The Guild

Inside Fanxing City. A white light flashed down, and as Long Ming came back to his senses, he found he had already exited the instance and was standing on the platform. "..." Long Ming nearly blurted out a curse. He hadn't expected the Star Tower City crowd to be so ruthless—they had detonated an entire building, and he'd been blasted to death before he could even react. Long Ming rubbed his forehead, head pounding. Thank goodness he hadn't gone into the game fully equipped. Otherwise all his gear would have been lost. With their way of blowing up whole buildings, who could stand up to that? Even so, Long Ming still ached over it. He'd come out of this run with nothing gained, and on top of that he'd lost a pistol, fifteen bullets, and a tactical dagger. If this happened a few more times, wouldn't he go bankrupt? "Ah, well." Long Ming sighed, raised his wristband, and tapped it a few times to log out of the game. In his room, Long Ming took off the helmet, walked over to the computer desk and sat down, then turned on the computer. He logged into the Civilization Paradise forum and looked up recent posts about running instances. Whoosh— Over a million posts bloomed onto the screen, and every second brought new ones. Long Ming started browsing. "Damn it, this game is unplayable. Guild players everywhere—I got cleared out again?" "Steel Alliance Guild, f— you!" "I just don't get it—what do they even gain by clearing us out?" "Plenty. For one thing, nobody contests the loot inside the instance anymore. The supply pods are theirs too, and those always come with good stuff. And nobody fights them over the evacuation points." "God damn it, aren't the trial tickets matched at random? How are players from the big guilds all ending up together?" "Are you thick? They match thousands, even tens of thousands of players in one go—how would they not end up together?" "Whoa, so that's a thing you can do?" "Then how are we supposed to play?" "How else? If you can't beat them, join them, obviously." "Tch. You say that like they'd take you just because you wanted in." Long Ming skimmed through some posts, a thoughtful look creeping onto his face. So the supply pod hadn't been instance loot at all—it was airdropped at random by the game. And now that everyone knew how to play, snatching a supply pod in the future would be who-knew-how-many times harder. Besides, judging from the information he'd gathered, the game environment really had soured—everyone was now competing with and squeezing out everyone else. Survival would only get harder for solo players, and they would be singled out. In the game as it stood, no matter how strong one person was, he could never hold out against a crowd ganging up on him. Of course, that didn't mean there was no way to deal with it. "If you can't beat them, join them" still made a lot of sense. Long Ming made his choice quickly: he would join the strongest guild. With a guild's aura of protection over him, he wouldn't find enemies everywhere he turned. It was the best option among bad ones—after all, a smart man doesn't take losses he can avoid. With that thought, he immediately searched the forum to find which guilds were most famous right now. He soon turned up three: the Star God Guild of Star Tower City, the Sin Abyss Guild of City of Sin, and the Star Cluster Guild of Shanchengshan. As Long Ming looked at the Star God Guild's emblem, a suspicion welled up in his mind. Could this guild be those people he'd just crossed paths with? Come to think of it, they really did look alike. But Long Ming didn't dwell on it. After all, there was no way he could join a guild from Star Tower City. In the game you could join any guild you pleased, but nearly everyone defaulted to a local one, because the three great shelter cities were hostile to one another. Join another city's guild, and setting aside how the other side would look down on you, your own side might well brand you a traitor—leaving you hated on both ends. So Long Ming looked up the Star Cluster Guild's membership requirements. A moment later, he was stroking his chin with a deep frown. He'd found no requirements at all; the guild was a mysterious one, and it didn't recruit outsiders. That left Shanchengshan's number-two guild—the Shadow Guild. Having decided, Long Ming rose, sat down on the edge of the bed, picked up the helmet, put it on, and logged back into the game! Whoosh! When he opened his eyes, he was already in Fanxing City. He headed toward the area where shouts of recruitment filled the air. Before long he reached the southern district of Fanxing City, where staff from a host of guilds were recruiting players. As for which guilds were worth joining, that much was plain—all you had to do was look at the queues. Some guilds' lines wound into a long dragon; other recruitment stands stood completely empty, their staff forced to go rope in people themselves. Long Ming swept his gaze around and quickly spotted the Shadow Guild's stand. Their line stretched over three hundred meters—no fewer than a thousand applicants. He walked to the tail of the queue and waited patiently. Just then he heard two young men ahead of him chatting. "Bro, I hear the Shadow Guild's benefits are really good." "Exactly. Benefits are the whole reason I came. But the entrance screening is tough too." "Huh? Then can the two of us even get in?" "I'm not scared—I've got a connection in there. I'll pass for sure!" "Nice! Bro, take me along, will you?" Hearing this, Long Ming couldn't help shaking his head. Sure enough, wherever you went, you couldn't escape these well-connected types. In what felt like the blink of an eye, more than two hours passed. Soon it was Long Ming's turn. Handling his application was a slouching, devil-may-care young man in a plaid shirt. The man glanced at Long Ming, saw not a shred of equipment on him—a rookie template at a glance—and asked in a lazy drawl. "I'm Lu Wei, supervisor with the Shadow Guild. You want to join us?" "Yes." "Where are you from?" "Lower City, Shanchengshan." "Locals get a bonus point. But our Shadow Guild doesn't take in just any Tom, Dick, or Harry—you have to meet the requirements." "What requirements?" "We give priority to active-duty and retired military officers. Are you one?" "No." "Are you a senior technical specialist, then?" "Also no." "Then you'll need to provide combat footage from the game to prove what you can do." "What level do you have to be to join the guild?" "Not high. In one-on-one cold-weapon fights against monsters, your KDI kill rating has to reach 3.0 or above—that means eliminating an average of three players per instance run—and you need some equipment of your own, since the guild can't outfit you the moment you join." "That many requirements?" "Many? Those are just the basics. There's plenty more—for example, staying on call at all times during your probation, and attending guild training." At that, Long Ming fell silent. "Of course, no need to grumble inwardly. Our requirements are steep, but the benefits match them. Starting pay is 10,000 Shan coins. Go ask around—even by Upper City standards, that's a decent wage. And if you perform well enough, the guild can even get you a household registration in Shanchengshan's Upper City." Lu Wei said all this to Long Ming in the middle of a yawn. Hearing it, Long Ming was a little taken aback. That was one enormous pie in the sky.