The Mystic Guild was still in its early days so, of course, everything starts off small.
The 100 people who got accepted yesterday had all woken up from a good night's sleep and gathered at the Guild Hall. There, they socialize, order food or just hang out if they want to.
The Guild Hall was huge, it's pretty much a large open space for everyone's use. There were also bulletin boards in there where several posters were pinned.
These are, of course, the mission that Guild Members could take should they need to earn Guild Points to exchange for the Guild's resources.
There are a lot of people who were already gathered in front of these bulletin boards, eyeing the missions in interest. Some missions required more than one person while others could be taken solo.
The highest mission they saw so far was an S-Rank Mission, and that has something to do with the outside world. Some people were of course interested in this but they were informed that they don't have any qualifications to take on that mission just yet.
So far, all of them here are newbies, they don't even have any mission records yet. Everyone here starts at the same starting line. If they want higher-ranked missions, then they should knock out more missions first.
Some people already formed small groups for a mission. Even the lowest-ranked missions here, which is D-rank, had some pretty good rewards up for grabs so they didn't feel any hesitation when taking it up. To them, these resources were practically being offered for free so who were they to say no?
Registering for low-ranked missions was easy. They just had to scan the mission using their badge. If the mission required more than one person, then the one who scanned the mission should include everyone's name on the list before accepting the mission. Once that's done, they're good to go.
For B-ranked missions and above though, they will have more options.
The initial process for registration remains the same, only, before accepting, they could choose if they want to receive the Guild's Assistance or not.
The so-called Guild's Assistance was, in truth, Ashton's buffs...
Should they want to get a strength boost to increase the success rate of their mission, then they must first agree to surrender at least 10% of the mission's rewards to the Guild. If they accept that, then cool, they can get buffed. If they don't, then they could continue on their merry way.
In case of emergency, they can also ask for reinforcements. Everybody in the guild will receive the distress call and whoever's closest to the members that are in danger will be requested to help out.
Of course, aside from the missions, the Guild has still so much to offer.
Training areas, libraries full of information, research rooms...hell they could even pay for coaching should they need it.
But of course, a lot of these facilities cost resources to use. And resources are something that they could earn by going after missions. This cycle is simple and very predictable but it works. Even though some people already discovered this trend, so what? In the end, they'd have to do something if they want to earn right?
And since there are only 100 of them here right now, they practically have all of these resources to themselves. Nobody knows when the Guild will start is recruitment again so while the competition was still mild, they might as well take advantage of it.
This kind of hustle and bustle was something that Ashton liked to see.
The missions his guild members were doing right now might be mundane but it's still an effective way to spread the reputation of the guild.
Right now, they're out there, making society better by helping out. And with how energetic they are due to the encouragement of rewards, many people would of course talk about it. Word will eventually travel until it reaches all corners of Fantasia.
It shouldn't come as a surprise if, at the next recruitment, there would be more people who'd be eager to join.
'Well, here's to hoping that there'd be more talented people by then...'
Of course, even though Ashton took on several responsibilities that are too heavy for any single person to carry on their own, he made sure that he never slacked off in his own training.
Actually, raising powerful people is how Ashton gets stronger himself. The more talented people worked for him, the more he would benefit.
As of the moment, Ashton's strength was still steadily increasing even when his realm itself remained at Warlock Rank.
His Spells are getting more and more ridiculous as time passed, with how many SP he's farming every time he did something that benefits his Beneficiaries, he's maxing out everything one by one.
Previously, he estimated that it'll take at least several years for him before he could eventually break through into the Sorcerer Rank, but with the recent changes around him, that time was shrinking.
Maybe by the end of this year up to at least the first half of next year, he should be able to reach Sorcerer Rank.
And this is with him barely doing any cultivation too.
He'd love to do more but he's incredibly busy. There's too much paperwork on his desk that they'd start forming mountains should he take his eyes off of them even for the briefest moment.
Most of this work is still up to him since Jerry is still learning to process the new workload he has.
Right, since Jerry is now considered a System Dependant AI, his functions are a world of a difference compared to his old self. Jerry is still navigating his new functions and Ashton has to be there to support him.
It shouldn't take long before Jerry could handle this all on his own. By that point, Ashton should be freed from this paperwork and he could finally return to his precious research.
Ding!!
"Hm?"
Ashton got startled a little bit. He looked at the system prompt that suddenly appeared in his vision and saw that he had an unread message from a party chat.
He opened it up and saw a video posted. He played it and saw that his minions recorded the moment they arrived at their destination.
Ashton nodded in satisfaction and wrote: "Good work. Now, move on to the next plan. I'll be expecting great results from all of you."
"It will be done, M'Lord." They replied.
The members of this party...were none other than the broken and enslaved Revenants.
During the battle back then, Ashton turned them into a joke before abducting all of them. He then received a couple of Slave Seals from the System so he used them to plant moles within the ranks of both Hypogeans and Celestials.
Now, he should be receiving news directly from the Revenants. The best part is that nobody should see the System's functions aside from them. And due to the Slave Seal, their loyalty shouldn't be questioned.
With this, Ashton should be able to react accordingly to any movement of their enemies.
Now, what's left would be the longest battle of attrition ever.
Humanity was going in the right direction now. What it needs the most was time to develop. It's a little bit hard to gauge how much time they have left since they didn't have any clue about the plans of the foreign races.
Despite that though, they have to hold on. This might very well be Humanity's last chance. They couldn't give up now.
For this, Ashton heavily debated if he should relocate Fantasia or not...
Ever since Manny and his men worked to fuse the ARC function to the metropolis, it gained the ability to relocate. And since it can adapt to any kind of terrain or environment, technically, it could be a decent idea to relocate Fantasia.
They make it go underground, hide it behind the clouds or simply move to the other side of the map, just to stop the army of invaders from probing their general location.
However, doing this has some consequences as well. Mainly in the form of alarming the enemy of their movement.
A whole metropolis' relocation wouldn't be a quiet affair after all.
Perhaps, it would be for the best if they considered this as a last option. A trump card, per se. That way, the enemy's army couldn't prepare for it.
Fantasia's gone into hiding in their eyes anyway. They couldn't probe the fate and destiny of humanity anymore. In fact, that's the reason why there's an increased volume of invader hordes, coming to their general vicinity.
Their defenses could still deal with them so it's fine for now. And the more the enemy tries to prolong humanity's supposed agony, the more time Ashton could use to strengthen his race.
This is a delicate gamble, one that Ashton fearlessly plays with. And so far, he is winning. Of course, there are a few factors that could easily flip the situation around. That is why right now, Ashton was trying to reduce the unstable variables.
...like the seal which prevents the stronger enemies from descending.
Ashton felt the need to deal with that sooner rather than later.
