Chapter 34: The Quest Bar Part I
"Oh, it’s you. You’re early today."
As soon as Joke arrived at the online room on the third floor, a greeting sounded from behind the desk at the innermost corner. Then appeared a figure of a man who seemed much more energetic than the madame downstairs. He smiled widely the same moment Joke looked around, seeing that most of the rooms were left open—indicating that they were still vacant—while only some were occupied by customers.
"Hello, I really want to use the device."
“Sure.” The man beamed. “Seemed like you’re hooked on AOS, coming in this early. Did you know that you defeating the most difficult bot was the talk of the town? They’re all talking about it in the store’s group chat room.”
"Is that so....?"
Joke replied quietly before handing the online card to the man in front.
“I'm glad you decided to come to our shop. We don’t really have any good newcomer summoners to be the face of our store for such a long time. All of the good ones are now off in professional teams. The only one carrying our shop right now is probably Rin. It’s great to also have you on board.”
That statement caused Joke to let out a dry laugh. He seriously wanted to tell him to not jump to conclusions by considering him as one of the “good ones” because he was now no different from a baby learning how to walk.
“You’ve got a new deck, right?” The man asked as he pointed at the starter deck in his hands. “A Dragon Rider? Seems like you’re off with pretty weird stuff.”
"Well... something like that," Joke nodded.
“Well, if it's you, maybe something interesting might come out of some weird decks,” he said while inserting the online card into some device connecting to the computer on his desk before handing him a new card with the number seven on it. “Here. Yours is a single room number seven. Rin had already taught you how to go online yesterday, right?”
“Yes.”
“Good. My name’s Tawis, but you can call me Tae,” he introduced himself. “You can always ask anything about the online system. As for the card I gave you, just plug it into the slot on the front of the device and it will automatically turn on."
He then gave him a thumb up, which Joke nodded as he grabbed the number seven card into his hands.
"Oh, and when you’re done, please bring that card back to me and I’ll give you back the card you got from the madame. You can then take that card to checkout downstairs—it will record the number of hours you spent for you.”
"Got it."
Joke smiled before immediately gathering all of his belongings and going straight for room number seven.
The atmosphere inside this Online Center was still peaceful, which was very suitable for a quick nap. It rather felt similar to a library, especially with the constant white noise from the air conditioner.
The young man squeezed himself into the mentioned room without any delay. The decor inside the room was simplistic: a chair device and a small table to place his belongings. Joke closed the door before placing his belongings down, dropping himself into the chair, and inserting all of the cards he received into his ID slot.
"So, Insert the quest cards here?" Joke muttered as he opened its side cover and inserted his cards inside. “It could hold around ten cards, I think. Then I should be able to complete ten quests at the same time. But, there’s also a time limit, so I should be careful with the timing.”
He spoke to himself before closing the lid back on and opening another slot, which was empty and ready for his cards to be inserted there. He was secretly excited when he saw that. He placed down his ID slot and turned to grab the starter deck box eagerly because from here onwards, this could be his future.
The young man slowly and carefully unpacked the box. The fifty cards were nicely sealed with plastic along with a produce guide enclosed with it, which Joke decided to read it over later at home. He started peeling off the plastic cover until a set of brand-new cards emitting a distinct “new product smell” finally rested in his hands. Without realization, Joke started smiling like a kid being excited with a new toy. With both of his hands, he slowly spread his new cards to see what kind of cards were available to him. It appeared that most of them were warrior and dragon cards along with some related Skill Cards and around fifteen other types of item cards.
He was already excited just by seeing that. He inserted all of those cards into his ID slot before plugging it into the device awkwardly as he was still not used to it.
"Welcome online. ID confirmed: Summoner Joker."
The voice of the AI from the device went off. Joke bent down to grab the special VR glasses that were on the side, putting them on without delay. The interface—which was the same as what he previously saw—appeared with information on his new deck, automatically registering it into the system.
Joke let out a deep breath.
“Alright, time to go online...”
.
.
"Oh... I popped right in the city this time."
The astonished voice belonged to none other than Joke, who had woken up again when the cool breeze hit his face. The iron-colored orbs glanced around until they saw that the surrounding was no longer the narrow room he was sitting inside earlier—it instead was Lovera, the small town he came for registration yesterday without a doubt.
The tall figure stood in the town square while there were a large number of other summoners walking to and fro.
The liveliness of the surroundings along with its realisticness caused Joke to take a deep breath before letting out a wide smile.
"Okay, then here I go!"
Once the decision had been made, he began stepping forward. He observed the people around him, seeing that everyone was plainly dressed like him, which meant that they were probably new summoners like him—well of course, as he was now in a starter’s town.
"Rin already showed me the surrounding area yesterday, but...."
Joke then opened up the “Map” window and noticed that not all of the area surrounding this city had been explored. Rin had explained that this area was an island open for new players to experiment with the Arcadia world, and all summoners must first complete all the quests in the "Quest Bar" before they could venture out of this island. Only once all of those quests were complete, would there be a quest that provided summoners with an airship to go out of this island.
As seen on the map, the island he was standing on right now was quite large. Even though Rin had shown him areas around the town for almost four hours, the map stated that less than ten percent of the area had been explored.
“Looks like it’s going to take a long time to get out of this new player‘s island.”
He sighed while scrolling around on the map.
Although there were areas on the map that were completely blackened like it was covered by some thick fog, it appeared that there were two other towns located on the map with Lovera situated in the middle of the two. One of them was located at the northernmost end, and the other at the southernmost. He still had no clue what towns those were.
“I remembered Rin also saying that each town gives out different quests. Seems like I have to complete ones in each town to complete every quest,” Joke concluded. “If that’s the case, then first let’s see the quest the madame gave me.”
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone