When Jake, Lana, and Louise found Rick's base, they couldn't help but frown. It wasn't a camp walled with wood but with walls made of stone. They were pretty tall, like ten meters tall. At that point, it wasn't necessary to have such walls, so it was only a demonstration of the power that the guild had. Nevertheless, the walls were also pretty large, two hundred meters large and perhaps three hundred meters wide. By the look of things, the place also only had a single entrance. While that wasn't a good option in case of an attack, it was fine now that they had super-human abilities. Climbing or jumping over a wall like that without equipment wasn't impossible.
"State your business here," A tall guard wearing a silver armor from head to toe asked.
"My name is Jake and I was invited by a man called Clark," Jake replied. "He said that we could see things regarding your guild before deciding if we could join or not."
"The guild master is currently away on a mission, but Clark is here," The guard said. "Go and call him."
The guard said that to another guard, and then he left to look for Clark. Thanks to that, Jake had enough time to look at the interior of the camp. The number of people there seemed pretty high. Still, some houses were simple, while others were pretty large and tall. However, what caught Jake's attention was the fact that the number of the woman seemed pretty high, like four women per one man. Jake wanted to sigh… he also didn't want to make judgments without talking with the guild master, but it was starting to get difficult.
After a couple of minutes, Clark appeared. He looked pretty sleepy, like the guard had woken him up. That was weird since they had plenty of time to rest since they returned before noon. Perhaps he went on another mission, but Jake doubted that people would do that after expending a few days away on another mission.
"Hey, you guys came pretty early," Clark received them with a smile. "Come in, I will show you the camp while the guild master is away."
They entered the camp and had the chance to see things in even more detail. Although the atmosphere was a bit weird, Jake failed to see anything suspicious. Some people looked at them with curious eyes, but aside from that, nothing happened regarding other people.
"That is the main building, if we want to gather people for a mission, we go there and talk to other members with interest in going," Clark said while pointing to a tall building that apparently had only two floors for some reason.
Jake wondered if the fact that his previous teammates were so quiet was because they actually we're just a bunch of people he worked with now and then. If that was the case, Jake wondered where Clark's real party was. Asking that seemed a bit too much, so Jake decided to keep quiet about it.
"Do you want to go there and see how people work before a mission?" Clark asked.
"Nah, it is fine," Jake replied.
"Well, if you say so," Clark said. "That building over there is where the alchemists work to brew our potions. There are two types of ways to create potions, by relying on herbs or using essence that you can obtain after obtaining the alchemist class."
The building of the alchemists seemed pretty dark. People were coming and going while carrying bags of herbs. Jake didn't see where they were taking them from, but it probably wasn't from outside. Also, the alchemist didn't look particularly strong. Maybe it was because they spent day and night inside a dark room, but they also seemed pretty unhealthy. Perhaps those who didn't want to fight anymore for whatever reason decided to work solely as alchemists…
"That building over there is where you can find some blacksmiths that can make weapons for you if you give them the right materials," Clark said. "Do you want to see how the process works? While we don't have one here, I heard that some blacksmiths can skip the process of melting ores and forging weapons instantly. Creating something simple is easy, but if you want a weapon with a certain skill or status points, you will need some monster parts. Like bones, blood, their hide, or heart."
"That seems pretty interesting," Jake said.
"The formula to make certain weapons are kept as secret from others, so you can't ask much from our blacksmiths," Clark said.
That was a pity… considering that Jake assumed that negotiating with that guild without joining them for weapons probably was impossible. Still, while he didn't hear much detail, Jake learned a few interesting things.
"That is our armory, there you can find all kinds of magic items that will grant you skills and status points," Clark said while pointing to another tall building that was heavily guarded. "From what I heard, you can sell rare weapons there as well, but once you reach a certain level you will have to pay to rent some others since everyone also wants to master rare weapons."
"I suppose that makes sense," Jake said.
It wouldn't surprise Jake if the members had to give those items to the armory for the sake of strengthening the guild. It would be something like helping the guild back since they were helpers at the beginning. Nevertheless, Jake couldn't see any other particularly interesting building. All the others were basically ordinary residences.
"We have a mage that is a specialist in Earth magic that can build new houses pretty fast, naturally, you won't have to pay for them," Clark said. "We have seven hundred members and around half of them don't fight monsters for whatever reason, but they support us indirectly. So, we ask our members to give the guild fifty thousand coins per month to help them. While it seems a pretty high price, it is pretty easy to collect since you can form parties with other members. Besides, you can have access to all of those places I mentioned before."
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