Chapter 154: The Stranger's Guild

A match was taking place between a rather robust tall male covered in heavy armored gear against another masked woman similar to the one Joshua had just faced in his final match of the day. However this time around the level gap was huge, but in the other direction. The heavily armored knight was only level sixty-two, while the woman was level eighty-two. The mask that she had on was slightly different than the one that Joshua had seen before. This woman's mask had one solid black ring on the front of it that went around the area where you would expect the face to be.

The woman casually stood on her side of the arena as she let out a sigh after seeing another knight as one of her opponents on the last match of the day. She took out some stones from her inventory and placed her hand over them as she imbued them with mana. She didn't make anything special in her mind, just something that would end the match quickly without her having to show off any of her actual skills. With everything set for the match the countdown eventually ended and she just stood waiting as the knight in front of her slowly marched forward with his shield held high in preparation to block any of her attacks.

Up to this point the woman hadn't actually shown what she was capable of and all anyone knew was that she must have some sort of unique job that she was hiding since her gear didn't seem to go with a specific known job. The knight was making sure to be cautious as he made his way over, but it was all pointless the moment the woman tossed one of stones into his path. The knight immediately set up a shield wall expecting something to happen. He was a bit nervous since he was taking on someone that was several levels higher than he was.

The moment the stone landed in front of him it reacted to his presence and shot out several mana cords that moved too fast for the knight to avoid. These cords moved much faster than the ones that were used against Joshua and they wrapped around the knights shield wall before tightening and crushing it. The cords then went on towards the main target restricting the knight and squeezing until the man passed out inside of his crumbled armor and vanished from the arena. The masked woman gave a quick wave to the crowd before turning around and vanishing herself.

With the last match finished she was teleported back to the location she was taken away from at the start of the tournament. She found herself in her office once more as she walked out of the room to head down to her laboratory. As the head of the Stranger's Guild she had a lot of work to do even though she was currently taking part in the tournament. The Stranger's Guild was one of the few large guilds in the hub city that could stand proudly on its own above most others. Outside of the Alliance and the World Government Guild there weren't any stronger guilds out there in the hub city.

The Stranger's Guild was one of the few unique guilds around in a variety of ways. The thing that made them stand out more than anything was how secretive they were. Every member of the guild would wear a mask to hide their identity. The only thing that you would be able to tell about them if met when they were out in the field would be their gender based on their body structure and their rank in the guild based off of the mask they were wearing. If the person had visible hair out it was likely a wig or died to hide their identity even further.

This system was set up so that members of the guild could go out and about their normal days as civilians whenever they wanted without anyone knowing they were even involved in a guild. In fact the Stranger's Guild had several support role guilds that were used as covers so that the members of the Stranger's Guild could use them to lead normal lives when they weren't out exploring. A person that spends their time as an owner of a restaurant half the time could be a hidden explorer for all anyone knew. It was a good system that only worked because it had been put in place near the start of guilds forming in the hub city by its current guild leader.

The mask themselves were a system that let people know what position you had in the guild. If you had five lines across the mask then you were considered a beginner in the guild without any real accomplishments. This was usually for those who just joined or were still low level. The Stranger's Guild didn't mind training up low level explorers as long as they held potential. If you had four lines on your mask then you were considered a contributing member of the guild. This wasn't based off of level, but more based off of what you had done for the guild.

The three line members of the guild were those who had reached the point where they were strong enough to be involved in large guild explorations. Anyone under level sixty at this point wouldn't be able to wear this type of mask. The member of the Stranger's Guild that Joshua had fought against was in this tier. Those with only two lines were the members of the elite squadron of the guild and were all at least level seventy. All members of the guild that had these mask outside of healers were currently in the tournament.

There were only two other types of mask left that designated your place in the guild and they were both for the highest level members of the guild. Those with one line on their mask were all the members that held a key position in the guild. Each of these members had a line that was in a different color to show their different positions in the guild. At the moment there were seven people with these types of mask in the guild and outside of the head of the healing division and the coordinator of the support guilds all of the others were currently in the tournament.

The last mask was of course the one with a ring on it that symbolized the guild leader. The only person to ever wear the mask was currently making her way down to the basement of her guild building in the hub city. After finishing her matches at the tournament for the day, she decided it was time to get back to doing what she loved to do the most. Research on her unique job's capabilities. The leader of the Stranger's Guild use to be a researcher before the world went to hell. She was in her early thirties and spent most of her time held up in labs wasting the time away. That was one thing that didn't change after coming to the hub city and becoming the leader of one of the most influential guilds in the city.

The main difference between her research now and her research in the past was that it was more based on her own specific job. She was blessed with a job known as rune apprentice. The job came with similar stats to a mage and even the capability of using spells like them, but basic spells weren't what the job was built around, or at least not in the way that you would think. A rune apprentice was able to learn the language of magic in a different way than most mages. Mages used spells that were already created to channel their magic into attacks, but most of them didn't know anything about the language itself.

The rune apprentice however was able to use runes, the language of mana, to create their own spells or improve already made spells. They could also inscribe the spells onto different objects that could cast the spell if mana is run through them. This was what the guild leader was testing out throughout the tournament with her guild members. She had them use one of her runes during their matches to see how effective they would be against different levels of opponents. Of course the runes would be more effective for those who actually had large amounts of mana to activate the runes, but even the lowest level swordsman could use one of her runes with all the testing she had done with them.

For the time being the guild leader started working on a new inscription while she looked over the different matches where members of her guild had used her latest rune that was supposed to bind their opponents. In the situations where the level difference was in favor of her guild members the rune worked without a problem. When mages or any guild members that had a high amount of mana used her runes they worked to perfection with only one stone being needed to tie up their opponents. That left the enemies as nothing but sitting ducks to be destroyed by spells or slowly strangled by the ruin itself.

When the matches were more even the runes were able to slow down her guild members opponents and restrain them if two of the ruins were used at once. Since the user of the ruin didn't have to constantly concentrate on the spell being used by the ruin they were free to focus on trapping their opponents or holding them off until the ruin eventually trapped them. For the most part members of her guild won because of this situation and made her guild look great. It also would give her guild a huge surge in business once she started putting some of her more basic ruins up for sell. Having a stone you could just throw out to restrain a beast long enough to run away or go for the kill would be a game changer for smaller guilds or solo explorers.

The last group of guild members that used her ruins were the ones at a disadvantage in their matches. In most situations their opponents could easily use skills to avoid the mana cords or break through them with a combination of overwhelming stats and a powerful skill, but they still worked well enough to allow several of her guild members to last much longer than they would usually be able to under the circumstances. She knew that this was going to grab the attention of the participants that will have noticed this fact and that would only increase the reputation of their guild even more.

The one fight that had caught the guild leader's attention more than anything was one of her guild members against the guild leader of the Fenrir Guild. He was the only person she had seen be able to easily evade and break through three of her ruins at once without using any skills or weapons. She couldn't wait to test out her stronger ruins against someone like that.