Jordan peered out from on top of a hilly mound of dirt. While the beach of iron power stretched across the entire length of the ocean, which was further than he could see, that wasn’t quite as true for the width of the beach itself. About a mile or so away from the coast, he found the hard line that acted as the border between iron powder and just regular old dirt. Specifically, dirt that was part of a hilly biome of hills and tall mounds.

Although, while the beach itself had been fairly serene, the hills did have their fair share of animals. This had been in the form of creatures that only be described as oversized moles of some kind. Large enough to be compared to a small car, and rather ugly with wrinkly skin that was mostly naked, save for seemingly random patches of fur.

Yet Jordan only observed with crossed arms as his land drone took down the eighth one he’d seen by now. A kill that only took a single shot from its twin guns and didn’t even require the use of Overcharge to strengthen the energy blasts. As soon as it fell to the ground, dead, he opened his Status to see where it’d put him.

EXP: 1559/5625

Bunch of Level 4s, so far. Let’s see… looking at the kill notification stack, it looks like there are a couple extra in there. Must be from one of my other drones either encountering more of them somewhere else, or another kind of creature.

As Jordan was looking at his Status, another Hill Mole popped out from a close by hole, which was just one of money from what had to be a whole tunnel network. And yes, from when he had used Appraise on one, the System uncreatively said that they were indeed called Hill Moles. It’d also described them as being pack animals that were also very aggressive toward anything that intruded on their territory. So as soon the latest to come by had spotted them, steam-like breath immediately shot out of its nostrils as it moved to attack.

But before its attack could even begin, however, a blast of energy came at it from above. The Hill Mole screeched with pain, and instinctively tried to hide back in its hole. But the resummoned air drone did not let up, as it followed it down while still shooting down more energy bolts. With how large the tunnels were to accommodate their diggers, there was more than enough space for the air drone to keep firing even as its target tried to get deeper.

The drone then fired for the third time in a row with a bolt that pierced straight through the large creature’s back. And that proved to be the finished blow as it stopped moving, dead. Jordan got another notification before he willed for the stack to be minimized again.

Experience Earned!

+56 EXP

Hmm. You know what, System? Don’t fully condense them into a single stack. Instead, let’s just keep these Experience notifications minimized until I actually look at them, please? I’m kind of missing being able to see them as they roll in, Jordan thought to himself. At least this way, he could still see the individual notifications as they appeared, rather than automatically being added to a tiny stack whose number of total new pop-ups wasn’t immediately obvious.

Now, why was Jordan even cleaning this Hill Moles up in the first place? His goal should have been to check out what was either a structure or people, right? Well, yes. Though with how flat and without obstacles the beach was, he had recognized that anything with superior vision had the chance to spot him before he noticed it in return. So that was why he had sought a different type of biome to go around through, if it provided him more cover.

It’d initially been smooth sailing after he summoned a new land drone to ride on. When Jordan had encountered these hills, he thought he’d gotten lucky and could just drive through them as the perfect environment to get a look at things while having some cover to hide behind. That was until he came across the Hill Moles.

Unfortunately, the holes that were basically everywhere and seemingly random in their placement had forced his drone to slow down before he fell into one. And it was this slowing down that gave them a chance to pop out of their tunnels, where they immediately started to get aggressive and attack. So until he either killed them all or just cleared out enough that he went through their area without more attacking, he had to take the slow route a bit and walk as his drones did all the dirty work.

Hmm, wonder how Haje is doing. At least he knows what I’m doing, wait… would he know where to find me? It’s not like I actually pointed out the direction the Mandate would be to him, once we got here. Hey, System. Is there literally any tangible benefit to being part of the same Guild? Like maybe a helpful sense of direction for other Guild members, now that I’m asking for it? After all, there had been instances where the System only gave something out when actually prompted, and not before.

But from his questioning, a screen did then appear.

Guild: Industry

Leader: Jordan Joyner

Members: 2

Average Level: 5

Highest Grade: D

Note:

The full functionality of Guilds is unlocked through the increase of total members in a Guild. This is in addition to the average Level and highest Grade achieved amongst all active members.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Ohhh, okay then, this is definitely something. Let’s see… Haje already got us the boost from him already being in D Grade. So that should have already unlocked at least something good, right? Jordan asked as he tried to will for the System to give him more. Which it did, but instead of it being another screen to start, it was a tingling sensation from the palm of his hand.

He looked down at the hand that had the mark for his pocket space. And as he focused on it, Jordan was then hit with an influx of understanding. His eyes narrowed as he took it all in, but after he processed it, his lips curled upward.

Holy shit, we have a shared pocket space for the Guild! Jordan mentally exclaimed as his eyes twinkled with the possibilities that had now been opened up. First thing first, it had to be pointed out that there were certain restrictions to this ability. But as far as limits went… they were far more kind than what Jordan would have implemented if he’d been the one to design this and try to balance it.

This Guild-only pocket space acted like it was called, as in just for the Guild itself. It wasn’t like Jordan now had direct access to Haje’s stuff, or vice versa. But they could both, from anywhere and at any time, separately put their things into the Guild’s shared inventory. Now as the Guild leader, Jordan sensed that he did have some power over this. Such as being able to let Haje put stuff in, but not take anything back out.

Yet while he could implement something like that now, he chose not to, because that wasn’t really necessary when it was still just the two of them. But as their Guild likely grew in the future, it would be handy to have the ability to micromanage what random people could and could not take. Because yes, it even went detailed enough to let him restrict specific items.

But for how it actually functioned, Jordan took out a bit of cloth. It was just a random object to use as the practical test in order to experience it for himself. He then just focused on the Guild’s pocket space, which caused the tattoo on his palm to tingle. Then as if he were putting it inside his own, he pushed the cloth into his palm, and watched it disappear in an instant. Then while still focusing on wanting the Guild inventory, he pulled it back out, stopped focusing on it, and put it inside his own pocket space again. And… that was it.

The only other thing of real note was that knowing what was in the pocket space at all times was something only he as the leader got to know. Anyone else would just have to already be aware of what they wanted to pull out, and hoped they’d been given permission to do.

Man, there’s no way this isn’t busted as it is now, right? Like imagine being an archer in a Guild, and there was someone else who crafted your arrows. They could just put in the shared inventory, and you can just keep pulling them out as basically an infinite supply! Like how is that not broken as Hell from a balance perspective, without any general limits from the System on how much or how often you can take stuff out? Jordan questioned, before he then took a peak at the small number of notifications in the corner of his eye.

Experience Earned!

+56 EXP

Experience Earned!

+56 EXP

Experience Earned!

+56 EXP

Meanwhile, his land and air drone were still cleaning up the remaining beasts. Jordan approached one of the corpses, and took out a blade from his pocket space. While the Hill Moles themselves were way too big to just shove whole into his pocket space, he might as well take at least some to try. Who knew, maybe they would prove to actually taste pretty good when cooked? Or at least he hoped, since the Bark Snakes he’d been eating lately were just a bit too chewy for his liking.

In any case, it was just a few more Hill Moles until the last energy blasts were fired. Something which brought him to a nice new total of 1951 EXP. As another minute then passed without any more popping out from the tunnels, Jordan had collected plenty of their meat. When it came to cutting through chunks of flesh, having a Strength of 37 did quite a bit to make the process easier.

At this point, he’d already collected enough to be comparable to buying a whole hog or small cow from a farm. So as long as it tasted good, Jordan had now secured enough meat to last him for months. Now he just needed to follow up on his earlier idea to find some edible plants and such at some point, and a healthy diet would be secured.

He did still feel a bit bad that the vast majority of the Hill Moles, along with nearly everything his drones had killed on their patrols, would be left to rot. But perhaps some scavengers would come by to not let these corpses fully go to waste. Although, back in the forest, any scavengers over there would have also been shot by his drones if ever spotted by now, so…

With the Hill Moles seemingly cleared out, Jordan brushed his clothes. Despite an attempt to be careful, some blood and such had still gotten on him. Though after realizing that brushing it off wasn’t really helpful, he elected to just put them through the Industrial Transmuter instead. While it was a low task for such an awesome machine, it wasn’t his fault that it also acted as both the perfect washer and dryer.

And with that thought now tucked into his head for after he returned to his base, he ran past the last of the holes, and then hopped onto his land drone to keep riding.

Let’s see, it can’t be too far now. Probably another mile or so, from how long it too for the drone to desummon itself, Jordan thought to himself. He tried to keep an open mind and acknowledge the possibility that it might have just gotten destroyed by either a flying creature or something with range. Yet, with how close it’d gotten to where the next Mandate would be if the pattern so far held true, he had a feeling.

One that didn’t take much longer to be proven as Jordan approached his destination. He hopped back off his drone, and got down on his hands and knees. Now just behind the top of a hill, he stared down at the beach before him. In the middle of it was a metal dome, one that was definitely constrained to the same overall size limits as his own Kingdom’s building.

The beach around it was still one of iron powder, but even before seeing any of the dome’s residents, he could already tell who’d be living in it. For all around the dome was a chaotic series of holes, like a large creature’s fangs had repeatedly been pushed into the powder.

That… or the tell-tale sign of what appeared to be from the pointed legs of the giant Crabs.