Can't be bothered

Adam followed the guard inside, and saw that there were indeed many people inside the longhouse. However, the atmosphere wasn't as festive as he thought it would be. Instead, it looked like two sides were bickering with each other.

On one side, sitting on a big chair and surrounded by fierce looking Gold Rank Warriors, was a surprisingly young looking man. However, this young man was a Hero Rank, and probably the clan leader, seeing he was in the main seat.

[Ulf Holdirson] (Hero, Level 152)

??/??

Adam had recently become capable of seeing the HP of Gold Ranks, but it looked like he was still too low leveled to see a Hero's HP. Well, they were more than 100 levels above him after all.

Standing across him, was an old man, surrounded by other warriors, as fierce as those surrounding Ulf, and he also looked like he was of a high standing.

[Bram Holdirson] (Hero, Level 170)

??/??

To Adam, this looked like a classical conflict coming from power, and succession. The old man was weaker than the old clan leader, so when the latter died he wanted to take the power, but the young Ulf, being the talent he was, became the clan leader instead since he was the right successor…

Whether he was right or wrong, Adam didn't care, he was just here to give the mace back, he didn't want to involve himself in their clan's affairs.

So, before any of the two could ask him why and what he was doing here, he took out Holdir's mace, and said "You probably heard of the battle of Neve Dorei… One of the undead generals was your ancestor, Holdir. He fought bravely, even in death, and now his soul rests in Roskhalla. His last words were to ask me to bring his mace to his descendants."

They all looked shocked at the revelation, and seemed like they wanted to say something, but Adam put the mace in front of Ulf and said "Deal with it the way you want, I've done my task."

With those words, Adam left the longhouse, and as he passed through the doors he received a notification telling him he had completed the quest.

As expected, the quest rewards were only XP and AP. Adam was pretty sure that if he stuck around just then, they would have offered him compensation such as Gold Coins and equipments, and that would have lowered the XP and AP he got.

However, Adam didn't care for the rewards of a Level 70 B Rank quest, he would rather take more XP and AP.

As he left and put his 100 additional AP into his Strength, no one tried to catch up with him. The members of the Holdirsons Clan weren't dumb, and they could understand too why Adam didn't stay. He was here to grant a dead's last wish, not for a reward.

Once out of the clan, Adam decided to walk around Fjora, and hopefully find some interesting things. However, while he was in the middle of the market place, he received a message from Louisa, asking for help.

Adam quickly asked what was wrong, but was relieved to hear they weren't in danger. Instead, the issue was much more trivial.

While he had been training himself, and gathering materials, they had trained themselves, and also followed the instructions he had given them.

They were pretty simple, as long as they were able to gather 100 000 members for their guild, then they would need to message him. Of course, those recruits couldn't just be anyone, they could only be either Iron or Bronze Rank, and they had to at least be B Classes.

Those were harsh requirements, and people might think of him as a madman for asking so many people of such talent so early in the game.

However, this wasn't the Earth, with only 7 billion people on it, but Epoch, a gigantic world many times bigger and thus more populated than the Earth. Actually, there were so many people on Epoch that no one really knew nor had the resolve to count how many people there existed in the world.

But there were estimates, and they said that the value was at least in the tens of billions, maybe even hundreds. There were many, many races after all, not just the main ones who belonged to the Racial Powers.

Adding in Adam's increasing fame, gathering those 100 000 recruits hadn't been that difficult actually. And this was one of the reason why Louisa sent him a message.

First, they had finished their mission, so they needed to know what the next part of the plan would be. And their second issue came from their training.

Thanks to the opportunity given by Adam that gave them access to the feeling of the Gates, all eight of them had successfully opened the Third Gate… except Eddy.

While the 7 others only had to level up some more to reach the Silver Rank, Eddy hadn't been able to unlock the 3rd Gate until now. Everyone had tried to help him by telling them how their breakthrough happened, but no matter what, he couldn't open it. That's why, other than asking for further instructions, they also wanted to ask Adam if he knew any way to help Eddy.

After asking some more questions about Eddy, Adam told Louisa to start moving with the other guild members toward a certain location, and tell the others he had ordered it. Then, he would intercept them, but do so while hidden and attack them.

She couldn't tell Eddy, but she could tell the others. Adam's plan was simple. His suspicion was that Eddy's bottleneck came from his mentality, and so the best way to allow him to breakthrough was to push his mind to the limit to.

And what better way to do it than beat his friends and guild mates in front of him as he remains powerless? Moreover, it would be like hitting two birds with one stone as he would also show his new guild members his power, and steel their resolve.

So with those new instructions given, Adam teleported out of Fjora with a new shadow cloak, and teleported to Ember City, the capital of the Azure Sky Kingdom. This was where his guild's recruitment was done, and he had decided to carry them over there for several reasons, one of them being giving Henry a favor as this increased the number of people coming to his kingdom, and indirectly strengthening it.

When he arrived there, Adam directly left the city, hidden, and only summoned Neith when he made sure he was alone, and had her run toward the interception point. There, he told her to hide underground, and took out a random hammer instead of his usual sword.

This would better hide his tracks, and he would also teach something to Johan. While his favorite weapon was the greatsword, he had still learned how to use other weapons, and he mastered the hammer to some extent, definitely much better than Johan.

Adam didn't have to wait for too long before seeing a literal army march toward him in the distance. Although they hadn't yet started their training, Adam was surprised to see they were quite coordinated with each other, far from the level of a real army, but at least they didn't look like a bunch of peasants fleeing their village.

As they approached toward him, Adam saw Eddy raise his fist in the air, and the whole cortege slowed down to a stop.

Leading the whole guild were his eight division leaders, among whom were his two disciples, Judith and Johan.

Adam didn't really like having his guild members forming a huge line like this as if those in the back were to be attacked, by the time those in front learned of what happened it might already be too late. The ideal formation would have the eight divisions split and led by their leader, but they had only been recruited so it wasn't time yet.

Eddy sent a piercing glance at Adam and asked "What do you want?"

Adam, hearing this, put on his best performance as he putted on a wicked grin they couldn't see and said with a distorted voice that reeked of madness "I wonder how that Aqua Sovereign will react when he learns of the deaths of his little lackeys!"