Sora stared as his Guild Standard with mixed emotions. At first he thought that it would be a huge step for him and he should be feeling excited, yet now that he started to think about what happened in his old guild he became a little melancholy. He thought about what would happen if he once again was pushed out of the guild he loved by the people he thought he could trust. His journey in rising his guild from the bottom to the top were the happiest and saddest memories he had. He looked at Blossom and LeeLee who seemed to be celebrating for him, they were truly happy for him and Sora could see that. Sora suddenly shook his thoughts away as he watched Blossom jumping up and down with a genuine smile on her face.

“It will be different this time…”

Sora had to murmur that line to himself to steel his feelings as he activated the Guild Standard. The Guild Standard stuck into the ground in front of Sora, blowing without any wind. A menu popped up for Sora to customize his standard along with naming his guild and setting various options that helped with managing the guild.

Guild Management Settings…

A long list of options popped up in front of Sora, including things like what ranks the guild would have, what ranks could recruit, what ranks could access the guild vault, if there was a guild fee, and other small things that were necessary to start the guild. He used the following ranks for his guild; Recruit, Member, Noble, Leader, Officer, Official, Commander, Vice Guild Leader, and Guild Leader. There wasn’t a fee to joining the guild, the only requirements that Sora had were to have a good character and to at least be decent at the game. He went through more of the smaller details before confirming the settings.

Guild Name…

At first Sora put in the name ‘Eternal Glory’ right as the option popped up, then he stopped before he could hit confirm. Sora didn’t want things to be the same, the name ‘Eternal Glory’ was just a memory to him now. His glory was no longer here, he was reborn and needed to rise from the bottom once again. Sora deleted ‘Eternal Glory’ and input ‘Pheonix Rising’, swiftly hitting confirm after he was done.

Guild Standard…

The Guild Standard was just a white flag at the moment, it would stay that way until the guild leader made a design for it. The design could use many different emblems, icons, patterns, and shapes to create whatever you want. The design that Sora chose was very simple, a phoenix with a sun in the background. Sora hit the final confirmation and gazed at the glorious sight of his new guild. Sora stepped up to the standard and pulled it from the ground, officially creating his guild.

-Faction Announcement-

Player Ethereal has created the guild ‘Phoenix Rising’

Drazi gave a small sigh of defeat before congratulating Sora on his successful founding. Drazi was not bitter at Sora for creating the first guild, he was bitter at himself for not being able to. Angel also gave a small curtsy as congratulations. Blossom and LeeLee were the last to come up to Sora to congratulate him, they had wanted to come over as soon as Sora got the Guild Standard but when they seen the sad smile they decided to hold back and let him think. Now that they were finally able to see Sora with a genuine smile they couldn’t hold on any longer.

“Hey, hey mister fisherman. Can I apply to join your guild?”

“Hmmm… I’m not sure, space is limited. LeeLee can go ahead and join though.”

“It’s not nice to tease Blossom like that, mister fisherman.”

“LeeLee is right, a delicate flower like myself can’t be treated so rudely.”

“Alright, alright, I don’t want to hear anymore of this ‘delicate flower’ nonsense. Besides, I think you’ve earned your spot.”

Sora invited Blossom and LeeLee into the guild and gave each of them the Official Rank. Officials would do various jobs for the guild such as recruitment and management of guild affairs. Sora wouldn’t be able to handle everything by himself so he immediately made the two girls Officials. Blossom and LeeLee didn’t mind a little extra work, it would mainly be recruitment right now anyways.

“Alright, for now we should go back to Var, I have some business to take care of before starting to work on the outpost. Could you girls start recruiting players? As long as they have a good character and are within the top 20% of player levels or they have an important job skill like blacksmithing and alchemy then you can recruit them.”

“Alright, we are going on ahead then.”

“Me and Angel are also leaving, good luck.”

Sora had remembered that Bubbles should still be here, he had been mining for quite some time now so he was sure to make a lot of profit. Sora decided to personally go and recruit him since he was so close by. As Sora walked out of the cave he was met with the sight of Blossom, LeeLee, Drazi, and Angel facing off against 19 players, one of them being Julius.

It seems that Julius had not listened to the warning about the snakes within the jungle. He started out with over 50 players and was now left with such a large chunk of them dying to the snakes. The party was so big that they couldn’t stop players from aggroing the level 55 snakes in the jungle. He would even purposely use players as bait while he would run away. It didn’t help that Julius was so irritated that he basically pushed the group forward without letting people scout ahead.

Drazi stared at an assassin that was within the group, it was the same one that had tried to steal the quest from Sora earlier. The look that Drazi gave the assassin sent chills down his spine, Drazi was normally very amiable and kind so the assassin wasn’t used to such a venomous look.

Julius looked at Drazi with a awkward expression, he didn’t want to get on his bad side since he had a fairly large force already. The only reason why he was risking attacking Sora was because he had just started off in the gaming world and didn't have a large force like Drazi. Julius forced himself to calm down as he stepped forward towards Drazi.

“Drazi, it is an honor to meet-”

“Did you plant that spy within my guild?”

“I’m not sur-”

“Did. You. Or. Did. You. Not.”

Julius was sweating a little as he saw the usually calm Drazi turning into a predator. He decided to skip the formalities and try his best to appease him. Of course Julius planted a couple spies within his guild, but he wouldn’t admit it.

“I did not, how could you think such a thing?”

“Then why do you have that scum with you?”

“I assure you I have no idea what you are talking about, if this scum has offended you then I will punish him on your behalf. Gentlemen, kill the person who offended Drazi.”

A barrage of attacks hit the assassin as he stood there with a look of despair on his face. He was betrayed by the person who had hired him, the assassin could only use the fact that Julius made a huge mistake to peacefully die at the hands of his so called friends.

“I don’t remember saying who the spy was.”

Julius wasn’t thinking properly when he ordered the attack, his emotions have been constantly changing so his judgement slipped. Julius finally snapped when he saw Sora walking up to stand next to Drazi. Drazi was prepared to start fighting when he saw Julius falling back to his men, but Sora put his hand in front of Drazi to stop him as he walked towards the group alone.

Sora wanted to handle it alone since the others would incur the murdered penalty, forcing them to spend a time to clear the status. Sora had his Ring of Forgiveness so he would be able to kill without suffering the penalty. Sora activated the ring before charging towards the group of players.

The players with Julius already had high tension so when they saw Sora charging towards them they had already begun to attack. Sora was pelted by several ranged attacks, some of them being magic but most being arrows. Sora used [Relentless Pursuit] on Julius, since he was located in the middle of the group, and crossed the distance between him and their group in seconds. Projectiles would hit Sora and do small double digit numbers to him. Even after Sora had made it to the melee fighters he had only suffered from 300 damage, which was mostly healed with a health potion. A warrior tried to use [Crippling Strike] but wasn’t able to slow him thanks to [Relentless Pursuit], Sora used [Concuss] on one of the tanks before using [Slash] on an assassin. The assassin had been pouring most of his stats into Agility and ended up dying to the basic attack that followed, due to neglecting his Constitution. Sora parried another warrior as he moved deeper into the group, successfully dodging some sloppy attacks made at him. The group was not coordinated at all and had been standing too close together for swords to make a clean movement. Sora could dodge attacks like these all day without any problem. A healer had been the next target and died even more miserably than the assassin, it only took two basic attacks to send him on his way to the Statue of Helara. The archers and mages had a hard time hitting Sora since their comrades kept moving in and out of the way.

“Move before I accidentally shoot your ass!”

“I can’t get a good shot, what are you melee classes doing?!”

“Shut up, he should have died before he was able to make it into our group, where was your damage when he was still on his way?!”

The group fell apart, archers and mages started to shoot projectiles towards Sora even when their comrades were in the way. Julius had a maddened look on his face, he must have forgot that he was a mage since he rushed towards Sora and tried to beat him. Sora saw him coming and parried the attack while continuing to fight the other players. Julius kept trying to swing at Sora and ended up being parried each time. Sora didn’t see a mage that wielded his staff like a club as a threat so he would just parry him and focus on the blades that would be swinging towards him. Julius had been parried ten times, so Sora decided to put an end to his silly act. With a single [Slash], with the help of 100% damage from [Vanquish the Weak], he was able to one hit Julius.

Sora became a nightmare for the group as he easily weaved between the melee classes, leaving the archers and mages no chance to hit him. Once the melee classes thinned out the mages and archers finally had a shot, but were only met with a couple pitiful numbers followed by Sora rushing to them and killing them off in a couple hits. Drazi had been watching the fight closely, trying to figure out what he would do in the same situation. He had only been able to spot a couple gaps where he would be able to attack, the gaps were so small that even he didn’t think he would be able to make the hit. Plus he noticed that Sora would take out the biggest threats before they could do anything against him. He purposely left melee classes alive so he could block the ranged attacks and then killed the people who had the opportunity to attack.

Sora ended up killing the last player just before his buff from Ring of Forgiveness ended. The entire group had been wiped without even bringing Sora below 50% health. Drazi had learned a lot from watching the fight, like how to position himself better, how to position his party members, and most importantly to not become an enemy to someone like Sora.

Blossom had watched the fight, wanting to jump in and start cleaving her way through enemies. As she watched the finesse that Sora had when fighting she felt very inferior. The itch to battle was quickly replaced by the need to learn. She watched each movement Sora made and asked herself if she could do the same. She might be able to kill, but would she be able to do so while dealing with attacks coming from every direction. Her warrior trial didn’t really count since the enemies were low AI and didn’t really do any damage. As she watched Sora she began to absorb some of his fighting style. It was elegant, yet brutal; fluid, yet solid.

Sora returned to the group and saw that someone else had come to watch the fight, he was standing near the entrance to the cave with a look of astonishment on his face.

“Ah, Bubbles. How goes the mining?”

“G-good… what was that all about?”

“Just some troublemakers, nothing to worry about… Oh, since you're here, I would like to invite you to my guild.”

“I almost forgot, I had wanted to congratulate you. If you would like to have me then I would be happy to join.”

“Great! I’ll invite you then.”

Sora invited Bubbles into the guild and gave him the member rank. He had only actually talked to Bubbles for a little bit but he knew that he had a good character. Everyone once again formed a group, including Bubbles this time, and walked to Var together. As they were walking back Sora had been talking to Blossom and LeeLee about what kind of people to recruit.

“High levels are going to be the easiest thing for you to spot. Professions likes miners, blacksmiths, harvesters, alchemists, woodcutters and shapers are all very useful. It would also be nice to find a good fisher and cooker… but those are kinda hard to find.”

“My grandpa is a pretty good fisher, would it be alright to invite him?”

“So your grandpa plays this game too huh? That’s fine, go ahead and invite him.”

Sora silently thought about the old man he had been fishing with at Crater Lake. Sora decided to do his best to invite him to his guild.