I didn’t bother to stick around to watch the final round between anGreen and MissTery. At this point, there wasn’t a lot for to gain from watching fight anymore. I had already experienced firsthand the level of power that a first rank Keeper was expected to have, and then so. I’d have to ask Grimor, but those two were likely at a significantly higher rank than that, and just participating in this tournant for fun.
Instead, I went back out into the hall. It was hard to tell whether the fighting tournant was considered long or short compared to most gas, but it was definitely shorter than the Keeper Sim ga that I played before. After all, that one was a round robin style tournant, with each match taking nearly an hour. Naturally, it would take longer than a tournant with a brackets system, and each round taking a total of no more than half an hour.
So I started looking through the door titles again. By now, there were far less people in the halls, giving more room to examine each ga taking place. In total, there were twenty doors along each wall, with one door at the very end, for a total of forty-one different gas. If I thought about how many points the Gilded Branch spent every month on these etings… the number is simply astronomical.
Thankfully, there was one familiar face out in the hall. Grimor himself stood at the entry point, watching over everyone that was walking between the doors. When he caught my gaze on him, he offered a friendly wave. I had so questions to ask, so I walked over to greet him.
“Saw that you got a prize already. Aronia… she should be in charge of the fighting competition, yeah? Good job there.” He greeted with a smile and a nod as I approached.
“Thanks. Why aren’t you in any of the gas, though?” I couldn’t help but ask, glancing back towards the doors.
Grimor put on a bitter expression as he heard that, shaking his head. “One of our rules. The host of the eting can’t participate in any of the competitions. It’d make it look rigged if we won.”
“Ahh… makes sense. Mind if I take so ti to ask you a few questions that have been bothering lately?”
When he heard that, he gave a brief, polite nod. As such, I didn’t hesitate. “What sort of benefits does being in a guild offer? I know you invited to yours, and another group did the sa for my first eting. But nobody has really explained that bit to yet.”
He seed surprised when he heard my first question, glancing at my curious. “You never asked that cat-eared Companion of yours? She probably could have told you.” I gave a small sigh at his response, shaking my head. The question hadn’t really occurred to until we got here, after all.
“Well, it’s pretty simple really. Guilds are another system that the Keepers themselves added into the overall foundation of the bigger governing system. Like with the Standard Ti or the Keeper Titles, enough Keepers petitioned for it that we were allowed to form groups within the system.”
As he explained, Grimor crossed his arms in front of himself, leaning against the nearby wall to his side. “There are only really two benefits to joining a guild. First, and perhaps most importantly, mbers of the sa guild will never be matched up against one another in a fight. Though, this has its limits. For instance, when we discovered that, we tried to get as many people into one guild as we could to end the gas entirely. Wanna guess what happened?”
When he saw shrugging my shoulders helplessly, he continued with a small chuckle. “The system made it so that everyone in the guild was matched against soone else within the guild for the next several months. Far as we can tell, there is a guild mber cap of ten percent for every Keeper Rank. So we can only have ten percent of the first, second, and so on before the system gets mad.”
I nodded at that. It was still a huge benefit to not be forced to fight your friends, even if there was that limit. “And the other benefit?”
Grimor shook his head, closing his eyes for a mont. “The second one isn’t so special. We are able to exchange points with other guild mbers without directly visiting their Administration Room, or vice versa. That’s how we host these etings, shifting our points around every month to make sure that the host can afford it.”
“We even have a few Keepers who have made it their sole purpose to farm for points by mass producing worlds and stopping them a few years before they get to the gas. They just have to send off the points before the system matches them up with the next invasion.”
I couldn’t help but raise my eyebrow as I heard that. “Doesn’t that seem a bit like cheating? I an, by that logic you could just transfer a ton of points to your guildmate after they’ve been paired with an opponent, and they use those points to enhance their world enough to overwhelm the enemy.”
Grimor laughed lightly at that, shaking his head. “Yeah, so people try to exploit it like that. And every now and then, it works. But it also backfires, just like the other benefit. After all, in order to raise their strength enough to dominate their opponent like that in a short ti, they would have to buy extrely powerful systems or worlds.”
“And those would permanently increase their Keeper rating, making it so that they would always be set up against more powerful Keepers unless they completely reset and start from scratch.” Saying that, Grimor simply shrugged his shoulders. “Once that was found out, people stopped trying to take advantage of it. Though, we still do every now and then with our Avenger branch.”
Seeing my curious expression, Grimor continued his explanation. “That’s what we call the ones that are specialized for that. We build them up from scratch, and wait until they are paired with one of the more monstrous Keepers. Then we funnel as many points into them as we can afford so that they can rapidly raise the strength of their world. After they send in their troops, they reset their worlds to start over from scratch.”
I found myself feeling a bit of pity for those Avenger branch mbers… Resetting their worlds over and over ant that they had to live through the more boring parts of the Keeper process repeatedly. Given the Gilded Branch’s philosophy, I doubted they would simply fast forward through the entire process.
“I see… That’s terrifying in a number of ways. Though, it does make want to join up with a guild sooner or later. If only for the first benefit. Are there any other restrictions on guilds that I should know about?”
Grimor seed to give it a mont of thought, before shaking his head again. “Not really. You can leave or join guilds as often as you like. You just aren’t allowed to be in more than one guild at a ti.”
Well, that was a relief. The fact that being in a guild didn’t restrict my freedom helped. “Thanks. One last thing. Is there a trading platform aside from the market? For instance, if I wanted to sell a system I invented directly to another Keeper, I could give it to them at a discount, but still ultimately make more than the normal royalties?”
Hearing that, Grimor actually let out a loud, roaring laugh. “Hah! Everyone ends up wanting sothing like that sooner or later! Believe , Dale, we tried. We petitioned for it like we did everything else, but the system wouldn’t budge. At one point, we had over six thousand nas on the petition, a full two thirds of the entire system. But there wasn’t any change.”
“How do those petitions work?” I couldn’t help asking that, since he kept ntioning them. It didn’t seem like anything too important, but every bit of information could be useful eventually.
However, Grimor only gave a light shrug, shaking his head. “It’s nothing special. Soone just makes a forum post to petition for sothing, and people could respond to vote for it. Every now and then, sothing manages to go through. I think that’s what gives so many people hope that there is a True Keeper, and that he is the one reviewing everything to see what to approve.”
So either a True Keeper… or just an extrely intelligent system. My head shook from side to side as I thought about that. I glanced up towards Grimor and offered a small smile. “Thanks for the tips. I should get back to the gas, though. Still got a long ways to go to hit my goal.”
Grimor nodded his head, staring down at . “Well, the offer’s still open if you want to join the guild.”
I chuckled, but didn’t say anything. While the idea of joining a guild was more appealing now, I would have to make sure that I chose carefully. After all, if I joined the Gilded Branch and just used their points to elevate myself to the Gas, it might turn into a situation where I beco indebted to them. I would rather not have sothing like that happen.
I gave Grimor a small wave as I turned around, once again looking for the next ga that I would compete in. This ti, I actually made my way towards the Keeper Sim room. Now that I had learned a bit more about the gas held here, I felt ready to tackle this ga. The fact that I had actually won points already surely made more confident as well.
When I entered the Keeper Sim room, I was not surprised to see that a tournant was already well under way. Going by the scoreboard projected on the far wall, they were six matches in out of twenty, showing that it was less than half over. However, I was a bit surprised when I saw the na EarthForceOne listed on the scoreboard.
MissBehave - Six Wins
Alagor - Six Wins
EarthForceOne - Six Wins
Titan - Five Wins
SentinelSeven - Five Wins
…
Naturally, this ant that Bihena was taking part in this tournant. More to the point, she was actually tied for first place. Though, that wasn’t saying much since there were still so many matches left to go, just that those three had yet to suffer a loss.
“EarthForceOne?” A voice spoke up from behind , catching by surprise. Behind , I saw a man in a black suit, his skin a solid white and his eyes black. When I nodded my head, he turned to look towards one of the stages. “In order to prevent cheating, you aren’t allowed to directly observe your companion competing. However, I can send you to a special viewing area where you can watch her match without the risk of intervening.”
Hearing that, I couldn’t help but hesitate. If Bihena did get a prize from this tournant, then sticking around wouldn’t serve much purpose. I couldn’t even be a proper cheering squad. After all, there was likely a similar rule as with the other tournant, and we wouldn’t be able to play the sa ga after winning once.
However, I ultimately ended up nodding. If Bihena didn’t win, then we could tackle the tournant again and I’d be here from the start. That, and I really didn’t know what other gas that I could feasibly play and didn’t want to go looking for another one right after I settled on the Keeper Sim.
Seeing agree to the offer, the white-skinned man nodded his head. My vision was briefly obscured with a fog of black before I found myself standing alone in a small room. There was a single chair in it along one of the four stone walls, while opposite to that was a large display.
The scene displayed was clearly a Keeper Sim match, going by my mory, but there was also a second screen contained within it. The second screen focused on Bihena, letting see her expressions and reactions, and hear the different commands that she gave out. Giving a small nod, I moved to sit at the chair, propping my chin on my hands as I watched her play.
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