Now almost done with the meetings James called Iron into his office for the most important one of them all, Iron had been tasked to not only look after the One Guild while James was doing his quest for 5 days but was also tasked with creating a ton of armor kits, anything from basic mana armor kits to intermediate magical armor kits. He had also been given the task of buying 2 very important items from the week's end auction house, a mysterious rock that was actually a piece of the philosopher's stone and the sword [Broken Steel], a fragment of Solomons Sword, a legendary sword that was part of a fragment-divine grade sword.
James couldn't wait for the results of Iron's tasks. If he managed to get enough money James could complete the quest involving the star streak trading firm that Brown Bear was currently working on. James knew however that this was only wishful thinking, if he remembered correctly the person creating armor kits in his previous life only managed to gain about a thousand gold a day in profits. He knew that Iron was a better forger and magician than that smock and that this moment was undoubtfully the best time to sell them, thanks to it still being early in the game and all guilds being in a race to see who can complete dungeons first coupled with the fact that the real world money system just released and many corporations are pressuring their guilds to do better he would undoubtfully have much more success in selling the armor kits. If this was enough to get the 30 thousand gold necessary to complete the quest plus the 10 thousand to bribe the owner of the trading firm to let Anna go, he didn't know.
Full of anticipation James welcomed Iron and quickly motioned him to sit down.
"Go on Iron, tell me how everything went in my absence."
"Well, there is a lot to say so I'll start with the smallest portion, the things that happened in real life. Just like you told me the world blew up overnight, every company big or small was scrambling to get a foothold in God's domain, and most of the bigger ones sought to invest in the already established guilds but there were some that started their own. Even the smaller guilds that can only hope to become a third-rate guild in the future got sought out for investment. Our guild seemed to be the focus of a lot of these organizations looking to invest. First came the big companies, I think 10 of the top 25 companies came to negotiate a deal since we were the most mysterious powerful guild with seemingly no backing. The most they offered was 1 billion credits for 51% guild shares, almost laughably low. When they realized that I was never in a million years going to take any offer most left while threatening me that the One guild wouldn't survive long in God's Domain now that we had made so many enemies. Some decided to try and threaten me in real life with their martial arts bodyguards, but the strongest of them hadn't even reached any form of mental strength master realms so letting out my aura for a split second was enough to scare them away. After that, they started trying even more underhanded techniques to try and bring us down, they tried to lure our members with the promise of more payment and bigger opportunities, most decided to decline right away but I told them to go and listen to their pitch to make our members more aware of how special the privileges are that they get. After hearing the things they would get, such as a salary of 10 million credits and the 'privilege' to get some pointers from domain realm experts now and then and access to a training plan for the domain realm all of them couldn't stop laughing when they walked out. The only thing that could temp them a little was the money but after realizing how much they could make by selling monster drops from our little excursions alone 10 million seemed like chump change. I think all of our members have gained a way better understanding of how privileged they are in our guild. After that, no big company has tried anything against us, but I wouldn't be surprised if they tried something."
James nodded, pleased beyond his expectation with Iron's performance, not only had he handled the aggressive actions of the companies that wanted to invest but he made it a learning opportunity for all the members to realize how good they had it.
"Excellently done Iron, you went way beyond my expectations, I'm impressed. Now tell me about the more important matters, the in-game matters."
A smile crept onto Iron's face, clearly proud of his work.
"First of all, I started making those armor kits and selling them to big guilds, and holy you were right, every guild wanted to buy as many armor kits as they could, even competing for the limited stock I had. the first couple of days I managed to make around 5 thousand gold in profit a day thanks to some big competition over a special dungeon they were fighting for, after that, it slowed down to around 3 thousand a day. If I recall correctly, our guild treasury currently has 30 thousand gold in it. I also attended that auction you told me to and managed to snag that stone and the epic sword you wanted, in total that cost us 3000 gold so not too bad. I also did one more thing during your departure. I know you told me to not start my Tier 1 promotion but after most of the members were back and you still weren't able to be contacted, I decided to risk it."
James felt happy with these results, as for Iron going against his wishes that wasn't a problem. He also would've ordered iron to start his promotion if he were there.
"Well done, I don't mind that you started your promotion early, I would've done the same, now how did your promotion go?"
The smile on Iron's face seemed to only get bigger and bigger.
"It went amazing. When feeding some mana stones I synchronized with the philosopher stone into the legacy book that I got from the library I was transported to some gladiator-type stadium. The only difference was that I didn't have to fight but rather compete through crafting. The stands were full and, in the middle, where the arena is, I and 9 other Tier 0 NPCs stood before 3 judges sitting behind an elegant table with a stack of papers in the corner. They were really amazing, there was an Alchemist, Magician, and a Forger, all of them being Great Grandmasters, the weird thing was that no one played them any mind like they weren't special in the slightest. When the competition began we had to pick 1 piece of paper from the stack, and to my surprise, all of them were epic Level 20 weapons. We were supposed to attempt one of these weapons 10 times and the one with the most successful attempts would win. Since I knew you already had a good weapon, I chose a staff that didn't have any specific class restrictions on it so that I could make it for everyone in the guild later. You wouldn't believe how stressed I was, I am only an Advanced Forger and Magician and some of my competition had already broken into the Master realm in one of those. Luckily I had some tricks up my sleeve, I had my OP title and the book of forging, not to mention that Olivia had given me that Tier 3 mystical flame she found recently so I managed to snag first place with a total of 3 out of 10 staffs crafter, I have to admit I got extremely lucky but still, a win is a win. With this win came a special hammer that I have to show you when we enter the game again and an SSS grade evaluation."
James couldn't believe it, unlike Iron he knew exactly where he had been teleported to, a competition in the Ancient God's domain. In a world where Great Grandmasters were treated the same as masters in the current time, in that world Iron managed to come on top in a junior Tier 0 foraging competition, that was amazing. The extra rewards from the trial were also nothing to scoff at, an epic foraging design and a hammer that was no doubt a treasure. James also couldn't wait to know what kind of rewards Iron got for the SSS grade evaluation, normally this would only be Legacy skill points but James had a suspicion that that wasn't all, in his last life after Iron had been recruited by a super guild all the info on that kind of stuff was kept secret from even most of his guild members.
"That's exceptional Iron, I'll be looking forward to seeing that hammer. What did you get exactly from getting the SSS grade evaluation?"
"Like the others, I got 50 Legacy skill points, I didn't spend any yet but looked around at what kind of skills I could unlock, I got to say, in comparison to the rest mine seem to be extremely expensive, the cheapest one is 25 points. I also got 3 skills, one passive that increases the mana density around me while crafting, which really helps me, especially with magic arrays. Two active skills, one is called enlightenment, it can give me some visions when I'm stuck, it seems that this skill is going to be a big part of my repertoire since it looks like it can be upgraded to Tier 2 and beyond through the shop with Legacy skill points. The second one is called Educator; it makes it so that I can 'Teach' a subclass to someone else granting them that subclass if they manage to follow along with me and complete the weapon or magic array etc. I don't see much use for it since most subclasses aren't that hard to get but it seems nice. I also gained one opportunity to get another rare subclass, but that seems kind of weird, so I'll keep that for another time. O, one last thing, I know you didn't want us to unlock any Legacy skills because it is better to save up for once we reach Tier 5 or 6, but there is this one called 'Luck of the Craft' that increases my crafting chance with everything by a flat 5% and it seems like this is also one that is going to be able to be upgraded through the tiers, it cost 25 points, do you mind if I buy it?"
James felt happy with the things Iron got, his skills were especially great, as for the Luck of the Craft passive skill, that wasn't a problem. James had mainly told everyone to save their points to prevent them from spending them on skills that would become obsolete in the later tiers where they were truly going to need their Legacy skill points, most people who reached Tier 5 didn't even have enough Legacy skill points to buy one skill even if they saved up all their points from Tier 0. But this skill seemed like an obvious one that would stay useful throughout the Tiers even if Iron's luck turned out bad and it wasn't upgradable.
"It's a good idea that you buy that skill indeed Iron. Now the last thing I want to know is the state of the other guilds, some should have Tier 1 players already, right?"
Iron nodded.
"That's right, all super guilds already have a good amount of Tier 1 players and many more attempting the challenge as we speak. Most first-rate guilds are still focused on leveling up and increasing their fame by taking first clears on dungeons, the average level of their top combatants should be around level 25. I wouldn't be surprised if they started looking into Tier 1 already though."
That was all within James's expectations, so he really didn't have to worry.
"Let's go to the meeting room, I don't think we have anything else to discuss so it is best if we don't keep the rest waiting."
Iron shook his head, indicating that he had nothing left to say. So both of them stood up to head to the day's final meeting.