Ronan was hopeful when he opened the faction gate menu. He didn't know what it would do, but he had a good idea. One of the rewards for completing the tutorial was always an item called a 'rift key,' that until now had no real use to him.

He had long since hypothesised that the rifts might become available once the first phase of the integration was complete or he claimed the pillar, and that was potentially about to be proved correct. It all came down to what the faction gate actually was.

[Faction - Chronos]

[Gate]

The gate is currently closed.

Gates cleared: 0

Highest gate cleared: N/A

Required to open next gate:

Rift Key (Common) - 0/5

Ronan had won out. He finally had a way to use his rift keys from each iteration. At the same time, however, he was in a bind. The gate required 5 keys in order to be opened, while he only had 1 in his possession.

Clearly this was a feature designed for an actual faction. That's sort of annoying. I wanted to try it out for the first time… How will I even– Ronan slapped his forehead. I'm a fucking idiot.

"Right, I need four of you with rift keys in your inventory to come over here and help me with something," he shouted out. A few of the still-living members of Lord Rockmore's former group had slunk out of the tower, but most were just standing around, unsure of where they stood with their former leader dead, and the man who killed him just sitting under a tree.

For a moment no one moved. Ronan sighed. He conjured a dagger and pretended to throw it at one of them. Eight people rushed over immediately and lined up in front of him after he let it dissipate.

"I've got a rift key!"

"That was the tutorial reward, right?"

"Take it, I don't even need mine."

While he appreciated their enthusiasm, Ronan doubted he could just take the keys off the others and use them. Well, he probably could but that was definitely not how the system intended for the gates to be used.

"No, keep them. Just accept this," he told the eight people. Five were men and three women, all rather ordinary looking. None of them seemed particularly strong, but they had survived. The smart ones.

With that he sent them all an invitation to join his faction. He assumed it would be similar to the party system, but wasn't really sure. The system didn't explain much.

A moment later, he received eight consecutive notifications. He was now the leader of a genuine faction. Neat.

[Aaron Moore] has joined [Chronos]!

[Daniel Lewin] has joined [Chronos]!

[Rebecca Powis] has joined [Chronos]!

[Jack Bowls] has joined [Chronos]!

[Ryan James] has joined [Chronos]!

[Emma Smith] has joined [Chronos]!

[Nigel Barts] has joined [Chronos]!

[Florence Lyle] has joined [Chronos]!

Ronan was about to tell them to head to the faction gate menu so that they could apply their keys to opening it, when suddenly they all gasped and started pointing at him. A few of them even stumbled backwards, mouths agape.

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"How is that possible!"

"Monster!"

"What the hell? We were supposed to kill this guy?"

Ronan looked at them with confusion. "Why are you all reacting like that? What happened?" he asked.

Florence, one of the only two who hadn't seemed as terrified as the others, stepped a little closer, pointing above his head. "Your full tag became visible to us as soon as we accepted the invitation to join your faction," she explained. "I have to ask, how is that possible? I mean even that prick Rockmore was only like level 50 or something and we all thought he was the strongest person to come out of the tutorial."

Ronan paused for a moment. He wasn't sure how much he wanted to reveal. Then again, once this iteration ended none of them would remember a damn thing. "Well, I killed the boss in the tutorial and a mini-boss, then I killed the mini-boss here in the sector, as well as a bunch of monsters in the sewers. Oh and the big boss fox was level 95 and I defeated him, which helped." He left unsaid that he also gained a level killing all of their comrades.

The ones who'd been shocked at first were still giving him wary looks, but his explanation seemed to have calmed most of them down. Florence and the other guy who hadn't been bothered—Ryan—just nodded in understanding. "That makes sense," she answered.

"What do you need us for? Was it just to join the faction?" Ryan asked.

"Oh, right. Yes and no. There are a bunch of features of being in a faction, you can all offer a sacrifice of items and credits and get some rewards, which is cool. The reason I needed you and your rift keys, though, is because of the faction gate. If you open up the faction menu and choose the last option you'll see." Everyone's eyes kind of glazed over, looking into the distance, as they pulled up the system.

"How does this work then? We just put our keys in?" The question came from Aaron, who was scratching his stubble in confusion.

"Yeah, I think so," Ronan replied. He hadn't actually used his own yet, because it was too high a rarity to unlock this first gate and he didn't want to waste it.

"Done."

"Same here."

"It's full already, what should I do with mine?"

"Just hang onto it for now. Maybe we'll have enough to unlock a second gate after? I don't even know what will be inside," Ronan told the three who had been a moment too slow to contribute. "Treasure, monsters, something completely unknown!"

It was exciting.

He returned to the gate menu now that all five keys had been provided, wondering how exactly it was going to work. Would it summon a physical gate, or like the tutorial, would it transport them to another dimension?

[Faction - Chronos]

[Gate]

The gate is currently closed.

Gates cleared: 0

Highest gate cleared: N/A

Required to open next gate:

Rift Key (Common) - 5/5

The gate is ready to be summoned.

By now Ronan was used to working the system. There was no obvious option to summon the gate, but he simply thought about doing so and another system message appeared.

The gate will be summoned in the pillar zone. The leader of your faction may designate a different area to summon the gate, provided it is within territory controlled by your faction. The gate will remain open for 15 minutes or until all challengers within decide they are ready to begin.

Summon gate?

That all made sense. It sounded like the tutorial or some sort of dungeon from a game, except they would be able to make the decision about when to start, rather than being thrown about like a ragdoll by the uncaring hand of the system. A little more freedom, but no doubt their lives would be at risk every moment they spent inside.

He summoned the gate, not changing the spawn location. They were all here, so why would he bother putting it somewhere else?

A loud rumbling noise cut through the relative silence in the room. Just behind the tree in an empty space, a huge pulse of mana burst to life. The loud hum made Ronan wince, but he got used to it in a few seconds. The others weren't so fortunate, lacking his immense stats.

All of a sudden stone started appearing out of thin air. He guessed it was formed by the mana, the same way everything in the tutorials was built by the system. The stones continued to appear until a towering archway was formed.

It resembled a sort of portal, a roughly circular arch of stone bricks that was held up by… Well, magic. Certainly not gravity or proper architecture. A few steps led up to the raised base of the gate.

The group of nine approached, with the rest of those who hadn't volunteered for Ronan's experiment also curious, but hesitant to approach. The gaps in the bricks lit up in vibrant blue, threads of mana flooding the gate. When they connected at the capstone, the view to the large windows behind was suddenly replaced by a shifting, endless void.

Then a blue, gooey, shimmering substance dripped down from the top of the arch, filling the entire gate until the portal was formed. Recognising the appearance from the tutorial's first stage, Ronan knew that there would be monsters waiting within.

"Alright, let's go in!" he called out to the eight people who'd volunteered to help him. The others didn't deserve whatever rewards would possibly come at the end of the gate's challenge.

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