The core members of Umbra had gathered in the Rank 7 Guild Hall, from the Vice-Guildmaster Sublime Notion to the newest member Noble Writer. Exactly 19 of them stood in the waiting area of the Training Hall.
Curiously, Local Lord was still absent. According to Cobra and Akainu, he was the first of the new batch to receive the Genetic Compatibility privilege, so he was currently on his way to the Central Country to have his DNA collected.
As for Money Lover, he was still quite a huge way away from Rank 2. But with the way he was going around abusing his class skills, it was likely that he too should be ready to Rank up in the next 3-6 months.
For that matter, the members of Umbra couldn't help but check their status pages once again. What they saw made their lips twitch.
They had all reached level 50! The person with the least amount of stockpiled experience was Noble Writer, who had the lowest level of the bunch. But even his stockpiled experience was 23,098%!
What!
This was a crazy number. It meant that after slaughtering every Rank 1 monster within a Field Zone, as well as some weaker Rank 2 ones since Rina's final damage had been so high thanks to her Queen of Death title, they each gained 27,000% experience.
The experience split had been set to equal share. So that meant that the total amount of experience earned was 513,000%!
This was more than the total Draco had earned slaughtering 3 Area Zones full of Rank 2 monsters at Rank 1. Of course, Rina's attack had assaulted a whole Continent Zone, so it could not be compared.
However, the experience 1,000 Rank 1 monsters gave was nothing compared to experience gained by killing 1 Rank 2 monster by someone 1 Rank below them.
In other words, more than 30% of this huge total experience was from the few Rank 2 monsters that were killed. If Rina didn't share this experience with the core members, she might have enough to jump to Rank 4 or higher straight away.
However, Draco's class only gave him a 10% exp gain. So if it were him, he'd have earned only 51,300% experience after killing every single monster in a whole continent as well as some weak Rank 2 ones while at Rank 1.
In essence, what Rina and co did was equivalent to him clearing out just one Area Zone in the Refinement God's Treasury. One couldn't help but think; if there was no Refinement God's Treasury, would Draco be able to even level up?
The AI had proven its insidiousness once again. By cutting his exp gain down, it forced Draco's progression to become the same as or even slower than normal players.
If he didn't rely on his memories to acquire lucrative quests, he would have to fight almost every waking hour in order to even progress a little. Truly wicked.
Sublime coughed and spoke loudly. "We have all reached the level cap. Now, allocate your final stat points and then we shall attempt the Class Up Procedures."
Everyone became excited at the mention of this. Naturally, Draco and Eva weren't so irresponsible that they'd hide this information from their core members. Even the basic members of Umbra were aware of this.
The only problem was the huge cost. Forget Legendary classes, even one attempt at an Epic class cost 100,000 platinum. Just because Draco and Eva could throw about such a sum didn't mean that everyone else could.
Even at this moment, Eva was left helpless by the task of raising funds for her own Class Up. Where was she supposed to get 1 billion platinum from? She didn't want to wait for Draco to come out first, she wanted to Class Up and surprise him.
However, she had no shortcuts in mind. If Draco had to rely on luck to get his chance, she would too, as - after all - they had the same set of knowledge. Eva would have to depend on fate to give her a chance this time.
As for these core members, they were rich in UPs. Heck, even the poorest Noble Writer had around 800 UPs, which was 800 gold. Sublime had almost 300,000 UPs and the rest fell in this range.
But right now, they all understood that things would be different. Sublime explained as much in her next statement.
"Since we plan to do this at once to raise our guild's reputation and acquire an accolade - hopefully - the guild will naturally provide the funds for our attempts."
Instead of excitement, the core members of Umbra became solemn. This came as no surprise, as the guild would take a huge dent from this.
Umbra was currently swimming in funds thanks to Money Lover's hard work. Of their current total, 80% of it was brought in by him. The last 20% was shared by Vita City-State and the Rank 7 Shop.
Most of this money had been poured into developing the City-State, which was part of its great rise in power. Now though, this would be stifled by this choice of theirs, and they had no certainty that it was the right one.
This caused them to feel burdened. They were core members, people who were intricately tied to the guild, being the face of it as well. Even the recently joined Noble Writer had great affection as well as respect towards this guild, not wanting to betray their trust.
Sublime Notion saw their expressions and chuckled cutely. The air of a leader left her as she turned into that playful adorable loli that they all feared.
"Hehe, but I can trust you all, right? That even if we were to invest in you to try for a Legendary class, you all can pass on the first try, right?"
"As core members of Umbra, nothing less shall be acceptable. Or would you like me to explain such a failure to Eva?"
Once they heard her words, they all broke out in cold sweat and shivered with fear. Thinking of the cold and murderous aura of Riveting Night that showed how demonic she was, they all trembled.
After all, many had been 'disciplined' by her. There was nothing s.e.x.u.a.l about it, just pure and brutal torture as if they had tried to kill her parents. None of them had any intention of going through that again.
Seeing that she had scared them into seriousness, Sublime let it end here. She was all too willing to bully outsiders to the point where they lost their souls, but to her own people she was usually extremely lenient.
Not to mention that if Eva caught her doing something like that, she would strip her bare and spank her mercilessly. Just thinking about the punishment her life-sister had dealt to her when she came back from the class change quest made Sublime also shudder.
Luckily, both she and Deployed Soldier only needed to Rank up, not Class Up. As such, they would pass with relative ease, and they were looking to see how the experience would convert up.
Eva had once told them that when they reached the barrier, they should not bother stockpiling too much experience. The conversion was extremely brutal and all their hard work would become a fart.
However, with so much experience in the stockpile, even Sublime felt that they should get something reasonable when they Ranked up.
As such, everyone spent the last few seconds allocating their final stat points before entering the various private rooms to try their luck. Once they were in, they activated the menu and saw the same list of options Draco once did.
After selecting the Class Up option, a wide array of choices was presented to each of them. Apart from Rina who received one option for a Divine class thanks to the Divine Flamesear, everyone else only got a single Legendary option, two Epic options, and 10 Semi-Epic options.
Everyone naturally chose the Legendary class first. A single attempt cost 1,000,000 platinum, so the guild was dented by almost 17,000,000 platinum at once.
Even with their solid foundation, this was a big hit. Around 60% of Umbra's liquid funds was lost right away, so it was clear that they had to put on their best performance.
Luckily, their Legendary classes were not broken like Draco's choices. The quality of these classes was far lower despite being in the same tier, so their difficulty was lower as well.
As for Sublime and Deployed Soldier, they smiled and chose to Rank up normally. Sublime's difficulty for her first Rank up was set at 50% while Deployed Soldier was at 70%.
Compared to a Common class player who had a default 100%, it was clear that their first few Rank ups would be smooth sailing. This was the benefit of a Legendary class earned through a class change scroll.
These classes earned through Classing Up would not have the same benefit, not as good anyway. It would certainly be better than any other, but it would also be worse than Sublime, Deployed Soldier, and Money Lover.
Soon enough, everyone disappeared mysteriously as they entered their various special scenarios for the Rank/Class up. Unlike with Draco who was kicked out almost instantly, these fellows were able to persist.
The only one left was Rina, who had a hesitant expression. She had the option for a Divine Class, but the price was steep.
｢Paragon of Fire – Class
Rank: Divine
Success Chance: 30%
Price: 10,000,000 platinum per attempt｣
10,000,000 for a 30% chance was too risky. Rina knew that her chance was so high only because of her staff, not her own skills. Even the presence of the staff was the trigger for the class, not anything she herself had.
However, if she were to acquire this class, even if the staff was seized from her one day, she would still be a powerhouse!
If she chose to do so, all of Umbra's remaining liquid funds would be consumed. If the others failed, they would not be able to try again for a significant period of time.
Sublime had left the account open because she understood the core members. None of them were outsiders, so this was a sign of the guild's trust.
But to one-sidedly spend so much… Rina was unsure. If she succeeded, even if the others failed, they would still be extremely excited. Even if she failed, no one would blame her.
However, it was like taking 40% of your parent's hard-earned life savings on a business venture with high risks and high reward. Even though they might not blame you too much if it failed, you still didn't want to betray their trust.
Eventually, Rina gritted her teeth and decided to try the Divine Class. At worst, she would fail. If that happened, she would take out many of the useful stuff she had earned during her travels to reimburse the guild.
As such, Rina paid out the 10,000,000 platinum. She too was whisked away into a land unknown, a harsh trial of fire and brimstone awaiting her. If she wanted to become this realm's Paragon of Fire, she would have to pay a price.
Even Draco, despite being a literal entity of destruction, was brutally kicked away from becoming the Paragon of Destruction.
Then again, that fellow had to face the incarnation of the Supreme God, so there was factually no chance of succeeding anyway. Rina would face the incarnation of Flashflame the Fire God, who was far weaker compared to Caelo.
Whether or not she could win, only time would tell. Right now, the Training Hall of the Guild Hall was silent, seemingly devoid of any human presence.
In a matter of a few hours, a blurry form began to coalesce in one of the private rooms, the first person to return from their attempt. One couldn't see their expression, not allowing one to guess whether they succeeded or failed…