Lucas eyed the meal in front of him and did his best to ignore the fact that both Xun Guan and the butler were watching his every move, waiting for a reaction. They were seated at a large, circular table that was covered with a pristine white tablecloth trimmed in gold and decorated with a candle, and they were currently in the third offering of a five-course meal. There were three slices of toasted sourdough bread on the plate in front of him, and each had been smeared with a layer of goat cheese and then topped with a thin layer of strawberry jam. He never would have thought of the combination himself, whether in the game or at home. After he took the first bite, he lamented the fact that it had never been introduced to him until now.

“Lucas,” Xun Guan said pointedly, interrupting his thoughts just as he was reaching to pick up another piece of toast. “You need to focus. We have a lot to do.”

“Yeah, yeah . . . fetch quests. I remember you telling me that I needed to do a hundred or so different, awful things in order to advance from a regular soldier up to nobility,” he replied dismissively, brushing off her insistence that he do the tedious run-around quests that characterized the beginning of every MMO. She had already explained to him that it would take him a week to earn the Esquire title—the lowest noble rank needed to be considered better than a basic soldier—if he just followed her game plan. There were no standard military ranks between basic soldiers in the Imperium. Soldiers were soldiers, and the only way to increase one’s position above that of average grunt was to gain titles of nobility. That meant that he would have to do everything he could to boost his recognition and quickly rise above the basic soldiers by earning a nobility title.

“Don’t brush them off as being easy, simple-to-accomplish quests,” Xun Guan insisted.

“Even with the resources I’m diverting from my estate’s guard fund toward hiring helpers for you, it’ll still take quite a while to complete them all. We must endear you to the other local nobles, attend parties, and get them to commit funds to you so that your own personal power can grow. Without taking those steps and proving yourself, you’ll never make it up the chain and become an Esquire.”

Lucas finished chewing his food and then washed it down with wine from the goblet in front of him. He glanced over at the butler and then back to Xun Guan. “I don’t get it. Don’t you work at the company? If you work there, then why can’t you just alter the code and make me an Esquire? Why do I have to do all those boring, time-consuming, back-and-forth quests to earn a title?”