"Are you leaving now?" John asked.
"Yeah, I need to go outside of town to find out about these things I said that need checking. it's better if I do this as soon as possible," Jack replied.
"Can you leave Peniel with me? There is much I want to ask about this guild business," John said.
"Well, I don't mind if it's only a day or two," Jack said.
"I'm not something that can be left behind, mister," Peniel said as he flicked Jack's nose. "I'm soul-link to you. I can't leave your side too far. If you moved too far away, I will simply get pulled away in whatever direction you are moving. If there is an obstacle, I will simply phase out before getting teleported directly to your side after a certain amount of time."
"Oh, sorry then. You heard her," Jack said to John. "How about this, let's meet again later tonight at Ellie's restaurant. I will book two adjacent VIP rooms, you can stay in one of the rooms with Peniel discussing whatever you need to discuss. I will be in the other room with Silverwing." He had received Silverwing's message again not long after Bluedaze left. He had agreed to meet later to have a chat.
"That's fine also. See you later then," John said.
Earmouth's spy was dismayed as he watched the trio from a distance. He had been pretending to watch the list of quests as he eavesdropped on their conversation, but then they suddenly moved to a secluded corner. If he followed, they were sure to get suspicious. The last thing he had heard was something about a bandit outpost and guild base. He stayed there and silently watched. After some time had passed, one of the three, Storm Wind, their guild's number one nemesis, split away and went to the exit. The other two came back and talked with their other members as they chose on the guild quests to take on.
Seeing there was nothing he could learn more, he returned to Earmouth and reported everything he had heard.
"Everlasting Heavenly Legends? Such an absurd and pompous name," Earmouth commented. He reviewed all that his spy had reported. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary of a budding guild, but that bandit outpost thing mentioned by that small flying creature sounded important. Where did they find that creature anyway? Was that a pet? But why would the discussion of a guild base turn to bandit outpost?
After compiling everything he had learned, he wrote a message and sent them to Scarface. Out of a hunch, he also sent a message to one of their people who was in charge of gathering information from the library. He asked them to pay attention in case they found any information pertaining to the bandit outpost.
Before Jack left the capital, he went to restock on all the things he had lost during his expedition. Recovery potions, magic stones, lockpicks, disarm tools, and some magic scrolls. What he found out was the inflation had happened everywhere. The basic healing potion that was only 60 copper was now 1 silver and 20 copper coins. Lockpicks were now 30 copper coins each.
The most ridiculous increase was magic scrolls, the Arcane Turbulence was now 2 gold coins, while the Fireball was 5 gold coins. He still did not find any Chain Lightning scroll again, but he would expect the price of that scroll to go up to 10 gold coins if compared with the others. The Town Return scroll on the other hand did not increase as much, at 20 silver coins, only double from the original.
He suspected these magic scrolls were adjusted by the system so as to not getting abused in their usage. Their cheap early prices were to help players get by as they were getting used to this world. A pity, if he had known, he would have stocked up more before the price increased. Peniel said he had no idea about such inflation, this was all random according to her so she had no way of knowing such events.
Peniel also advised him to not get too dependent on those scrolls. Their effectiveness would decrease the more outworlders leveled up. After all, the scrolls mostly contained standard spells at the lowest level. The highest level of the spell in a scroll Jack had seen was at level 3, while if players had learned the spells, they could level them up to level 20. So the scrolls were only good for low-level players.
But following the inflation, new things popped up in the store, such as the Healing Potion which they had bought from the army supply station. He also glanced at the equipment store and saw that many level 25 weapons and armors were on display as well, still only common grade though.
After finished restocking, he went to the Hunters Association to cash in all his trophy loots he had collected during the expedition and submit his completed hunting quests. Even with all those hefty trophy loots, he still lost 3 gold coins after deducting the coins he spent for restockings, all due to the price inflation.
He also received 381 hunter points for it. Although these points were more than he usually received in one hunting trip due to all the quests were from high difficulty quests, but he had also only taken one hunting trip in the past three weeks, meaning his hunter points were more likely behind others already. Out of curiosity, he checked on the exclusive exchange item list. He was thinking to take that Camouflage Tent if it was still available. Turned out all the items in that exclusive list had been taken already by others.
At this rate, others would more likely get to the Gold rank Hunter before him. He had gone ahead of others in level but fell behind in hunter points. Couldn't help it, Jack thought. You gained something, you likely lose something as well. Everyone had the same amount of time, he could only spend them at one thing at a time. The important thing was to spend the time efficiently.
Hence he didn't lament too much about his hunting points falling behind, he picked up another ten hunting quests. He didn't plan another efficient hunting route this time, however. The ones he picked were monsters that were around the area where the Bandit Outpost was located. He had asked Peniel what monster in Silver hall that were in that region.
After finished picking up the hunting quests, he went over to the Adventurers Association next door. He didn't take any job from there, but any quest not associated with other faction quests could still be reported. So he went and reported the completed chain quest, Duchess' Cure, and the investigate the strange disease quest in Thesewal.
He didn't receive any coins nor experience for those as those rewards had already been granted when those quests were completed, but he received adventurers points for them. The chain quest gave an especially abundance of points for being multiple quest lines and also for being of high grade, although it was not an actual SSS grade as Peniel mentioned, it was not a low grade as well. He received 6238 adventurer points from those two quests. He checked on his badge after receiving those points.
VIP Silver Adventurer Badge (adventurer points: 7,854, available points: 6,774)
He needed 10,000 points to become a Gold-rank Adventurer. Looking at his current points, he might still have the chance to become a Gold-rank first before others. He also checked on the Silver Hall's exclusive exchange list. All the remaining exclusive items had also been taken by others. The competition was truly tough, he thought.
After finishing with those two neutral factions, he finally headed out of the city. He summoned his steed and went directly to the area where the Bandit Outpost was at. The density of monsters in the vicinity of the capital was not as crowded as the faraway regions he had seen during the expedition, also their levels were lower, hence his steed had no problem avoiding them during his travel.
He arrived in the area where the outpost was located before long, but he didn't go near it. He went around searching for the thing he was looking for while killing the monsters that were on his hunting quest list.
He spent the entire afternoon roaming around the place until sunset before he returned to the capital. He did not complete all his hunting quests on this trip. The quests were only secondary, he had another objective on that trip.
During the time he spent in the wilderness, he also received a message from William of Wellington, congratulating him on establishing his guild.
'Word travels fast,' he thought.
He arrived in Ellie's Restaurant a bit later than his appointment time with Silverwing. He had contacted Ellie this morning about his return and requested the VIP rooms. He went immediately upstairs. Before that though, he went to the next room where John and Jeanny were at. He left Peniel with them before he met with Silverwing. Bluedaze and Sinreaper were also in the room with him.
Silverwing Started their conversation by congratulating him for have formed a guild. He hoped that their two guilds could become allies and would benefit each other in the future.
After he expressed courtesy, he went into the main topic. He was very interested in the outside world. Even until now, no guild had managed to send their teams to a different city by normal means. They had found out about the caravan function and had some of their people worked on their Haggling skills to be accepted into the Trade Association.
However, only the member of the association could use the caravan function and the towns available to them were small or medium-sized ones which they were not allowed to use the zone portal unless they were part of Themisphere kingdom. To get to the large-sized city where they could use the zone portal to teleport, they needed to reach a certain rank within the Trade Association, and the points required were large and required a long amount of time and effort to accrue.
