Influence

Emerging from the Thieves Guild, Rhode headed towards his next objective.

Rhode recalled that there were three major powers spread across the continent: the Thieves Guild, the Magic Guild, and the Free Professional Merchants Guild.

The Thieves Guild primarily dealt with the collection and sale of information. From royal secrets to tavern gossip, most information could be bought within the Thieves Guild. The more detailed the information, the higher the price. When purchasing information from the Thieves Guild, one would usually need to analyze and judge it themselves to reduce the expenditure of gold coins.

Additionally, the Thieves Guild would issue assassination missions. The strength of the targets varied, and the rewards were generous. Those who accepted the missions could obtain detailed information about the targets for gold coins or investigate themselves. If the target was on the Thieves Guild's wanted list, all information would be provided directly.

Rhode remembered that because of the Thieves Guild's practices, bounty hunters who specialized in assassination missions were once popular among players. However, due to the time and money required to gather information, coupled with slow leveling, bounty hunters eventually declined.

The Magic Guild, on the other hand, offered the study of Magic and the sale of spell items, but at very high prices.

Based on Rhode's understanding of the Magic Guild from his previous life, learning a third-tier spell would cost over a thousand gold coins. While the gold coins in his Space Ring seemed abundant, they would only be enough to learn some low-tier spells if used for that purpose.

Unlike the Thieves Guild and the Free Professional Merchants Guild, which had branches in any town, the Magic Guild was only established in large cities due to the high cost of learning spells. Noble children in small towns who wished to learn spells had to travel to large towns where the Magic Guild was located.

Unlike Hero-level creatures and players, ordinary people who wished to cast Magic, besides needing talent, also required long periods of study. The special skills that players could instantly learn through Skill Points often required years of accumulated study for ordinary people to acquire.

For this reason, the Magic Guild once cooperated with town lords, forming a unique entity known as magic academies. These academies catered to noble children who wished to learn Magic, possessed average talent, and had substantial wealth.

Besides players, Heroes could also learn Magic quickly. Or rather, quickly learning various skills was inherently a Hero's ability. Players who had just entered the game possessed an unawakened Hero template.

Heroes surpassed creatures of the same tier in all aspects. Whether learning combat skills or Magic, they could complete it instantly. This was also why Hero-level creatures held such high value; nurturing a Hero creature to grow brought immense benefits.

The Free Professional Merchants Guild was responsible for most of the continent's trade. From cheap food and exquisite artifacts to precious minerals and even slaves, the Free Professional Merchants Guild was involved in everything.

The Free Professional Merchants Guild was a platform for all merchants. Within it, there were numerous merchant groups. The transportation of goods was organized by these merchant groups themselves. The Free Professional Merchants Guild was responsible for providing the goods and sales channels, taking a commission in the process.

Due to regional differences, the price of the same commodity varied. Before transporting goods, merchant groups had to gather information through various means and then use their own judgment to decide what types of goods to transport to maximize profits.

Simultaneously, to ensure the safety of goods during transportation, merchant groups would hire some Practitioners to escort them along the way. This was also the source of income for most low-level Practitioners.

These three organizations covered almost all affairs on the continent. Rhode had already gathered information from the Thieves Guild, and his current target was the Free Professional Merchants Guild.

After confirming the current era from the Thieves Guild, Rhode's thoughts turned to how to quickly increase his strength to complete the Soul Mission.

If there were no restrictions from the Soul Mission, Rhode would immediately head to the most intense battlefield of the first expansion pack, Titania's battlefield. Based on his understanding of the plot from his previous life, he could gain the maximum benefit there.

However, with the Soul Mission, Rhode could not do that. Firstly, the journey to Titania was extremely long. Due to inconvenient transportation, the only method Rhode could currently use was by horse. It would take several months just to reach Titania, and with the Soul Mission's one-year time limit, Rhode definitely could not do it.

Rhode had to change his approach and chose to head to Dya.

In Rhode's memory, during the mid-stage of the first expansion pack, Dya, the kingdom of Necromancers, and its neighboring elven kingdom, Eri, erupted in war.

Rhode was unaware of the specific reasons for the outbreak of the war, but he knew its general progression.

Under the onslaught of numerous Necromancers, and with no preparation, many elven creatures on Eri's border died, all transformed into Undead Creatures, and the entire border eventually fell.

Just as the Necromancers intended to further expand their advantage and attack Eri's interior, the high-level creatures within Eri, who had always favored peace, intervened. Just like the Dryad Warriors Rhode had seen earlier, they joined the battlefield.

At this point, the Undead race's disadvantage in lacking high-level creatures was exposed. The suppression of lower-level creatures by higher-level ones was extremely pronounced. Even a massive number of Ghouls and Skeleton Soldiers could not contend with the Dryad Warriors Rhode had seen previously.

When facing high-level creatures, low-level Undead Creatures were completely useless; they couldn't even serve as distractions and could only rely on the Necromancers' own casting abilities.

Under Eri's counterattack, Dya's invasion ultimately ended in failure, with heavy losses for the Necromancers.

However, many Necromancers also benefited from this war. As far as Rhode knew, Alot, in his previous life, rose to prominence during this battle, accumulating strength for the arrival of the second expansion pack.

Rhode believed that if Alot in his previous life could profit from this war without knowing its outcome, then he, who knew the general development of the battle, could do the same.

Currently, Rhode possessed Alot's academy badge in his Space Ring. Based on Rhode's understanding of the Necromancy Magic Academy, unlike formal magic academies elsewhere, they always recognized badges rather than individuals. He could use this badge to infiltrate the academy and then obtain timely information about the war from within the academy.

Therefore, Rhode chose to head to the Free Professional Merchants Guild and follow a merchant caravan to Dya's City of Wailing.