Although Jack was out here in the Jagara Region, he had been receiving regular updates from his guildmates. Most often from Bowler. The chatterbox had filled him up on most of the things going on in Thereath and the guild during his absence.
The guild had upgraded to level 3 one week after his departure, the other big guilds did the same two to three weeks later. Their member limit was increased to two thousand members. The reputation required to get to guild level 4 was one million points. More buildings were available for construction after the level-up. Everyone had been working diligently to gather the required resources.
The special units that came from Unique Insignia, the Eagle Rider Hunter and Blood Count, required special equipment that can be crafted from Blacksmith Workshop, which also required special material and a Basic Master level Blacksmith.
The material problem was solved after Dylan scoured the market in all three available countries: Themisphere, Sangrod, and Verremor. He found a seller who could provide a steady supply in one of the cities in Sangrod. Though the material problem was solved, they were still helpless on the Basic Master Blacksmith requirement. Their best blacksmith player was still in intermediate expert, it would still be a long time before that player could become a basic master blacksmith.
Luckily, this issue was solved around three weeks ago when Kirsi unexpectedly received a breakthrough. She was crafting a super rare equipment recipe acquired by Fierce Flame from a dungeon. The experience was enough to push him into the Basic Master rank. Since then, John focused their resources to produce those two special units.
Those units still took a long time to train though. At the moment, they had only ten for both units. The Blood Count was indeed of the vampire race. They were a kind of a rogue class unit that had an advantage in speed. They were especially deadly at night, as they could meld into the shadow and be invisible until they struck.
The Eagle Rider Hunters were basically archers riding atop a large eagle. Their flying steed gave them high mobility to rain down arrows on any terrains. They even had a skill that alighted their arrows on fire, increasing their damage output.
As for standard units other than Squire and Bandit Archer, they could now also train Knight, Cavalry, Mage, and Healer.
For defensive structures other than the wall and its gate. There were also the Ice Towers from the blueprint Jeanny obtained. These ice towers were built at some interval along the wall. They had also crafted several traps. John placed these traps at several strategic places around their territory. The traps didn’t activate when guild members step on them, so there was no worry for him to place them as he like. But there was a restriction where he couldn’t place two traps too close to one another, so he could not simply fill up the whole plot of land with traps.
Clashes had happened with other guilds, especially the coalition, but nothing big. Only small skirmishes when both sides happened to meet at the same places and compete for the same resources. Nothing that required Jack to return and lend a hand. It appeared as if the coalition had given up on defeating Heavenly Citadel.
Some guilds had members who recently managed to cross over to neighboring countries as well. When their top members reached level 45. They sent out expeditions to try to sneak past the high-level regions between countries. Casualties happened, but they all wore Amulet of Rebirth. While some members perished, one or two managed to sneak over and establish links. They then start letting their members teleport between the two countries.
Everlasting Heavenly Legends had also gotten a lot of benefit from Florence’s work. After her Missing Outworlders Coordination Center started operating in Thereath, many players flocked to the center. They gained many followers who were willing to join their noble work and opened up centers in the other main cities of Themisphere. All the ones opened in this country were of course under Everlasting Heavenly Legends’ umbrella, boosting the guild’s prestige.
Perhaps this was also the reason why the coalition stopped making trouble. They didn’t want to draw the public’s ire. Another probable reason was that now that more and more of this world was exposed, everyone didn’t need to keep fighting over the small plots around the capital. Everyone focused more on exploring now. Hence the lukewarm peace during these two months. At least that was what Jack’s thought before he received the message from John. Was there trouble with the coalition again? John didn’t elaborate in his message.
Other benefits they gained from Florence’s Missing Outworlders Coordination Center were as John had intended. More players wished to join their guild. But they were now much more selective on letting who joined. They also did active invites when they found potential players from Florence’s pool of data. Two of which they had recruited in this way were a Warlock named Olddemon and a Gunner named Sturdy Serpent.
Olddemon was an old veteran gamer who had retired from gaming to have a stable profession and spend more time with his family. He didn’t think that his past expertise would come in handy in this world. Florence had reunited him with his wife and daughter who were currently living in Thereath as civilians. Jeanny had come to him and offered him an invitation. He accepted seeing that he owed the guild a debt in helping him reunite with his family.
Sturdy Serpent was not a gamer. He was an army special operative. He was helped by the center in reuniting with her mother who was now also residing in Thereath. He couldn’t find the army or government where he used to serve, so he had been at a loss. With Jeanny’s offer came knocking, he was eager to be back in some sort of an organization again.
The government itself had been in shambles after the world changed. When the ex-politicians finally found their colleagues, they tried to band together and re-establish their organization, but their effort bore very little success. They were too late, it had been half a year since the world changed. And they were too weak. They were not used to gaming concepts so they did very little effort in leveling up. Without power, no one was willing to follow them despite them claiming to be the legitimate ruler to all the players.
The gaming guilds who were more adaptive to this game world had much better success in gaining public influence. When these gaming guilds heard this so-called past government tried imposing their rules, they simply scoffed at them.
After some weeks spent with the two new expert members. Jeanny and John agreed to promote the two into core members. Jeanny asked if Jack wanted to offer his opinion before that, Jack said that he trusted the two’s judgment. John pointed out that Jack was just lazy to come back and meet the two, which Jack didn’t deny.
Their core members were also joined by the addition of three of Domon’s past students. One happened due to a coincidence where Domon met the person during his casual walk in Thereath. Learning that his past master was a part of a guild, the guy offered himself to join.
Learning about this, John got an idea and asked Domon to list out all his past students who he deemed as experts. Domon replied to him that all his students were experts, he wouldn’t have accepted them as students otherwise. John sighed and rephrased his words by asking him to list out all his past students who he deemed worthy of trust.
Domon searched his memory and wrote down several names. John then gave the list to Florence. Asking her to notify him or Jeanny if any of the names in the list showed up. Two such persons were found. Jeanny approached them with Domon in tow and the two joined without hesitation. The three were also added to their core members as Domon trusted them.
Jeanny and John also promoted some of the few outstanding veteran-grade members into core members. At least, the ones they thought could be trusted.
All these new core members were informed of the nature of this world and about the enemy that they would be facing in the future. None of them were cowards, so they eagerly look forward to fighting together with everyone in the guild.
No news was heard about the war in Liguritudum Realm. That country was located furthest from Themisphere. Apart from Jack, Wilted Tree, and the World Maker people, no one seemed to have reached that far away. So everyone was still oblivious of the war raging in that country.
Jeanny had given Horatio’s letter to Commander Quintus soon after Jack left. The commander asked about Jack, Jeanny informed him truthfully about Jack’s intention to become stronger before continuing the quest. The commander understood, he said he would give the letter to Prince Alonzo.. The commander also asked Jeanny to convey to Jack that Jack should come to him to get his merit points once he returned.
