Dwarves were a humanoid race. On the native continent, the number of Dwarves was scarce—even fewer than the Elves. There used to be quite a few Dwarves among the Foreigners, but their numbers were also steadily dwindling.
This was because the Dwarves, a race renowned for forging weapons, had lost the very techniques they took pride in. To be precise, they had lost the Wisdom of forging.
A Dwarf could not increase their Intelligence. Even if they equipped items capable of boosting Intelligence, the stat would instantly be reduced to zero. It was as if a Dwarf’s Intelligence was forever locked at zero, making it impossible for them to acquire any Profession linked to the stat.
This was an unknown Curse.
Marika, possessing Dwarf blood, suffered from this very Curse.
Blaze didn’t retain many memories of his childhood, but he knew Marika felt insecure about her lineage. Her insecurity, however, didn’t stem from her inability to raise her Intelligence. When other girls hit puberty and blossomed into beautiful young women with long legs, Marika remained dark-skinned and short.
Sometimes, she even worried that she would grow a thick beard or develop massive muscles, turning into a square-shaped block. Fortunately, it was just that her Dwarf bloodline gave her a longer growth cycle. She was like a piece of forged steel—hammered and stretched out until she finally became a shining, majestic Female Knight.
Yet, Marika had never been troubled by the fact that she was a Dwarf lacking the Wisdom to forge. Since she couldn’t raise her Intelligence, she simply raised her Faith to learn Magic instead. Because of this, the fruit containing the Wisdom of the Dwarves wasn’t anything important to her.
"Why did she give this to me?" Blaze murmured, pinching the fruit as he fell into deep thought. He didn’t recall ever mentioning he wanted to be a Blacksmith; if anything, he wanted to be a Farmer.
Unfortunately, the Farmer class had been hyper-competitively optimized by the Foreigners into an Advanced Profession. Wherever crops could be grown, the Foreigners completely monopolized the land. They were even attempting to Cultivate plants in environments entirely unfit for farming.
"Forget it. I’ll find a chance to give it back to her later."
Blaze tossed the apple back into his inventory. Following the Natural Guidance visible only to him, he arrived before a massive ancient tree.
The leaves of this ancient tree were a brilliant gold.
Legend had it that all trees on this continent originated from the great and noble Golden Giant Tree, but only those that grew to a certain height would sprout Golden Leaves. These pure and beautiful leaves possessed the power to heal wounds and Curses.
In the era when the Ancient Races still roamed the land, such trees were worshipped as Totems and figures of Faith. They respectfully referred to them as the Tree of Life.
But the Tree of Life before him was incredibly fragile, with more than half of its Golden Leaves curled and scorched brown. The Erosion of the Evil God’s Blood upon the forest was killing it.
The Natural Guidance directed Blaze toward the Life Tree Roots, where a seemingly bottomless hollow gaped open.
"Is this the entrance to the Golden Tree Sea the Foreigners talked about?"
Blaze bent down and tentatively gauged the opening. Its size was perfect, almost as if it had been tailor-made for him.
According to the Hunters’ guides made by the Foreigners, one had to first complete a hidden challenge related to the Tree of Life in order to enter the Golden Tree Sea. However, he didn’t know what would happen after that; the Foreigners had deliberately lowered their voices when discussing that part.
"Alright, I’ll just squeeze in then."
After accepting the quest, Blaze leaned down and slipped into the tree hollow. Although it was pitch-black inside, it was surprisingly not cramped. In fact, it felt as though it was growing more spacious the deeper he went.
By the time he was able to stand upright and walk, a sudden light flashed before his eyes. His surroundings became incredibly expansive, as if he had stepped into a chaotic, boundless dimension where stars dotted the entire expanse above.
"Where is this..."
Blaze took a single step forward. The stars in the sky abruptly ceased their movement. A bizarre stench of blood diffused through the air, accompanied by a viscous mire oozing down from the stars.
The liquid pooled and morphed as if it possessed Life of its own. One by one, terrifying Wild Beasts crawled out from the muck, looking as though they had just emerged from the gloomy Shadow World.
[Curse of the Evil God Level: ?]
[The Curse of the Evil God dwelling within the blood. Ravaging, tearing, and Destruction are its core components. They will shriek and chuckle lowly as they push all Life into a sea of fire, howling over the ashes to welcome the descent of a new Evil God.]
Even without the reminder from the Blessing, Blaze understood perfectly well. The vague voice brought by the Natural Guidance was undoubtedly asking him to wipe out these Monsters—the physical manifestations of the Curse of the Evil God.
Meanwhile, in a dimly lit virtual space.
The programmers of Gedelock were currently developing and maintaining the game, their physical bodies resting inside life-support pods while their consciousnesses were logged online.
Among them, a programmer using a Penguin avatar spoke up.
"Say, seniors, can I ask you guys something? Why has Golden Country been constantly delayed until now when it was supposed to be a first-year launch project?"
"Ah, that was a disaster caused by mixing two NPCs who trigger special storylines, which resulted in both projects being shelved indefinitely."
"Don’t let me find out who did it! The precious daughter I painstakingly modeled, Red Dragon Marika, was reduced to a side character meant for hunting down PK players!" A virtual avatar in the shape of a bloodstained cleaver darted out, flying wildly around the virtual space.
"Red Dragon Marika... that’s the special storyline to lift the Curse of the Dwarf Race, right?" The Penguin nodded thoughtfully before suddenly breaking into a cold sweat. "Wait! Isn’t this a super important world event? If this special storyline isn’t completed, no one can obtain the Advanced Blacksmith Profession, and the mechanics for the Dwarf Race will remain incomplete. We’ll get axed!"
"Relax. Players are best at finding loopholes and developing new ways to play. They already came up with popular unorthodox builds like Dwarf Berserkers and Dwarf Breaking Monks."
Compared to the nervous rookie Penguin, the seasoned veterans were much calmer.
Bugs? Those were just features. How could they be called bugs?
Did they need to teach the players how to play? No, it was the players who taught them how to play. Their only responsibility was to ensure the players were having a good time.
"I remember you need to complete the Ancient Race storyline in the forest, obtain the Apple of Wisdom, and hand it over to Marika... Fuck! Why does Marika have the apple on her?!" The Penguin, who had been checking the programming, covered its face and screamed. "The item needed to trigger the special storyline was placed directly into the inventory of the NPC meant to be triggered? Are you kidding me?!"
"Since the program is already running, just leave it alone!" said another programmer, whose virtual liver looked like it was on the verge of giving out from overwork.
"Anyway, as long as One-Eyed is defeated, the Intelligence restriction on the entire Dwarf Race will be unsealed. We can just find an opportunity to leak some intel to the top guilds, or log in with our admin accounts and kill the boss ourselves."
"Can those top guilds really defeat One-Eyed without the storyline item?"
"Fuck, don’t underestimate that bunch of walking natural disasters, okay? I mean, if it didn’t strictly require the storyline item to initiate the third-phase boss fight, the Golden Country project would have been completely cleared by them ages ago."
"Ah, if it’s the strongest guild, Fairy Kingdom, they definitely could pull it off."
"Thank god there are only three special items required to challenge the third phase in total."