Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory-Chapter 40: Underground palace

Crystal: 80 units—that’s 1.76 million gold.

Pegasus Knights: 30 units—that’s 1.8 million gold.

And then there’s the cost of training 30 Tier 8 Silver Pegasus Knights—another 2.4 million gold.

All together, that’s 5.96 million gold!

Which meant that even after selling 18 Tier 8 Silver Pegasus Knights for 6.48 million gold, he was barely left with anything.

Sure, this force was more than enough to take down the Unicorn Glade in Wishing Valley.

But once he captured it, the next problem would be recruiting Tier 11 Unicorns, and that was no small issue.

Each Tier 11 Unicorn cost around 1.2 million gold to recruit.

Two of them? That’d be 2.4 million gold...

And let’s not even talk about the massive amount of special resources required!

Yeah... that’s a huge gap to fill.

"Whatever, whatever. Worst case, I’ll just make another trip later." Ethan shook his head, thinking to himself.

Just then, LoS_Starlily suddenly spoke up.

"Valkarion, can I ask you for a favor?"

"A favor?" Ethan blinked, looking at her in confusion. "Starlily, just say it. No need to be so formal."

"Well... Blackblade and I have been working on a chain of C-rank quests for over a year now. But we’ve hit a huge roadblock on the final step!"

A trace of lingering fear flashed across LoS_Starlily’s face as she sighed.

"The last part of the quest requires us to investigate an underground necropolis. And guess what we found down there?"

"What?"

"An 8-Tier Vampire Lord!"

"An 8-Tier Vampire Lord?" Ethan was genuinely surprised.

Vampire Lords were one of the strongest Tier 8 units out there.

Not only could they drain life, but they also had insanely high attack and defense stats. Plus, they were flying units, making them a nightmare to deal with.

No wonder LoS_Starlily and her team were struggling.

With their current strength, there was no way they could handle something like that.

"Isn’t Doombringer your brother? Why not ask him for help?" Ethan asked curiously.

"We were going to, but right now, all the top players in our Legion of Shadows guild are focused on clearing a B-rank chain quest. He can’t leave. He did give me two 8-Tier Crusaders—the ones you sold him last time—but that’s it... So, Valkarion, can you help us?"

At this point, LoS_Starlily gritted her teeth and added, "Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to do it for free. I can pay you 100,000 gold as a commission... It’s all I have on hand right now, so please don’t think it’s too little."

"No need." Ethan shook his head with a smile. "You’re being too polite, Starlily. It’s just a quick favor. Where’s the place? Just take me there."

"Really?" LoS_Starlily’s eyes lit up with excitement. "Valkarion, thank you so much! Seriously, thank you!"

"We’re friends. No need to thank me." Ethan chuckled.

"Friends?"

The moment Ethan said that, LoS_Starlily froze for a second. Then, a bright smile spread across her face as she nodded.

"You’re right... We are friends!"

With that, she stood up and said to Ethan, "Wait here for a bit. I’ll go find Mr. Marty. Once the trade is done, I’ll take you to meet up with Blackblade and the others."

"Alright."

...

Before long, Ethan completed the trade with Legion of Shadows.

In exchange for 18 Silver Pegasus Knights, he received 80 crystals, 30 Pegasus Knights, and 2.92 million gold!

A few moments later, LoS_Starlily led Ethan out of the Silver Horn City tavern and toward the outskirts of town.

After traveling for half a day, they arrived at a gloomy, eerie location.

It was a dark forest, its ground littered with withered branches and dead leaves. The air was thick with the stench of undeath.

Above the forest, dense black clouds loomed, blocking out all sunlight, making the place look even more sinister and terrifying.

Beyond the forest’s edge, a foul, murky river stretched into the darkness, its surface bubbling ominously as it wound its way deep into the heart of the forest.

"This is it. The underground necropolis is at the end of that river—deep inside the Dark Forest." LoS_Starlily pointed toward the river’s distant end.

"Where’s Blackblade?" Ethan asked.

"Let me check..." LoS_Starlily quickly sent a message to LoS_Blackblade and the others.

A few moments later, her face suddenly drained of color.

"W-What?! No... No way! How is this even possible?!"

"What happened?" Ethan’s eyes narrowed as he immediately asked.

Gulp.

LoS_Starlily swallowed hard, then turned to Ethan, her face filled with fear.

"Valkarion, this is bad—really bad! Blackblade and the others just found an NPC hero from the Necropolis faction inside the underground palace... and he’s got eight Tier 8 Vampire Lords and two Tier 9 Liches with him!"

"The quest difficulty just skyrocketed! Blackblade and the others are hiding inside the palace right now, too scared to move. If they get spotted... they’re done for!"

"The mission difficulty got upgraded?" Ethan was momentarily stunned.

In the world of Glory Lords X, mission difficulty wasn’t set in stone. In a way, this was a fully realized, living world where things could change and evolve naturally.

Most of the time, the ones issuing quests weren’t just some faceless "game system" but rather the native inhabitants of Glory Lords X—the NPCs.

And of course, they weren’t omniscient. They could make mistakes—misjudgments, misinformation, all sorts of errors.

When that happened, the difficulty of a mission could shift.

It could get harder, leveling up, or it could get easier, scaling down. Both were possibilities.

In extreme cases, at least in theory, a mission could go from a lowly F-rank task one second to an absurd SSS-rank nightmare the next.

Anything was possible.

Still, if it was just eight Tier-8 Vampire Lords and two Tier-9 Liches, it didn’t seem too bad...

"Share the mission with me," Ethan said.

"Got it!" LoS_Starlily nodded quickly and sent the updated mission details to Ethan.

Ding! Congratulations, player "Valkarion", you have received a shared mission.

Mission Triggered: Vestal’s Plea for Aid

Objective: Destroy the Lich Conversion Tower in the undead underground palace, defeat the evil Necropolis hero Ephram the Dread, and rescue Vestal Liora of the Unicorn Duchy’s Sixth Legion—"Blessing of Light".

Difficulty: B-rank

Time Limit: Three days

Special Note: The more time remaining upon completion, the greater the rewards.

A B-rank mission—that was pretty much the highest level of content that players at their current Tier could even attempt.

Even the top guilds worldwide would struggle with a B-rank mission. To clear one, they’d need to send their absolute best—their top-tier combat elites.

And this Vestal Liora...?

She had a name?

Ethan immediately understood.

If she had a name, then she was almost certainly an NPC hero.

And not just any hero—she was a hero of the Vestal, a rare Tier-6 hidden unit!

In Glory Lords X, every faction had its standard units, but there were also hidden and special units—troops that were either incredibly rare or strategically invaluable, making them almost never seen by the general player base.

But that didn’t mean they didn’t exist.

Take the Vestal unit, for example. They were devoted followers of the Holy Dragon, dedicated to bringing light and warmth to those in need...

In other words, they were healers—capable of restoring health to units and even performing small-scale resurrections.

That alone made them invaluable. Even though they were only Tier-6, they were considered one of the most strategically important units in the entire Castle faction.

To many players, a Tier-6 Vestal was more valuable than an Elite Unit at Tier-8—and even on par with a Champion Unit at Tier-9.

If the regular units were already that valuable, then an actual Vestal hero?

No way the Unicorn Duchy, one of the Eight Great Duchies, would ever willingly give up a Vestal hero.

"Let’s head in and take a look..."

With that thought in mind, Ethan immediately decided to delve into the undead underground palace.

"Alright..."

LoS_Starlily took a deep breath, gritted her teeth, and turned to Ethan. "Valkarion, how about I give you all my troops?"

"Why?" Ethan was momentarily taken aback.

"I’m only level 27. My attack and defense stats aren’t as high as yours. You’re definitely a higher level than me. If I give you my troops, they’ll be much more effective."

She paused for a moment before continuing, "Besides, we didn’t expect the mission difficulty to increase, but that’s still on us—we made a mistake. We can’t let you take all the losses for nothing. Any troops lost in this mission... we’ll take responsibility for that."

She tried to sound composed, but even Ethan could hear the pain in her voice.

A B-rank mission.

Eight Tier-8 Vampire Lords, two Tier-9 Liches...

And an unknown Necropolis hero lurking in the shadows.

For them, this mission was impossible.

Deep down, she had already given up on completing it.

At this point, all she wanted was to rescue LoS_Blackblade and the others trapped inside the undead palace.

But that was going to be dangerous—extremely dangerous. One wrong move, and they could suffer devastating losses.

Still, she had no choice. She couldn’t just abandon LoS_Blackblade and the others.

"Starlily, don’t worry. It’s really not as bad as it seems."

Ethan smiled and said, "Go ahead and give me your troops. Just the ones Tier-7 and above. I don’t need anything lower than that."

"O-okay, okay... Valkarion, I have two Tier-8 Crusaders and five Tier-7 Swordsmen. I’ll give them all to you!" LoS_Starlily’s eyes lit up with excitement as she stared at Ethan. Then, as if she couldn’t help herself, she asked, "Is that enough? I also have ten Tier-6 Royal Griffins—do you want them?"

"No need, this is plenty. Let’s go." Ethan shook his head with a smile.

He only accepted the two Tier-8 Crusaders and five Tier-7 Swordsmen.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

A brilliant light flashed beside him as the Crusaders and Swordsmen materialized, standing tall and ready for battle.

But they weren’t the only ones.

Beside Ethan, three towering figures wreathed in blue flames emerged.

"Wait... Tier-8 Energy Elementals?" LoS_Starlily gasped in shock.

"Yep." Ethan nodded, then strode toward the eerie darkness of the forest ahead.

LoS_Starlily hurried to follow.

Before long, they arrived at the entrance of a ruined, ominous underground palace.