In the morning, he met John again in the Guild Hall.
"You are not doing the morning martial art training?" Jack asked.
"It's the melee class session at the moment," John answered. "Your grandfather separated the training into two sessions. One for melee players, the second for range players, which is later."
"I see. Where is Bowler? He should be joining the second session then?"
"He is excused for today's training, he is on his way to take his elite class trial."
"He just did? I thought you mentioned you all will be taking the trials when I left. Speaking of which, have you taken yours?"
"Have you not checked our guild's member rosters?" John asked back.
"Uh, no," Jack was not used to checking the guild page often.
"Open and check it then."
Jack opened it. In the guild's member list, he could see each of the member's classes. He was surprised, quite a number had become elite classes already.
Amongst those who had become elite classes, Jeanny was a Dragoon, as he had advised her in the past. John was a Summoner, The Man a Berserker, Trinity Dawn an Elementalist, Giant Steve a Sentinel, and Viral Cora had become a Bard.
"Had the others not yet taken their trials? Or did they fail?" Jack asked.
"Some had taken and failed, like Swellgoing, Wondrouslife, and a few others. Some others, like Bowler, preferred a prudent approach since succeeding on the first try gets a bonus skill. They wait for others to do the trial and ask them about the process or increase more levels to increase the odds. I have to say, Domon's training also increases the odds. Not that any of us has the ability to sense mana already, but it gives us a fundamental understanding of its existence, which still helped a little."
From the guild page, he also noticed that their headquarters had built all the resource gathering structures, albeit all of them were still at level 1. All workshops were also built, with barrack, archery, training cave, training ground, and the wall.
The Power Crystal, lodging quarters, and worker quarters had been upgraded to level 2. Lodging Quarter now had 700 beds for members to use. Level 2 Worker Quarters allowed the hiring of 20 workers. Level 2 Power Crystal gave a 15% exp boost for guild members within the region, active boost by spending contribution points provided 15% attribute boost and 10% damage/defense boost for three hours.
Current structures in construction were Wall Gate and Armory. Once the Armory was built, it would allow them to train Knight units, which possessed higher defensive traits than the Squires.
For the trained units, they had managed to refill their unit roster back to 100 Squires, while the Bandit Archers were up to 70 units. Today was the last day of protection status. By tomorrow, if the coalition still insisted on attacking, Heavenly Citadel's strength would not be less than the battle a week ago.
Furthermore, with the additional resources received from raiding Corporate United's headquarters, they could continue training even more units within these few days.
Apart from that, a stream of new applicants had been flooding them with requests for joining. After the news of Everlasting Heavenly Legends successfully repel the coalition's attack, their prestige had increased. They were no longer seen as a guild who was just lucky to place first in the guild chart. Their members as of this moment had reached more than seven hundred members, with more still in the process of being reviewed by Jeanny and John.
The number of Orc players that applied was also increasing. After hearing about this guild battle event from their friends, many orcs had gone to the Guild Associations in Larabar to put in their application. At this moment, there were not yet any guilds in Verremor that possessed Guild Headquarters. In fact, Jack did not doubt that some of the orcs applying were spies sent by Verremor guilds, to find out about the means of getting a Guild Headquarters.
Jeanny and John were more selective on these Orc applicants because they couldn't enter Themisphere's cities, so they were more limited in helping with guild quests. There were also guild quests available in Larabar after Life Runner registered their guild in that city, but the same problem. The ones that operated there were only Orc players, so they couldn't coordinate with their human guildmates, thus limiting the guild quests they undertook to those of small quests.
Some applicants used to be the members who left them when the coalition attacked, John promptly rejected all those players. He had marked them in his blacklist note. They did not need members who abandon them during their time of need.
"I've received reports that Death Associates and Wicked Witches' presence in capital Thereath had reduced," John said. "It seemed that your threat is effective. Most likely they have been scared by you and were reinforcing their headquarters at this moment."
"So, Wicked Witches had successfully acquired their headquarters?" Jack asked.
"They have," John said.
"What about White Scarfs? Any news on their progress?"
"No news yet on them. Anyway, even though an attack tomorrow is unlikely, I hope you don't go anywhere far first. Just in case if some guilds still try to attack."
"Okay. I'm planning to stay in Thereath for at least a few days anyway," Jack said.
"A few days? So you did plan to go away again, eh?" John said.
"This game world is so vast. A lot of lands are yet to be uncovered. A lot of countries are to be explored. It will be a shame if I stay coop up here."
"Well, as long as you remember yourself is still a part of this guild and come back when needed."
"Don't worry, with the Guild Return scroll. I'm just one message away."
Before Jack left, he checked on Corporate United's Guild Hostage Token again. Surprisingly, the headquarters was still standing. There were only a few structures left, though.
"Amazing, so they also managed to defend their headquarters. I guess this meant they had a Demon Weed summoning crystal now," Jack said. Referencing to the time when they were bestowed the High Lich summoning crystal after successfully defending Heavenly Citadel from the undead horde.
"Not necessarily," Peniel said. "There were three ways to survive a disaster item. First, of course, is to flee from it. But in the case where you cannot flee, for example, if your Guild Headquarters is within the AOE of the disaster item, you can either eliminate all the monsters produced by the disaster item, like what your guild achieved before. Or, you wait it out."
"Wait it out?"
"Yep. I don't remember ever saying the disaster item is permanent. The disaster item lasted five hours where the strongest boss would appear at the end of the fifth hour. But if the Guild Headquarters was still standing two hours after the appearance of this strongest boss. All the monsters would stop attacking and return to where they came from. At that time, the defending guild will be considered to have successfully defended against the disaster item. The difference is, the reputation point they receive will be much less compared to if they eliminate all the monsters. Also, they will not receive any summoning crystal."
"So you think they have survived using this waiting it out method?"
"Most likely. I think if they had a way to destroy the Demon Weed, they wouldn't have waited until so many of their structures getting demolished."
"I think you are right. Still, to be able to last two hours against a level 57 rare elite, that alone is already impressive."
Leaving the Heavenly Citadel via the Teleportation Chamber, Jack appeared at Thereath's Zone Portal. He went directly to the League of Champions. At the moment, he had accumulated 342 challenge points on his League of Champions Badge, while his Order of Magi Badge had 269 challenge points.
Even though defeating elite monsters and above gave him challenge points for both factions, he was more active in using his Blade Dancer skills, thus the challenge points he accumulated in League of Champions Badge were more.
Throughout his adventure, many of his skill proficiencies had also increased.
From his melee class side, his Flame Strike and Parry had upgraded to four stars, Natural Body Recovery and Charge to three stars, Adrenaline Rush and Flash Step to two stars. Superior Body Recovery and Shooting Dash acquired their first star.
Superior Body Recovery during its starting state had 50% efficiency during combat. With the first star upgrade, it had increased to 55% efficiency. From this increase, Jack surmised that Superior Body Recovery at full ten stars to have 100% efficiency during combat, making it no different on the recovery between off-combat and during combat.
Shooting Dash at first star increased movement speed by an additional 50% and the damage boost by another 10%.
From his magic class side, his Mana Bullet and Energy Bolts upgraded to the four stars, Heightened State to three stars, Ice Ring to two, Magic Bind acquired its first star, which increased its bind duration for another three seconds.
