A few days later, in Shadow Hunter City:
Today was the first day when the Shadow Hunter Guild was finally willing to recruit members.
The news quickly attracted millions of applicants to the city, all hoping to be recruited.
Among them was Tarik, an old student who had been at the institute for centuries.
Tarik could be described as mediocre within the institute.
Without much hope, he can only muddle through his life.
However, after Maximus rampages into the abyss.
His stale blood couldn’t help but boil, he wished he also had that kind of strength.
When he heard that his idol guild was recruiting, he hurriedly made his way to the city.
“So, this is Idol’s Guild City…” Tarik muttered to himself.
Although many areas were still under construction, the silhouette of a great city was already visible.
After wandering for a while, he found the registration building.
Upon entering, he was met with a multitude of other candidates who all wore peculiar expressions.
They were neither happy nor sad, as if they had arrived at the wrong place.
Holding his curiosity, Tarik patiently waited for his turn.
A few hours later it was his turn.
“Hello, I came here to join the Shadow Hunters Guild.”
“Just register your information here,” the alchemy puppet instructed, taking out a device.
Tarik quickly scanned his token in it and completed his registration.
“Done. What’s next?” Tarik inquired.
“You just need to sign this contract, and you’re in,” the puppet said emotionlessly.
“You’re in?” Tarik muttered unconsciously as he glanced at the contract.
The contract was a standard guild agreement, just slightly more lenient, indicating that members could leave at any time.
This left Tarik puzzled.
“Where’s the test? Don’t I need to meet certain criteria or something?” Tarik questioned.
“Perhaps I’m so talented that I can automatically join?” he mumbled.
Tarik was shocked at how easy it was to become a member of his idol’s guild.
Earlier Tarik was even contemplating what to do if he failed to join the guild.
Now this puppet told him that he was just one signature away from becoming a member.
“There is no such criteria. Just think of the guild as a more private mercenary guild,” the puppet explained.
In a mercenary guild, you can join in without any conditions.
You can even join it and still be a part of a private guild.
Within this guild, you have the freedom to publish and accept missions of all kinds.
This is how most people from the Arcane Continent earn money.
With a vast amount of missions from all over the world, it’s a gathering place for all kinds of people.
Even Maximus used this platform to hire teachers for his empire’s academy.
However, using it to hire people for odd jobs within his empire was a bit of a stretch.
For instance, building a sub-teleportation array, though not requiring professionals.
They still needed proficiency in material composition, refining, and rune carving.
These skilled individuals were already employed by private guilds.
To get the job done, Maximus had to pay several times the original amount.
Even though this wasn’t a significant expense for Maxims, he disliked wasting money.
Besides, he already had his own guild; why spend money on other people?
Moreover, it was more convenient when it was your own guild – just let Tintin post it on the guild mission board, and you’re done.
In a mercenary guild, there were too many procedures that Maximus was too lazy to deal with.
…
Upon learning how the Shadow Hunters Guild operated, Tarik signed up nonetheless.
After all, he could leave anytime he wanted.
Perhaps there was something unique about his idol’s guild?
After signing the contract, his token displayed an additional panel showing the guild interface:𝒪𝒱xt.𝒸𝗈𝕞
[Tarik Jittry:
Rank D: 0/100
Guild Points: 0]
“There’s still a ranking?” Tarik murmured as he read through the guild’s introduction.
The Shadow Guild was formed by 10,000 special students and 1 core student.
Just reading this introduction left Tarik somewhat awestruck. “So many!”
The number of special students is already comparable to the old guild that has operated for epochs.
Yet, the founding guild members already match that.
As Tarik read through the explanation of ranks and guild points, he became more confident in his choice to join the guild.
Ranks are quite straightforward, representing your status and privileges within the guild.
One can upgrade rank by simply completing missions.
However, when he looked at the lowest D-rank mission, which involved setting up a purifying array, it only provided 0.1 guild points per city.
In other words, he would need to complete a thousand D-level missions just to advance to rank C.
As for the use of guild points, aside from upgrading rank, they are also used to purchase unique resources within the guild.
While browsing through the exchange list, Tarik was taken aback.
“There’s a Tier 6 Hail Pure Core here?”
This was a crucial resource he needed to consolidate his tier and advance to Tier 6.
Originally, he had been struggling to find this item, but now that he saw it, he felt eager to complete missions and buy it right away.
Scrolling further, he discovered various materials and other rare resources that were hardly obtainable anywhere else.
“As expected, Idol’s guild is indeed the Idol’s guild!” Tarik thought excitedly.
Although the flow of resources in this world is fast, that you can purchase anything.
The demand and consumption were also high, leading to shortages of rare resources.
Without connections, you might have to wait for hundreds of years to secure a reservation.
Except for private transactions, adding money was useless as inflation could result in arrest.
All the known materials in the arcane continent had fixed upper prices to prevent malicious competition.
That was why many businessmen preferred doing business in other continents, where they could mark up prices as they wished.
As for the rare materials in the guild, Maximus had acquired them through his system.
Given his current status, as long as he didn’t engage in anything outrageous, no one would investigate his actions.
Furthermore, all of his data within the Arcana Continent was deleted as soon as he became a core student.
Consequently, all his transactions were untraceable and kept private.
Regarding taxes and similar matters, it was all based on estimations, allowing him to state whatever amount he pleased.
Of course, Maximus didn’t bother to lie about this thing.
If caught, it would be an embarrassment that a core student evaded taxes for such little amount of money.
..
After Tarik had finished salivating over the rare resources in the guild’s exchange list.
He noticed that guild points could also be used to access skills in the guild’s library.
“Huh? Is there a unique inheritance in the guild?”
Normally, only guilds that have endured epochs possess such things.
As a new guild, where would they find or have time to create these unique inheritances?
Tarik thought it might be a gimmick or something, and didn’t bother.
“I really didn’t make a mistake by joining the guild,” Tarik muttered after thoroughly reading the guild’s introduction.
Just the rare resources in the guild exchange list made it worth it.
“Now, only guild points are missing!” With an excited expression, he clicked through the mission board.
Tarik didn’t bother to look at the Rank C and D missions and passed them immediately.
He considered it an insult to do these low-tier odd jobs.
[Rank B Mission:
Create a tier 7 integrated piece of a Luminos Pipe Sytem.
Guild Points: 300]
[Rank B Mission:
Build a tier 7 integrated piece of Black Rune interior wall.
Guild Points: 200]
[Rank B Mission:
Help in the advancement of the Moonlight Empire’s Array.
Guild Points: 100 Per 0.001%]
…
Looking at the Rank B mission left him dumbfounded.
“How can I possibly do this?”
Integration is a method for creating higher-tier items while being at a lower tier.
A Tier 7 integrated piece is enough to create a Tier 8 or 9 item, depending on how many pieces are available.
You can also create a Tier 7 integrated piece by combining multiple Tier 6 integrated pieces.
Although this miraculous way of creating items is possible.
The time, labor, and resources needed are multiple times what it would take to create an item as it is.
“Let’s go back to Rank C missions…” Tarik silently thought.
Although he could create integration pieces starting from a lower tier, it wasn’t worth it.
He calculated that, after all the hard work, he wouldn’t earn much.
As for assisting with the Empire Array, you needed to be at least a Rank 5 Formation Master to participate.
[Rank C mission:
Create a Tier 6 integrated piece of Lactate Yuri.
Guild Points: 15]
[Rank C mission:
Carve a sub-teleportation rune array.
Guild Points: 3 per piece.]
[Rank C mission:
Set up a space pathway.
Guild Points: 10 per Kilometer]
…
“Now that’s much easier,” Tarik smiled and quickly selected a mission.
As for calling these low-tier missions an insult, he had already cast that thought aside.
Guild Points is what matters, and nothing could prevent him from earning it.
“Just wait for me, my little cuties…” Tarik thought as he took one last look at the guild exchange list.