Chapter Forty-Two: The Northern Outpost

According to what he knew, there was a Mage Tower within the Cross Fortress. If he could raise his reputation here to the level of Revered, several highly valuable items could be purchased. These included a Mage Class Change Certificate and an Enchanter Profession Certificate.

Indeed, Chu Cheng was considering changing his class. The Dual Blade Warrior was only an intermediate melee class, with extremely limited potential. Early on, he had no choice but to take up this class due to a lack of options. Now that his power had grown and he could afford to choose, he definitely wanted to switch to something stronger.

The Mage class was one of his alternatives. As a caster, the Mage was considered a top-tier class, offering four different specializations to choose from. Chu Cheng’s plan was to first obtain the Mage class, and at the same time, acquire the Enchanter profession. Then he would see if it was possible to get another top-tier melee class. If that worked out, he would still prioritize switching to a melee class—ideally, a top-tier tank.

Apart from his own talents being best suited for melee, it was mainly because most of the skills he had learned so far were exclusive to melee classes. Since the limit for first-tier learnable skills was only ten, switching to Mage would mean he could only keep a few abilities; the rest would have to be forgotten and replaced with spells. It was important to note that forgetting a skill didn’t refund the skill points spent on it—such a waste.

This was a rare opportunity. Since everyone was coming to the Golden Wasteland, a mid-sized instance, for the first time, no one had yet reached Revered reputation. This meant all the reputation rewards were still available—the first to achieve Revered would gain the biggest benefit.

Before entering the instance, Chu Cheng had already collected information on the Golden Wasteland, especially details related to reputation. He knew that gaining reputation with the Cross Fortress was much harder than with the Black Sail Pirates instance. Following the regular process, it would take half a year or more to reach Revered.

There was only one shortcut to rapidly achieve this: at the decisive moment of the Cross Fortress-Alliance’s battle against the Horde at the Blackwater River, if he could turn the tide at the critical moment, he would receive a massive reputation boost, enough to instantly reach Revered.

The first step to gaining reputation: “Eliminate the hostiles!”

Strictly speaking, there were several ways to start accumulating reputation, but for him, fighting and killing was the easiest. Humans began with a friendly reputation; before reaching Esteemed, one could gain reputation by eliminating orcs, centaurs, and other hostile races harassing the human frontline outposts.

That afternoon, Chu Cheng left the Cross Fortress. At the fortress logistics office, he accepted an assignment to accompany a rotating squad and a supply convoy to the Northern Outpost.

The Northern Outpost, located north of the Cross Fortress, was the very front line, sitting by the Blackwater River—the major story event two months later would take place nearby.

Along with him, besides the rotating squad, were over a hundred classmates from various units, including several elite teams. To his surprise, both Zhang Chunlei’s and Wang Weilong’s teams were among them. Somehow, they had managed to secure two wagons.

Wang Weilong noticed Chu Cheng as well, but simply nodded from a distance, his expression calm. Chu Cheng knew well that some resentment lingered in Wang’s heart—after all, it was because of him that Wang had left Unit Five.

On the other hand, Zhang Chunlei invited him to ride along, and Chu Cheng didn’t hesitate to accept.

“I didn’t expect you’d also be heading to the Northern Outpost.”

“I’m going there to grind reputation,” Chu Cheng replied.

Zhang Chunlei suddenly understood. “So you’re taking the reputation route. In that case, there’s no need to form a party.”

“That’s right.”

“Not a bad choice,” Zhang Chunlei nodded. “No one in this instance has Revered reputation; everyone is on equal footing. If you can be the first to reach Revered, you’ll hit the jackpot.”

Chu Cheng nodded in agreement. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

“But you should be careful—plenty of others have the same idea. Even in Class One, the strongest students have allies supporting them, so their reputation gains will be much faster than yours alone.”

“I know,” Chu Cheng said.

The journey was uneventful. Though the wasteland teemed with all kinds of beasts, animal instinct kept them from challenging so large a force.

Across the vast expanse roamed creatures familiar from the real world—zebras, boars, lions, hyenas, antelope, bison, crocodiles—as well as velociraptors, landstriders, goblins, gnolls, trolls, ogres, and other wild beasts and hostile races commonly found in the Chaotic Realm.

The group followed the main road north for thirty or forty kilometers, until in the distance they saw a high ground topped by a massive stone fortress.

“We’ve reached the Northern Outpost!”

From the tall watchtower came the long blare of a horn. The fortress gates swung open, and a squad of cavalry rode out to escort the supply convoy inside.

The stone fortress was spacious, covering over a hundred acres within its high walls, and housing more than two hundred soldiers. Most were infantry, with two small cavalry squads—about twenty riders in all.

Inside were barracks, stables, a blacksmith, and more.

The fortress stood beside the Blackwater River. Walking around the outpost, Chu Cheng soon saw, a kilometer to the east, a wide river bordered by gentle mudflats, now cultivated as farmland where many human peasants worked the fields.

Most of these peasants resided in nearby riverside villages, only retreating within the fortress during times of war.

Once the hundred-plus students entered the fortress, they immediately sought out officers and other NPCs to establish connections and receive quests. More than half had the same goal as Chu Cheng: to grind reputation.

For the vast majority of students, this was an excellent strategy. Most non-elite students had no hope of competing for the major bosses; for them, reputation grinding offered the greatest rewards. Once their reputation increased, they would be able to purchase reputation items from the faction.

For a major force like the Cross Fortress in a mid-sized instance, reputation items were of much higher quality than those in smaller instances. At Esteemed, one could buy good blue gear and tier-appropriate items; at Revered, one could purchase rare-grade equipment that, in smaller instances, was only dropped by final bosses or five-star events.

They didn’t expect to reach Revered; Esteemed would be enough.

After circling the edge of the fortress and returning inside, Chu Cheng found a crowd gathered in the central square. Approaching, he saw two boards posted: the Bounty Board and the Outpost Task Board.

The Bounty Board listed boss bounties posted by the outpost—mainly bosses roaming the wasteland nearby. The Task Board offered a wide variety of quests: patrols, sentry duty, helping villagers carry water and irrigate, as well as dangerous missions against nearby hostile tribes.

No matter the task, all offered reputation rewards upon completion.

It was worth noting that, unlike some games, these tasks weren’t exclusive—just because you accepted a quest didn’t mean others couldn’t. This wasn’t a game. In theory, everyone could attempt the task, but only those who delivered the boss’s head would be credited with completion.

Fortunately, boss tasks typically defaulted to party completion—no matter how many people participated, up to five could complete the quest and split the reward.

Chu Cheng studied both boards several times, memorizing every bounty and combat mission, then turned and walked away.

What he didn’t know was that, as he left the outpost, several pairs of eyes were fixed on his back.