After sending a friend request to Celeste, Ethan waited, but there was no response.
That night, Ethan and FreeYears ran two Easy-level dungeons back-to-back.
During the first run, their team was short one player. To speed things up, Ethan called out in the guild chat for soone to join.
atball was the first to volunteer.
Ethan asked him, "Weren’t you in Skyblade’s team?"
atball sighed, looking frustrated. "Got kicked out!"
When Ethan pressed for the reason, atball hesitated, unwilling to explain. Finally, after so prodding, he admitted the truth: the female players in the team would scream and run away whenever he got close. This caused multiple wipes, and Skyblade had no choice but to boot him from the group.
Earlier, when atball had revealed his skeletal form, Ethan and Free Years were already inside the dungeon. So, when Ethan heard this bizarre reason, he was both amused and exasperated. He initially thought atball had been harassing the female players!
Ethan warned him to tone it down, and atball nodded earnestly, saying, "Got it, got it!"
But there was a misunderstanding. atball thought Ethan was telling him to stop scaring people!
However, it didn’t take long for Ethan to understand why Skyblade had kicked him out.
Once inside the dungeon, atball raised his hand, and over thirty skeletons appeared—so humanoid, so animal-like. There were ranged and lee units. The lee skeletons charged into the mobs, causing both male and female players to scatter in fear. The ranged skeletons followed atball, moving wherever he went.
It was chaos. His summoned skeletons were more terrifying than the actual monsters, and Free Years team was in disarray.
Only Ethan’s eyes lit up with excitent. Another hidden class user!
After clearing a wave of monsters, atball spoke up, "Guys, don’t freak out! Crunch crunch... They’re not that scary! Crunch crunch... They just look ugly! Crunch crunch... You’ll get used to it!"
Ethan turned to look and felt a wave of disgust wash over him.
atball was crouched next to a pile of monster corpses, talking while stuffing chunks of flesh into his hood. The sound of chewing made it clear what he was doing.
Ethan was tempted to tell Free Years, "Maybe we should kick him."
Noticing the horrified looks from the team, atball stood up and said, "Why are you all staring at ? I was out of health, and no one healed ! I’m just eating so corpses to regain HP!"
Ethan sighed and explained to the group, "Yeah, it’s gross, but he’s a hidden class user. Having him in the team will speed up our dungeon runs."
Despite this, everyone kept their distance from atball, and even the healers refused to target him with their spells.
Fortunately, there were only three female players in Free Years’ team.
By the halfway point of the dungeon, everyone had ward up to atball—mostly because of his insane damage output. The team had never seen anything like it. He was responsible for nearly 40% of the total damage dealt.
True to Ethan’s word, the dungeon run was completed in half the ti it usually took.
After the run, Ethan left the group, but atball decided to stay and continue farming with them.
Throughout the dungeon, Ethan kept glancing at his friend list. Celeste hadn’t logged in yet, and his friend request remained unanswered.
With just over three hours left before the ga servers shut down, Ethan returned to the main city. He t with Celia and spent a long ti discussing plans with her.
He tasked her with assembling a team of 500 Rogues and 500 Druids. This group would serve as a reconnaissance and disciplinary force. Internally, they would handle player misconduct within the guild. If situations like today’s arose, the offenders would be expelled from the guild, and this team would ensure they were reduced to level zero.
Externally, this would be a rapid-response strike force. Pairing a Rogue with a Druid would make them ideal for both travel and stealth ambushes.
Celia raised a few questions during their discussion, and Ethan was impressed by her insight. Victor’s wife was truly remarkable.
Initially, Ethan had assud she chose to be a life skill player because, like most female players, she disliked conflict. But the truth was the opposite: she chose life skills because she wanted to build a comrcial empire within Ethereal.
However, her vision was still a bit simplistic. After all, Ethereal was a ga. While comrce played a significant role, without the backing of combat strength, everything else was just a pipe dream.
After so discussion, they finalized the direction for Renegade Alliance. Well, ’finalized’ might be an overstatent, Ethan had always known the path a guild needed to take to beco powerful.
The fastest way to grow was through war, but they couldn’t just start conflicts without reason. For now, the Renegade Alliance needed steady developnt. The first priority was to address the guild’s level.
Currently, Renegade Alliance was a Level 4 guild, while the Blade Syndicate had already reached Level 5, with a player cap of 30,000. Renegade Alliance needed to catch up and reach Level 5 as soon as possible.
Ethan was well aware of this, but the guild was strapped for cash. The 20,000 gold he had earned earlier had been poured into the guild’s shops. It was just enough to keep them running, and even that was only possible because the number of alchemists and engineers who had learned interdiate blueprints was limited.
The shops could barely sustain themselves with limited purchases for a day. Find exclusive stories on .Côm
To upgrade the guild, they had enough points for the guild hall, which had already been upgraded to Level 6. What they lacked was gold. Upgrading from Level 4 to Level 5 required 10,000 gold, and Level 5 to Level 6 would cost 20,000 gold. A Level 6 guild could accommodate up to 50,000 players.
Celia’s idea was for Ethan to push the guild to at least Level 6 as soon as possible. This stumped Ethan. He had always thought he was sitting on a mountain of assets, but after Celia’s analysis, he realized he was practically broke!
Celia proposed a solution: have the guild mbers pool their resources. By increasing the contribution-to-donation ratio, they could incentivize players to donate more. The guild’s vault was overflowing with equipnt, and many players couldn’t exchange for it due to insufficient contribution points.
A fundraising campaign would allow players to acquire high-quality gear at a low cost, boosting the overall strength of the guild’s mbers while solving the guild’s financial issues. After all, letting that equipnt sit idle was a waste.
Ethan agreed with the plan. With his approval, Celia adjusted the gold-to-contribution ratio and announced the changes to the guild. She also notified players who had previously donated that they could submit reports at the guild hall to receive additional contribution points based on the new ratio.
The announcent sparked a wave of donations within the guild. However, it would still take ti to accumulate enough funds for the guild upgrade.
[Ding… Your friend ’NoPaperOnTheBigOne’ has co online!]
Just as the ga was about to shut down for the night, the guy who had gone to repay his debt finally logged back in.
Ethan sent him a ssage: "How’d it go? Debt paid? Everything good now?"
NoPaperOnTheBigOne: "Haha, boss, all good now!"
"Glad to hear it. Let’s sign a new contract when you have ti," Ethan said.
NoPaperOnTheBigOne: "Huh?"
Ethan chuckled. "How about 1% permanent shares in All-You-Need? Interested?"
[Ding… Your friend ’NoPaperOnTheBigOne’ has gone offline!]
As soon as Ethan finished speaking, the system notified him that the other player had logged off. Ethan was left speechless. What just happened?
But the sudden appearance and disappearance of the Mad Engineer reminded Ethan of soone. Maybe this person could help him solve his current problem.
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