The sound of heavy footsteps got close and closer to him. Very quickly the footsteps sounded right behind him before coming to a stop. He turns around, drawing his attention away from the frothy ale that was just served in front of him.
When he saw the big black man behind him the two stared at each other in silence. The black man looked down and saw the pendant and his neutral look turned into one of friendliness.
He raised his arm reaching for Fen Changs shoulder, he patted down with force creating a loud slap sound. The two looked at each other in awkwardness after the clearly heavy-handed shoulder pat.
They both break the ice at the same time by Fen Chang forming a small smile while the black man started laughing loudly and repeatedly smashing his hand down on Fen Changs shoulder.
"My friend I didn't realise you were visiting today. You should have let me know, I would have invited you to my office and brought out the good stuff."
"It was a spontaneous thing. It was either coming here and checking on things or checking on the pill shop, and ended up deciding to come here. Besides you're the guild master who had a lot of work to do, besides I can just speak to the reception manager since they would probably know more than you anyways."
"Being a guild master may be a busy job but that doesn't mean I don't have time to host a small 2 man drinking session between myself and the boss. But as you said, if you need business information, as you know I'm not particularly good at that so its best you do go see the manager."
"Well either way let's not bother with your office, lets just chat here for a bit. Its always nice to have some beers and ales while in a pub chatting with friends."
The two sat next to each other drinking beers and ales while talking with the occasional mighty laugh coming from Fen Changs friend.
This person was the guild master he hired to run the main guild branch while also keeping an eye on the other branches. His name is Du Wu and is one of the few friends he has.
He first met him when his father allowed him access to the prison. At first, he chose to enslave him because he had a cultivation base at the peak of stage 2 but once he got out, he started to talk to him about why he was put in there.
After talking he found out that Du Wu was actually framed for the kidnapping of a noble's daughter and was instead the plot of an opposing noble who wanted the daughter for himself due to her beauty.
The allegation caused him to get set to prison while his wife and son were sent to become slaves. Even though he was innocent about his crimes he still kept him under his seal but instead of rewriting their personality he let him keep it and in return Du Wu swore loyalty if he helped get his revenge and find his family.
During the months after this he helped Du Wu get revenge and find his son and wife. During this time the two became friends and although he is still the master of Du Wu he treats him as a friend and drinks with him quite a lot.
Since then Du Wu has been extremely loyal to him and when he asked if Du Wu wanted to become the guild master he readily accepted and worked hard to be a good guild master.
His current strength at level 2 stage 3 with the combination of high-level techniques that makes him able to beat level 4 stage 3's, he as able to protect the guild and use his influence to show people that mercenary's that became adventures under the guild will get protection and have the power to back it up.
They chatted for a while with Fen Chang mostly talking about his experiences training while Du Wu talking about his family and the fun, he has had training young adventures to be loyal and strong. He was a family man and when younger people came to be adventures, he always gave them some advice in hopes of preventing them from losing their life.
Because of all the support he gives people and he is the one in charge of assessing adventures ranks he has built up a large reputation as the friendly giant.
Soon hours past as they continued to drink and chat and towards the end a beautiful black woman came walking down from upstairs as well. She had a bright smile as she saw Fen Chang and Du Wu drinking and chatting and went over to talk to them.
She was Du Wu's wife Du Lian who had just finished doing paper work that Du Wu ignored. She joined the conversation along with drinking a few drinks.
By the time it was early evening he decided to call it a day as the bar was filling up with rowdy adventurers that just got back from their quests. He left Du Wu and his wife to return to heir work while he exited the bar section of the building and headed back to the main part. He then headed towards the counter that had 5 different stalls with beautiful women stationed at each one and were talking to adventures sorting out quests and paying for the completed quests.
He heads to the side of the reception and enters through the restricted entry door. Not many people said anything about this because although it looks strange for a random cloaked person with a mask to walk through the restricted door, they all know the door has identifying inscriptions on it preventing access to those who aren't allowed.
Once in the room he heads towards the manager's office and opens the door. He is greeted by a middle age woman with brown hair. Although she has lost a lot of beauty to age, she still gives off a sexy mature vibe.
When she saw who entered she quickly stood up and politely greeted him with a smile. "Master I didn't expect you to be visiting today, its my pleasure to see you again after these past few months of your training. Please come in and have a seat, let me know what you need."
"Its good to see you to Fu Zhong. At first I was planning to cultivate for most of the day but I underestimated the strength of the Qi inscription array and managed an early breakthrough. Instead, I decided to check up on the guild today and the pill business tomorrow. So how's the progress in the other regions doing?
Hearing the question, she reaches over to her desk and pulls out some papers before handing them over to him. "Master these are the statistics from the different guild branches all over the continent. It shows that all are making a profit of over 600% compared to the amount we have to spend on various things including the purchasing of beasts.
The rate of loyal inner adventures is also slowly going up with the main limitation is not being able to get a seal imprinted on them to keep them loyal, but now your back we can start having those who swore absolute loyalty sent over here to be marked before sending them back.
The expansion unfortunately has slowed down massively in the Xiangling Empire. As you know they are our empires main enemies and once they found out the adventure's guild originated and has the most business here, they started to supress it a little. Though it has mostly been through the shadows and is more the nobles than the actual royal family.
Because master enslaved one of the princes we are having a much easier time gaining support and the slow expansion is mostly a front because we can draw the attention of the nobles towards us allowing for the underground front to expand.
There are some notable mercenary groups in each empire who are against us and have support from either a sect or a noble family. They are jealous about our money making and monopolisation of hunts and resources. Merchant groups are also giving us trouble but because we publicly have an exclusive deal with master's pill business which tends to ward off most merchants due to many previous merchant groups mysteriously disappearing which just so happened to antagonised your pill business."
"What happens to the beast materials that we get. I understand that the herbs that get brought in are sent to be processed but the beast materials are a little harder especially on such large scale."
"Well master first thought of using the beast meat to help the empires food reserves hold through winter which is already sorted. The left-over meat is normally processed into either rations or fed to the various beasts each guild houses. The high-quality ones are sent to master's restaurant and other restaurants we have business deals with.
The hide is turned into armour, saddles, clothes and many other tools and appliances. The lowest quality of the hide which is what we get the most of is sold very cheaply to the poorer people so they can make their own clothes and live slightly better lives and also help spread our name and increase our reputation. It is most useful to help our information network grow as we can use the hide as payment for homeless keeping an ear out on anything. We are co-ordinating with Zhuan Yu as she was the sex slave you left in charge of expanding the underground influence.
The bones are either made into pills, weapons and the special ones are used for runes and inscriptions. The monster cores are also obviously given to these professions as well based on need, quality and rarity."
He nods his head at this and is happy with the thinking she is putting into this. At first he only said that meat goes towards preventing starvation within the empires and that the bits that go to alchemy should go there.
'It seems I made a good choice having her as the manager of the guild. She has managed to make every aspect efficient and even has forward thinking enough to know when and where to move resources when they are no longer needed. Judging by these logs she gave me she is also keeping good track of everything and keeping it neat.'
He lifts his head to look at her and expresses his delight. "I am very pleased with the progress the guild has maid while under you. As per the deal where if I was satisfied with your work I would accept a request. You can say that I am truly satisfied as such you are free to state your request as a reward."
Her eyes light up in excitement over her finally being able to get the request she was promised for hard work. "Master I would like you to rescue my husband. He was captured by the Woeful Demon Sect many years ago. He was captured due to his talent. As master knows, even though I look like im in my 50's I am actually only 30 years old. It was the demon sect that cursed me as I was trying to get my husband back when we got attacked. My husband should be around 26 right now and I believe he should still be alive, I wouldn't ask this if I wasn't sure."
"Hmm, the Woeful Demon Sect huh. Those evil fuckers. Why do you think he is still alive? Because of his talent?"
"Yes part of it is because of his talent. He was very talented and by the age of 18 he was already stage 2, by the time he got kidnapped he was already nearing stage 3. They should value his talent and probably used a mind enslavement technique on him or threatened to find and kill me if he didn't comply so they can use him.
Another reason is because when we got attacked, they sent event a stage 4 envoy that said he came from the main branch. I believe he either had something they valued a lot of his talent was so much they would even send a stage 4 after him.
The final reason is because I have always had good instincts especially when it comes to my husband. There are many times I have instinctively known when he was getting hit on or was in danger. Currently my instincts tell me he is alive and I trust my instincts."
"In other words, you want me to find and take him from one of the 4 most powerful sects on this continent and one that even had connections to the main land because of your instincts?"
She lowed herself in shame after realising the request she is bringing up. She was about to tell him that it was fine and it was too big a request but he spoke before she could.
"Well although its big hassle I planned to take out that sect anyways so I guess I could add finding your husband when doing so in with that. Draw a picture of him and write all the details you know and send them to the guild master that runs the guilds that are closest to the sect's location. Have them keep an eye out. In the mean time you should continue your work, the more power the guild gets and the more resources it can gather the quicker we can act against the sects under it and the maid sect itself."
He then stood up and left the room with her bowing 90 degrees showing her gratitude with some tears coming out her eyes at the prospect of finally having a chance to get her husband back.