyes in mock frustration.

“I know that! Just let me enjoy myself being a top streamer for a little while, okay?”

The five players chatted casually as they proceeded with their task, making swift progress.

After Zero provided the exact coordinates of their target and with Chopin’s [Heart of Nature] spell to assist them, the team swiftly found a route to the underground palace through the city’s sewer system.

This palace lay beneath the Grand Cathedral of the city, but its surface was heavily guarded by elite troops. Fortunately for them, however, the sewers offered a hidden route, for which directly leads into the interior of the cathedral.

Alas, the city’s sewage system were not quite peaceful after centuries of neglect.

By now, this sprawling underground network had already developed its own ecosystem, with its sludge concealing a vast amount of ferocious creatures.

These monsters, clad in black scales and exuding a corrupt and malevolent aura, made the players frown in disgust.

“These creatures feel… oddly familiar.”

“Let me appraise them… Huh? Corrupted underground demon fish? Corrupted Aquatic Lizard? Dammit, all the creatures here have been tainted by the power of the Abyss!”

“The power of the abyss…?”

Each of the five players’ expressions gradually turned serious.

Yet, amidst the gravity of the situation, they also felt a tinge of excitement.

In all seriousness, the presence of these monsters with the power of the Abyss carries ominous implications, as their past experiences with similar quests had shown that anything that is remotely connected to the Abyss will inevitably involved Evil Gods down the line, making such quests highly dangerous.

Nonetheless, these kinds of quest is still really exciting simply because anything involving Evil Gods also promised generous rewards.

“Could it be… that this so-called God of Creation is actually an evil god?”

This thought briefly crossed their minds.

Regardless, despite encountering numerous monsters corrupted by the Abyss in the sewers, the five players faced little resistance as they moved forward.

The reason?

It was simply because the mana level of this demi-realm was far too low. Even the strongest monsters they encountered barely reached Silver-rank, and they hardly encountered any of these monsters to begin with.

The five of them are more than enough to handle any monsters.

Moreover, most creatures within the sewers seemed to avoid their group entirely, almost immediately retreating the very moment they sensed their presence.

Essentially, every living being that inhabits this demi-realm has its lifeforce drained away, leaving them with practically no chance of ever growing beyond the Silver-rank.

The occasional sightings of a low Silver-rank monster was already unprecedented enough and given the players’ current power levels, the latter were virtually invincible here.

After turning off their sense of smell, the five crawled through the sewers, whilst occasionally swimming through sludge and murky water.

After several hours, they finally arrived at their destination.

Emerging from the filthy waters, the five players looked ahead and saw a magnificent palace.

The colossal structure was supported by rows of massive stone pillars, and its cavernous ceiling was embedded with countless glowing stones, as these stones sparkled like a starry sky in the darkness.

Surprisingly, seeing this scenery somehow reminds them of something.

“Wait a minute… isn’t this the same temple we saw back when the Goddess first appeared? The one where Demacia and his group was invited to enter it?”

Optimist, who had a good memory, furrowed his brows thoughtfully.

The others paused, recalling the event, and soon nodded in agreement.

For the players, this resemblance was merely a visual similarity, but for Eve, it held far deeper significance, as this underground palace was modeled after the temple built by the former World Tree within her Divine Kingdom.

The players finally climbed out of the water and onto the shore whilst staring at the palace in admiration.

The sewage sludge stuck deep in their bodies, making it almost impossible for anyone to recognize their original appearance beneath the filth, and the smell they emitted was extremely nauseating.

If not for their ability to disable their sense of smell through the system and their mindset of treating this as just a game, the five players likely wouldn’t have ventured into the sewers in the first place.

However, it was still essentially a game.

So as long as they were able to make a profit, the five of them would almost do anything, including swimming in nauseating sludge infested with corrupted monsters.

The palace had no visible doors—just two massive stone pillars marking the entrance. Along its sides stood two rows of humanoid statues.

Each of the statue designs was quite diverse; some of which resembled elves, while others looked like half-elves, and some were even distinctly human in appearance…

There were easily hundreds of them, and they stood there like silent guards protecting the palace.

After they used the [Cleanse] spell to remove the grime from their bodies, the five players steeled themselves before cautiously approaching the vicinity of the palace.

However, just as they were about to step past the threshold, a faint energy ripple suddenly emanated from the stone pillars.

In an instant, all the statues’ eyes lit up.

Under the players’ astonished gazes, all the statues began to emit a deep glow. The stone layers covering their bodies peeled away, revealing lifelike forms beneath.

Then, they moved.

“Blasphemers! How dare you trespass upon the sacred resting place of the gods!”

A chilling voice echoed as the now-animated statues raised their weapons and charged toward the players.

Their presence was overwhelming with even the weakest among them being at the peak of Iron-rank, while the strongest had even reached upper Silver-rank strength.

The five players froze momentarily, startled by the sudden assault.

At the same time, Zero’s clear, melodious voice echoed within their ears:

“These are the guardians of that palace! Quickly, summon the other Chosen Ones!”

Hearing this instruction, the eyes of the five players swiftly lit up.

“The other can finally participate? We can now summon our reinforcements!”

The rest turned to Calabash and Chopin, who nodded in agreement.

Without hesitation, the two selected their prearranged friend lists and activated the summoning option beside each usernames.

Whilst shouting the phrase they had prepared in advance, they exclaimed:

“Go ahead, Let’s go Pikachu!”

In an instant, golden light enveloped the two spellcasters, and they felt their MP being rapidly drained.

At the same time, glowing summoning arrays began forming on the ground around them.

As radiant light and intense spatial distortions filled the area, silhouettes of tall figures started emerging from the array.

Simultaneously, excited shouts were heard coming from it:

“Haha! I’ve been summoned! Someone actually let me in to the event!”

“What the hell? Let’s go Pikachu? Can you guys take this seriously?”

“Fuck, there’s so many enemies!”

“Fight! Fight!”

The battlefield erupted into chaos.

— 447 —

【 SUMMONING PLAYERS 】

— —