Slime Evolution

Chapter 329 - Gratitude

In the cave where the battle had just taken place, the Astralis team looked at the global notification screen with huge smiles on their faces.

[Congratulations to Astralis Requiem for conquering the First Level 15 Dungeon!]

”We really did it...” WyrmWood said with a sigh of relief, looking at the second global achievement he’d helped the guild earn, and the first one he’d truly contributed to.

Although no one’s name appeared there, only the guild’s name, they knew they had helped; they knew their participation had made the achievement possible; and they knew that when the guild began recruiting new members, they, as veteran members who had participated in this achievement, would enjoy immense prestige among them!

They had joined Astralis as employees, receiving fixed salaries to follow orders and working to develop that guild in the game thanks to the luck they’d had in conquering Uncommon or Rare Bases, and that alone would have been great enough for them.

But after joining this group, thinking they’d have to deal with rich, arrogant Young Masters from the Vance Group, what they actually found was a very welcoming place, willing even to pay more for the coins they managed to earn, willing to dedicate their valuable time, so that the group of ”employees” could keep up with and participate in the guild’s activities, ensuring that in dangerous battles like these, the number of deaths would be minimal, even offering compensation to those who died, so that no one would feel bad.

Not only was WyrmWood shocked by all of this, but the entire group of players couldn’t believe how lucky they were to work under such benevolent leaders.

They knew full well that if these had been other wealthy heirs to major corporations with Legendary or Mythic Bases, like the leaders of Astralis, rank-and-file players like them would likely be treated, at best, as slaves.

Everything in the guild would have to revolve around how they could strengthen the leaders, and they’d lose sleep trying to improve themselves so they wouldn’t be replaced after falling too far behind.

They’d even heard that in other major guilds, all the coins earned by player members belonged to the guild, with players required to hand over 100% of their own earnings to the guild, having no say whatsoever in how that money was spent, nor receiving any compensation for it.

Perhaps if they hadn’t had anything to compare it to, they wouldn’t have realized just how wonderful the paradise they were part of truly was, but after learning how other guilds operated, their sense of belonging to Astralis, and their loyalty to the guild leaders, had now reached an entirely new level.

No one even considered the possibility of betrayal, since they knew that no other place would value them as much as Astralis did.

Looking once more at the glowing screen displaying their global victory, despite the exhaustion they felt, many there were eager to log off from Elysium just to open social media and see how players across the universe were reacting to Astralis being in the spotlight once again.

Before, they’d see these reactions from players and feel a little pride at being part of that guild everyone was talking about, but because they’d participated this time, the pride they felt was even greater.

And it wasn’t just the regular players who were anxious about this; Dylan and Alice were the most anxious of all.

Alice was extremely anxious and worried about it, knowing that if anything went wrong, the guild that her best friend had worked so hard to create and build up could suffer a major setback due to poor planning.

As for Dylan, the one responsible for this planning, he had practically staked everything on this as the best opportunity to recruit players for Astralis, confident that they would achieve another victory in just a few days. If he failed, he felt he would bear the brunt of the shame the guild would face; but with victory assured, he was already thinking about how he would leverage this explosive popularity to finally begin the recruitment the guild so desperately needed.

With this popularity, Dylan was confident he could secure at least a few dozen Epic-tier players and hundreds of Rare-tier players, and considering he would publicize the benefits the guild offered, he was even more confident in the surge of applications the guild would receive.

Obviously, these applications would have to be scrutinized with the utmost care, especially at such an early stage, to prevent spies or saboteurs from other guilds from joining and trying to undermine Astralis from within.

But still, he was confident.

The financial incentive structure created by Bella and the various in-game incentive systems Halon had suggested, such as the merit point system for each player, where a player’s participation in guild events earned points, and even a player’s death during guild events earned points, and many other ways to contribute to the guild in exchange for points, which could then be traded for guild items, even more money, or even the chance to permanently become even stronger, something Halon hadn’t yet explained, but many players, upon seeing his various clones, could imagine what it entailed. This made Astralis, at that point, practically unlike any other guild!

While the other major guilds had a structure that practically turned members into blue-collar workers, acting merely as pawns following strict orders for a base salary, Astralis was following the model of the gaming guilds from the previous world of Lohan, where not only were there monthly requirements and goals, but there were also various benefits for those who met those goals.

That alone was enough to boost member morale to a level that Dylan would have had a hard time achieving by other means, but which, under Halon, was accomplished with extreme ease, and, most impressively, he treated it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

”How do you come up with so many unique ideas like that, darling...” Dylan thought as he gazed at the Slime on Bella’s back with a twinkle in his eye.

Unlike the other Guild members who didn’t know Halon’s background, Dylan was well aware that Halon, known in the real world as Lohan R. Hayes, was just an ordinary kid from the Lower Zone.

Perhaps slightly above average for having secured one of the highly coveted spots for people from the Lower Zone at the best university in this solar sector, but still, someone who hadn’t caught anyone’s attention in a positive way until the launch of Elysium.

And surprisingly, this boy who seemed like nothing special not only possessed an extremely useful Mythic Base, as he had proven hundreds of times in the battles the guild had fought so far, but also had a practically genius mind for coming up with so many innovative ways to manage something as new as a guild in Elysium!

For Dylan, it wasn’t as if there had been anything similar to this in the past for Halon to learn from and draw upon to come up with such fresh ideas. Elysium had introduced an entirely new concept of civilization and the way people were supposed to think and interact, yet it seemed as though Halon had been familiar with it for years, and viewed so many brilliant ideas as nothing out of the ordinary!

Sighing, Dylan simply felt grateful that such a brilliant mind was with them, since if he’d known that another guild had such a valuable member, he would certainly have taken every possible measure to eliminate that person, both in-game and in the real world.

Fortunately, Isabella was already handling the issue of his safety in the real world, because as soon as Astralis started recruiting, and hundreds of people learned of the guild Vice President’s genius, Dylan knew the danger he’d have to face would be much greater...

These weren’t thoughts exclusive to Dylan; just as he had realized this in a short time, Isabella had known it from the very first day she met this Slime.

And not only did she know this so well, but she also knew many more secrets and details that made Halon even more valuable than the other members realized.

And because of that, the way she looked at Halon, who was currently focused on digesting the boss’s corpse, was much warmer.

From everything she knew so far, it was already clear to her that her success in taking over the Vance Group was practically in Halon’s hands.

Even though she possessed a Legendary Base, capable of likely eliminating hundreds of Common-Base Players right now, with that number increasing as her advantage grew, she knew none of that would matter compared to the immense value Halon could bring to the Guild...

And while Lisa was lost in thought about this, Lohan was shocked as he examined what remained of the Boss’s corpse and found something there.

He already knew that the corpse would be extremely rich in biomass, and that was indeed true, since its biomass level at that point was extremely high.

He only had one question: whether a Boss monster would be capable of generating a Mana Stone or not.

’It should be possible, right? He’s stronger than an Elite monster of the same level...’ That’s what he thought.

And he wasn’t wrong, in the monster’s chest lay a massive Mana Stone, far more powerful and dense, causing Lohan, even in his Slime form, to lose control and start ”drooling,” eager to digest it and find out what he could gain from it.