Return Of Aegis

After collecting everything, the brothers made their way back to Sum City. ZeLin intended to go directly East to get rid of the irritant, ZeLin wanted to do so more than ZeRen as he wanted to test out his new pet's attacks.

ZeRen on the other hand told ZeLin to relax, both dragons were just hatchlings, even though their stats were probably higher than the wolf lord, they probably would not be able to land a hit as the wolf lord was very agile. So much so that ZeRen had to remind ZeLin, that they had died even though they didn't see the wolf lord move.

Nodding and sighing, ZeLin agreed that they should not be hasty, they could always explore North, South and further West.

Upon reaching Sum City, they were greeting with the a system message.

[System Notification: Welcome back masters ZeLin and ZeRen. Your guild hall is ready for operations.]

Entering the guild hall, ZeRen's jaw dropped, his eyes widening the more of the place he saw, "How much money did you spend!" he asked.

Face going sour, ZeLin replied: "Don't remind me. By the way, you should off auto recruit, set it to approval only; I'll be seeking out lifestyle players first, how does a 50-50 spread sound like?"

New guilds only had 10 spaces, including the guild leader, so having a 50-50 spread for now meant recruiting 4 each of adventures and lifestyle players.

"ZeLin, I'll leave it up to you. I will continue to farm for materials, lifestyle guilds are hard to maintain and also sitting ducks. But I'm sure you can manage, your lifestyle guild previously was a monster in sheep's skin." said ZeRen.

ZeRen was referring to Dark Empire, calling them a wolf in sheep's skin was looking down on them. Contrary to popular belief, they were based from a lifestyle guild, not adventuring. The adventures were mostly guards, the core players were all lifestyle, except for ZeLin. Due to the overpowered equipment made internally, their "guards" were almost as powerful as NPCs in smaller villages.

Dark Empire's assassin platoon was a nightmare for all, they were at least equipped with full sets of unique tier equips, some even having Epic or Legendary pieces. In the early days, adventure guilds would always aim to raid lifestyle guilds. Lifestyle guilds were famed for having zero to no defenses at all, but under ZeLin, every guild that attacked, ended up being disbanded, to avoid getting hunted back to level 1.

The only reason why Dark Empire wasn't linked as a lifestyle guild was because, they weren't named Dark Empire at the time. ZeLin trolled and made some sissy named guild, but the core members were all his ex-guild mates from the first edition of Aegis. Only after the core's foundations were stabilized, did they change into a raid guild, but even as a raid guild, they still maintained a 70-30 ratio of Adventurers and lifestyle players.

So going 50-50 wasn't a bad idea, their guild was already gaining fame, so opening up recruitment now won't hurt, instead would make ZeLin puke blood.

Server wide announcements were only possible via achievement, or by paying. It would cost 5,000 US dollars for each announcement.

ZeLin paid for it, then crafted the message [Yggdrasil is open for recruitment! 8 slots only! T&C apply.]

Server announcements rang thrice, although all was calm on the surface, ZeLin could feel the rumblings of a million guild requests coming towards him in a tsunami like fashion.

Everyone wanted to be part of this awe inspiring guild, barely a day since launch and they had already notched two worldwide achievement results, no other guild has yet managed that.

As expected, the guild inbox maxed out at 999,999 applications within an hour. People started to take to the forums to complain that they could not submit their applications, the hype was real.

ZeRen left the management to ZeLin, he would head out to scout for farming locations to gather materials for the lifestyle players. The four incoming adventurers would also be given similar tasks, in-house guild quests will mainly be collection of materials. Of course there would also be quests for the lifestyle players, so no one was left out in gaining guild points.

ZeLin opened up the application tab, then set the system to only show lifestyle players and their lifestyle ranks. ZeLin himself was categorized as an adventurer, but his inheritance class was a lifestyle type class.

Looking down the list, only 8 out of 999,999 applications were lifestyle players. That was shockingly little, but then again, he didn't inform his past members of the name of the guild he was making in this version.

The brothers had agreed not to divulge to their previous members because they felt that it was time for new blood. While the old ones were good, there was also the chances of some unknown and unfunded player who could have been even greater if they had the backing.

Of the 8, there were 2 smiths, 1 chef, 1 alchemist, 2 herbalist, 1 mason, 1 combat butler. Looking at the last person, his eyes were wide, what in the world was a combat butler? Cl.i.c.k.i.n.g on the name, he sent the player a message.

"Hey there, could you explain more about your "Combat Butler" class?" While waiting for a response, he looked into the profiles of the chef and alchemist. Both were familiar names, one was WeiMing from Dark Empire and the other was Sim from Holy Empire.

WeiMing was a junior chef in Dark Empire, he had joined rather late, but had proved that he was very good at his tasks, more often than his peers, he could cook gourmet food that gave additional stats or longer duration on the buff.

Sim on the other hand was not a well known alchemist, she only started playing the game near the end of the 2nd edition. According to ZeRen, she was very time efficient on her brewing, providing them with endless supply of potions especially during raids or guild wars.

ZeLin sent the both of them each a copy of a Non-disclosure Agreement. As both ZeRen and ZeLin were high profile players, they would want to keep their secret as long as possible. Be it the secret of their identities or the methods they used to govern the guild and its affiliates.

"Hey, thanks for the interest, as a combat butler I'm usually in charge of the defenses and overall upkeep of the guild or nation. I'm a hotel manager in real life and have had experience in managing properties for almost 30 years. I also worked in a defense contractor for 5 years prior to my management roles. In the previous edition, I was a combat butler for the Butterfly Nation."

ZeLin read the reply and jumped up and down with excitement. In the previous edition, Butterfly Nation was one of the small nations that no one could conquer, they held the sole ownership to a diamond mine in the area. It was as though some divine being was looking over them, no matter how big the guild, they could not conquer this small nation.

ZeLin drafted a short reply with the NDA, "So it was you, the god-tier player who was defending Butterfly Nation. We're honored to have you, if you'd join us!"

Now came the hard part, he had chosen 1 alchemist, 1 chef and 1 combat butler. He only had space for 1 more lifestyle player. He had to choose one from 2 smiths, 2 herbalists and 1 mason.

All 5 names were not familiar to him, considering the short term, since he was already a smith, the guild would not need another smith, at least not until they expanded, thus he eliminated the 2 smiths.

As they already had an alchemist, having herbalist would be redundant, for now. What's more from what he remembered, alchemist could brew a lot more than herbalist. So he eliminated the 2 herbalists.

It wasn't just an outright rejection message, ZeLin said that they were currently out of space and would keep them in view, so that in future once the guild expanded, they could apply again and would be given priority over other players.