Jacob removed his staff from the eye of the Elemental Dragon Val'skülar and heaved a sigh of relief. It had been a close fight, but with this he was confident that he would finally be able to complete his last Epic grade subquest. After 3 years of hard work it was time to reap the rewards of his efforts.

  He skillfully used an enchanted crystalline knife to dismantle the body of the dragon and stored everything in his spacial storage before tearing a self-made teleport scroll to return to the city. He arrived at a big square in Lorenia, the capital city of this world in Grand Nexus Online. His home-world, Athros, was only one of the Higher worlds in the game, where worlds were apparently ranked from lower to Primordial, divided in a grand 9 levels, but a large part of the player base had yet to move beyond their first home-world thus far.

  After buying some skewers from a stall he looked for a secluded area and finally started reading back on all his notifications since the kill on the Elemental Dragon.

  It's finally here! His hand trembled slightly as he brought up his questlog.

  Finally completed, after all this time. Now I just need to get to the alchemist guild and make the potion.

  He made quick work of the last skewer in his hand before departing to the alchemist guild. People didn't bother him as he walked through the busy streets, his insignia of the Mage Tower showing that he was not to be trifled with. As he entered the doors of the guild he was immediately greeted by a receptionist.

  "Welcome back sir Griff, are you here to make a purchase or to use the facilities?"

  "I would like to speak with the guildmaster about some private affairs. Can you see if he is available right now? Just tell him it's about the favor he owes me from 2 years ago."

  "Yes sir, I'll go and ask him right away sir, just wait here for a while please!"

  Watching a frantic receptionist run up the stairs of the guild Jacob inwardly chuckled as he decided to spend the waiting time going over the process of making the Draconic Baptism. The main ingredient was the recently obtained dragon heart, which would contain the power of a True Dragon's bloodline, while the Tear of the Dragon God was required to make a connection to the ancestral spirit of the Dragon God, whose recognition was required to activate the dragon blood. The 50 units of troll blood would have to be compressed into a single unit and was only added in order to continuously restore the body as it would go through the metamorphosis, and the other ingredients would function as catalysts to bind everything together.

  Just as he finished committing the detailed recipe to mind hurried footsteps were heard as the receptionist from before came down while being followed by an old man with a long beard. He dismissed his inner thoughts and focused on the task at hand which he actually considered the hardest part of this quest: dealing with the eccentric alchemist.

  "It's good to see you again guild master Rodriguez, we haven't met in a while."

  "Aiyaaaa, it's been a while little magician friend. I heard from that old coot Balchidor that you were learning all kinds of magic without mastering a single one of them. You should learn from your elders young one, the path to greatness is traveled by perfecting an art, not by becoming a jack of all trades. Back in the day I used to be like you, full of vigour and trying to go on adventures, I remember back when I just arrived in the capital and the first mission they gave me when I wanted to join the mage's guild was to slay a Night Wolf. It took me a long time to..."

  Jacob spent the next 5 hours listening quietly and attentively to the old man and his stories. This guild master of the alchemy guild was in fact a Continental Boss level character, similar to the old archmage, but he had an eccentric personality. Jacob was in fact the only player who ever gained anything from this old man, and this was because of this man having a strange personality where he would refuse to deal with anyone who ever tried to interrupt his stories, or failed to pay enough attention to him while he was telling them. Rodriguez was one of the only high level characters that would in fact be willing to speak to any player no matter how weak of infamous they were, but whenever they interrupted him or failed to keep up with his stories the relationship would be ruined instantly and he would refuse any future communication.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Jacob was one of the few people who ever managed to complete a talk with the 'eccentric old man' without souring their relationship, but he was the only player who actually managed to persevere enough to improve the relationship to the point where he gained benefits with the alchemy guild, as well as access to special quests from the guildmaster. He even completed a Rare grade quest once which earned him 'a favor from Rodriguez'. A favor from a Continental Boss grade character! This was considered as something that could not be gained through money. But now Jacob was planning to use this favor for an extremely simple request.

  "... and that's how I became known as the Scourge of Snowland Abby."

  "That was a great story sir. I bet you were a real character back then. Even if you were to return there someday right now they would remember your name and tremble."

  "Thank you young man, I know some of you young ones don't like to spend time humouring an old man like me, but it's nice to know there are those that really do appreciate my stories. Who appreciates your stories stinking old man, just get on with it already!

  I will not hold you here any longer though, it's time to go back to my research."Finally!

  "Please hold for another moment master Rodriguez, there is one thing I would like you to aid me with."

  "Kid, you should know that I don't do random favors. I don't help people and people don't help me, that's how I always do things."

  "But I recall that you requested my aid once 2 ago and you said you would owe me a single favor once I completed it. You do remember right, how I helped cleanse your reputation with the ladies in..."

  "Okay, okay I'll help you just tell me what you want just be quiet about that!"

  "I would like to use your personal laboratory once to make a potion."

  "What kind of potion would you need my lab for that our guild facilities are not enough to... No, wait, never mind, you can use it, but only this one time, and you better not be asking me for favors again in the future."

  "Thank you sir, I will be careful."

  Well, I sort of knew that would happen with that personality of his, but it is still worth it I guess. The 100% success rate of his lab is necessary to complete this potion, otherwise I wouldn't know what to do if I were to waste the materials on a failure.

  Jacob was then led to the laboratory of the guildmaster and spent the next 3 hours there to complete the Draconic Baptism, while managing to become a Profound Alchemist in the process, though he kept this information hidden from the world. After all any alchemist that reached the Grandmaster level was already forcibly drafted into the various guilds around the world if their name became public knowledge, not to mention a Profound one.

  When his concoction process was finished it took just a few seconds before Guildmaster Rodriguez kicked him out of the room without a word, but he didn't mind it too much right now. After all, with the potion in his inventory he was only a single step away from finally completing his Origin grade quest.

  He hurried to the hotel room he had rented in the city. He had paid for a specially prepared room with Grandmaster level containment arrays inscribed on its walls as a precaution since he highly suspected that completing his quest would cause an upheaval in the surrounding mana, which would attract unwanted attention to himself.

  He entered his room, locked the door and then activated all the containment arrays before sitting down in the middle of the room and taking out de Draconic Baptism. Although the game had a lot of useful mechanics such as levels, skill tiers and the quest system, it lacked one thing that had driven all the players mad when it was first released. The game had no status levels or inspection skills that allowed one to find out information about certain items.

  The only way to glean new information from certain items in Grand Nexus Online was by training perception related skills that enabled one to feel the effects certain items could have by the flow of the mana it created, or by reading books that contained said information. This was extremely important, since a quest would only consider an item to be attained for quest completion when the item had been succesfully identified.

  Books were not that easy to come by though, since library access had different requirements for every city, and in some cases the libraries even had a layered system where each layer required a higher level of requirements to gain access.

  Because of this information was prized highly in the game, to such a point that the richest guilds in the game were in fact not the pioneering guilds who played on the frontlines of the exploration of new areas, but the information guilds that dealt in information by having their members gain access to as many books as possible in order to create databases that other guilds would be allowed to search for specific information at a certain price.

  Jacob himself had never been part of any guild. When he first started he had considered joining one after he finished his class change to an elemental mage, but then he got the Origin grade quest because he was progressing through the class change quest at a rate that was far faster than expected. He had realised quickly that this type of information was not something he could share with anyone else, and so he had played on his own from then on, slowly building up his skills and abilities while trying to progress in his quest.

  And now was the moment where it had all been leading to. He examined the Draconic Baptism one more time with his mana sensory skill, and reaffirmed himself that it felt exactly as the recipe had pointed out it should. The fact that creating the potion had raised his alchemy level upon completion also was a clear sign that it was a success.

  A few more seconds of waiting later he uncorked the crystal flask holding the potion and downed it in a single go. Instantly he felt a burning senstation around his body as the mana flowing through him was changed on a fundamental level once more. He had experienced a similar feeling when he unlocked the ability to use fairy magic and divine magic, so this was not anything new to him.

  As the burning sensation slowly faded, he grasped the new feeling of the mana in his body while taking the time to read the slew of system notification that had popped up as the process had finished.

  After looking through the windows Jacob slowly came to the realisation that his Origin grade quest still had not been completed. As he reread the quest description he came to the realisation that he only now qualified to continue with the completion of the quest after completing the Legendary quest that had required him to learn how to use each type of magic in existence.

  As he was slowly starting to panic because of his lack of information on how he was going to continue with the completion of the quest that would grant him the ability to use Origin magic he failed to pay attention to the world message that had been released shortly after his quest had been completed. The world message that would be the reason for his undoing in Grand Nexus Online.

  As Jacob left his gaming cabin he was completely unaware of the chaos he had caused. He slowly prepared his dinner while drinking his bottle of nutrient fluid to replenish his body. He took some time to read through the latest chapters of RSSG on qidian. As he walked from the kitchen to his couch he was completely unaware of the people that had been searching for his identity ever since the global message had been sent out in the game. A wish without restrictions granted by Lucid Gaming meant that nearly anything could be accomplished. This was simply how powerful the company was in the world, and the influential people around the world would not allow someone else to be granted this boon. Not when they would be able to try and get it themselves in the future.

  Since Jacob had never bothered making a special name for his character in the game, and was never tech-savvy enough to protect his privacy on the internet it didn't take long for these influential people to dig up his identity and send a kill order.

  Jacob had just deposited himself on his couch and turned on the news, not noticing the snipers taking position on the building opposite from his appartment. His eyes widened to an unbelievable degree as he looked at the news to see the global game message he had missed when he was in his gaming cabin. They somehow managed to widen even further when he saw the red light flash across his eyes when the sniper zoned in on his forehead.

  His last thought was that he really should have turned off the stove before leaving the kitchen, as the bullet pierced through him, passing through his head and moving on through the living room to said stove, causing an explosion that destroyed his whole appartment.