Chapter 1555 — 1555: Exposed

Lex read the notification multiple times just to be sure he understood everything correctly. Honestly, considering how infrequently he received quests on a regular basis, he wasn't sure just how common Joint quests would be.

Of course, there were times when he would get a lot of quests, but the frequency was still intermittent. He summarized that the irregular quests were as a result of the system still being semi broken.

He had suspected, due to the very nature of Joint quests, that their frequency wouldn't be determined by the broken state of his own system. One instance was not enough to determine the outcome.

The problem now was that he wasn't sure what to expect. For example, the Joint quest notification specified that the quest would be initiated in one hour. What did that mean? Would he be teleported elsewhere, or would the Midnight Tavern be teleported there?

At the moment he had two taverns, one in the Crystal realm and one in Arra-kiss. He wanted to move neither, nor was he sure that they would suit the needs of this specific Joint quest either. So did that mean he had only 1 hour to make a new tavern if he didn't want to move those two?

Much more important than those two was another glaring issue. Through this quest, it had basically been confirmed to Lex that the Reaving Dread mercenaries were run by a system user. Similarly, the owner of the Reaving Dread would now know that the Midnight Inn was run by a System user!

Considering the fact that one of the best ways to increase a systems rating was by absorbing other systems, this put him at grave risk! Especially because the Midnight Inn was in no way, shape, or form, able to compete with the Reaving Dread mercenary group.

The only thing Lex could think of that might save him if the mercenary group decided to attack was a full powered Butter Knife.

Yet he had tried to goad the system into giving him another one of those multiple times to no avail.

This was a significant issue, but he was not panicking just yet

"Mary, I have questions about the joint quests. You should have information on them now, right?"

The redhead assistant popped up wearing goggles and a full body swimsuit, holding a surfing board in her hand.

"I really like the new projection guest zone you've built," she said, not at all concerned about the pressure of the Joint quest.

"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself," said Lex, suppressing his lip from twitching. "But back to this thing about the Joint quest. I have a few, moderately important issues to discuss if you have the time to spare."

"Yeah, yeah, go ahead," she said, plopping down on a projection of a beach chair. "You're right. The system has shared a lot of information about Joint quests with me that I can now tell you. So what're your questions?"

"Let's start with the big bad question. Now that the Reaving Dread are aware that the Midnight Inn is run by a System user, what's to stop them from attacking the Inn and taking over? It wouldn't even be that hard, considering a majority of our protection is handled by them to begin with."

"A few things actually," Mary said. "You should already know that the Systems are designed very holistically. Let's start with the fact that failing a Joint quest automatically hits you with a penalty that causes your system to fall down in a grade. At lower grades, such as C and D that might not be such a massive downgrade, but on higher levels it can practically cripple how a system operates. So, right off the bat, any possible gain that Reaving Dread would stand to gain from targeting you would be counteracted by the loss he would suffer from failing the quest.

"This protection works both ways. After all, keep in mind that the owner of the Reaving Dread does not know that the Innkeeper isn't really a Dao Lord. No matter how many Heavenly or Celestial Immortals he may have, they're all pointless in front of a Dao Lord. Unless he's certain of his ability to defeat the Innkeeper, attacking the Midnight Inn would be foolish. Instead, he would be worrying about the possibility of the Innkeeper absorbing his system instead!"

Lex nodded, feeling a certain amount of pressure reduced. The very specific consequence acted not only as motivation to complete the quest, but as protection from all those involved in quests.

Of course, this wasn't foolproof. The two parties could still target each other after the quest, not to mention that if a system user wasn't necessarily certain about their odds, they could ally with others to attack. After all, the allies didn't need to know about the system.

As long as they targeted the organization and helped him take down the system user of the opposing faction, all one would need to do is ensure they get their hands on the system at the end.

But that wasn't a certainty, and like Mary said, it posed a risk. The Condottiere, the owner of the mercenaries, didn't know that the Innkeeper wasn't a Dao Lord. That alone should be enough of a deterrent for now. After all, it had been enough of a deterrent for the rest of the universe.

"But that's just the indirect form of protection. The more direct form of protection is that once you have a Joint quest partner, it is unlikely for your partner to change easily. That means, for better or for worse, you're stuck together. In that case, having a powerful or competent partner is extremely important, because that would protect you from suffering devolutions in the future as well.

"If, in the middle of a Joint quest, one of the system users were to fall, that does not mean the quest would be finished. Instead, the remaining party would have to continue the quest on their own until they are assigned a new partner.

"Much more importantly, there is a huge benefit to having an alliance with another system user. That's in case you encounter a Competitive quest. This is another thing I've never heard of before, but it's essentially a quest that multiple system users compete with one another for to complete. Now that is much more dangerous."