Another month had passed since Will opened the Silver Phoenix Café. In one month he had earned over 15,000 gold, but business was slowing, the novelty of reversi was gone. Will promptly used the 15,000 gold as the down payment on the other burnt buildings. Mr. Wallace was more than happy to accommodate Will. However, the other owners were not as desperate, and seeing the success of the adjacent café, they knew Will had money, they raised the property prices to 10,000 gold. Success breeds jealousy, and the owners wanted to capitalize on Will's coin purse. Both owners agreed to a payment plan if Will paid half upfront. Now, Will only had a little over a thousand gold.

Will counted his coin in his head, while he waited on the Guardian Guild floor. Today, Marshall Rolf had called a guild meeting. For the first time, Will saw how massive the guild membership was. He knew the Guardian was the largest guild on campus. This was expected as nobles were expected to join with the guild, and most cadets and mages belonged to noble families. But, even in Will's imagination, he never had the guild to be so massive. The students separated themselves by year, and Will sat with Evan, Grace, Sarah, Vincent, and the rest.

Furthermore, Will had never paid attention to the guild floor. There were only a couple guilds able to have an entire floor in the Commissary Pagoda, the Guardians and Valkyrie were the two. There were benefits to having noble children in your guild, mainly the donations from their noble parents. The Guardians were also the only guild to also receive money from the kingdom. As Will examined the room he saw bright color signs, beautifully colored walls, stacks of paper and pencils, quills, for writing. It looked like the Thompson twins, Seamus and Stephen remodeled this floor. The entire floor looked like the Administration Building. Will had no doubt, beautiful façade also helped recruit noble children used to lavish luxury join the guild.

"May I have your attention," said Guild Master Rolf. Calling Marshall Rolf, Guild Master Rolf was confusing for Will as it was for every first-year guildmember.

"We have much to discuss, but I want everyone to give a round of applause for the fourth-year students, who once again came in first in the mock war games. This marks the twelfth time in a row," he shouted happily.

A loud cheer erupted, with cadets shouting their guild's superiority.

"These fine cadets will graduate this year. You each should admire their hard work and strong work effort. War is a killed or be killed the business, treasure your guildmates, and strive to survive" he said.

"Now we need to discuss the Guild Wars for the third, second-, and first-year students. The Headmaster has decided, for the second time in academy history, all three grades will travel to the same location, Death Valley. Like the years before, each class will still need to elect its commanders. However, each year will march on a different part of the forest. Huddle with your guildmates and choose who think should run for the commander positions of infantry, signal, intelligence, engineer, and quartermaster. Choose wisely, we do not want to shame the name Guardian," he finished.

"I want to run for Signal Commander," Vincent began the first-year debate.

"Wait Vincent, before we began shouldn't the people who want to be a commander express why they want the position?" said Evan.

There were 20 first-year students in Will's class, but there were more than 200 first-year students. Each followed their schedule. Of the 200 first-year students, almost 100 were in the Guardians guild, including half of Will's class.

Evan did not want to start arguing, instead, he chose for a moment of deliberation and debated.

"Sarah and I will keep the notes. Furthermore, neither of us wants to be commanders. I think we should start by listing the names of people who have no interest in running for a commander position," Grace said.

Hearing Grace's suggestion, many first-year students nodded their heads. Vincent fumed, not only had his comment been shot down, even worse he had been shouted down by two commoners.

"If you do not wish to be a commander, please sit on the left, and everyone that wants to run please sit on the right," Grace said, causing a ruckus as chairs and people moved. Working in the Quartermaster Command Post, she was used to speaking with people and providing instruction. Every guild member at one time had interacted with the Quartermaster Office, and since Grace was responsible for greeting and receiving orders, everyone knew and respected Grace. The cadets followed her orders, without question.

"Will please move to the right, this is no time for jokes," Grace spoke to Will, as a hen would to chick. Will had no interest in running for a command post, that is why he sat on the left. But everyone assumed he was making a joke to lighten the mood. Will hearing Grace's comment excusing him of folly, sat up slowly moved to the right.

"Now we will follow Evan's advice, but we will start with the office of Guild Master. We shall go in reverse order to speed up the process," Grace said, nodding heads. It made sense to start with the least popular commander post. Everyone wanted the honor of being the Infantry Commander.

"Who would like to run against Will to be the Quartermaster Commander?" Grace said using her tone again to signify her annoyance.

No one objected, causing Grace to say, "Good. Will, Sarah, and I will of course follow you once again. If you ask, we'll gladly serve as your deputies," Grace said. Saying that last part of the sentence as a rhetorical question.

Hearing her tone, Will spoke up quickly and said, "please…" But, before he could finish asking the question, she told him to ask, Grace, interjected and said, "of course, moving on…" Will realized he did not have a clue what just happened, was he elected to run for quartermaster with Sarah and Grace as his deputies? He wanted to ask but realized doing so would cause Grace to direct her tone back at Will.

"Moving on, who wants to run for the Engineer Commander?" she asked. A small boy timidly raised his hand.

"Go on tell us who you are?" Grace said sternly.

Stuttering he meekly said, "I am Bradley vont Alms, and I am in the engineering class and serve as one of three Deputy Engineer Commanders.

The Engineer Commander Post required creative thinkers, with a good understanding of math and science. These types of people were the people Will appreciated the most. Back on Earth people like Bradley were in high demand, problem solvers. Many titans of industry had these qualifications, and on Terra these people were harder to come by. And Will had a problem he needed solving. When Will met Bradley his eyes twinkled with greed because he too had a problem in need of solving. After reincarnating on Terra, Will noticed two under-resourced markets: entertainment and transportation. Those were trillion-dollar industries on earth, but here they were ripe for the picking.

Grace continued, "anyone other than Bradley wants to run for Engineer Commander." No one else raised their hands.

"Congratulations Bradley, you are our nominee for Engineer Commander," said. A group of young men who looked equally as nerdy congratulated Bradley.

"So far this has gone quickly, but I imagine we'll start to see more competition now," Grace said.

"All you want to run for Intelligence Commander please raise your hands," said Grace, she just finished speaking when three hands rose. Two boys and a girl raised their hands. "Okay please introduce yourselves and detail your qualifications."

The first boy spoke, "My name is Fang. I ranked highest in the midyear exams among the first-year intelligence post," he stated that fact proudly.

The second boy spoke, "I am Jonathan, I ranked third in the midyear exams among first-year intelligent students and serve as the Intelligence Commander's liaison with the Signal Command" he said confidently.

"Who was the third, it was a girl was it not?" said Grace.

"It was me," said a girl who looked like she had been here the whole time, yet blended in so well she was invisible like a tree hidden in a forest.

Then the girl spoke, "I serve as one of four Deputy Commanders, and ranked second among intelligence offers. I have also had the most experience between the three," she said.

"What's your name?" said a boy who looked like he was in love.

"I work in intelligence; you will never know my name. No one here knows my name," she said mysteriously.

"How will people vote for you?" Grace asked sincerely.

"In that case, please call me Mantis," she said politely.

"We will now have time for questions, followed by a blind vote," Grace said.

There were not many questions for the three, and most were directed to the boys. It seemed several people were unsettled by the nameless woman and her ability to camouflage. While some people felt uncomfortable speaking with her, Will was not. Corporate spying happened frequently back on Earth, especially during quarterly or yearly mandated reporting. There was no need for corporate spying on Earth, by he did have a question for her.

"Mantis, where is the hardest place you've had camouflage before?" Will asked her. Hearing Will's question, many people were also curious. They were also happy someone asked the unsettling girl a question.

"The hardest places are the ones with the fewest crowd. I once tracked a bandit group to an empty mine, that was pretty hard," she said nonchalantly.

Many people were impressed, bandits were dangerous cut-throats and Mantis had tracked an entire group. Moreover, she returned alive, what a triumph as a first-year. What an impressive quest, people felt she had to be exceptional. People were amazed at Will's question and her answer. They felt Will was very insightful to ask such a good question.

"Have either of you tracked a group of bandits," Will asked the two boys, seeing them shake their heads no.

Will thanked both, but his mind was made up, and so were the others. In the end, everyone voted from Mantis. She thanked everyone before fading into the background.

"Congratulations Mantis, where did she go? Next onto Signal Commander," said Grace.

"There is no need for debate, this farce has gone on long enough! Which idiot wishes to challenge me, Vincent vont Wright, to run for Signal Commander?" Vincent stood up and shouted.

No one raised their hands, to compete with Vincent was to willingly submit yourself onto a burning stake. Life was simpler to just leave Vincent alone to enjoy his mania.

Seeing no one raise, their hands, Vincent spoke again, "Now Will your servant may continue guiding this travesty of a conference."

"Vincent unless you wish you pommel you again, you will refer to Grace as Grace, or Deputy Quartermaster," Will said raising an eyebrow. Will did not tolerate people abusing his staff. Vincent's comment was disrespectful to both Will and Grace, and Will would never sit for that.

Hearing Will's comment, he didn't apologize but sat down quietly. Grace moved the conversation forward, she was smart enough to give Vincent any more attention.

"On to the main event, please raise your hands if you'd like to run for Infantry Commander," she said.

Immediately, over 20 hands rose in the air. For the next hour, the first-year students debated the candidates, and occasionally a candidate would remove themselves from the running. After several rounds of voting, the field of candidates was whittled down to two, Evan and another candidate. Both candidates were very similar, and had good qualifications, although Evan was ranked higher in the midterms.

However, before Grace announced the final round of voting, Mantis interrupted, "I have the list of frontrunners for each position: Infantry—Mark, Signal—Chloe, Intelligence—Samuel, Engineer—Bradley, Quartermaster—Will" Most of these students were in Will's class and were the highest-ranked students. Engineering students ranked differently from combat troops because like Quartermaster their position was not combat-oriented. Sadly, there were no quartermaster classes, like engineering.

Hearing Mark's name, Evan backed out off the running. He did not want to divide the class. However, Vincent did not have a problem, he shouted in disgust, "A commoner can not be the Infantry Commander. I would never take orders from a commoner!" Several heads nodded; many nobles felt like Vincent. The student who won the Guardian nominee for Infantry Commander was the son of a viscount and proudly announced he would Mark easily. Who would trust a commoner to lead, the very thought for many gave way to revulsion?

Seeing that Bradley and Will were the frontrunners. The first-year students decided to put their energy into electing the Infantry, Signal, and Intelligence Commanders. It was a great honor for a guild to hold a commander position but holding all the commander positions was seen as a distinction for a guild. Immediately, the guild began raising money, putting up signs around the academy, handing out candy and sweets. Regretfully, Vincent and the viscount's son also began bribing students to elect them. Will knew politics brought out the worst in people. However, Will chose to ignore the political rigmarole, and focus on his studies with his master.