"A Four-Star Guild promotion? That is no problem at all." The high-ranking NPC steward's gaze shifted to the purple-gold token on the table, a hint of astonishment in his eyes. "Honored Guardian, are you truly certain you wish to use this Four-Star Advanced Promotion Token?"
"What's wrong with a Four-Star Advanced Promotion Token?" Shi Feng asked, puzzled.
Although he had noticed that the color of the Four-Star Guild Promotion Token in his possession differed from the ones he had obtained before, the stats still showed it as a Four-Star Promotion Token, so he hadn't thought much of it. He had assumed it was simply a minor variation caused by defeating different world-tier bosses.
"Honored Guardian, the Four-Star Advanced Promotion Token was crafted at the very founding of the Adventurer's Association. Only twenty-two were ever made, scattered across the Divine Continent. They serve as a trial for the Adventurer's Guild — the more a guild collects, the higher the status and benefits it will enjoy within the Adventurer's Association upon promoting to a Four-Star Guild."
"With just three Four-Star Advanced Promotion Tokens, a guild can promote directly to a City-State-Level Guild within the Adventurer's Association after reaching Four Stars. If you gather seven, you can become a Kingdom-Level Guild. Honored Guardian, you currently possess one. Collect just two more, and you will be recognized as a City-State-Level Guild."
"However, if you promote now, you will permanently forfeit this opportunity. Your guild will only be recognized as a Town-Level Guild within the Adventurer's Association. Are you certain you wish to use the token at this time?"
After hearing the high-ranking NPC steward's explanation, Shi Feng looked at the purple-gold token on the table with undisguised surprise.
"So there's actually a way to elevate a guild's standing within the Adventurer's Association like this." Shi Feng was intimately familiar with the concept of status within the Adventurer's Association that the NPC steward described — it was something only guilds that had reached Four Stars learned about and came to value.
Once a guild promoted to Four Stars, it unlocked access to the Adventurer's Association as a channel. The guild would receive a temporary base of operations at every Adventurer's Association branch across the Divine Continent, freeing its members from being confined to a single location and allowing the guild to expand its reach across the entire continent. This dramatically increased the experience gains and profits for all guild members.
The so-called channel was, in plain terms, recognition of a guild's strength by the Adventurer's Association. The guild became an official affiliate, officially taking on the work of an adventurer's guild. However, the benefits and standing within the Association were far from equal — they were divided into distinct tiers.
At the moment of promotion to Four Stars, every guild started as an Ordinary-Level Guild within the Association. If a guild wanted greater support, it needed to raise its standing. The simplest way was to advance from Ordinary to Town-Level, then to City-State-Level, Kingdom-Level, and finally Empire-Level.
Depending on the tier, which reflected the Association's assessment of a guild's strength, the guild could handle correspondingly more significant problems.
Ordinary-Level Guilds handled everyday civilian issues. At most, they received slightly more experience, and the large-scale guild missions the Association assigned were limited to subjugating magical beasts that plagued common folk.
At the Town-Level, the Association deemed the guild capable of handling problems affecting an entire town. These were typically commissions from town nobility, and the rewards were vastly superior to those of Ordinary-Level missions. Even when accepting missions from common civilians, a Town-Level Guild received better compensation than an Ordinary-Level Guild — after all, the guild's greater strength meant missions were completed more reliably.
As for City-State-Level, that went without saying. It meant the Association recognized the guild as capable of resolving threats across a vast region, such as purging large swaths of dark forces.
Normally, advancing from Ordinary to Town-Level required a guild to complete an enormous number of large-scale team missions, slowly accumulating reputation within the Adventurer's Association. Each large guild mission granted only three to five reputation points, and the threshold for Town-Level was roughly seven hundred to a thousand points. The difficulty of promotion was self-evident, and the exact requirement varied depending on the city where the guild headquarters was located.
After all, NPC cities differed in scale, and the number of large-scale missions available varied accordingly. The more prosperous the NPC city, the higher the reputation threshold.
"I'll trouble you to proceed with the promotion now," Shi Feng said after a moment's thought.
The effects of the Four-Star Advanced Promotion Token were indeed extraordinary. A single token could elevate a guild directly to Town-Level, three tokens to City-State-Level, and seven to Kingdom-Level. For a guild to reach those tiers through normal means would take years — and City-State-Level, in particular, was a milestone that many major guilds never achieved in their entire lifetime.
Advancing to City-State-Level normally required completing a massive promotion quest, one so difficult it could drive major guilds to despair. Typically, only a handful of second-rate guilds managed it. But now, with three tokens, a guild could become City-State-Level outright. Kingdom-Level was even more exclusive — only a handful of first-rate guilds had ever reached that tier.
However, he simply didn't have the time to go searching for other Four-Star Advanced Promotion Tokens. More importantly, he had no clear idea where to find them. He knew that world-tier bosses could drop them, but he had only defeated the Flame Demon King thanks to the good fortune of a quest. Asking him to go after a world-tier Legendary Boss at this point would be flat-out suicide.
"If the Honored Guardian's mind is made up, then the base renovation fees and processing charges for your guild's promotion to Four-Star total sixty thousand gold! However, as a courtesy to the Honored Guardian, a discount of ten thousand gold has been applied. The total comes to fifty thousand gold." The high-ranking NPC steward made a quick calculation and spoke in a measured tone.
"Fifty thousand gold? Isn't promoting to Four Stars only twelve thousand gold?" Shi Feng had been about to reach for his wallet, only to be startled by the figure the NPC quoted.
If he hadn't been a Guardian, the promotion cost would have been a full fivefold increase. As it was, it was still more than four times the normal price…
"Because you are using a Four-Star Advanced Promotion Token, the work involved is considerably greater. We need to send notifications to the nobles in every city, as well as formally announce the establishment of the Zero Wing Guild. Hence the higher processing fee," the high-ranking NPC steward explained.
"Ruthless," Shi Feng muttered, though there was nothing he could do about it. Still, when he considered that the guild would immediately become a Town-Level Guild, the cost was actually quite reasonable — essentially buying time with gold. He promptly withdrew fifty thousand gold from his inventory and handed it over.
During the time he had been away on the quest, both Feng Qianyu and the Undying Warheart had settled their material payments and outstanding balances, netting him a windfall of one hundred and twenty thousand gold. Without that, he wouldn't have had the extra funds to cover the promotion fee.
As soon as Shi Feng completed the fifty-thousand-gold payment and the high-ranking NPC steward confirmed the transaction, a rapid succession of system announcements rang out in Shi Feng's ears.