Second World-Novel

Jack received a notification that he had gained 100 guild contribution points when he handed the 10 gold coins. From this, he surmised that 1 gold coin equaled 10 contribution points. He should receive the same proportion if he donated gold coins to the guild.

The counter staff said the workers would head to the Guild Headquarter by themselves, and that they would arrive in one to two hours' time.

Jack was amazed. That was faster than if he used his mount. Did they have faster mounts? He didn't ponder about it too long. With the business completed, he planned to go somewhere, however, Peniel again stopped him, "go to Commander Quintus' tower. We will exchange some of your merit points."

"What for? I thought you asked me to save my points for later?"

"Yeah, that later is now."

"What's different between then and now? I am still a Viscount."

"Just go there first!" Peniel insisted.

"All right, I'm going, I'm going."

When he arrived, he asked for the exchange list again. He didn't see anything different than when he last saw the list.

"Click on the Guild tab," Peniel said.

"Guild?" Now that the fairy mentioned it, he noticed a small tab at the bottom corner marked with Guild. He clicked on it.

A new list appeared in front of him.

Imperial Rescue (cooldown: 1 week) = request protection on the Guild Headquarter from the kingdom army for the next 6 hours

Cost: 1400 merit

Squire Insignia (Limit: 1) = Convert trained Footsoldier unit to Squire unit

Cost: 500 merit

Resource Boost (cooldown: 3 days) = Boost resource collection speed in the next 2 days

Cost: 200 merit

Reputation Boost (cooldown 3 days) = Boost reputation earned from guild quests in the next 2 days

Cost: 300 merit

The options in this new list all cost many more merit points than the regular list. He only had 1990 merit points at the moment. He couldn't exchange for all of them if he wanted to.

After reviewing the list, he asked the fairy, "Peniel, will our Guild Headquarter be attacked by a group of outlaws or a swarm of monsters?"

"It's not impossible, but it will be very rare. Almost unlikely considering your guild headquarter's proximity with the capital."

"Well, in that case, this Imperial Rescue though sounds cool, it wasn't really useful."

"Is that so?" Peniel asked.

"Because the way I see it, if there are no swarm events, the biggest threat to our Guild Headquarter will be the other outworlders. We might scare them back if I use this Imperial Rescue, but all they have to do is just stay back and wait for six hours to pass until the army dispersed before resuming their attacks. There is not much change we can do in those short six hours. In that way, I will just waste a whole lot of merit points for nothing."

"Hm… Whatever. That's not what I ask you to exchange for."

"So, I assume it will be the resource and reputation boost. They are certainly good for the guild."

"They are, but you better exchange it only if you have too many merit points to spare. Change for that Squire Insignia instead."

"Insignia? I already have that Bandit Archer Insignia. Do we need another one?"

"You can only train an archer after you build an archery range, which required you to build a barrack first. It will take rather long, your guild headquarter's protection status will be expired already by then. You need to prepare a strong force for defense after that protection period ended, which means the footsoldiers which you can start recruiting once the barrack is up. This Squire insignia will upgrade all your footsoldiers into a better version."

"All right," Jack followed her instruction and exchanged for the Squire Insignia. He had 1490 merit points left now.

"Is this guild list only appeared after we get the guild headquarters?" Jack asked Peniel.

"No, it has been there all along," Peniel answered.

"Then why didn't you mention it to me last time. If it is just this insignia you need, we should just exchange for it the last time, saving us from coming back here again."

"Honestly, I'm not really confident about you successfully raiding that Bandit Outpost at that time."

"Thank you for your confidence," Jack said to her sarcastically. Well, since he was already here, he asked the officer if there is any new faction quest available.

The officer showed him the available quests, there were two. He thought at first that the two were the same ones he saw last time when he took the quest of delivering a parcel to Knight-Captain Matias, but one of them was a new one. Was the other one gone because the time it was available expired? Or was there another kingdom faction member who took it? Could it be Red Death? Jack was still under the misunderstanding that Red Death was already a kingdom faction member.

Anyway, the new kingdom faction quest drew his attention. It was another delivery quest, and it was to a place where he had visited before. It was delivering another parcel, this time to Thesewal.

"Well, since we will stay for another night, let's do this faction quest. I can deliver this parcel real fast by using the Portal Zone," He said.

"You can deliver it tomorrow when we depart. The place where we will be going will be closer if we set out from Thesewal. So you will still teleport there tomorrow."

"Oh, what a coincidence then." Jack then asked the officer for that faction quest.

After it was done, he asked Peniel, "Is there anywhere else you want me to go to?"

"No, it's all done," she replied.

With that confirmation, he started to head over to where he had planned to before Peniel diverted him. He soon arrived in front Ellie's restaurant and Amy's bakery. The two of them had completed their renovation. He admired the two new buildings side-by-side.

Before the renovation, the two of them had the same three-storey height. After the renovation, Amy's Bakery became four-storey tall, while Ellie's restaurant added two floors directly, making it a five-storey building. The restaurant size was originally already occupying a larger plot of land compared to the bakery, so with this difference in height, the bakery was getting even more dwarfed by the restaurant.

'They both consumed 150 gold coins to upgrade, Isn't this difference a bit unfair?' Jack thought. But he was not complaining, probably the starting size of the land affected the potential when upgrading as well.

He went into Amy's Bakery and greeted the two busy ladies. There were now additional NPC staffs helping the two. Amy and Samantha instantly became good friends with Peniel, the three chatted as Jack looked around the newly transformed Bakery.

The shop now occupied two bottom floors, the interior became more chic. The upper two floors were residential spaces. Jack was again being given the main bedroom on the top floor. The bedroom was now even bigger than before. It was so spacious it appeared empty. Maybe he could buy a few ornamental furniture to fill it up when he had free time and spare coins.

Before leaving, he took the bakery's profit that was due today. It was only 10 gold coins, less than usual despite the bakery had been upgraded to a large shop. Because the upgraded bakery only started operation today, so the profit was still the previous week's one when it was still a medium shop, additionally, they were not operating for two days due to the renovation, so the profit was naturally less.

He then went to the restaurant. The first two floors were for general customers while the third and fourth floors were room for VIPs, while the top floor was fully roof-top setting with an incredible atmosphere. There was a stage where performers were doing a live show. It was a perfect hang-out place. He could see many customers flooding the place already.

Ellie and Bill were very busy, there were also many additional players who helped them in the kitchen when Jack peeked inside. Normally he wouldn't have disturbed them seeing how busy they were, but he needed something from Ellie. Jack made himself known. After seeing Jack, Ellie stopped for a while as she took Jack to the side of the kitchen. She then handed him thirty dishes of Well-Done Steak.

He Inspected the dish and admired the description which said that it increased experience received by 20% for 6 hours. 'Yep, these are going to help,' he thought.

After getting what he needed and seeing his two investment properties were doing well, Jack went to the Hunters Association. In the association, he asked Peniel about the ten monsters they would encounter on their travels. After getting the hunting quests, he headed to the Portal Zone.

It was nighttime already by then. He paid some coins for it and then had himself teleported back to Heavenly Citadel. When he came up to the Guild Hall, there was only John there. He was still working with the holographic interface above the round platform.

"Do you know we have Uruk inside the jail in the basement?" Jack said as he approached him.

"I do," John answered.

"Do you also know the purpose of the prisoners?"

"I do, Peniel had told me and Jeanny about the function of most of this headquarter's structures. So faster go level up and beat that barbarian senseless."

"By the way, where is everyone?" Jack asked.

"Away doing tasks," John replied.

"Even Jeanny?"

"She was overseeing the ten workers that had arrived. We have eight of them started building the barrack, while the remaining two are harvesting food. I've told her that the worker's work was automated, but she wanted to learn their process."

The ten workers had arrived while Jack was roaming around the capital and checking Ellie's restaurant and Amy's Bakery.

"She is a very organized and hard-working leader, ain't she?"

"Yes, appointing her as the main leader was the right call. Either two of us is completely unsuitable for that."

"Can't argue with that," Jack agreed.