Secretive Dealings

"Master Collins, we need your help."

Jake nodded in response.

Nick Rogers paused to think for a moment.

"We need your help with diagnosing a special patient. Naturally, we are not asking you to do this for free."

"Success or not. Three yellow-tier monster cores."

Jake blinked a few times. Even though Jake searched through Artisan Tower's inventory frequently, he still couldn't find any useful yellow-tier materials.

By the looks of it, the materials market was mostly made up of green-tiers. The sparse yellow-tier materials were all rather useless.

Which made sense. For iron-tier guilds, yellow-tier materials were probably treated as tactical resources. By selling just green-tier materials, they could already make a fortune. So why bother?

During his stay here, Jake had mostly figured out the collection quests. The collection condition was this: the material had to contain mana energy.

Green-tier cores could be absorbed for 1 - 3 Click Points. The materials could be absorbed for 1 - 12 Click Points.

Jake anticipated the yellow cores to worth 10 - 30 Click Points.

Thinking of this, Jake nodded at this sincere offer.

It's better to get this information early. Helps with his plans for the future. If the yellow-tier cores were worth a lot, perhaps a trip into the yellow-tier realms would be worth the risks.

All he had to do was to take a look. Not that troublesome at all.

"Please keep dealings a secret."

"Naturally." Jake took a sip of his coffee.

Nick Rogers took a deep breath and got up.

With closed eyes, Nick Rogers paced his breathing. He needed a moment to steel his will. This seemed to be a tough decision for him.

Without further hesitation, walking up to a bookshelf, the young guildmaster tapped his wand onto a book.

The bookshelf opened up like a door, revealing a secret entrance. Light from this room shined into the dark pathway. Looks like it was stairs heading underground.

Focusing his gaze, Jake took a quick look down this tunnel. No magic signatures. So no traps made of magical artifacts then. If it's just traps made of common material, Jake doubted those would be useful against him.

'Looks like I'm just being over-cautious. Why would Nick have malicious intent against me. There isn't any reason at all...'

'Moreover, unless he's gone insane, who would dare to touch an artisan? I'm protected by the Artisan Guild by nature after all.'

Nevertheless, Jake stayed alerted. Can't be too cautious right?

In a moment, a dozen or so butlers had finished their preparation work. Some held torches. Others held platters of snacks and drinks.

Two by two, the butlers walked down the hidden stairway. Taking a look, it's deeper than expected. The torch lights couldn't even reach the end.

"Please keep this information to yourself." Nick Rogers asked again. He seemed a little nervous.

"Naturally." Jake lightly nodded.

Following the butlers, the two walked down the tunnel.

Nick Rogers looked like he was getting more and more nervous... As if he's a bad student waiting for his grades or something.

Jake lightly knitted his brows. For some reason, he got a bad feeling about this. Jake wasn't worried about his safety. But...

'Is this really just a diagnosis task?'

'The situation seems rather serious...'

'Hopefully the situation won't get too troublesome...'

Thinking of this, Jake munched on some crackers.

In this dark tunnel, the sound of footsteps, the sound of fire crackling, and the crunching of crackers intermixed with each other.

After a while, the stairway finally ended. Standing on a spacious open platform, This group was faced with five tunnels now. Five choices.

The young guildmaster took over a torch. Walking up to the front of the group, Nick Rogers led the group into the middle tunnel.

This underground place was like a labyrinth. Got a serious of tunnels, secret pathways, a lot of traps, stairways going up and down... You know. The usual 'make the intruders frustrated' design package.

No magical moving gateways though. Everything was still stationary.

'So... is this place really for fending out people?' Jake poured himself another cup of coffee. 'If it's another iron-tier guild attacking, going underground would be a bad idea in the first place.'

'The enemy guild could just destroy all the tunnels...'

Being guided by Nick Rogers, this trip was rather peaceful.

Since the pathways were curved, it's rather easy to lose the sense of direction.

Though... as someone who could see through things, Jake could easily walk out by himself.

Everything was stationary after all.

Opening a large metal gate, things suddenly brightened up. Looking inside, it was a large cavern.

White fluorescent lights shined down from the ceiling.

There were two groups of people inside already.

One group was battle-hardened explorers. Around thirty of them. Unlike the average explorers, these guys were very-well equipped.

In some sense, the average explorers were like Lv 5 newbies. They had to use whatever they had.

These guys were like Lv 30 characters. They had a complete set of equipment. Also loaded with consumables. Sensing these guys' mana signatures... They carried various magical artifacts as well.

Chatting with each other in a relaxed manner, they all seemed rather confident.

Checking their energy levels. Yep.

Threat level by instinct: Very Low

Jake had a better understanding of his instinctive senses now. 'Very low' meant that he could beat a dozen of these guys with a single punch.

In contrast to the unbound and loud warriors, the other group had much better manners.

It was a group of mid-aged men and women. About ten of them. All of them in formal outfits. Black business suits or black dresses. Chatting with each other in much quieter and elegant manners.

Threat level: negligible

By the looks of it, none of these guys were explorers.

On one side of the cavern, the atmosphere was warm and fun. On the other side, it was cold and reserved.

Looking at this, Jake lightly knitted his brows. 'Things are actually getting complicated... How troublesome.'

'Looks like no combat would be involved though...'

'Even more troublesome.'

Can't punch his way out of this one.

Thinking of this, Jake and Nick Rogers sighed in unison.

The two exchanged questioning gazes, as if asking: 'Why are you sighing?'

As Jake's group entered this cavern, those two groups turned their gazes this way.

"Nick! You actually brought an outsider here!" It was a large dude in his 50s. Holding a metal walking cane, stepping out of the group, his beer belly bounced a few times.

Ta! Ta! Ta!

This large dude knocked his cane onto the concrete floor. Looked like he was holding in his anger.

"Just because you claim you are the steward guildmaster, you think you are above family rules?!"