Is this really a Game?!

About a week had passed ever since Reign had seen the vision of Doncaster being attacked and overrun by enemy forces. He and the others didn't simply sulk around and wonder what they should do, instead, they continued focusing on becoming stronger.

They went back to the mountain range and started hunting for Tier III demons.

Compared to before, enemies were now not easy to find.

Tier III demons were considered to be powerful in the mountain range, at least in the parts where Reign and the others were active in.

Tier IV was the peak of power, but they had not encountered any being that possessed such power yet.

Hunting for demons, fighting, sleeping.

That was the daily schedule of Reign and the others as there was nothing else they could even truly do. One difference, however, was that Aelrinder had once again joined the team.

Ever since the elves had joined the territory, he was pretty much free to do anything he wanted. He was still the commander of the elven forces, but with them being in the same town as Reign and the others, there was no need for him to continue patrolling around and keeping everybody safe like before.

The royal guards and the stronger hunting teams could usually also be found in the mountain range, alongside the other players.

They hunted down demons and monsters and slowly increased their levels. The whole territory was on the move, not because of Reign's vision, since they didn't know he had it, well, almost none of them knew.

Reign had told the information to a selected few. Aelrinder and the royal guards, Neil, Cameron, Elijah, Loreno, and the others leaders of powerful parties were also included.

He didn't want to make people panic, but the first thing he did after speaking to Wolf and the others was to meet up with Eldar and Jack. The two had told him that what he saw could very possibly be a vision of the future, but not one that would necessarily be true.

To predict the future was a tricky thing. A vision of the future one had today might completely change tomorrow, but it could also come true. Still, the best thing for Reign and the others were to be ready.

One thing that the vision had told him, even if he had no idea if it would come true, was that danger was approaching. The mysterious group that they had fought against was definitely planning something.

Also, Eldar had given him important information on how powerful enemies would arrive at his territory even though there were restrictions to their movements.

The answer was simple.

Those restrictions would not be there forever.

The more powerful humanity became, the less the system would meddle in their affairs and would slowly limit, and then completely remove all help it had given them.

The restrictions that were put on monsters would be the first to go. They would no longer be restricted to one area and could wander around the world as they wished.

The many shops that had spawned in the world would slowly disappear and players would need to build shops in their territory, but some would still remain, and that was in order to still allow the players to have some sort of connection with the universe.

The safe zones would disappear, and with them, many lives would be lost. People that acted as cowards and never tried to fight, and those that were unfortunate enough for their safe zones to be put near powerful monsters would end up getting slaughtered after the safe zones were no longer present.

The world would have then truly changed. Monsters would roam wherever they wished and no place would be safe, except for those that were being guarded by powerful humans.

Reign's territory was one of those places. Thanks to the golden tree, even after safe zones were gone, Reign would still have some control over the territory and the tree would still provide protection and create a shield that would cover a portion of the territory.

That made guarding their territory much easier, especially if Reign was able to further strengthen the tree. The more powerful the tree became, the stronger the defense of the shield would be.

Reign's connection with the tree would also continue growing and he would find it easier to use the different powers of the tree.

With all of that in mind, the territory started taking action.

Reign called up all the players in the territory and told them to watch out and report for any unusual trees they encountered. The elves would be especially helpful in this case as their connection with nature was something that humans didn't have.

It was much easier for them to sense plants and trees, and whether they had more energy than what a normal tree should have. Even though the stronger ones could be easily noticed by everybody, there would also be trees that were just starting to get mana inside, those, although not as useful as the more powerful ones, would still be effective.

The players set out everywhere.

They scoured the IronBark Woods and other areas as they explored, hunted for monsters and weird-looking trees, and fought with all kinds of beings.

The elves were more effective compared to them. In only a week, they had already found 3 trees that were useful to Reign. They were weak, and barely did anything to power up the golden tree, but more and more would come and the tree would get stronger.

Reign and the others focused on becoming stronger, as did the more powerful teams in the territory. The weaker ones would usually be the ones that would find a tree, since almost all of the teams now had one or two elves mixed with them, the elves would be the ones that would determine if the tree had mana.

Reign and the others even went to the old Treant.

They had become allies with the Treants and sought to find out more from the old one that was present on the first mountain. They wanted to learn how trees that had special powers came to be, and if there was anything he could do to help them.

They didn't tell him of Reign's vision since, although the Treant acted as a trustworthy ally, they were still on the fence about him. That was why they were unwilling to give him such information and would rather keep it to themselves.

As for the answer the old Treant had, it wasn't a very reassuring one. There was no way to sense such trees from afar, one could unfortunately only do that once they were close. The old Treant was just a Tier III being, after all, he was a peak Tier III being, but that was it.

The old Treant said nothing more as Reign and the others left, eager to explore and hunt down demons in order to strengthen themselves. The future was uncertain and they had no way of knowing what would happen, how and when the enemy would attack, but they would be ready.

The worst thing about getting attacked was if it happened without them knowing about it. As Reign had seen a vision of the future and now knew that they were going to get attacked, the danger was far smaller than it could have been.

They started installing all kinds of defenses and traps in the territory, slowly changing how it looked.

Reign and the others couldn't go all out and simply splurge all their money on the defense as they wanted to wait until they evolved again and had the means to go up against Tier IV and Tier V beings before buying such traps and defenses.

The territory now looked different from before, and from Reign's vision. Back during the vision, he had noticed that there were no such things present inside the territory, which meant that they were already changing the future a bit.

They probably never imagined that the enemy would dare attack their territory as that was where they were the strongest. That was what made the organization different, they were smart, incredibly smart, and knew how to use any situation to its fullest.

Reign didn't want to spook them, however, so he only made small changes to the territory, the defensive structures that were too big to be hidden were camouflaged so that nobody would notice them.

He had no idea how many spies the enemy had a planet in the territory, and even with his power that allowed him to inspect all residents, he had been unable to find anyone that was out of place. He didn't want to spook the enemy and stop their plans altogether, that could definitely turn around to bite him back as not knowing what they would do next would be very dangerous.

Months passed and Reign and the others continued hunting enemies and looking for the trees. The players improved drastically and Tier III players started popping out. The strength of the whole territory was on the rise, and soon, Reign and the others received their Tier IV challenge.