Not to mention, the Mobilization Order had specifically added a reward this time: "Priority rights to pick up dropped items along the route during the mission!"
Stacked together, these highly tempting conditions instantly turned the job into the hottest position on the entire server. Outside the gates of New Black Rock City, the temporary mission noticeboard had barely been nailed up when the open ground below was immediately packed solid with a sea of heads. All sorts of improvised recruitment calls rose one after another:
"Beast Drive suicide squad needs Divine Guards! Requirements: able to run, emotionally stable, and no cursing after death."
"Recruiting highly mobile Hunters. Your main job is to carry a Shadow Core past the faces of ferocious beasts, then come back alive. It's fine if you can't make it back—just send us the coordinates and it'll count as a contribution. Oh, right, getting close to a Shadow Core probably, maybe, possibly means you won't survive anyway. Decide for yourselves!"
"Any Venom Rangers? We need someone to spice up the Shadow Cores and make the smell stronger."
"Life Sages, don't sign up. This job can't be healed through. It really can't be healed through."
Shadow Cores, which the Star Spirit Race normally avoided like the plague, were being counted by the crate among the players. It was practically wholesale shopping!
Crate after crate of Shadow Cores, radiating ominous auras, were continuously dug out by players from the ruins of Shadow City and the old underground altars beneath Black Rock City.
These cores were not natural objects, but creations used in Dark Spirit Race rituals. They were forged from materials containing Shadow Psionic Energy, ferocious beast flesh and blood, and the hearts of sinners from their own race and enemy prisoners of war, all to please their supreme