The crumbling palace left Dave with no choice, but to use the 'End Mission' option and leave the place. Once Dave left he was back again in the World of the Dead. Looking around, all he could see were expressionless, decaying corpses. Dave gave a deep sigh as he opened his contribution panel to see how much he had obtained. After all, he had gained +500 contribution points after having released the Lich Du'Razha. And he already obtained some from his old dungeon.

Currently, have:

2350 Contribution points.

Dave's mind went blank as he saw the number. He clearly didn't even know how it came to increase this much. Was it a bug? He thought. But then, something cleared up his confusion

A notification panel he disabled before, now he enabled to read the log.

Players had died 140 times in the

Undead Cave dungeon.

+1400Contribution point

This coupled with the contribution points Dave already have given him a nice base of contribution points to play on. Thankfully, Dave's inability to access the auction house didn't limit his possibility I acquiring new equipment and better his gear. For the moment, Dave was still relying on the level 20; Iron Armor set, which by now became obsolete.

Dave immediately went to the merchant and check out his wears. Before, Dave couldn't even hope to buy the better-tiered equipment, but now he might be able to get some.

"Back again I see," said the merchant as he immediately opened the window for Dave to check out the wares.

Dave looked through the wears and saw once again the EXP potions, however. These cost 1000Contribution points each. He immediately went past them. There was no need for him to further increase his level, while his gear is far behind.

Dave went down the list until he saw a blue colored piece of equipment. It was a chest plate that Dave could actually buy, but it costs 800 contributions and its level 60.

Category: Chest plate

Fallen Black Knight order's Chestplate

Description A decrepit old chest plate of a fallen order of knights.

Vowed to defeat all that was vile and abhorred, they failed their quest against the wrath and might of the Undead Legion, thus they ended as those they hated the most.

Requirements Level 60

200 strength. 100 agility 100 DEX

Bonus stats 800 vitality

4% Immunity

500 Damage Nullification

120 Magic Absorption

Scaling/Class Class. Rare Chest-plate

The chest plate itself gave enormous amounts of resistance, however, Dave was unable to equip it. though he levels up quite a lot, he didn't have the required Strength to wear the gear.

He still had enough stats, but if he was to boost up his strength, he would lose the ability to increase his other stats. Dave's main goal was to go the triple road of an STR, VIT, and DEX build. If he was to waste his stats on a single lane of stats he would probably fail his objective.

Dave then scrolled down and saw another item.

Category: Necklace

Lesser Demon'Eye

Description A necklace forged from the eye of an ancient lesser demon. It has enormous powers that could enable one to carry themselves with ease.

However, beware of devilish items as they can easily corrupt the mind and wither the spirit.

Requirements Level 50

Bonus stats +50 STR

+50 AGI

+50 WIS

+250 Mana

Scaling/Class Class. Rare

"No way!" said Dave as he glared at the necklace for a longer period of time. "Ah, accessories! that is why, though they are not considered to be powerful items, unlike the armors and clothes that a character wear, these would give the player the required stats to wear stronger armor."

Indeed, it was the case. In the Game conquest, a player is not considered strong based on their level. The Level bonus stat point is not of great importance, it is the accessories that a character could equip that would judge their might. Most, if not all the accessories in the game give players stat bonuses, some accessories give enormous stats to players, which will help them wear a huge variety of equipment, which would normally require a huge amount of Stat investment to be able to wield.

This idea would force players to actually try and do more quests, do dungeons and try to look for other accessories in the game to be able to wear their best equipment. Players that rely on grinding their level without the appropriate equipment would find themselves in a poor match against other lower level players with better sets.

Dave then looked at the price of the necklace and his heart almost fell.

1000 contribution point… that was almost a half of what Dave's current points…

Dave sighed and then scrolled down to look at other items. He wanted to buy the necklace but the price is too high, and he feared that he might not be able to buy something which will suit him better if he was hasty.

He noticed that the shop sold the rest of the Fallen Black Knight order. Gauntlets, Boots, shield cape and helmet. They all gave an enormous boost to; vitality, immunity, Magic and Damage resistances. However, every piece required 800 contribution points. The total amount that Dave needed to obtain to be able to wear such items was 5800 Contribution points. Which he only had less than a half.

Dave felt displeased the equipment in front of him was rather nice. No, they were awesome, however, he didn't have the ability to acquire all of them.

The last item in the list was actually a Ring. Dave then inspected it and saw its bonuses and he could only sigh

Category: Gauntlets

Ring of the Ruined King

Requirements Level 50

Description A ring that once belonged to a powerful King who gave up his soul to gain immortality, only in doing so, his gain of immortality prevented his freedom, now he is nothing but a slave in the Undead Legion

Bonus stats +200 Mana

+50 WIS

[Royal Decree] Summon 2 Ghost Knights of level 50 as guards.

The ghost Knights will remain for 10 minutes or until they die.

Cool down 1 Hour

Scaling/Class Class. Common heavy Gauntlets

Classless

Another awesome item that would be of great help to Dave. Though this item is basically Magic oriented, and any wizard of low level would die for. As these two guards could help the magic class player defend themselves while they would be casting magic.

However, once again, the price of such an item was expensive. 1000 Contribution point.

Dave's total amount of points was really lacking. Though he could receive a nice bonus from the dungeon he acquired as it killed players almost every few minutes, it would take a lot of time before the dungeon alone would get Dave the required amount of contribution he requires to purchase everything.

Dave then clenched his fist as he bought three items from the shop. There was no need to be stingy at the moment, these items would help him in his Missions.

Dave bought the Necklace and the Ring. At least, he could actually wear these and use them. As for the armors and equipment from the Fallen Black Knight Order, he didn't need to bother acquiring as he still needed more levels, buying them now would be nothing but a waste of points.

Dave got closer to the wall which prevented him from getting into the Skeleton Captain area. And sighed "I guess that I need to level up more to be able to lead a more powerful army… my platoon is rather nice, but I need to gain the Skeleton Captain rank to both be able to lead a battalion and also have more powerful underlings…"

Dave logged out at that time and went back to his apartment where he took a shower and slept for the night. He didn't notice that he spent more than an entire day in the Northern regions.

Once it was morning, Dave got to his feet and went to his small kitchen to make something to eat. A cup of coffee and eggs with bacon, it was rather cheap and not much to dent his low amount of savings.

Dave then remembered that he gave Lone Arrow his number, and thought about if she would really send him his earnings after selling the frozen Dagger. Now that he thought about it, he just noticed that he actually shared his personal info with the girl. Dave could only sigh as he face-palmed himself for not being too careful. She could easily share his info and he might be in trouble later on. Actually, if people knew about him, not only would he be harassed for not sharing his pioneering right with them all, it might actually get dangerous. Some people cannot be expected to be reasonable.

Dave could only sigh, as he had no possibility to change the past. If his mind was cleared he would have declined…

Dave went to the forums to check up on things. He remembered the Devastator's current excursion in the Pits of Despair dungeon. So he wanted to check up on their progress. After all the Devastators were a super guild supported by mighty companies and firms that have a giant grasp of the world's market and stocks. And their success and failure is being followed by the entire game population

Once he checked up on the progress he noticed that they still were unable to defeat the final boss. It was a Demon of great height, and could easily destroy any vanguard. His pattern of attack was rather strange, unlike normal Monsters who would attack at a fixed interval and with specific attacks, The Demon in the pits of despair would randomly attack targets, fully ignoring threat values and with various attacks. This was the main reason why many guilds failed to defeat it.

It actually brought them to despair.

Topics on the forum have a star rating. Once viewership of a certain topic increases above a certain threshold a star would appear on it, making it reach the top. The first belonged to the Devastators with 8 stars.

Then Dave scrolled down and noticed another topic that was almost of the same viewership, it was the skirmish between Heaven's Dawn and Blood Rage which now escalated to a full on war!

The reason behind such an escalation was due to a strange guild that appeared in the game, it was called "It's Just Business" this guild actually was a powerful guild of mercenaries which hosted nothing more nor less than a hundred player. They didn't accept any other applications. And their numbers were fixed. This guild actually was sponsored by various tycoons and they had enough money to shake the game itself, however, their objective for moving was and will always be money. Instigating this war was their doing, however, no one knows how they managed it, and how they actually managed to gain benefit from the fight.

There was another topic however that almost reached the numbers of stars that these two topics had.

It was a simple topic with a simple phrase and a video feed.

"An adventure with MR, Skeletal"

Dave's eyes went blank as he saw that it was posted under the name of Lone Arrow…

He couldn't help but press Play to see what was going on…