Professional teamwork

An old brown SUV, not very suitable for a guildmaster, parked near a giant gate. Mark stepped out of his car to marvel at its size. This was his first time seeing an A-rank gate in person and it was overwhelming.

'It´s 15 meters tall at least. I need to upgrade my automaton if I´m gonna be fighting against goliaths.'

It was half an hour before the arranged time, but Mark decided to come early to look at how the second biggest guild in America works.

The mining and collecting teams were already stationed at the site. Most of their members were talking with their colleagues, watching TV, or eating a snack.

Besides the countless muscular men in tank tops and jeans there stood a woman Mark saw once before. The vice-master of the Viper guild was talking with the miners, wearing light armor with bright yellow ornaments.

Mark walked over to Olivia and the mining team.

"So James really isn´t coming?" asked one of the miners.

"Sorry guys, but he´s sick with the flu." said Olivia.

"Ahhh." sounded from the group.

"A top-rank healer and he´s down with the flu."

Olivia chuckled and said. "Well, even healing magic isn´t omnipotent."

"Hello?" Mark announced his presence.

"Oh, hi. You see? We have a substitute. He isn´t a healer but he packs a punch. This is Mark, right?" Olivia introduced him.

"Yeah, I came a bit early to watch how it´s done at the Viper´s guild."

"Well mate, you won´t see much. All the work is done after you clear the dungeon. Emmet by the way." One of the miners told him.

'Yeah, I get that.'

"You know, this is my first A-rank raid so all this is new to me. I haven´t even seen a mining team in person." said Mark.

"It´s a spectacle isn´t it?" said another miner jokingly.

"For sure."

"Most of our hunters won´t arrive until the last minute. I´m here just to watch over the gate. If you want to I can show you our equipment for the time being. It´s not like I have much to do." said Olivia.

"That would be nice."

Olivia made a tour of the whole place. They had quite a lot of time so she showed Mark everything from the strengthened tools to the carts used by the collection team. This gave Mark much-needed insight into how he should run his guild in the future.

Just as Olivia said the last team member arrived about half an hour later right at time. The raid team was made up of three mages when counting Olivia and Mark, two rangers one with a longbow and the other with a small crossbow, two tanks, an assassin, and a porter. All of them had top-grade sparkling equipment that felt expensive just to look at.

"Everyone, this time there will be a little difference." announced Olivia. "You probably noticed that James is missing. Don´t worry he is fine. For today we will have Mark, here as a substitute." she held Mark by his shoulder while introducing him to the team. "Everything stays the same, except instead of a heal we have a barrier so be mindful of that. That´s all I wanted to say, let´s get to it."

With no waiting at all the team ventured inside. This dungeon was big, bigger than anything Mark has ever seen, as the cave´s roof was at least 40 meters high. There were countless magic crystals embedded in the walls, dimly illuminating the cavern.

A small rock rolling on the ground was instantly shot down by an arrow. Mark watched the spectacle in confusion. It was filled with mana, but so was everything in this cave.

His bewilderment was however cleared up very quickly as a large humanoid made of rocks came out of one of the countless paths in the cave system.

'I guess I haven´t fought the rock yet.' Mark thought to himself as he erected a large barrier in front of the whole group.

The creature slammed the barrier with its fist, causing a loud boom to echo through the dungeon.

Transparent liquid started flowing up its legs towards its torso. Even as it was being dissolved the elemental felt no pain and kept banging on the barrier.

When its chest became completely corroded a shiny blue piece was revealed and afterward instantly shattered by a flying dagger.

'What nice teamwork. They are all completely focused on the monsters. I should also probably make something similar. It will come in handy against non-organic opponents that cannot be killed by ordinary means.'

"Save your mana, Mark. We´ll still have to face the boss." said Olivia.

He dispelled the barrier and the team continued forward.

'Page 16, Siphon'

'It´s all back in a second. This whole cave is filled with mana.'

Later on their journey, they came across a smaller specimen. This elemental was just about the size of a human and it was feasting on magic crystals that were abundant in this environment.

The team´s tank bashed its core with a hammer and it fell down into a pile of rubble.

Through the course of the whole raid, Mark was watching the team, which worked very efficiently. Whenever one was tired another hunter replaced him. Mark wasn´t even needed that much, only deploying barriers here and there to relieve the tanks.

'This has its downsides though. The income for the individual isn´t that great when the team is made up of nine people.'

After defeating 19 of those giant elementals and around 90 little ones they were left puzzled. There didn´t seem to be a boss monster.

As Olivia was considering going through the cave for the second time, several stones started rolling on the ground in the same way.

"Look out! This one will be massive!" shouted Olivia.

'If only Allen was here.' Mark thought to himself.