The group felt defeated as they matched back home.

"We're going to be up against that?" Ed grunted. "I don't even think we can handle one of them even four of us work together."

They were now inside the guild house, Lance held out the beer because Dustin was watching them. He didn't want the kid to watch them gulp beer like water, it wouldn't be proper for Dustin to learn that from them.

It was a good thing that Glitch and Sun were very fond of children. Even some of the guild members had a fun day watching over him. The kid was too innocent and too pure that it made their cold Adventurer hearts flutter for the first time in a while.

"We faced a lot of opponents before, but it seems like we're still too far," Connor sighed.

"We're even practically rulers of Realms, but in front of them, we look like nothing," Ed groaned. "It's like, we're still too far."

When the morale was low, Elliot could only do what he do best.

Lift everyone up.

"Have you forgotten what you've been through?" Elliot turned to them, ignoring the waves of powerful magic behind him. "We've been through wars, fights, and conflicts that we're probably a lot tougher than they experienced."

"Technically, we weren't there," George said that earned him an elbow from Ethan.

"Just let him continue," Ethan whispered.

Elliot shook the interruption off and continued, "Remember that we had beaten a Triple Alpha Strike, and even Malice's clones. How could we just give up now? Remember what's at stake here. If the Twilight Bless would fall to someone else's hands, it's going to be a tougher life for us."

"Suggestion!" Hope raised his hand. "Why don't we just deal with the problem by talking to all participating groups? If we could tell them that there's a different prize this year and negotiate, then it's a win for us. We don't have to fight them."

"That's going to be hard," Lance said. "Remember what Polschk said. We don't know if they'll be in the same page as us. And it would be riskier. Since they know that there's something else in the winner's prize pool, they'll might take it to themselves. And then they could betray us."

"Yeah," Elliot agreed. "We know how greedy humans can get. And there are always people in the sidelines. Some people would use other means to win, taking the prize with them."

"So, basically the best thing to solve this problem is to win?" Hope asked, pouting.

Elliot and Lance looked at each other before Lance spoke, "Yeah. It's the best thing right now."

–

Elliot was laying on his bed in the middle of the night. It was only two weeks before the Championship of the Greats and he was still bothered by how strong one of their opposing team was.

Overall, there are about three hundred participating guilds, meaning there are about three hundred participating groups. They have to face them all.

Since Galaxia and one of his other guild mate were part of the Top 10 Adventurers, if you ratio the Adventurers in the Top 10 with that, there are at least 5 guilds in the top ten. Meaning they have to face at least five guilds like that.

And this wasn't even taking into account the ones who have almost similar powers to them. The other guilds who had 9 participating Level 100s.

Elliot rolled in his bed, grunting in frustration. He couldn't sleep, filled with worry about the impending future.

To be honest, he wasn't fully exuding his powers earlier. He was trying to show off about a quarter less of it. He needed to surprise everyone with his hidden powers but he was skeptical if he could even have the time to use it.

In comparison to Galaxia and his guild mates, his powers were about a quarter less, meaning he was on the same level as them. But then, the others were showing their full potential. There's only him, Lance and Midnight who were on their scale. There's no way they could beat the nine guys themselves.

"What goes on in this silly contest anyway?" Elliot rolled to the other side of the bed when a notification popped up.

'Quest reward pending in your Inventory.'

"Oh, right."

Elliot sat up and lazily opened his Console. He went to his Inventory and looked for the reward from his latest quest, [ The Butterfly Garden's Dilemma ]

It was a Pull on the Grass Palace Knight Piece. Now he was wondering what these things do.

Isabelle told him that the proper name for the Slot, or each of the unique beast in a Palace is called an Emblem. The Emblem requires the pieces, and he completed two Emblems before, the Crimson Phantom and the Crimson Guard.

Yet, he didn't get anything from them.

Or so he thought.

"Do I have to Pull them all to unlock anything? Why do I have to do this?" Elliot groaned and just clicked the 'Use' button. He rolled back on his bed, waiting for the pull to finish.

It usually takes time for it to do so. Last time he did it, with the potion Isabelle gave him, it took him a whole day to pull all the Pieces of an Emblem. He even skipped meals just so he could focus on pulling.

'Grass Palace Knight Helm pulled.'

'Pull more Pieces to strengthen yourself.'

"Strengthen myself?" Elliot's eyebrows me. He pouted and opened his Console while he was on his back, turning to the Terran Royalty Series tree branches where a grin was etched on his face when he saw a small box on the side.

Immediately, he sat up and read the message.

[ Completed Emblems:

[ Crimson Phantom ]

Effect: Deals +15% damage to an opponent with higher level than the user.

[ Crimson Guard ]

Effect: Grants +20% strength to allies in the party when fighting in a team. ]

Elliot read and reread the words, repeatedly doing so until he could only chuckle in amusement.

"What the hell," Elliot grinned. "I could do this all day long. Gimme more Pulls!"