The moment Youlan and the others stepped inside the resplendent Zero Wing manor, the sight before them seized their attention.
From the outside, the Zero Wing manor was nowhere near as large as the headquarters built by the superpowers, but the interior felt like an entirely different space—far more expansive than its exterior suggested.
The first-floor lobby alone was the size of a football field. Guild members could rest and chat there casually, and quite a few had rented private guild quarters from the front desk to recover. Adjacent to the lobby was an even more spacious quest hall, and at this moment, swarms of guild members were picking up quests. High-tier quests and high-tier team quests scrolled ceaselessly across the massive screens mounted on the ceiling—so many that the sheer volume made one's head spin.
"So this is what a three-star guild looks like?" Youlan stared at the towering screens in the quest area, a wry smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
The Underworld had fought tooth and nail just to boost the guild's reputation enough to raise its daily high-tier quest count to five or six hundred, with around a hundred team quests—and even that had the entire guild scrambling over each other. Many core members couldn't even snag a single high-tier quest every day. Meanwhile, Zero Wing had it easy.
The high-tier quests here were practically overflowing—over twenty-two hundred of them, with more than four hundred team quests. Even the guild's elite members stood a chance of picking one up.
Normal guild quests were one thing—their rewards were mostly money. High-tier quests, however, were a different matter entirely. There was a chance of obtaining rare items, the monetary payout after completion was far more generous, and completing them also boosted guild reputation.
With this many high-tier and team quests available, Zero Wing could let far more members develop themselves. Over time, the gap between the guilds would only widen.
"This is where you handle your membership registration. Just fill in your details here," Shi Feng said, leading Youlan and the others to the guild sign-up counter. "As for your rank after joining, you'll need to accumulate a certain amount of guild merit and pass the corresponding rank trial to advance. However, since I personally invited you to join, you can skip the merit accumulation—you just need to pass the appropriate rank trial."
"Right now, to become an elite member of Zero Wing, you need to reach the early stage of the fifth floor of the Trial Tower. To become a core member, you need to reach the mid-stage of the sixth floor."
Youlan and the others drew a sharp breath.
Reaching the fourth floor of the Trial Tower was already considered expert-level by ordinary players. Reaching the fifth floor put one among the recognized top-tier players in the current landscape. Yet Zero Wing required the fifth floor just to qualify as an elite member—and core members were even more terrifying, requiring the sixth floor at mid-stage…
That was roughly the level of a main raid team member in a top-tier guild in the Divine Realm. After all, main raid team members were handpicked from among the core elites—and that benchmark was merely the threshold for becoming a Zero Wing core member.
The revelation left Antong and the rest of them embarrassed.
Among the dozen or so experts present, only Antong and Youlan met that standard. The others fell short by a fair margin—the best among them had only reached the late stage of the fifth floor.
"Guild Master Black Flame, what about us life-skill players?" asked a dozen or so life-skill players behind Youlan, their voices tinged with nervousness.
They were crafters, skilled in secondary professions rather than combat.
"Don't worry. After joining the guild, there's a separate test for life-skill players—but that one takes place at the Candlelight Trading Company," Shi Feng explained.
Hearing this, the dozen-odd life-skill players relaxed slightly. They had all been cultivated by Youlan into high-level crafters. In terms of combat, perhaps they were nothing special, but when it came to their crafting proficiency, they were first-rate without question.
Then Shi Feng's next remark nearly made them cough up three liters of blood.
"For secondary professions, reaching the advanced level qualifies you as an official member of the Candlelight Trading Company. To become a core member, your actual success rate for crafting advanced-tier items needs to be around thirty percent."