Perhaps the most important items in CNO after NBS units are Cores. They are the only way to directly upgrade the stats of a NBS. When used, it increases the base of any chosen stat for a NBS by 100 (Note: Even with the use of Cores, no stat other than HP can be increased past 1000). Cores can only be used on a single NBS a maximum of 10 times. Additionally, once a Core is used, the upgrade performed with it cannot be undone. As such, it is highly recommended for players to carefully consider the stat they wish to upgrade before using a Core. The primary way for players to obtain Cores is through quest rewards. They can also be purchased at shops, albeit at a rather high price.

(Edit: Cores may now be used on a NBS up to 15 times, provided that a player has used the recently integrated Ultra Core item on the NBS.)

-Cyber Nexus Online Manual: Cores

The day leading up to the Nexus Royale seemed to be approaching even quicker the closer we got to it. So whenever Akari and I were both free, the two of us were diving in CNO so I could help her prepare as much as possible for the big event.

Time wasn't exactly something we had a lot of though. After all, I had school, and Akari was subbing in for my mother for multiple afternoon taekwondo classes in preparation for the day she would officially take over the dojo. But I had still managed to help her speedrun through as many quests as I could remember that gave out Cores as rewards. We had currently collected a total of 4 Cores from this method, putting the Lotus model she had bought at just shy of the halfway point to being maxed out. At the rate we were going, chances of her reaching the full 10 Cores she needed before the Nexu Royale were solid.

In addition to helping get Akari accustomed to VR, our team had Lepus in charge of forming our main strategy. All five members of our team were gathered in the info broker's office to hold our strategy meeting to go over everything.

"CNO has only held one Nexus Royale prior to this, so there's not a big enough pool to make any safe assumptions as to what this one will have." Lepus explained. "The only thing I can say with any real likelihood is that it'll be a last team standing battle royale format."

"What exactly was the last one like?" Akari asked.

"Pretty much standard stuff. Place all teams on a large map, they keep fighting until only one team remains." Lepus shrugged her shoulders. "That said, Gun Gale Online did a similar event last month called Squad Jam. It's likely due to that game being far more popular among the VRMMO community right now, but it got far more coverage than the Nexus Royale. So there's been rumors that the devs of CNO will be doing something to spice up this one and get better ratings. As to what that is, I've got no way of telling."

"Regardless, PvP is almost definitely going to be the highlight." Dante noted.

Lepus nodded her head. "Indeed. And our team's primary goal is going to be taking down the Sparrow Wing guild that plans to enter so that lover boy can impress his wannabe girlfriend." Lepus showed the tiniest smirk upon seeing my scowl. "This will be their guild's first time participating in an event, so info on their builds is pretty limited. But fortunately for us, they've been ganking parties left and right in the fields. So we've got at least something to go on."

Following that, Lepus opened up her inventory and materialized a series of pictures. I recognized two of them as Elisse and my good buddy Tanba from the front door of their guild home. Another one was of Violet. So the remaining two had to be the other members of Sparrow Wing.

"The one we know most about is Violet, aka the Bloody Rose. She's known for using a Flora model NBS. Her weapons of choice are an energy sword and handgun. She'll whittle away your HP while finding the perfect opening to go in for the kill." The next picture she brought our attention to was a brown haired male. "Next we have Sparrow Guild's leader. Gale. Reports from my sources say he uses a Neon model. It's an All-Rounder, so there's a lot he can do. Weapon of choice is an energy sword. After that we have Elisse. Valkyrie model, and from what the victims of Sparrow Wing's PKs have been saying, she might be one of the most skilled spear users in all of CNO. I'm guessing she has previous VR experience from some other game."

I hadn't told anyone on my team about Sparrow Wing being made up of SAO Survivors. Even Tomoe, my sister and the person who was here solely to help me, was being kept in the dark about this. It was rather sensitive information, and quite frankly I wasn't entirely sure I trusted Lepus with that kind of ammo given her main gig as an info broker.

"Last, and quite frankly least, we have Tanba and Freit. They're the gunners of the group. Pretty much provide covering fire while the others take out their targets. Bad news though is nobody's gotten a good enough look at them out in the fields to know for sure what NBS models they use." Lepus looked at all of us. "That's all the info we've got on them. Any questions?" When nobody spoke up, Lepus continued. "Good. Now let's talk strategy."

"I thought you said we didn't know much about what the Nexus Royale will pertain though." Tomoe spoke up.

"We don't know much. That's not the same as knowing nothing at all." Lepus pointed out. "Frankly that works in our favor anyway. It'll force our plan to be a bit fluid. Plan for too specific a circumstance, and everything goes to hell the moment even one detail is off."

Shingo shrugged. "What's there to plan? Just get me close enough and I can wipe them out in seconds with my heavy artillery."

"Oh wow, what an amazing idea! Why didn't I think of that?!" Lepus responded in a voice that was oozing with sarcasm. "Oh right! Because I'm not a braindead gung ho monkey." She turned her gaze to me. "Seriously, you couldn't find anyone better than this guy for our fifth member?"

"Hey, I heard that!" Shingo complained.

"I'm more than familiar with the concept of ears and their ability to let us hear things. Moving on." Shingo was about to voice another complaint, but thankfully he quieted down when I gave him a gesture to drop it. "The original plan I had was for the best player on our team, aka Dante, to deal with Gale. He's their leader and fights on the front line, so chances are he knows his way around a fight. But since a certain someone is dead set on being the one to fight Gale, I had to alternate things a bit."

To Lepus, it must seem like I was being selfish in my request to be the one to take Gale on. In that sense, I couldn't blame her for being peeved at me for making her job harder. But this was about more than simply defeating Sparrow Wing now. I didn't like Gale from what I had heard about him, but I had promised Elisse that I would do my best to help him with his demons too. And I keep my promises. I had to be the one to fight Gale, or all this was pointless.

"Here's our primary roles. I'll be our scout, keeping an eye out for enemies and getting a lay of the land. Our resident monkey Shingo will initiate our attacks with cannonfire, and act as our meatshield when we get attacked. Tae and Tomoe are our vanguard, moving in to take out the enemy quickly after Shingo's artillery spooks them. And finally Dante, we'll be using your versatile skillset to switch between providing supporting fire with your sniper rifle, and moving in to fight close up with your double saber as needed."

All in all, it was a solid strategy. It gave us options for both offense and defense. We could fine tune it further once the details for the Nexus Royale were revealed, but it would do for now.

Once our strategy meeting was over, we all went our separate ways for the day. Tomoe logged off before me, reminding me to be off by dinnertime.

My last order of business for the day wasn't going to take long. I just needed to make one stop in Serulis.

Tanba reacted to me appearing on Sparrow Wing's front doorstep pretty much exactly how I expected. "You've got a lot of balls showing up here again."

"Missed you too, best buddy." I replied with a smile and thumbs up. "Hope you don't mind if I come inside for a few minutes. I won't be long."

"I do mind, asshole. And besides, Violet isn't here."

"That's fine. I'm not here to see her anyway." I slipped past Tanba before he could grab and stop me. Players couldn't open the door to player homes they didn't own, but since my favorite member of the guild had so kindly opened it for me, who was I to pass up such an invitation?

The house wasn't anything too special, given it was for the entire guild. Stairs led up to a second floor with several closed doors. The first floor mostly consisted of a kitchen and living room with sofas surrounding three sides of a center table. Other than Tanba, who was shouting behind me, I could see two other players. The first was Elisse, who wasn't too surprised to see me. I had messaged her just a few minutes ago asking if Gale was there after all.

And the second was the big man himself.

Gale shot an annoyed glance at me. "What do you think you're doing in our guild home?"

Normally I'd break the ice with my natural charm, and quite frankly I had a lot of it I wanted to use on Gale, but I needed to not get thrown out on the spot. I needed Gale to want me to stay, at least for now. So I went straight to business. "I'm here to make a wager with you."

A hint of surprise appeared on Gale's face for the briefest of seconds, but he quickly hid it. He gestured for Tanba to hold off on throwing me out for now. "And what would this wager entail?"

"Violet."

Gale moved to the sofa at the far end of the table and took a seat. "Explain."

"You've been making a lot of waves recently. Ganking parties out in the fields. Hiring a merc to harass me. Blackmailing Violet."

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about there. You must have bad info."

"You wanna play dumb then? Go ahead. It suits you." I couldn't help feeling a bit of satisfaction when I saw Gale's hand twitch, although Elisse shot me a warning glance to reign myself in. "Let's ignore whether my info is bad or not for argument's sake. You want notoriety. I want Violet free from you. Fortunately, we have the perfect opportunity to settle this. You've heard of the Nexus Royale, I take it?"

"What do you take me for? Of course I've heard of it."

"I take it your guild is planning on entering. So why don't we do this? We use the Nexus Royale to put an end to this. My team wins-"

"Your team?" Gale interrupted with a mocking chuckle. "I'm sorry, I was under the impression you were a solo player."

"Everyone's gotta have friends. But back to the point, if we win, Violet leaves your guild, and you aren't allowed to do anything to her."

"Forcing out one of my best members - willing best members at that" Gale clarified, though we both knew it was bullshit "-is a pretty steep price. What do I get when we win?"

When he wins. Leave it to this guy to not even imagine losing. That was fine though. Arrogance turned out to be a liability more often than not.

This was the moment of truth. I couldn't hold back here. I needed Gale to accept this wager if I wanted to set everything up right. I needed his word that Violet would be left alone. I needed him to have a reason to come after me in the Nexus Royale. If he didn't bite, then it would all be over before it began.

But boy did I have the right bait for him.

"The Ultra Core."

Elisse and Tanba both widened their eyes in shock. Gale tried to hide it, but it was clear even he hadn't seen that coming. "What?"

"The Ultra Core. I still haven't used it. If your guild manages to take out my group, it's yours. I imagine that'd do wonders for your guild's reputation."

The currently one of a kind item that could extend how many times a player could upgrade their NBS. It was without question the most valuable item I had. Players had already shown they were desperate to get their hands on it with all the offers I received to sell it. Sparrow Wing had even tried harassing me for it through Dante, only backing off in exchange for Violet joining them. I held off on using it once I spoke with Elisse to keep Gale from using it as an excuse if I beat him. I needed to fight him on even ground. If I had a NBS with 5 extra upgrades than everyone else, that could easily be construed as an unfair advantage.

Frankly, every other player in CNO would call me a fool for putting it up for grabs like this. But as special as the Ultra Core was, it was worthless to me compared to Violet.

Gale spent several seconds in silence pondering over it. "What guarantee do I have that you'll keep your word?"

"Simple. You won't be the only team gunning for it." I explained. "I'll make a public announcement. Whichever team manages to take mine out of the Nexus Royale can have the Ultra Core."

"You'd really put that kind of target on your back? You must be dumber than I thought."

"You're not the only one who thinks highly of themselves." I told him. "So how about it? You game?"

Gale's lips slowly curved to a smirk. "Fine. You've got yourself a bet." he said. "But just so we're clear. I don't know what you're talking about when you say I blackmailed Violet."

"You go ahead and keep on saying that." I said as I turned to leave. As I neared the door, I gave Gale one last glance. "But hey, this should be no problem for you right? After all, what's this compared to a game with your life on the line?"

Silence. Not the slightest sound came from Gale, or either of his two guildmates as I walked out the front door and left. Let them figure out what that meant.

"You did WHAT?!"

Yeah. That was about the reaction I was expecting when I told Lepus about the wager I had made with Gale and Sparrow Wing.

I tried to get a word in. "Ok before you start-"

"You complete moronic imbecile! Do you have any idea what kind of target this is going to place on our backs?!" Lepus shouted. "And here I thought the gung ho monkey was the dumbest one on the team!"

With Lepus being the queen of CNO's info brokers, I figured she would be the quickest way to get in touch with all the bookies that would be taking bets regarding the Nexus Royale. But naturally, when I told her why I needed to speak with them all, she had been less than pleased.

"Look, would you at least give me a chance to explain?"

Lepus rolled her eyes. "Fine. Explain why you just had to go and make my job ten times harder. Again."

"I wish you'd give me at least a little credit. I'm not an idiot. I do have a plan in mind with this." I told her. "Think about it. The Ultra Core isn't something that can exactly be divided equally. That significantly lowers the chance of any teams grouping up on us. If anything, people might try to get rid of problematic competition to avoid them getting in the way when they come after us."

Lepus pondered on my words. "That's a bit of a big "might". But it's at least possible."

"That's not all. Bookies are going to be looking for any excuse to add more betting options. More things to bet on means better potential profits for them. Especially if it's something with low odds to win. So what if we were to go to them with this proposal? Open betting on which team takes out ours. And if we win the whole thing, they rake in the most profits. And since we come to them with this suggestion before publicly putting the Ultra Core up for grabs, we could negotiate for a percentage of their profits should we end up winning. They'd have nothing to lose."

Lepus silently thought about my proposal. After several seconds, she cracked a small grin. "I still think it's a bit of a gamble. But I can see you at least put some thought into this plan." she said. "Alright. I'll get in touch with all the major CNO bookies. I should be able to negotiate for about a 15% return. 20% if we're lucky."

"I'll leave it to you then."

With that, I left and walked out of Lepus's office and into the streets of Serulis. Everything was set for my showdown with Gale and Sparrow Wing. I had gathered a decent team. I had Gale setting his sights on me, right where I wanted them. Lepus was right though. With everything that was on the line, I was taking a massive gamble. The odds were definitely not in my favor. But that had never stopped me before.

And I'd be damned if I was going to let it stop me now.

A/N: Hey readers. Sorry this took so long to get out. I've been going through a lot of stuff irl recently and it took a lot of writing time away from me. But I finally got this latest chapter out so I hope you enjoyed it. Next chapter will be the last one leading up to the long anticipated Nexus Royale. I've thought long and hard about how to make the event itself feel unique, as the last thing I want is to just copy the Squad Jam from SAO Alternative GGO. Hopefully, you all like what I came up with. Until next time, readers.