Game of the World Tree

“It must be tough to be attacked by an undead army and unable to retaliate. To make matters worse, even Hela’s own believers were unable to use the undead for a counterattack. In a sense, Hela’s situation is quite miserable…”

Evé sighed whilst seated upon her throne within the World Tree’s divine kingdom.

At this moment, Evé could somewhat understand why Hela, a deity with intermediate divine power, would choose to ally with her.

Beyond the fact that Hela had a close relationship with the former World Tree, the Goddess of Death did indeed need a strong ally that can operate outside the Netherworld, especially one that’s active within the realm of Seigües.

“In the recent battle, I felt that Hela’s power was being suppressed by something. Could it be the effect of a divine artifact? Hmm, it appears Hela has deeper motivations for continuing this war…”

“From the look of it, this war in the underground is likely to last a long time. Well…I’ll just think of it as a training ground for the players, just like a war scenario within a game!”

Evé shook her head, swinging her long legs gently.

She was in a fairly good mood.

It was fun to watch all this unfold without worrying about the big things.

At this moment, the great “new” Goddess of Life was holding a fruit similar to a watermelon from earth, as she enjoyed its sweet, juicy pulp while watching the gigantic sand table in front of her with great interest.

After ascending to a meager divine power, Evé had conjured this three-dimensional sand table through the use of her divine powers.

It’s main purpose was to better sp—cough ‘track’ the movements of the players.

Inspecting it more closely, this sand table showed all the areas currently explored by the players, with the World Tree at its center.

It was like a miniature three-dimensional map of Seigües, and scattered around it, one could also see numerous tiny blue lights moving about ever so slowly across the sand table, representing each player.

Conviniently, whenever Evé wanted to view a specific player’s perspective, she only needed a mere thought to bring up the corresponding blue light and focus into it.

Through the use of this sand table, Evé could effortlessly monitor all player activities and could monitor on anyone of interest at any given time.

If she desired, she could even project her avatar to the player’s precise location via the game system linked onto them.

However, doing so would consume a significant amount of divine energy.

All of this was possible due to her improved precision in controlling divine power after ascending to a meager divine status.

Overall, this god-like overview feels quite entertaining, reminding Evé of her time playing real-time strategy games, wherein the players act as her villagers and soldiers.

Currently, among the 60,000 tiny blue specks of lights, nearly a third of them congregated around the world underground.

These were the players that had taken on the underground war quest.

The vast majority of them consisted of veteran players from the first three beta-tests, but some fast-progressing new players from the fourth beta-test have also joined.

At the start, they mainly operated within the vicinity of Blade City.

However, nowadays, except for some life-oriented players interested in trading with the dark-dwarves or exploration-focused players fond of uncovering new unknown locations, most of the players have moved onto the nearby city-state, Shanathar.

Evé had already observed their perspectives and knew that the players were once again battling the Dark Alliance’s forces attacking Shanathar.

However, unlike the previous battle, it was evident that after the three-day battle in Blade City, most participating players had almost exhausted their stock of resurrection coins.

Therefore, apart from the newly joined fourth-beta players, the older players were now much more cautious in combat.

Furthermore, after learning what these elves are capable of from their unsuccessful invasion of Blade City, the Dark Alliance this time around grew more increasingly cautious.

They have shifted their strategy away from relying solely on direct assaults and have instead opted to employ long-range tactics aimed at weakening the forces of the Hermetic Alliance at a distance.

As a result, the casualties on the Dark Alliance’s side significantly decreased.

Alas, this shift in the enemy’s strategy increased the likelihood of the war becoming more and more of a long drawn-out prolonged conflict.

On the player’s side, while the veteran players were being overly cautious, striving to stay alive, knowing that even a single mistake could lead to a level drop. In contrast, the newbies from the fourth beta persisted on using their initial reckless strategy.

Reviving without a resurrection coin doesn’t incur severe penalties for them and by maintaining their level at lvl 11, they usually accumulate just enough resurrection coins within a day.

Thus, these newcomers continued merrily abusing the resurrection exploit to farm equipment promised by the Shanathar officials.

However, unlike before, they now mostly do it only once a day to avoid being discovered.

If this trend continued, Evé seriously doubted whether this particular city-state would go bankrupt from the players’ relentless farming once the remaining thousands of fourth-beta players all reached the Iron-rank.

Nevertheless, Evé decided to let the players keep the equipment they had farmed from Shanathar, unlike what she had done when they exploited the binding function in Maple Leaf City to ripped off the Blackmarket Companies.

The reason is that on one hand, the players this time were only acquiring good-quality equipment, which didn’t disrupt the game’s balance as much as the high-tier items they’ve got from Maple Leaf City’s Blackmarket.

Secondly, the tens of thousands of newly joined players did indeed need substantial equipment to fully arm themselves.

Moreover, when these additional pieces of equipment eventually got damaged, most players would choose to send them to Evé as an offering in exchange for contribution points.

And after the players sent over these damaged equipment as offerings, Evé would then repair it and add some special properties or upgrade it to a higher-leveled gear before selling it back in the exchange store.

Hence, a perfect cycle wherein both she and the players would mutually benefit!

Regarding the divine power consumed during the players’ resurrection, Evé had amassed an abundance of divine power by now, so she really didn’t mind it.

Not to mention, in theory, each revival consumed resurrection coins that players earned through their own efforts, effectively working for Evé in the process.

In summary, while the players might profit significantly, Evé herself never loses any profit whilst doing the bare minimum.

Of course, this applied only to players up to level 40 and below.

The Silver-rank marked the first significant threshold of extraordinary power.

So once a player became a Silver-ranker, they transitioned from a mere low-ranker to mid-rank experts.

Although the gap between mid-rank and low-rank experts wasn’t as vast as that between mid-rank and high-rank experts, the lifeforce within their bodies was no longer on the same level.

Therefore, once a player ascended into the Silver-rank, the cost of resurrecting them would multiply several times over.

It’s precisely because of this that Evé wasn’t planning to raise the level cap higher than 40 for players yet.

She intended to wait until her divine power was more ample enough or until she found a way to fully repair the “Scepter of Life” before raising the maximum levels for the players.

Anyway, with the current exaggerated number of players, once everyone became an Iron-ranker, merely resorting to human wave tactics alone will be enough to eliminate any threats below the Golden-rank…

And any enemies above the Golden-rank will be handled by Eve’s Godwardens.

Of course, nothing in life is absolute.

Before then, Evé might set specific promotion slots to allow some outstanding players to advance to Silver-rank sooner, to compensate for her faction’s lack of intermediate-ranked experts.

Hmm, this could be another excellent incentive for the players to work more harder…

Evé inwardly mused happily.

Time continues on and as the war underground progresses further, the players’ strength, as well as the number and type of participants in the war, begin to subtly shift…

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【 WHILE YOU PROFIT SIGNIFICANTLY, I, EVÉ NEVER LOSES! 】

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