The next morning Joshua woke up and ate a hearty breakfast with his parents before heading to the city to go to the Phoenix Guild. He decided to walk through the city to head to the guild to see if there were any noticeable changes since he had last come through. For the most part the only differences were a few new guilds in the area that weren"t there before, but he did notice an area where a lot of people were headed towards that fit the description of what Jayce"s group had told him was the System Auction Shop. It was clearly a rather busy place with the amount of people heading there and they weren"t all combat personnel either. There were probably skills there available for support jobs as well. It would be something Joshua would have to take Lilly with him to check out later, but for now it was time to head to the Phoenix Guild. When Joshua came within view of the building the place was clearly a step ahead of just about every other guild in their particular hub city. In fact outside of the Serphant Guild lead by Madalyn there was no other Guild in the hub city that had as much influence as the Phoenix Guild. The World Government Guild didn"t have nearly as much influence in this hub city since most of the stronger adventurers in it gravitated towards the guilds in the alliance between Laura and Madalyn. It had even become more obvious when people with support cla.s.ses started joining Nathan"s guild and making the alliance even stronger.
At this point there were no other large guilds in this hub city outside of the alliance so it was obvious which building belonged to the Phoenix Guild. Standing outside of the building Joshua could see all of Jayce"s group hanging around the entrance and standing a bit to the side so that they wouldn"t be in the way of the people that were heading in and out of the building. Joshua smiled a bit at how out of place they looked, but he decided to end their awkward torment and head over so they knew he was there with them.
"Hey guys, how come you"re all waiting outside?" Joshua said as he walked up. He noticed most of them looked relieved when he appeared while Jayce looked excited at seeing his boss.
"Oh nothing boss, we were just waiting on you." Jayce said with a big grin getting annoyed sighs from the others.
"I know that, but why do you all looks so nervous? Haven"t you all been here before? I thought you guys trained with some of Laura"s guild members while I was still at the ant hill." Joshua asked a little confused at why they seemed so nervous.
"We…well we uh, last time we came the training was a bit…" Monika started to try to explain since everyone else seemed so out of it.
"It was horrific, we faced against people ten levels higher than us and they beat the c.r.a.p out of us over and over again while saying it was good for our team work." Marcus said while shivering at the memory.
"Plus the guy in charge looked like he wanted to rip our spines out the entire time. It wasn"t pleasant." Julia said with a frown.
"Well then would you rather go back to my training then?" Joshua asked as he cracked his neck and watched as all of their faces turned pale. "I mean I"m only going to be here a few more days, but I don"t mind upping our training even more if you want. I could stop holding back in our spars and go all out this time around. It would be good for all of us."
"Um…no thanks boss. Besides we"ve taken up more than enough of your time already." Jayce said with a forced smile before turning to the rest of his party members. "Let"s go inside and prepare for some more intense training." They all cheered with surprising excitement before rushing inside not daring to look Joshua in the eye the entire time. He simply chuckled at their antics before heading inside himself.
The place didn"t look any different from the last time he had come for the meeting except the fact that there were several more people moving about the place. Apparently the guild wasn"t busy with any big explorations since so many of them were still in the hub city. He followed Jayce"s group who seemed to know exactly where they were going as they moved down a long haul to a stairwell at the back that lead down into a bas.e.m.e.nt level. The place was extremely s.p.a.cious and open with hardly any furniture at all outside of some benches along the walls of the large room. With all the gear and equipment laid out on shelves Joshua knew this was a basic training area for the guild, and it was probably also where they organized groups for smaller expeditions.
Most of the people in the area that Joshua observed were all in the high thirties to mid-forties range in level. They were the lower members of the guild that were still being trained and it showed based off their techniques when sparring. They weren"t bad by any means, but they were around the level of Jayce"s group for the most part skills wise if not slightly better do to their higher levels. If Joshua had to face any a.s.sortment of the people he could see training in the room he would have no problem handling them from what he could tell. It would be similar to his training against Jayce"s group and he severely handicapped himself when taking them on in a five on one fight.
After a while he took notice of someone he immediately recognized near the back of the room sparring against a group of people on her own. Joshua immediately recognized his sister dancing around her opponents and taking them out any time they left an opening. Her extremely high dexterity do to her soul beast made her reflexes extremely dangerous in close combat and the penetrative force of all of her attacks pretty much made her opponent"s armor or shields useless for the most part. From what he could tell they weren"t using any skills or special active abilities in their spar and Amy was completely thrashing the other group under the circ.u.mstances.
Joshua walked over to say hi to her when the spar was over and many of the people had stopped cheering her victory. His little sister was as hyper as ever as she posed triumphantly at her win. Joshua was surprised when he saw that she had already reached level forty-five, but he realized that she had been doing as much training and exploring as he had been over the same amount of time so it shouldn"t have been too much of a surprise. In fact she would probably even pick up the pace now that Laura and Madalyn were going to start focusing on leveling all their strongest members for the raid they were planning at the end of the year.
"That was a good fight Amy, but I think you might be getting a little over confident." Joshua said as he walked into view of his little sister. Joshua and his father both could always tell when Amy was starting to get a bit too arrogant when fighting. The most obvious sign was when she started to pose after winning a fight. It was a little quirk she gained from watching so many matches growing up and seeing several victors do something similar. Of course Joshua was never the type, but he wasn"t nearly as hyper as his little sister.
"Brother you"re here!" Amy shouted in shock before rushing over to give him a hug. Then she realized what he said and she blushed a bit while tapping her foot nervously. "I was just having a bit of fun. I just came back from the mission with Madalyn"s group and wanted to try out some new techniques before I head out again."
"Just make sure you don"t get to ahead of yourself, you know dad will beat that right out of you if he sees it." Joshua said teasingly.
"Yeah, yeah why are you here anyways?" She said while pouting a bit. A lot of people chuckled at her actions, but most were looking at Joshua with curiosity after finding out that he was her older brother. Some people in the guild knew him, but it was a rather big guild so most didn"t know him and only saw him heading towards a meeting on the rare occasion.
"Well I brought along these guys to go on one of Laura"s next training expeditions. They"re fairly good they just need the experience to handle different situations." Joshua explained as he pointed Jayce"s group out who all smiled and waved to her.
"Cool, well I"m going to be the head of the next expedition, so I guess they"ll be coming with me!" Amy said excitedly and full of confidence.
"Then I hope you"re ready to be in a leading situation now, and don"t get to c.o.c.ky about being a leader. I don"t want Laura telling me later that you screwed up because of something silly." Joshua said before poking Amy in the head. She pouted a bit at that, but then nodded and returned to her jovial self.
"You don"t have to worry about that Joshua. I"m sure Amy is ready to take on more of a leading role." Laura said as she came walking into the crowd getting looks of praise and admiration from everyone in the room. There was a man standing beside her that was rather tall only standing a few inches shorter than Joshua himself. He wasn"t all that bulky and was more on the slimmer yet well-toned side of things. He wore a trench coat to hide his weapons presumably and his face was rather stoic. He was clean shaven with extremely short black hair along with grey eyes. Judging by the way everyone in Jayce"s group flinched when seeing him Joshua was sure he was probably responsible for their training. "Madalyn just took her on an expedition to see how well she"d do and I think now is the best time for her to start leading her own group."
"If you say so, I"m sure she wants to be a part of bigger expeditions in the future, so she"s going to try to push herself to much if given the chance." Joshua said getting a role of the eyes from Laura.
"You"re one to talk. I guess it"s just in the family." Joshua smiled a bit at her retort before Laura turned to look at the guy that came with her. "Joshua this is Adam Marlow. He"s a member in our guild that specializes in training new recruits and taking them on early expeditions. He will be tagging along with Amy just to make sure things go well." At her words everyone in Jayce"s group seemed to grow nervous which caused Joshua to smile.
Joshua took a moment to observe the guy and noticed he was already at a pretty high level of fifty-five and was probably a higher level member in the guild. Although the man seemed stoic he didn"t give off a dangerous feeling, so Joshua trusted his instinct and offered a hand shake. "Nice to meet you Adam. I"m guessing you"re the one that trained these five when I sent them over to Laura?"
"Yep, what gave it away?" The man said with a surprising small smile.
"Well they acted like this with me when I was training them so I"m not surprised they"d act the same way with someone else who put them through some harsh exercises and spars." Joshua said with a smile.
Adam chuckled a bit at the comment before replying. "Well I guess that means we"ve got something in common then Joshua. Don"t worry about your sister, I"ll make sure to keep an eye on her when out in the field."
"Don"t be afraid to lay into her when she starts doing something stupid or tries to show off." Joshua said with a smile as he patted his now angry little sister on the head.
"Oh I will, that goes for those five as well." Adam replied with a smirk. At that moment all of Jayce"s group had a shiver go down their spines as they realized that two s.a.d.i.s.t had come to an agreement on their treatment going forward.