Cthulhu Gonfalon

The staff that was responsible for recruiting experience players here were Klein and Egil from Garth City. They were old friends of Clito and wore the uniforms of the Church of Void Mask.

When they saw Clito and Asner coming with Yue, they were surprised. Klein asked, “You two want to be experience players?”

“Yeah, just to play a new game.”

“But... it’s for ordinary people who don’t have adventure experience,” Klein scratched his head and said. “The risks here can’t make you feel bad.”

Klein and Clito were old friends. In Garth City, Clito often visited Klein’s pub. Clito, who had black hair and black clothes, always ordered a bottle of liquor, some vegetables, and sea fish, and sat in the corner to eat slowly by himself. Klein didn’t know him, but he was curious as to why the man was eating so slowly. He talked with Clito first, and then they became friends.

Later, they helped each other many times, and their friendship was good. Klein knew his friend was powerful, so he felt very puzzled that Clito and his wife wanted to be experience players.

“This is a test for ordinary people, you can’t join,” Egil said in a serious tone.

Clito laughed, took a step aside, and ask his daughter to stand in the middle. “Asner and I can’t do the tests, but Yue can. She’s just a trainee magician.”

“I will be strong!” Yue blushed and said loudly. “It’s the principal who asked me to learn all the basic knowledge first. She said that it’s not good for me to learn magic too early. If I learn magic too early, it will be easy for me to go astray...”

That was not nonsense. Yue’s magic talent was very good, and she had an excellent ability to master magic. It would b easy for her to go astray without a good basic foundation of knowledge. Many people admired magicians who could use magic through intuition. But Felix, the principal of the Isuka School of Magic, scolded this idea. She had always emphasized that “the power that is fully understood and mastered can be called real power.” Yue had outstanding talent. So it was necessary to learn basic knowledge first to ensure that she could use her power correctly.

This was good in the long run. Generally speaking, with her talent, Yue should become a good junior magician at her age, or even a mid-level magician. But now, she was just a trainee magician who could only do some easy tricks.

Because Felix had emphasized the importance of basic knowledge many times, Yue was not dissatisfied with her learning progress at all. But when she talked about it with others, she was shy and wanted to explain herself.

Klein was surprised and then smiled and nodded. “That’s okay. Miss Yue, please come here and test this new game.”

Yue wanted to pretend that she didn’t care. But a “new game” was a temptation for most young people in the Republic of Northwest, and she was no exception.

After a moment’s hesitation, she accepted the test. Accompanied by her mother Asner and a female clergy, she changed into protective clothing to ensure her safety and then laid down in a transparent device.

“I believe this game equipment is expensive...” Clito looked at his daughter and said, “The cost is too high. Can it really be popular?” Yue was lying in the transparent equipment, wearing a breathing mask and gradually being flooded with the protective fluid.

Over the past few years, he followed Leon to learn sword skills. He knew many high-end things, and his horizon was greatly broadened, so he knew that this equipment was very valuable. It might be difficult to popularize the game.

“It was not designed to be popularized,” Klein answered. “His Majesty said in the oracle that he would make hundreds of such equipment and place them in every temple. Every ordinary people need only about two or three experiences, and they can be fully familiar with most dangerous situations. There’s no need to experience it again unless they want to play it.”

Clito understood, thought carefully, and then asked, “In that case, what’s the meaning of making this game?”

“The oracle says that it is to correct people’s misconceptions about fear.” Klein repeated Sui Xiong’s words as follows, “Fear is not a threat, but an instinctive response when people feel in danger. It is beneficial and can effectively help people to avoid risks. An experienced risk-taker will never fear easily, and once he fears, he will be careful and even retreat at that time. For them, fear is not an enemy but an assistant. Only those who lack the experience of taking risks, those who don’t know what danger is will be afraid and panic. This virtual reality experience game is to help ordinary people to be truly exposed to danger in order to eliminate those meaningless fears, and to make the attitude of the whole society towards fear better.”

Clito frowned and thought for a long time, but he still did not understand and so turned to his wife.

His wife, Asner’s swordsmanship was not as good as him, but she was smarter than him. Whenever he encountered something puzzling, his first reaction was to ask his wife for help; and Asner never let him down. Her idea might not be the best, but at least it would be more reliable than that of Clito.

This time was no exception. Asner understood Sui Xiong’s intention of this game.

“His Majesty, the Void Mask, wants to reshape the priesthood of fear!” She said. It seemed that others did not understand, so she explained in detail, “Do you remember? More than a decade ago, His Majesty punished the God of Fear and imprisoned him in the Tree of God. Maybe by now the God of Fear is dead, and the priesthood of fear has been lost, so His Majesty wants to change the world’s view towards fear and then reshape the priesthood of fear.”

“Why?” Crito asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe His Majesty wants to cultivate a kind God of Fear. It’s impossible, but at least a God of Fear who would not be in the Evil Camp.”

“Is it good for His Majesty?” Klein asked.

“When did His Majesty do a good thing for “benefits”? Asner asked.

Everyone understood and couldn’t help but laugh.

His Majesty always did something unexpected. We could never analyze him with the theory of interest.

This was not to say that His Majesty was changeable and easily angered. In fact, everyone who had been with His Majesty knew that he was very easy-going. Even if you made fun of him, he would only laugh and never be angry.

After all, he was a jellyfish.

The thinking pattern of a jellyfish was different from that of humans.

This was the conclusion drawn by many scholars and advisers. After all, they had been surprised countless times by Sui Xiong’s wonderful and unexpected ideas.

His Majesty was quite different from other gods. He had a very unique thinking pattern. Fortunately, one thing was sure—he was a good god. No matter what action he took, he would never harm people, and he would only harm those who were vicious and bad.

This had been proved by his countless achievements.

Unless someone wanted to make trouble with him, he would not fight with others first.

Of course, he did some puzzling things. Even when he fought with evil, many of his actions were unexpected, but anyway, the result was good. And that was enough.

Yes, in this world, people and gods only pursued good results regardless of the process.

Everyone laughed happily.

But in the virtual game, Yue couldn’t laugh at all. She never imagined that this game would turn her into an ordinary risk-taker and let her explore an ancient haunted castle with several partners.

Yue was afraid of ghosts!

The more she thought about ghosts, the more frightened she was. She did not know why, but she was afraid of darkness and spirits.

Principal Felix said that this was because she lacked real adventure experience. When her magic was good enough, the principal would arrange for her to practice with an excellent adventure team for a period of time.

“I used to be afraid of the dark and ghosts in the past. But after I experienced some risks, I am not afraid anymore,” Felix said.

But Yue didn’t want to experience “some risks” at all!

Only once was enough!

“If I had known there were ghosts, I would never have come...” she said in a low voice. “Why do we need to explore this ancient castle with ghosts?”

“Because we are short of money,” a companion heard her complaint, sighed and said. “If we don’t make any money, we need to sleep in the wild.”

“This task is pretty safe,” another clergyman with a metal cane said. “There are ghosts, but no one will die. After all, if we went to exterminate wolves or to expel goblins, it would be very dangerous for rookies.”

Yue’s face was pale when she heard that.

Yes, this team was made up of a group of rookies: trainee knights, trainee paladins, trainee warriors, trainee magicians, and trainee clergymen.

All of them were trainees.

What was a “trainee”? That was to say, this person learned some skills corresponding to a certain profession, but had only just started. They were far from skillful.

The trainee knight meant that he could wear a full set of armor and use his weapon. He would certainly not cut himself, but his companions should stay away from him because he might slice others by mistake.

The trainee paladin meant that he could use a bow or crossbow and only shoot from a very short distance.

A trainee warrior meant that he knew how to use long and short weapons and shields to defeat a wolf or a goblin in one-on-one combat. That was all.

The trainee magician, Yue, only knew a few tricks and could play a minor auxiliary role. Her fighting ability was almost zero.

Probably the trainee clergymen were the most valuable of all trainee professions. After all, they could give medical treatment and had some melee ability.

Yue suddenly realized that she was the weakest one in the whole team, the one who couldn’t offer any help for the team.