Chapter 188: Main Quest Three
As for the last card, the Qohor Black Goat Temple Cavalry, it had appeared twice already. Its stats were average, possessing a set of Qohorik Black Goat Enchanted Plate Armor that cost 10 points in the Tier 3 shop.
It was essentially worthless to Ian now, destined to once again play a supporting role.
Finally, Ian clicked "Confirm" on the Stepstones Pirate Lord.
[Kohruru: Strength 34, Agility 32, Spirit 3 Skills: Advanced Swordplay, Advanced Throwing (Hand Axe and Spear), Navigation Mastery, Basic High Valyrian, Basic Common Tongue Equipment: Longsword, Throwing Axe, Mail Hauberk]
All stats were mediocre, but that didn't matter. Ian only cared about Navigation Mastery.
"Where is Kohruru now? Does he still have a ship? Or at least some men?" Ian called out to the long-dormant system assistant, asking a series of questions.
"Tyrosh. No, no," Annie gave a simple and blunt answer.
Tyrosh was one of the nine Free Cities of Essos, located on the edge of the Stepstones. The two "nos" were answers Ian had expected, since none of the NPCs he'd previously acquired possessed any power or wealth beyond their equipment.
"Why not? He's a pirate lord, after all. It's impossible his ship just sank, right?" Ian still questioned. The fact that NPCs, as native inhabitants, lacked power and wealth had indeed troubled him for a long time.
"On the eve of the official start of this competition, all the NPCs trained by the organizers relinquished their original positions, power, and possessions, carrying only their personal equipment, and began awaiting the players' selection," Annie explained in more detail this time. "This prevents NPCs from bringing their own power and affecting the fairness of the player competition."
No wonder, Ian nodded. Wait a minute...
"They only relinquished their positions on the eve of the competition? It's only been three months. If I ask them to regroup their original subordinates now, it's not too late, is it?" Ian immediately asked.
"..." Annie paused for a moment, then uttered the familiar line, "Sorry, I can't answer questions outside my authority."
"That's fine then." Ian nodded in satisfaction.
If he could get Kohruru to find some of his former men, or even his ship, then this would be a huge win for him.
Besides, Rol had mentioned before that he had trained troops in the Disputed Lands. He might be able to talk to him about it later, and perhaps find some opportunities to expand his advantage through those connections.
"Alright, then have Kohruru wait for me at the largest inn near the port of Tyrosh." Ian gave the instruction.
The system's function of sending messages to NPCs was quite useful, but unfortunately, players could only use it once when they first acquired an NPC, and the message could only tell the NPC where to find them or where to wait for them. Otherwise, the NPCs' practical value would be many times greater.
After processing his rewards, Ian opened his profile and used a Basic Skill Selection Scroll to learn Advanced High Valyrian Fundamentals. The limited time available didn't allow him to learn a new language from scratch. He needed a foundation before using spare moments to learn from Daenerys or Celia and master the language.
The updated profile showed:
[Ian: Strength 35, Agility 27, Spirit 22 Skills: Basic Etiquette, Basic Common Tongue Reading and Writing, Advanced High Valyrian Fundamentals, Sword Mastery, Advanced Horsemanship, Intermediate Lance, Intermediate Skinchanger, Greenseer Basic Attribute Points: 0 Skill Points: 5 Points: 191 Items: Basic Skill Selection Scroll ×1 Skill Upgrade Scroll ×2 Dream Dungeon Opening Scroll ×1]
Only then did Ian realize that his Common Tongue was only at the Basic level. Fortunately, Westeros's Common Tongue was exactly the same as English from his previous life, and with his near-native fluency, he hadn't encountered any problems with it in this world.
Ian then closed the stat card and went to the quest menu to check the newly updated main quests.
To Ian's surprise, unlike the first two main quests which required choosing one of three options, the third main quest offered a series of objectives.
[Main Quest 3: Conquest
Quest Objectives:
Rule over 500,000 people (30 points)
Rule over 3 million people (100 points)
Own a city with a population of over 500,000 (100 points/city)
Command 10,000 soldiers with a system quality rating of B or higher (30 points)
Command 30,000 soldiers with a system quality rating of B or higher (100 points)
Annihilate (kill or capture) 10,000 soldiers with a system quality rating of B or higher (30 points)
Annihilate 30,000 soldiers with a system quality rating of B or higher (100 points)
Achieve an epic victory (automatic system evaluation) (100 points/occurrence)
Quest Rewards (Can be claimed after completing all the above objectives, with the epic victory and city ownership requirements needing at least one completion): 1000 points
Note: In the city occupation objective, each city is only counted when occupied for the first time.]
Main Quest 1 sought wealth, Main Quest 2 sought a title, Main Quest 3 directly aimed at conquest. This difficulty range was very much in line with the developers' style, Ian couldn't help but think.
However, this task was surprisingly reasonable.
First, although it was called "Conquest," it didn't require you to acquire a king's title or anything like that. Instead, it simply assessed three indicators: the number of elite troops, the number of enemies defeated, and the number of people ruled. There were no tricks, leaving players with absolutely no loopholes to exploit. This made Ian suspect that the various loopholes in the earlier tasks were deliberately placed there by the developers to allow players some flexibility.
Second, although its difficulty was extremely high, the corresponding rewards were entirely commensurate with the difficulty. At least, the reward of over a thousand points gave Ian hope of reaching the ten thousand points needed to declare victory.
Exiting the task list, Ian clicked into the points shop.
With the arrival of a new month, the random slots in the Tier 3 shop had refreshed. The weirwood paste Ian had previously consumed was purchased from there, so Ian wanted to see if he could find any other treasures this month.
[A Book from Yi Ti (written in the language of Yi Ti—who knows what it says?): 5 points; A Large Mysterious Black Stone (a building material of unknown origin, mysteriously appearing in various corners of the known world, wherever there are ancient monuments): 5 points; Ice Spear (a spear made of ice, but it does not melt at room temperature): 30 points; The Evolution of Arms and Armor (a work by a maester of the Citadel, recording the military development history of Westeros over tens of thousands of years—though the final conclusion is that there has been almost no development, it's still quite interesting?): 30 points]
"Ugh," Ian grimaced. This month's items seemed rather useless, mostly things that seemed interesting at first glance, but were actually quite pointless.
"Never mind." Ian didn't choose to buy anything and instead logged out of the system.
When he left the cabin and came to the deck, the sky outside was already bright, the sun rising from the eastern horizon, painting the clouds with a faint glow.
As the Breeze's Kiss rounded the last large bend, Ian knew they had left Pentos Bay behind.
The voyage against the wind was over.
End of Volume Two
(End of Chapter)
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