As Shesmu was returning to the city planning on starting a guild, a problem arose in his mind: He was way too high level. Even his friend suspected him of cheating if he were to show anyone his level, he would be reported and berated to no end. Reports will take a long time to initiate a reaction from the Main God System, and the only thing that he would be left with until the reports have been checked would be the insults of the angry players.
Taking a step back, even if Shesmu were to tolerate the insults of the angry players until the reports are answered, most will say that the main god system is bugged and whatever is left would join with unclean intentions. Shesmu wasn’t living in an idealistic world where he expected anyone to join his guild to have done so for a noble reason. However, he wanted the core to at least have some synergy between them and loyal to a certain extent.
Thinking up to this point, Shesmu felt that it shouldn’t be him who starts the guild, but someone he trusted, had enough power to be respected but not enough to be ostracised. The more he thought about, the more he felt that Seth was the man for the job. He had good mechanics, high position in the gaming industry, top-notch level and equipment by early game standards, he was perfect. Thinking about his future plans, Shesmu returned to the cemetery.
Once Shesmu went away, Seth started his training. He didn’t immediately go and fight skeleton warriors but tried to simulate what Shesmu had told him to do. For 5 minutes, he just used the fireball skill, recalled what was happening in his body, try to replicate it manually and fail. As he started casting fireball for the nth time, he heard the sound of footsteps coming towards his way. Turning around, he found that it was Shesmu.
Although surprised, Seth didn’t make it obvious as he greeted.
“Yo, what’s up Shesmu? Did you forget something?”
Hearing Seth’s question, Shesmu kept silence for a moment before replying.
“Actually, no. I just came back because of a certain matter I need your help with. Let’s go back to town and I’ll explain it to you on the way.”
As Seth and Shesmu made their way back to town, Shesmu explained to Seth his plans. He didn’t mention the fact that he wanted to conquer the goblin village, as this feature wasn’t available on the beta and would draw way too much suspicion. However, he explained that he wanted to start a guild today due to the expedition tomorrow. He wanted to use the expedition as an advertisement to their guild so that they can gather a colossal amount of members. With Shesmu and Seth’s previous fame throughout multiple games, they could have easily started a guild using the right connections and talking with the right people. It just would take a little bit longer than necessary and would require some compromises from their part.
However, Shesmu didn’t want to go down that route as it would lead him to contracts he didn’t wish to sign. Using a powerful backer to start a guild meant surrendering many of your leading rights and decision-making options to the said backer, which is something Shesmu didn’t want to experience.
Reaching the center of the town, Shesmu and Seth entered the Adventurer Guild. Much like the Magician Academy and The Swordsman Training Center, the Adventurer Guild was a behemoth that reached every corner of the world. With a branch in any major city or town, the Adventurer Guild was easily one of the top 10 superpowers in the world.
As the duo passed through the wooden gate, the smell of booze assaulted their noses. The receiving hall of the guild served as a bar for its members, and the atmosphere was jolly with everyone joking with each other. Shesmu wasn’t sure why no one caused a ruckus, however, he knew that a branch leader of the Adventurer Guild in any beginner town was level 25. Thus, Shesmu guessed that it was due to his presence that the members respected the staff and didn’t start any trouble.
Walking even deeper, Shesmu found multiple boards stationed one next to the other. On these boards, multiple posters were stuck on, describing different quests. Most of these quests were fetch ones or required manual labor, while a minority were hunting quests.
Next to the board was the receptionist desk. For most of the Adventurer Guild members and various customers, this was the place to accept a quest, post one, or flirt with the beautiful receptionists. However, to a select few, this was the place where they could officially start their guild.
“Hello customer, how may I be of help for you?”
Reaching the receptionist desk, a seventeen-years-old girl warmly welcomed Shesmu, to which he responded by saying.
“I am here to start a guild, could you please brief me of the procedures?”
Hearing his question, the receptionist seemed surprised for a moment before she regained her professionalism and smiled.
“To start a guild, you have two options. The first one is to have a minimum of 10 members sign a contract that forces them to not change the guild for a minimum of a month, this is so that we do not end up with thousands and millions of guilds with no members that we need to manage. Additionally, you will need to pay a fee of 10 silver to officialize the guild. The other option is a little bit special as you do not need any members to start the guild, however, the required fee is 1 gold to officialize it.”
Hearing her explanation, Shesmu nodded before taking out a gold coin from his inventory and passing it to her.
“I understand, here is the fee. How much time does it take to officialize the creation of the guild?”
Looking at the gold coin on the table the receptionist was clearly surprised. The value of a gold coin was quite high as her monthly salary was only 50 silvers, so it was to be expected that she would be overwhelmed by this amount of money. However, she didn’t show her surprise as she took the gold coin, wrote something on a piece of paper, before saying.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Don’t worry, the officialization process doesn’t take long, I just need a drop of your blood on this contract.”
As she was explaining the mechanism of creating a guild, she passed the contract to Shesmu. He then bit on his thumb and spilled a drop of blood on the contract. The latter shimmered with a golden color for a little bit before a notification appeared in front of Shesmu.
Please choose a name for your guild.
“Black Moon.”
Guild Name Black Moon Level 1 Reputation 0 Members 1
Looking at the blue panel describing the basic information about his guild, Shesmu had a smile on his face. He quickly thanked the receptionist and added Seth to the guild before going out of the Adventurer Guild.
As the duo was going out of town, Shesmu asked Seth.
“I’m going to hunt goblins. If you want, you can join me so that we work on our teamwork. Do you want to join?”
Hearing Shesmu’s offer, Seth appeared to be thoughtful for a moment before replying.
“I don’t think that it’s a good idea. With my power right now, I could easily solo monsters 3 to 4 levels above me. If I hunt in a party with you, our efficiency would be way too good boosting me to too high of a level. This might complicate things as we try to recruit members, as no one would want to join a group of supposed cheaters.”
Hearing Seth’s reply, Shesmu smiled as he already predicted such a response.
“You’re making great points, however, I might ask you, who do you think I want to join our guild? What kind of demographic am I most interested in?”
As Shesmu finished his question, Seth pondered for a little bit before hesitatingly answering.
“Hmm, H-hardcore gamers?”
At his answer, Shesmu smiled and nodded.
“Yeah, I only want hardcore players in the guild. Players that are hungry to get better and broaden their horizons, gamers that live for the thrill of the challenge.”
Shesmu’s speech ignited a certain fire on Seth’s heart, making him hyped up about the prospect of such a guild. However, he stayed silent for a little bit, thinking before finally asking.
“This is good and all, but what does it have to do with my previous question. Shouldn’t I not level until I prove my skills on the battlefield and start recruiting members?”
“There is no need at all, you can level as much as you want. People who are hungry for competition and are good will not ride the bandwagon after seeing your skills on the battlefield. In fact, any player who would rather not join because of some baseless rumor would have been not worthy of joining in the first place. Experts don’t want to be lead by someone who is weak. You need to show them that you are strong and bold enough to pierce through the competition, and this concretized through four things. First is a background in the gaming industry which you certainly don’t lack. Second is a high level of skill for anyone to admire and for the experts to marvel at. Third are good pieces of equipment and attributes as they are what largely determine your strength. Finally, there is level as it’s a relative indication of the strength of the player.”
Hearing Shesmu’s explanation, Seth rolled his eyes before saying.
“Then shouldn’t you be the guild leader? You have all these traits and you top me in all of them.”
At this remark, Shesmu quickly interrupted.
“Level 14 is way too much. No matter how good I show myself to be, it would be hard for anyone to think that I didn’t use one kind of exploit or another. The top player base is still around level 7 with few reaching level 8. There probably wouldn’t be any player reaching level 10 until tomorrow night. You reaching it 1 day before wouldn’t be too much trouble to explain as you can easily push it to the fact that you’re so much better than any other mage. However, for any other player to reach level 14, it would take them another 5 days. For me to reach it already would be ludicrous no matter how you look at it.”
Hearing Shesmu’s comeback, Seth kept silence as he knew it was the truth. He would still be able to explain him being level 11 due to his skills, and his reputation in the community. In fact, Seth reaching level 11 would only make his skills even more clear for everyone to see. However, level 14, or possibly level 15 since Shesmu is planning to farm all day long, can’t be rationalized unless Shesmu had big AOE skills with high damage and low cooldown.
After this small discussion, the duo traveled to where goblins’ roamed. Village monsters contrary to normal ones didn’t spawn randomly but came through breeding, which made their numbers surprisingly small compared to other monsters. The goblin advanced village, for example, had around 60000 goblins residing in it, and each goblin that died wouldn’t respawn, which made these villages extremely fragile to guerrilla warfare.
Shesmu’s plan was to kill as many goblins as possible so as to minimize the enemies that they will fight tomorrow. Even though 60000 goblin resides in the advanced village, only 20000 of them are able to fight. The others were workers, farmers, housewives, elderly and children whose combat power were minimal.
Encountering a group of 10 goblins and 1 hobgoblin, Shesmu dashed towards the hobgoblin. Striking with his sword, Shesmu left a big gash on the monster’s belly before he activated the skill slash. There was a millisecond of awkward pause before the skill was initiated. A red glow appeared on Shesmu’s sword as it flashed and hit the hobgoblin’s chest. As the blade of the sword made contact with the monster, Shesmu immediately canceled the remaining skill animation by thrusting his sword manually into the hobgoblin’s chest. The latter died and went limp not leaving a chance for Shesmu to complete his combo.
In the meantime, Seth comboed his Fireball with Thunderbolt in less than a second, killing three goblins in a flash before repositioning. Seth’s movement and footwork was agile as he stopped for a minimal time to cast his abilities. Not only that but whenever he moved, he made sure so as to stay behind Shesmu so as he can protect him. This was easier said than done as Shesmu was an agile swordsman and not a tank. A swordsman who focused on agility would have hard to predict movement as he would need to dodge all the time, using all eight directions to his advantage. For Seth’s kiting method to work, he needs to put himself in Shesmu’s shoes at all time so as to predict where he will dodge, and he also needs to keep track of his surroundings at the same time and also cast his spells perfectly. This level of control was what made Seth one of the top 200 magicians in the world, constantly competing with monster level geniuses.
In less than 10 seconds, the duo made quick work of the remaining goblins.
Seth and Shesmu kept farming for the whole day killing thousands of goblins, letting Shesmu reach level 15 and be halfway to 16, while Seth reached level 12. If not for party exp being 75% each, Seth might have reached level 13 with this kind of insane farming.
As night came, the duo returned to town and went on their separate ways, Seth going back to training while Shesmu cultivated for the night.