He reached the crown in under five minutes and found exactly what he was looking for: a single leaf, glowing softly in a shade of green that had no natural equivalent, tucked between two upper branches like it had been waiting.

[Premium Tea], Quest Item. A rare tea, said to have a mind-clearing effect when brewed.

He pocketed it and dropped back down. The team was still watching when he landed.

Cappuccino stared. "Were you raised by primates?"

"Born in ’92," Don said. "Year of the monkey. It’s genetic."

The cloth leggings went to Diana after a brief discussion. She accepted them without fuss, Sword Song Cloud Wind had needed an upgrade there for a while, and the gold was split into equal shares. By the time the dungeon was empty of both monsters and deliberation, the clock had crept past one in the morning, and the tiredness had finally caught up with everyone.

They took the teleport back to Vellari Village in ones and twos. Don found Longwu in his usual spot beneath the crooked locust tree, exactly as he’d left him, sitting in the dark like a man who had never once considered the possibility of being stood up.

Don held out the leaf.

Longwu’s eyes went to it immediately. Something lit up in them that was less emotion and more the recognition of a man seeing something he’d wanted for a very long time finally arrive. He reached out and took it, then punched Don on the shoulder hard enough to be a compliment.

"Didn’t think you had it in you, kid. Actually took down a Treant Elder."

The system chime sounded before the echo of his laugh had finished.

Quest [Premium Tea] complete. Reward: 550,000 experience points, 750 reputation points, 25 gold coins.

Don’s bar surged forward and settled at level twenty-four, seventy-four percent. Twenty-six more to go before those two silver artifacts stopped sitting uselessly in his inventory. He could feel the distance shrinking.

Because it was a party quest, the rewards touched everyone. Lily received the standard distribution and then, in the way that luck occasionally decided to make a point, something extra, a pair of level twenty-five bronze leather boots that hadn’t been in anyone’s forecast. She turned them over in her hands with the bright-eyed concentration of someone cataloguing something genuinely useful, then looked up at Don with a small, private smile.

He had the distinct and unshakeable feeling that she was going to be difficult to get rid of.

He wasn’t sure yet how he felt about that.

Longwu’s laughter faded. His expression shifted, the warmth pulling back, the large eyes settling into something more considered, more watchful. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped half a register.

"Listen here, kid. You’ve done two things for me now, so I won’t pile on more." He paused, letting the sentence sit. "But this isn’t finished."

Don couldn’t keep the grin off his face.

Of all the NPCs in all the villages scattered across Realms Online, he’d managed to attach himself to one who handed out chain quests like a man with nothing to lose.

The statistical likelihood of stumbling onto a questline this dense from a single drunk NPC under a crooked tree was genuinely absurd. He’d had better odds asking out the most sought-after girl in his graduating class.

He thumped his chest once with a closed fist. "Brother, just tell me what you need. Whatever it is, I’ll get it done."

Longwu nodded slowly, the satisfaction of a man whose judgment had been confirmed settling over his weathered face. "This one can’t be rushed. When your cultivation has grown further, help me make a trip to the Anya Mine, south of Lafia Village." He paused, turning the leaf over in his thick fingers. "My master buried a manuscript of poems deep within that mine many years ago. He wanted it found by someone worthy. The mine, though, it’s overrun. Evil corpses, skeletons, things that don’t rest easy. You won’t manage it alone." His eyes moved across the assembled group. "Your companions seem like capable young people. Bring them." 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

The system chime arrived right on cue.

Have you accepted the quest [The Lost Poem]?

Don shared the quest details to the party channel without hesitation and hit confirm.

[The Lost Poem]: Travel to the Anya Mine, south of Lafia Village, and retrieve the ancient poem manuscript buried within. The manuscript belonged to Longwu’s master and is of exceptional value. A generous reward will be given upon delivery. Warning: the Anya Mine is extremely dangerous. Bring powerful companions.

Difficulty: D2 | Level Requirement: 25 | Party Size Required: 6

The reaction was immediate and unanimous.

"The level requirement is that high?"

Don looked around at the slightly stunned faces and shrugged. "Nothing to be done about it. Once everyone’s caught up, we go."

Cappuccino laughed, stretching his arms above his head. "No complaints from me, but fair warning, next time I might ask to sit this one out. My output tonight was embarrassing."

Lily tilted her head, expression doubtful. "If his output was embarrassing, mine was basically decorative."

Cappuccino grinned. "Little Don isn’t replacing you anytime soon though, haha."

The resulting silence had a specific texture to it. Don became intensely interested in his quest log. Lily found something fascinating about the middle distance. Everyone else developed the diplomatic courtesy of people who had noticed something and decided, collectively, not to mention it.

The group began to dissolve naturally after that. Bernita logged off first, she’d been flagging for the last hour and said goodnight with the brevity of someone already halfway asleep. The two mercenaries headed out to find a grinding spot. Cappuccino checked the dungeon cooldown timer, announced it was twelve hours, and declared his intention to run the Forest of Strange Sounds again afterward in pursuit of the Qimu set, though he noted, with the resigned air of experience, that the second boss’s drop rate was a fraction of the first. Collecting a full set in this game was less a plan than an aspiration.

Diana stayed logged in. "It’s only six in the evening here," she said simply, and went back to leveling. The time zone put her somewhere in Western Europe, Don filed that away without comment.

Before logging off himself, Don pulled up the American server rankings out of habit.

Fifth place. He’d moved up while he wasn’t paying attention, sliding past Lonely Autumn Rain sometime during the Treant Elder fight. The top four held their positions with the comfortable authority of players who’d been there long enough to stop worrying about it: War-Burning Hero at twenty-nine, Extraordinary Phoebe at twenty-eight, Sea and Sky in One Line at twenty-seven, Debtborn at twenty-six.

He was scanning the rest of the list when a name in eighth place stopped him cold.

Water-Colored Nebula. Level twenty-four. Class: Paladin.

Hidden class.

Don stared at it for a moment longer than was strictly necessary. Hidden classes in Realms Online weren’t just rare, they were the kind of thing people wrote forum posts about, the kind of acquisition that changed the shape of a player’s entire arc. The skill sets ran deeper, the stat optimization was tighter, and the ceiling was categorically higher than anything the standard class tree offered. A Paladin in particular would be a wall in terms of defense and health, but the attack numbers on hidden classes never lagged far behind.

The thought settled into him like the beginning of something. One day, he told himself. One day that would be an interesting fight.

Beside him, Lily yawned, the long, unguarded kind that comes when someone has been holding it back for too long.

Don glanced over. "Go offline. Get some sleep."

She blinked, looking slightly embarrassed. "Brother Don, would it be too much trouble to walk me to the hotel entrance? I don’t really want to go alone at this hour."

He was already closing his menus. "I’m heading home anyway. Come on."