Wind Forest City, Zero Wing Headquarters.
Shi Feng stood before the main gates of Zero Wing's headquarters. The place had undergone a tremendous transformation since his last visit.
The small plaza that had once sat nearly empty in front of the building was now absolutely packed with people. Young men and women stood everywhere — some queued up waiting to enter the lobby for their assessments, while others prepared for various pre-screening activities out in the open. The sheer bustle of it all was far more impressive than the headquarters of any other major guild.
Before Shi Feng had even taken a few steps forward, he could hear these young men and women chattering excitedly about Zero Wing — some praising the training environment in Zero Wing City, others talking about how the battle of Ancient Rock City had been earth-shaking, establishing Zero Wing as the acknowledged number one guild in the Divine Realm. Their eyes sparkled with the eager hope of joining Zero Wing's ranks.
Yet before Shi Feng even reached the lobby entrance, a long-haired man in his thirties suddenly walked up to him.
The long-haired man looked Shi Feng — dressed in casual sportswear — up and down and said warmly, "Hey there, brother! You're here to join Zero Wing too, right?"
"Me? Join Zero Wing?" Shi Feng stared at the long-haired man, momentarily stunned.
The man in front of him looked perfectly ordinary on the surface, but his life force was remarkably powerful — easily rivaling that of certain body-tempering grandmasters.
Before Shi Feng could say a word, the long-haired man pulled open his jacket, revealing a Six-Winged insignia pinned to his T-shirt — the mark of a Zero Wing insider.
"I can tell you're no ordinary person." The long-haired man kept angling his jacket to flash the insignia, then pointed toward the long queue of people waiting for assessments not far away, grinning broadly. "Look at that crowd over there. By the time you grab a ticket and get in line, who knows how long you'll be waiting. But I'm an internal member of Zero Wing — I've got special recommendation slots. I can recommend one person to skip the preliminary screening entirely."
"What do you mean?" Shi Feng asked curiously.
"I can tell you're something special, so I'd like to recommend you. But once you become a Zero Wing insider, you'll have to join our squad. What do you say?" The long-haired man looked at Shi Feng with a completely earnest expression. "Our squad is no joke. Even though we were only established recently, we're already considered a second-tier team within Zero Wing — just one step below the first-tier main raid team!"
"……"
Hearing this, Shi Feng broke into a silent sweat.
He had never imagined that Zero Wing's various teams had gotten to the point of recruiting like this out on the street.
If he hadn't been Zero Wing's Guild Master, the long-haired man in front of him might well have talked him into it.
Because Zero Wing had exactly one main raid team. Every other squad that had a fourth-tier Class holder leading it was classified as second-tier — eligible to tackle the level-150 Hard-mode hundred-player dungeon raids…
"You don't believe me?" The long-haired man noticed Shi Feng's expression and said smugly, "Do you even know who our squad leader is? I guarantee it'll blow your mind!"
Just as Shi Feng grew curious about who exactly this eccentric's squad leader could be, a sudden burst of commotion erupted from inside the lobby — a series of thunderous crashes, as though someone were pounding the ground with a massive iron hammer.
Yet to this racket, whether it was the long-haired man or the other Zero Wing members present, nobody so much as batted an eye. They were completely unfazed. The newcomers who had only recently arrived, however, were bursting with curiosity, each one unable to resist drifting closer to see what was happening.
"Don't bother — it's nothing worth getting excited about." The long-haired man glanced at Shi Feng, who looked a bit puzzled, and said dismissively, "It's just another batch of experts from some superpower guild coming to challenge us. Give it a few minutes and Grandmaster Lei Bao will sort them out."
Shi Feng raised an eyebrow and asked, "Has Zero Wing been getting a lot of this lately?"