Pillar of Yita

The autumn sun, like a sharp sword, pierced through the woods, driving away the last traces of mist lingering in the early morning; the forest was alive with the sounds of insects, but they couldn’t drown out the girl’s exuberant voice.

As Tianlan rambled on, Fang Hong finally understood the composition of this temporary team—Atira was naturally here to find her missing brother, and the Papalar crossbowman accompanying her was in fact a companion she had brought from Sanxiak.

Fang Hong wasn’t wrong in her previous guess; that was indeed an Invoker, whose ID was Parker. He was a crossbow shooter (having invested to the first tier in crossbow shooting techniques) and also had some tricks of a Wanderer, especially skilled at map-making and stealing from kitchens.

Of course, the latter was added disapprovingly by Tianlan, scrunching her nose. She told him indignantly how much food would disappear from the kitchen every day—such as sausages, apples, sour cheese, and even garlic wouldn’t be spared, ultimately all found in a huge sack under Mister Papalar’s bed.

Listening to her vivid description, it was as though the kitchen belonged to her personally, whereas it was actually the property of the inn.

This Mister Papalar did have some magical qualities since multi-skilled Invokers were rare, like this one who was at one moment a crossbowman and another moment a Wanderer and could do life professions like map-making. At least, Fang Hong had never seen such a person before this.

No wonder he only had a primary level of Level 5 for his character.

Recalling his performance in combat, Fang Hong came to a conclusion—this was probably a typical Papalarian. Although the other party was an Invoker, perhaps he became assimilated after spending too much time with other Papalarians.

This was by no means Fang Hong’s malicious slander but a historical fact where the 17th Governor of Sanxiak once famously said:

’These damnable Little Fatties won’t ever get anything done, their only use is for the barbecue—’

Of course, not long after making this statement, the Governor was honorably retired due to political incorrectness. However, the politically incorrect part wasn’t what most people thought about the barbecue, but because Papalarians unanimously believed that ’Little Fatties’ was the greatest defamation toward them.

What about barbecuing?

Well, Papalarians love a good open-air barbecue, remember to use Level 3 snowwood charcoal.

By the way, the successor to that Governor was the famous ’Long-Bearded Jack’, who, because he ordered all factories in Sanxiak to halt work for a year, was deeply cherished by the Papalarians.

Atira herself was a believer of Ameya, and of course, all Forest Elves adore the Forest Goddess, so the Elf Girl was both a Hunter and a Druid. Certainly, there weren’t any Forest Elves who weren’t excellent hunters.

In short, Atira was a typical Forest Elf Girl, adept at hunting, good at plant cultivation, and proficient in game preservation. However, according to Tianlan, her highest-level profession wasn’t a Hunter or a Druid—it was a life profession.

Chef—

”Miss Atira’s cooking skills are terrifyingly good!” exclaimed the French miss in her own words.

And surely, if one could conquer a French person’s stomach, this assessment should carry some weight. However, upon hearing this, Fang Hong felt even hungrier; since yesterday, his only meal had been a single biscuit. He couldn’t help but touch his utterly empty stomach, which let out a loud rumble.

Thinking about that biscuit, he looked around and noticed that Miss Fairy was still nowhere to be seen.

The other part of this team—the Trainees, surprisingly, did not all come from the same place. For instance, the tall Trainee who had been silent all this time, whose ID was Luo Yu, was with Gita as part of the Tabopolis Oak Knights’ Trainees.

Through Tianlan’s introduction, Fang Hong learned that it was a Free Guild, and also one of the four main branches of the Rainbow Alliance. Free Guilds are a concept opposite to club guilds, usually referring to guilds established in the New World, without real-life backgrounds and financial investment.

But that was in the past.

Nowadays, as the Free Guilds grow and develop, some famous Free Guilds also start to engage in real-life affairs. A typical case is the ’Ishurian East Commonwealth,’ one of the top ten domestic guilds, originally just a loosely affiliated alliance of commercial nature.

To resist oppression and squeezing from the Grand Guilds, it gradually transformed into an organized political entity and established a corresponding large Free Guild.

This Guild even received official recognition from Colin Ishurian, becoming one of the three major commercial alliances in Colin Ishurian, its influence within Colin Ishurian by no means inferior to the Rainbow Alliance and the Descendants of Flor.

The renown within the New World inevitably reflected back into reality, and when the first batch of Ishurian East Commonwealth retirees returned to reality, it marked the first time this largest domestic Free Guild had real-life roots.

However, unlike the club guilds’ philosophy, which revolves around real-life at its core, with the affairs of the New World subordinate to the needs of real-life interests,

the relationship in a Free Guild is much more ambiguous—sometimes its real-life business is merely a Trainee training facility or even just an office. But sometimes, this relationship can be reversed, aiming for long-term benefits in reverse transfer.