Last pit stop of the day- Zoya. Yep, Artha decided to risk it and decided to complete 2nd part of the quest. Zoya had indeed asked for even more portions. Even other options were in the list. Good thing that he had bought a copy of each potion. Easy to multiply.
End result ? It rocked baby, it just rocked.
Quest - Search for potions -II
Zoya is in dire need for lots of potion. Help her in time of need.
Status - Completed satisfactorily. Within time limits.
Completion grading - S-
Rewards - A follow up to this quest.
Great appreciation from Zoya.
aaa XP, bbb coins.
A certain chance to have business opportunity soon.
Yep. A S minus grading. Artha had to use lots of XP as many of the potions Zoya had requested were not usual monster drops. But the bonus XP and coins more than made up the XP used.
Looking at the rose gold coins he had received, he was very much tempted to sell them directly. He could increase his capital by a lot.
He then gave off a portion of items requested for his apprentice quest. Zoya had atleast removed the copying the tome part. As long as the quest was about gathering items, he would finish sooner or later.
As he walked out happily after getting third part of the potions quest, he was summoned. The customers were gods. Any call from them equalled summoning. For the sake of money, Artha didn't mind bending and bowing, not at all.
Sun Lord and Baccara came to meeting together. Unfortunately, the location was not longer the bar. It was at the park near reviving fountain. Other than those who had died and revived back, nearly all were busy elsewhere. A good place to have clandestine meeting.
"Why such a secret meeting? Are you going to join together and overthrow your guilds?"
"Shut up! Never ever joke about it." Baccara was apparently too loyal to guild. Can't even take a joke.
Poor Artha. He will never understand the world of guilds and the inherent problems in it.
Sun Lord directly dwelled into the matter. Woah! Seriously, this meeting might be even a secret from guild members.
" You were talking about investing into guilds today."
"Yes! But you clearly showed me that was just a dream."
"There is a way though. Want to hear it?"
"Tell me." Artha would never back out of there was money on the table. Within the game, he can be whatever he wanted to be, repercussions be d*mned.
Baccara started talking. " Bloody Rose has a sub guild. A hidden one. You understand what it means, right?"
"Nope! I'm noob through and through." Whatever he had learnt about guilds, it was second-hand even third-hand news. And he would not even believe in forum posts completely, so whatever he had learnt was half wrong. He has to find out which parts were wrong and which ones were right.
Baccara was frustrated. She never had patience for these things and explaining things were never her forte. Thankfully, Sun Lord came to the rescue.
"In some games, there will be capping of guild members. The limit can be increased after increasing the level of guild but still there will be a limit. We have few ways to bypass it. Have guilds in various cities. Each one acting independently unless required to join and fight together. Even them, the problem of member capping might happen. Then we open sub guilds. If we acquire guilds, we may keep them as sub guilds depending on their utility."
"Okay. Till here is understandable. So where does this hidden sub guild come from?"
"Where other guilds or sub guilds don't know that this particular guild is already a part of bigger guild. It's sort of ace. We generally don't use it. But if we use it, it should bring us victory. And when we use it, it loses it value and becomes a normal sub guild."
"Sooo?"
"We both are in charge of such sub guilds."
"Your guilds beleive in you. That's great."
"It's headache. We have to manage normal guilds or sub guilds and this one too. And we can not let other know about it."
"That explains the secrecy of this meeting. But I am still clueless about how I come into it."
"Become an investor in the hidden sub guilds."
"What?"
Sun Lord and Baccara had talked a lot and thought ever longer before deciding. They both were in similar situations. As these sub guilds or subordinate guilds had to stay hidden, the main branch would never handover any investment.
Good news was that if, one day, they had to turn into subordinate guild openly, it would be acquired normally. Which means whatever was invested could be earned back.
Whatever the money was made before acquisition would solely belong to investors and guild leader ( in this case Baccara and Sun Lord).
The clubs and companies behind the guilds had high expectations from this game, so they had mobilises nearly all of their strength. Which meant that their investment was spread thin, very thin. Now the game developers had snitched on gift crates, whatever capital they had would be considered bare minimum. How could they give some see money to these hidden guilds?
And truth to be told, guilds and related features would become reality only after leaving the novice village.
That's the reason why these two had hspent last few days without any worries. It would take a month or longer before leaving this village. By then, situation might have stabilised.
But the rumours they had heard, the way the members of guild developing in other villages...ah, a rudimentary guild or sorts while staying in the village was turning into necessity.
But it takes money to hold a team together. Where to get that money? Artha to the rescue. He was searching for investing. Win win situation.
"Wait, wait. You mean to tell me that I invest in this guild or sorts of guild now and I will get back whatever I had invested few years later."
Baccara said, "Earlier if this guild can make profits."
"If?"
"Well, guilds eat gold you know. You have to feed it till it becomes self sufficient. And then pray to heavens that it doesn't get struck with any disasters." Her tone was so matter of fact that Artha could not even get angry.
He had read that owning a guild and running it was high risk, high yield investment. What do you know? That part was true.
And now he had a choice to invest in it. Should he take the risk?