Guild Introduction

Walking through the entrance to the guild the first thing Cylas noticed was a huge board on the right wall filled with various quest. The guild ceiling was higher than expected, almost twice as high as his own ceiling. The inside of the building had various tables that allowed for parties to sit/discuss their plans. Straight back a counter housed a few receptionists who were responsible for dealing with various aspects of the Guild. On the left side steps led upstairs where a meeting room and the Guildmaster's office were located.

Usually empty the meeting room was used only when the Guild had serious situations they needed to discuss. Walking towards one of the receptionists Cylas wondered if the Guild was always this busy. He had come here a few times with Lucius but other than that his Uncle generally kept him away from the Guild. As he walked up to the counter the receptionist looked at him before talking.

"How may I help you today?" she said in a formal tone. Contrary to her nice voice her eyes seemed to be looking through Cylas gauging him.

"I'm here to sign up with the guild." Cylas responded.

"Alright, just fill out this paper and we can start the registration process! There will be an Entry fee of 10 silver to join." she responded ignoring his slight nervousness. Handing him a paper and a pen Cylas started filling out the form.

While filling out the form Cylas started thinking to himself,

"10 silvers, why so much money?"

The only reason he could think of was to prevent people who weren't serious about applying from joining, but still 10 silvers could provide enough food for almost half a month. Upon filling out the form Cylas grabbed one of his Gold coins and put it on the paper.

Seeing that he was finished the receptionist grabbed the paper and coin and took it to the back room with her.

"...What's taking so long" Cylas muttered to himself.

It had been almost 10 minutes and he wasn't sure if it usually took this long to finish the process. As he debated on asking one of the other receptionists the lady who had taken his paper came back out with a plaque in hand.

"Sorry for the wait, a mistake was made in the back. As an apology the fee has been waived." upon finishing her sentence she handed the plaque and gold coin back to him.

"Are you sure? It was only a few minutes." Cylas responded. It was weird that they would give such a large amount of money back for just a few minutes of time.

"Yes, don't worry about it." she quickly responded,

"Are you familiar with how the process works or would you like an introduction?" the woman continued seemingly changing the topic.

"If you wouldn't mind." Cylas responded. While he knew how the guild worked for the most part from Lucius he wanted to make sure that he was well informed before going out.

"Alright then, starting with ranks, adventurers are divided into 8 ranks obsidian, steel, iron, copper, silver, gold, mythril, and platinum. Matching these ranks there are 7 difficulties for quests. The difficulty is determined by the guild after careful investigation. The ranks for the quest range from F to A. In extreme cases the rank S will be given to quest that are regarded as extremely dangerous. The ranks are assigned based off the difficulty rating of the subject at hand. Based on your rank you are only allowed to accept quests assigned to your rank and below." the woman explained.

Everything so far had been known by Cylas, with everything the woman had to go through he wondered how many times she had to repeat this speech to memorize it all.

"The quest reward on the paper is the amount you will receive after the guild takes 30%. Along with this if you bring proof of any monster you kill you will receive compensation based on the difficulty of the monster. Completing difficult quests and subjugating high-ranking monsters will allow you to raise you rank, along with this you can pay a fee to take a promotion exam to better assess where you belong. If you are in a party, then the whole party will be tested as well. Aside from that everything should be common knowledge, if you have any other questions feel free to ask." upon finishing her explanation she smiled as if she was waiting for Cylas to ask a question.

Nothing was new to Cylas other than the promotion test, but before he decided to rush into that he wanted to investigate a few things.

"Thank you for the explanation, I should be fine." Cylas responded before putting the plaque around his neck and slipping the coin into his pocket.

Walking away he went to a table near the quests board and sat down. Various ranks of adventurers were strewn about the place, most of them were below copper. Looking at a group of Copper level adventurer's Cylas used the ring to gauge their levels. Surprisingly their levels were consistent as well as being noticeably higher than the guards, all of them falling between around 13 and 16.

Cylas wanted to look at Copper first as people considered the rank the cap for most normal people, as upon reaching Copper many people stagnated unable to reach the next rank.

"Their levels are close to mine." Cylas noted in his head. Out of all the adventurer's in the Alliance the guild reported that around 80% of them were below Silver.

"I guess it's true that most adventurers are stronger than the average soldier." Cylas remarked.

Lucius had previously told Cylas that other than Obsidian, most adventurers could easily take on a soldier from the Alliance. Upon looking at a few more adventurers Cylas concluded that around a 5-level difference could dramatically raised one's chances of winning if he didn't include equipment and prior planning.

Finishing up Cylas decided not to waste any more time using the ring. The only question remaining was how strong all the Platinum level adventurers were. As the highest rank they contained the strongest people in the Alliance and yet even they were unable to stop the upcoming disaster.

"The difference between them and the disaster was too large." Cylas thought to himself.

From the dream the man he had been with said that the adventurers hadn't even been able to put up a fight. Deciding to stop thinking about what he couldn't change, the main problem right now was that he didn't have a party. Lucius had just gone out on a quest from the guild and likely wouldn't be back for a couple weeks, and given his situation he couldn't wait that long doing nothing.

"I could go up to random teams to ask if they would let me join but that's too awkward, no one would likely let an Obsidian adventurer into their team anyways." Cylas thought.

"I suppose I could take the promotion test..."

Deep in his thoughts a man with an Iron plaque wrapped around his neck walked up to Cylas.

"Would you like to join us on a quest?"