Ethereal Ascendance: A Journey of Transformation

"So all those other characters were also controlled by people in this room?"

After killing that human swordsman, the two people standing opposite showed no reaction. It was obvious they were just one of the many virtual characters, which means the whole hall was probably networked.

"Yes," Nicola gave an affirmative answer.

"But not everyone here is playing this game. Each character card can be strengthened in one game, then applied to other games."

As she spoke, she took out a card and brought me to another table that looked different.

The things under a transparent cover were different again. This time the map range was small, with only two virtual characters fighting.

"This is just a versus game," I realized without her explanation.

It was simply a magical version of various eSports placed in this location.

"There's still a little difference," Nicola corrected. "It's said many of the skills used by the characters here actually exist."

Is that so? I saw one of the human gunner characters whose attacking methods did look quite similar to some of Vivianne's skills.

"What about the angel's skills?" I immediately thought of a way to enhance my strength. All along I had been pondering what skills I could use as an angel, this was simply a godsend.

"No wonder you chose to buy an angel card, you really had foresight!"

I wanted to approvingly pat Nicola on the shoulder, but she was much taller than me, so it felt a bit weird. I patted her back instead.

"Actually I've tried it before," she looked somewhat helpless as she inserted the card into the table to demonstrate for me.

"Most of the angel's skills are light magic, with almost no physical attack capabilities, only able to attack with the swords that come with the cards."

It was obvious that Nicola's control skills were not very good. Her opponent was a golden, electric-flashing bird. After a few rounds, the eight-winged angel was zapped black and knocked to the ground, deducting 3 magic points, leaving 19 points.

It seemed there were only two possibilities:

Either the creators of this card simply did not know what skills angels actually had, and could only make assumptions.

Or angels only knew light magic.

Since I still hadn't figured anything out about myself so far, I was more inclined to believe the latter.

"What about those without transparent covers then?" I asked, pointing to some people who seemed to be playing cards.

"They are just gambling. Their cards will display magic point information on those tables, then winners and losers can be determined according to their sizes and corresponding rules," Nicola glanced in the direction of my pointing.

"But gambling there requires a lot of cards, so small fries like us with only 1 or 2 probably can't join."

"So many options!" I couldn't help but exclaim. I was amazed that such a small card could have so many ways to play, and there were probably more than just these three types on site.

After a full circle, this was completely just a large interdimensional magical game room, only the gameplay was a little different.

"So those magic points can be exchanged for things right?" I already knew without guessing.

It was obvious the main point was the benefits of playing these games. Without benefits, who would come here to waste time?

"Of course they're very useful,"

Nicola got a little excited as she immediately took me to a front desk-like place in the hall.

Various prizes were displayed here. A staff member handed me an exchange list. I saw many good things on it, including the storage ring Nicola had been talking about before. But the number of points required was a bit scary, a full 10,000,000 points.

"Don't tell me you bought the cards just because you saw you could exchange them for rings?"

I rolled my eyes at her. Although my disprovement of her wasteful spending had lowered a bit, but that number of points needed to exchange for the ring directly killed my hopes.

You probably couldn't accumulate that many even if you hung out here every day. You might even lose everything.

The first item at the top of the list was exchanging into silvers, at a rate of 500 to 1. In other words, the rings here sold for 20,000 silvers.

"Not worth it. Buying rings outside only costs 15,000" I said.

How could she not even do such simple math?

"The exchange rates here fluctuate. I saw it was 600 to 1 yesterday. And silvers can also be exchanged into points through some trading methods," Nicola explained while flipping the list to the last few pages.

"Plus there's this."

I looked at where she was pointing, and it turned out to be a Beginner's Light Magic book.

"You can get this too!"

Now I really couldn't say I wasn't tempted. I had always wanted books on magic knowledge, and I actually saw them here.

Although the number of points needed to exchange this book was still expensive, even more costly than the storage ring, needing a full 27,500,000 points. Converted into silvers that was 55,000. But compared to prices outside, especially at the Adventurers Guild bookstore, it was much cheaper.

"This is indeed an alternative way of obtaining magic books, but it still feels very unviable," I sighed and returned the list.

I had to admit Nicola had great foresight in this area, just too much. Now she had almost squandered all her family fortune, in exchange for these unattainable possibilities - too wasteful.

"Everything has to start somewhere," Nicola seemed to sense my thoughts and smiled awkwardly.

"To begin with buying cards first..."

"Forget it, do as you wish," Since I already fully understood, I walked out of the shop. Now the two of us together only had a few hundred silvers left. We must return to the Adventurers Guild for missions to earn money, at least I felt that was the most effective method now, and I could also train my skills at the same time.

Seeing that Nicola still seemed to want to stay here, we were both adults already. I shouldn't restrict her choices, I could only advise,

"You can lose these games. Although magic points won't become negative, there must be rules limiting how fast you can accumulate points. Otherwise there wouldn't be this exchange ratio. So don't put any efforts, or there'll be trouble."

Nicola nodded solemnly.

She also realized there seamed to be many obvious loopholes in the rules for obtaining points, but exploiting them was another matter.

When I returned to the Adventurers Guild again, it was already afternoon. Today, there were exceptionally few people in the hall, only a handful lining up sporadically.

I looked at the notice board and suddenly found a mid-level mission that no one had taken. Although the required deposit points was 1,300, I currently only had just over 200 points, far from enough.

But its requirements showed me some hope,

Because this was a mission that required multiple people to complete. The details were to assist in the defense of another city. The reward was 3,000 silvers per person, issued under the requirement to recruit at least 4 members at a time.

That meant it had to be a team of at least 4 people to take on this mission. So this was perhaps why it was still available.

"Go find Vivianne and the others to do it together!" I immediately thought of this method.

My points and Nicola's weren't enough, but that didn't mean theirs weren't enough! And there would be enough people added together, fully meeting the requirements.

So I immediately left the Adventurers Guild hall and jogged all the way to Vivianne's house.

...

"Vivianne!"

I had knocked on Vivianne's door for a long time without anyone answering. It seemed they were not at home.

I had rushed over worried that the mission would be taken by others. Now it looked hopeless.

As I walked out of the weapon shop's backyard and passed the store entrance, the owner called out to me.

"You're friends with the group renting upstairs right?"

"Yes." I looked at him puzzled, wondering what he wanted with me.

"It's like this," the boss looked quite kind as he walked out to speak. "The young lady renting upstairs left me a message to pass to you if you dropped by."

"Her two male friends who live in the opposite room have gone off to war. And she had to leave for some time due to an urgent mission. She was afraid you'd come without knowing."

So that was why I couldn't find anyone. No wonder I hadn't seen Vivianne come to my house for two days already, it seemed this place had been empty for quite some time.

"Thank you," I casually expressed my gratitude, and suddenly thought of a question. "Did you say they went to war? Has a war broken out now?"

"Seems like it, I'm not clear on the details either."

He only ran a weapon shop. But many going to war would likely come to buy weapons, so regarding this, he could only provide some hearsay.

"It's said a large number of magical beasts attacked around the northern borders, so the capital here started sending troops to reinforce."

I see, if a war broke out, it would also explain why there were so few people at the Adventurers Guild. Most were probably pulled away by the war, moreover a war against magical beasts.

So that mid-level mission was probably related too.

Still, I couldn't just idle around. I had to go back to the Adventurers Guild for other missions