John exited the game for the first time in a day. He cleaned his VR pod performing the necessary maintenance before going to grab a large meal. After eating his daily calories in one sitting he got on the phone with Ed.

“Hi Edward, things are getting exciting now, aren’t they?”

“Yes. But there is something we need to talk about.”

“What’s that?”

“Your leadership style is a bit draconian. You need to give people more room to breathe and be their own person.”

“I was just taking charge to level us up.”

“Just because you think you know best doesn’t mean people will appreciate being ordered around,” Edward continued.

I reluctantly admitted he was right. I’d forgotten what I’d learnt in middle management and had instead pushed things aggressively. It was time to take a softer touch and let my guild mates bloom. “You’re right Edward. I’ll change things. Thanks for letting me know.”

“I’d also like the chance to play more of a role in the management of the guild.”

“What would you like to do?”

“I want to manage the 2nd team of the guild.”

“I need you on the first team. That won’t work. I can make you a vice-guild leader if you want to take on administering the guild warehouse,” John offered.

“Sigh. I was hoping to avoid that it doesn’t really suit me. It’s a lot of tedium,” Edward countered.

“I won’t make it a permanent thing then. If we get to a point where you’re no longer a first team member I’d be happy to have you lead the second team. Until then, would you be willing to run the guild warehouse for me?” John said.

“I suppose I can do it. But I’m going to automate most of it,” Edward finally relented.

“In that case, congratulations on your promotion to Vice-Guild Leader my friend,” John said.

“Thanks, I hope it’s worth it,” Edward said.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be starting salaries for key contributors soon. It will be,” John said.

After a bit of small talk, the two friends seemed happier. John finally said goodbye and hung up. He was once again worried about money; how was he going to pay his team?

John hoped the stores would be enough. He’d have to tour the Kingdom buying property and setting them up. He’d need to hire more crafters for his Merchant Guild. There was much to do. He supposed it wasn’t all bad, touring the realm would let him find demon hatcheries and keep that stupid curse from triggering.

John reached his gym and started to work out as he continued to think. He laid down on his weight bench and started to bench press. I have enough gold for shops in a few places and I’ll have more when I collect the revenues from the merchant guild. I don’t have to pay the crafters their share until the end of the month, so I’ll borrow against that to get everything set up. I wonder if it is enough for two properties in every city, it would be great to have some additional guild houses. That’s probably a pipe dream. I’ll pick two new cities for guild houses, and the rest of the cities I visit will just get a shop. John completed his workout.

He headed back into the game and checked on the daily AI patch. In addition to all the unrevealed improvements to the AI itself and some hidden content that gets added every day, the AI had made some rather important balance changes. The biggest one was:

Fighting higher levelled enemies will result in the XP for fighting them being reduced by 50% per level higher than you they are.

This was a balance nerf that would greatly reduce John’s levelling speed. He’d still get a doubling of XP for most levels but compared to 4x that was a massive slowdown.

John also checked on the level rankings. His guild dominated the Verdure Kingdom as well as the global rankings. But John wasn’t first. Neither was a guild member. Beowulf was level 24. Fortunately, he was still not a member of a guild and didn’t appear to be helping anyone else level.

John wished the rankings were more expansive. But the only one being shown was player rankings by level. No merchant rankings, No guild rankings, No item rankings. Perhaps the last one was best, if people knew Corwin had a full set of epic gear there would be outrage.

The time for the patch ticked down as Corwin reviewed the information. Finally, it was time.

3….2…1… GAME START