The demise Tier had anticipated never came. Instead, he had to face mortifying minutes of sailing induced nausea before the weather finally calmed down and they arrived. It was unclear whether it was pure luck or Ril’Dil’s prayer that had them land safely. Though, a small part of his mind agreed that this might just be a scripted event. A very torturing one, nonetheless. 

“You okay, buddy?” Zackhs greeted Tier, offering a hand. He was still grinning excitedly despite the ordeal that he had been through. Tier didn’t notice if he had fallen to the sea, but Zackhs’ equipment was soaked in brine.

The sight caused Tier to wonder if the developer team considered chemical reactions in this game. If true, those armour would get corroded and rusty.

“I need a bit of a walk,” Tier - didn’t bother with the helping hand again - untied himself and tumbled down the ship.

He took some time to take a breath before spending a bit of time looking at his surroundings. It was yet another rainforest, with clearly different floras than the previous island. Tier opened his grand map and saw his position was at the southwest coast of the Grand Continent on a place named Darukun Jungle.

However, when Tier zoomed the map on Darukun Jungle section, he saw most of it was still unexplored. Similar to the time when he first arrived in Jam’rood Island. Detailed parts of the map would only open once he reached the unexplored areas.

“Huh?!”

Tier closed his map as he heard some of the players sigh questioningly. They were crowding at the pier with enough mass to block anyone from getting through. Tier exchanged glances with Zackhs before proceeding to approach the others. There, two revelations were bestowed on Tier.

First, Tier just realised that both him and Zackhs are at least a head taller than most rakhs. This enables them to peek from behind to see the thing before them. The second revelation was about the very thing that stopped the others from moving.

“What the…”

There was a big level 80 silverback gorilla - as big as the rakhs - stationed near the pier. The sight of the beast was menacing enough, even without considering the steel plate armour and helmet it was wearing. 

Raz’chak was its name and ‘Bingo’s companion beast’ was its title, the latter was the sign that it belongs to a player, which in turn raised suspicions on the newly disembarked players. The most worrying part was that Raz’chak was performing the twist dance happily, as if the owner was trying to lower the guard of the incoming new player to then pummelled them when they least expect it.

“Don’t worry, we’re not here to fight,” said a menacingly heavy and raspy voice with a thick Russian accent. The voice came from the direction of the gorilla.

Tier never thought that a gorilla could speak, not to mention in such an accent. Truth to be told, Tier had once seen a movie with a gorilla talking in a British accent and it was more of a joke, not something threatening. The game developers might have some weird sense of humour.

As expected, the new players took a different stance to the words. They seemed ready to sprung into action, some into a fighting stance and others getting ready to run back to the ship. For Tier, he would rather die being pummelled by the gorilla rather than experiencing the dreadful sail again.

“As I said, we’re not there to fight.” 

From behind the gorilla, another figure appeared. It was the owner of the beast, a stout dwarf with silver hair clad in dark brigandine. He was also wearing a winter cloak, which was probably just a mere cosmetic accessory. On his back, there was a blunderbuss almost as big as his body.

Again, the players reacted rather negatively to the appearance of the dwarven hunter. Especially since he was a level 80 character, the current maximum level.

Bingo, the dwarven hunter, realised the rather hostile gesture and mumbled to himself, “A proof, yes, they need a proof.”

“What kind of proof?” Tier frowned.

Zackhs concerningly glanced at Tier. He whispered, “Proof? What are you talking about?”

“He said that he needed proof, you didn’t hear it?”

Zackhs shook his head. Before the rakhs warrior could further clarify, Bingo seemed to have found what he was looking for.

“Ah, there it is.”

Bingo took a silver necklace with an anvil shaped pendant, showed it to the rakhs, and said, “Here, sign of peace ambassador, I am not allowed to begin aggression. I’m here to recruit.”

“Man, don’t scare us like that,” a rakhs rogue sighed. Almost all of the players and him mumbled in relief and walked past Bingo.

“We are not interested in anything you would offer,” said another.

“No problem, but be careful with the boars outside.”

“Whatever!”

Tier glanced at Zackhs who, just like him, still hadn't moved at all. “Recruit?”

With his usual optimistic grin, Zackhs answered, “I bet it’s Clashing Realms.”

“Yes! I heard both of you! We need more players for Clashing Realms.”

Bingo jogged happily towards the two rakhs, leaving Raz’chak dancing alone.

“How could you’ve heard us?” Tier frowned. He was certain that such a low voice won't be heard that far.

“The same reason as how you could have heard me,” Bingo smiled.

Zackhs glanced at Tier and Bingo, then exclaimed, “Hunters have telepathic links?!”

Bingo shook his head, yet he did not give the answer. Instead, he beamed at Tier as if challenging the new hunter to figure out the answer.

Tier sighed, for he was not in the exact mood to play puzzles. However, the mystery itself was kind of interesting. He thought that telepathic links wouldn't make any sense considering hunters wouldn't have such a thing. Further, in a sense, each player does have some sort of telepathic link using a whisper or group call function. Both are not the functions Tier had used.

He then tried to recall the events on the test when he chose his class. The faint noise he heard was the trigger that forced him to action. Combining that with the fact that Zackhs didn’t hear what Bingo said when looking for proof, Tier arrived at a conclusion.

“Is it that our senses are sharper?”

“Bingo!”

The dwarven hunter shot his blunderbuss to the air in joy followed by Raz’chak who jumped to the pier, almost crushing it, and clapped happily. Tier somehow couldn’t put aside the feeling that Raz’chak seemed too familiar.

“Congratulations, you are officially recruited to join Clashing Realms.”

A few neurons in Tier’s brains commenced a short circuit due to Bingo’s response. There’s definitely a lot of procedures that Bingo nonchalantly ignored for the recruitment. Tier also hadn't bought the game and was currently just trying it for free, not to mention that the answer could have been easily guessed by anyone playing the class. Bingo’s requirement is definitely too low. Tier wondered if the people in Clashing Realms are just too desperate to get new recruits.

“So….” Bingo pressed his excitement. “... are you going to play a marksman kind of role, focusing on Hawkeye path to be a pure DPS?”

You are a TRASH DPS!

Off yourself, TRASH!

“Anything but that!” Tier barked. A glimpse of dark words from his past made a resurgence due to Bingo’s words.

Quickly realising that Bingo meant no harm and that was unsavoury for him to react violently, Tier tried to defuse the sudden awkward silence. “I’m s-sorry, I-I didn't mean to….”

“... Now that’s amusing,” Bingo grinned. He hit his fist to his chest and continued, “Many might think hunters are mere ranged DPS, but that is not fully true. We are DPS, but we also excel in utility depending on the path we take. I am a beastmaster myself, and this gorilla is the proof, he’s one of the rarest and special companions reserved for hunters who dedicated themselves to the Beast Mastery path. You have more than one path.”

Tier couldn’t give a clear answer as he was completely astonished by Bingo’s response. He could only nod in agreement and whispered to himself, “Sorry.”

Zackhs had a concerned look at Tier, he asked carefully, “Sorry, dude, uhh... You don’t like playing pure DPS?”

Bingo chuckled, “Now, friend, everybody has a past, we don’t need to talk about it. On the contrary, I am interested in what this guy will choose going forward.”

Bingo winked at Tier before asking Zackhs, “How about you? Are you going to take the Weapon Master and Overpower path? A bruiser would be nice in PvP.”

The surge of positivity returned to Zackhs visage. He proudly announced, “A tank of course, definitely will take Unbreakable.”

Contrary to his response to Tier earlier, Bingo seemed more concerned with Zackhs choice. While swiping his long beard, he explained, “Unbreakable is very useful in PvE and raids as you could move forward to the monsters then take all the threat to yourself. But players are not affected by threat alone, you have taunt, but that’s about it. Everyone would try to bypass you. Too few of them could work well in a large PvP environment like Clashing Realms. One of them even restarted her character as a guardian paladin.”

Bingo sighed. Yet, he looked optimistically at Zackhs and continued, “Most would go with a more flexible bruiser build. But again, it is up to you, I am always excited to see how people got creative with their build.”

Zackhs shook his head. As he stares melancholically at his palms, he clarified,  “Bruisers won’t do, I feel like I would still want to go with being a tank. Even changing classes doesn’t matter. It must be fun to have the strength to protect others.”

“There are other classes who can tank, each with their own style,” Bingo consoled as he tapped Zackhs’ shoulder with his blunderbuss. “You are not level 20 yet, you still can quickly change your class and get to level 80 in time.”

Compelled by his curiosity at the mention of other tank classes, Tier questioned, “How many classes can tank? Are they kind of different?”

“Of course,” Bingo confirmed. “There are guardian paladins who focus more on staying with the group to protect incoming attacks and mere presence gives defensive buffs. Boar mystics have a HUGE amount of HP and a very strong magic breaker. Earth shamans are great with creating all sorts of shields and messing with the terrain.”

Before mentioning the last class, Bingo’s eyes flickered. With joy, he concluded, “Last but not least, the shadow knights of the undead, avengers. They are totally spec-ed towards defence either as a tank or a defensive bruiser. They can turn the best defence into the best offence. I am trying not to be biassed, but I do think they are the most versatile and best tank out there. With a cool theme as well, a dark power to protect, couldn’t be more edgy than that.”

“Could you tell me more about these avengers?”

All the positive sparks in Zackhs eyes returned. Tier never thought that his new acquaintance, with all of his overwhelmingly positive vibes, would be drawn to such an edgy concept.

“No.” Bingo shrugged. He started to walk off the pier as he continued, “But I can introduce you to one. Though I recommend both of you to check and test first with each of your class trainers.”

He glanced at Tier and joked, “Especially to Mr. Definitely-won’t-play-pure-DPS.”

Tier chuckled and followed Bingo. The words were true, Tier definitely won’t bother playing such a role. Though the related events were painful, at least he could still laugh at lighthearted jokes towards the condition.

The landing camp in Darukun Jungle was much bigger than in Jam’rood Island. There were proper wooden fences along the perimeter of the camp. Tier also saw several orcish NPC around. A lot of them were brown or green like leaves in skin colour and wore ornaments made of leaves and feathers.

One that caught Tier’s attention was a seemingly blind orc named Gondrel who was busy telling stories to people. That particular NPC was titled ‘Loretalker’.

“Interested in professions already?” Bingo snickered. “Some are useful for levelling and even enable you to do certain things. That one is for the scholar profession, got an upgrade to either strategist or loremaster, very helpful for levelling up. Not so much at endgame depending on your playstyle and build. But be careful, you can only have two professions at once.”

Before Tier could ask any further, they heard a commotion outside the fence. There was a loud rumbling and noises of boars. Not long after, a fence was broken down. Several boars charged in led by a huge brown boar whose tusk was dragging the corpse of one of the new players Tier had sailed with.

Both Tier and Zackhs was almost jumped into action before Bingo stopped them. He grimly groaned, “Never play the hero, it never works.”

Bingo barked a command at his gorilla, “Raz’chak set stance: aggressive. Go wild.”

Raz’chak roared. He jumped forward and tackled the biggest boar. The gorilla then taunted the whole flock of beast by beating his chest so loud like a pseudo war drum.

Bingo grinned at Tier and Zackhs.

“Now, follow my steps.”