Chapter 462: Diamond

After climbing four flights of stairs, we reached the top of the guild, and I finally met Luther, the Adventurers Guild's current leader. He was much older than I expected, practically a wrinkled prune with a long, wispy white beard that threatened to brush the floor, but when I saw he was a spellcaster, it all fell into place.

Luther was a Lithomancer, the first I'd ever seen, and remarkably honed at his craft. His entire office was coated in an ultra-fine layer of dust that he would manipulate to interact with his books, papers, and even pens. In fact, when I looked closer, I saw that he had this dust scattered throughout the entire guild, most likely so he could defend it at a moment's notice if the need arose.

Seeing this, my impression of him immediately went up, because I wanted to do almost exactly the same thing but with slime. By combining [Chimeric Mimicry] and [Slime Puppetry], I could either coat everything in secret slime or make ordinary objects literally out of slime, the best hidden home defense in existence. After all, who would ever suspect that the fancy plate or chair was actually powerful slime ready and waiting for the order to attack?

"Keldenar, my boy, I hope you aren't plotting something," Luther said, sounding quite weary.

"For the sake of our continued friendship, I'll be honest—I'm definitely plotting something," Keldenar replied.

Luther sighed as if he'd heard this a thousand times. "So you've given refuge to an elven princess, took on her body double as an adventurer, and now have had her complete three labyrinths to get to diamond-rank."

"Well, Syl was already gold-rank when we first met. Also, you no longer need to worry about a demon outbreak anytime soon; that's been covered."

I nodded along.

"Well, that's good to hear at least," Luther admitted. "I'm just not too happy about the whole assassination attempts, and the utter chaos that happened in Dhoggurum. I don't want that happening here in the Capital."

"Blame the Outeatus Kingdom for all of that," I replied.

"Oh, I do, and a lot more than just that… Personally, I think if that whole kingdom was wiped off the map, the world would be a better place, but the guild has sworn to be impartial about such things…"

"Don't worry, if things ever get too heated on the guild front, you're welcome to kick me out to save face," Keldenar replied.

"I wish your honesty could be commended, but it just gives me a bigger headache," Luther lamented. "But, regardless of all that, everything is in order. I even read the report that you helped Urist complete his first labyrinth, and there were no golems in sight, so it can't be attributed to Keldenar falsely raising you."

"Oh, trust me, this one doesn't need my help," Keldenar chuckled.

"Unfortunately, I can only imagine. The records on Riftmancers are sparse, to say the least… You're also probably the juiciest assassination target I've ever seen; in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the princess isn't actually your body double."

In a roundabout way, that's not too far from the truth…

"What confuses me, though, is that all my records say that you were an Elementalist. Was that actually the princess?" Luther asked, then added. "If you're allowed to say, of course."

"Both of us are Elementalists, actually," I answered, not really seeing a reason not to.

"Dear gods… A Riftmancer and an Elementalist. I'm starting to see why we lost the war if the elves can create such powerful casters capable of ten elements on top of everything else," Luther replied, shaking his head.

"It's not as bad as you think. While I can't reveal too much, I can say that the Elementalist class itself allows you to fill in the blanks."

Luther paused, twirling his beard before nodding, a sudden enlightenment in his eyes. "I think I understand what you're saying… and I can see why it was chosen as the converging point for your role, since it would fool someone even looking for Sylthaeryn's affinities."

"More or less," I agreed.

I tried my best to avoid outright lying to him, in case he had some weird skill that could detect them. Sprinkling some big truths to hide the deceit was, in my opinion, the best approach. It certainly helped that, from what I could tell, they had virtually nothing on record about Elementalist, so he was eager to get any info about it. What I was alluding to was that we didn't both have the same elemental affinities, and we used the class to eventually match. Now that I was "free," I returned to my original class, having gained some elemental magic as a nice bonus.

"So… The promotion?" Keldenar asked, expectantly.

"I'm not going to block it, if that's what you're worried about. And I agree it should be done before the celebration, just in case anyone gets any foolish ideas. Just be warned that you won't be able to use the guild as an influence for anything the elves hope to accomplish."

"Unless the Glade suddenly decides to join the overall guild alliance, of course," Keldenar added, and Luther nodded.

"No problem, I wasn't planning to. If anything, I see the guild as a fun hobby where I can help and get rewarded for it. It's also a good way to find out where anything exciting may be happening."

"Ah… You're one of those types," Luther replied. "Just be aware that in times of dire emergencies you might be called upon. You have the right to refuse, but if you repeatedly do it, then you might be stripped of your rank."

"I don't think you have to worry about that. From what I've seen, Syl would love to take part in any big emergency, since it usually involves some powerful monster threatening the peace."

I nodded again, as Keldenar was definitely right. A big, threatening monster sounded perfect in my books; I could just teleport over, deal with it, grow stronger, and get rewarded! It was nothing but positives.

"Don't forget about me," Vee chimed in, sitting on the couch and indulging in some kind of sweetened warm drink.

"Right, your apprentice, with another class I've never even heard of," Luther sighed. "I agree that anything less than gold would be an insult, especially since she accompanied you to the Labyrinth of Frozen Dreams. Having said that, we do have rules, and at most I could grant a temporary gold rank, only becoming permanent upon completing a few tasks."

"Quests and a team dungeon, I'm assuming?" I asked.

Luther nodded. "The temporary rank will last six months. If Vee hasn't completed it by then, she will be demoted to silver rank, receive a fine, and a warning."

"Ugh… Sounds annoying," Vee grumbled.

"The quests should be very easy to cross off. It's the dungeon that's honestly maybe the trickiest part. When I had to do it, I was met with some hostility for being an elf."

Luther frowned for a moment, then looked quite sympathetic. "I do apologize for that. Hopefully nobody would do the same to your apprentice, but I can't control others' free will."

"Hmm… Can I make a suggestion?"

"If you're asking to accompany your apprentice, that would be sort of defeating the point of the exercise," Luther answered.

I shook my head. "No. I was wondering if I could suggest Vee does a dungeon with an adventurer group called the Misfits. I trust them to take care of her and not treat her differently."

"The Misfits? I'll have a look. Do you happen to know who their leader is?" Luther asked, and judging by his gesture, he was interacting with the guild system.

"I want to say it's Ian, but I think Eliza was the one wearing the pants in their relationship…" I answered, trying to remember.

"Don't worry, I managed to find them. Hmm… Looking at their record, they seem like quite a decent bunch. They've all recently been promoted to gold, so I can't imagine they would want to go and do a relatively low-ranking dungeon…"

"I'm fine if my test is done in a gold dungeon," Vee said proudly.

"She's more than capable of handling it. If I can suggest an evaluator, I'd love it if it could be either Lisa or Jet from Kaerlin, or maybe Roderick from Stanton—I mean, Southbrook."

"I'll see what I can do. Although that's quite a distance… I don't know if they have the free time to travel."

I smiled. "Don't worry, I can personally handle all travel arrangements."

"And if Syl shares the coordinates with me, I can easily send them back too," Vee added.

Luther was silent before breaking out into a brief laugh. "Well, that certainly changes things. I can't say I've had the pleasure of working with someone capable of teleportation."

"Why do you think I'm so interested in bringing Syl here into the fold?" Keldenar said with a grin. "Think of the possibilities! I'm sure we could revolutionize all those outdated teleportation platforms."

"I want to hope you'll keep it in moderation, but I won't be holding my breath," Luther quipped. "Very well. Let's make this official before I regret it."

Luther handled the next step himself, taking in my old tag and transferring it to a new one. The diamond one wasn't actually made of diamonds, which was a little disappointing, but it did have a finish that made it sparkle like one. As for the upgraded features, it sounded like I could accept unlimited quests, use it to make dungeon reservations, and receive emergency broadcast notifications.

In addition to all of that, a lot of its features no longer needed to be within a guild branch to function, probably as a result of the tiny crystal that was embedded into the tag itself. Someone could even send me a quest remotely, and I could reject or accept it by viewing the list; it was very convenient. In fact, I could even hire a handler to review quests and send them to me periodically for my perusal, sort of like a personal quest board.

Hmm… Should I ask for Tabitha for old times' sake?

Similarly, I could use the tag to generate my own quests, though it would require a third party's cooperation. Effectively, if I encountered someone in the wild, they could offer me a quest and my tag could register it. That might sound like unnecessary extra effort, but it was good if the other person tried to renege on their agreement, since they would then face the full might of the Adventurers Guild and its legal counsel.

Sadly, there were no new non-administrative features, but considering I hadn't really used the ones I got from my gold tag, I couldn't really complain. I wasn't entirely sure I'd use these features, but they sounded pretty good in theory, and even the one feature that was for the guild's benefit had some potential use for me. This was the ability to report disturbances remotely, and the guild would either investigate if it needed more information or respond if critical.

I found this useful because I thought I could report "discovering" my own slime dungeon to the guild and advertise it! Originally, I had hoped to rope Keldenar in to advertise it, but now it looked like the guild could do it for me.

Next up was Vee, and I was honestly a little nervous during this process, and judging by the foot taps, so was Keldenar. Appearance-wise, everything said Vee was currently an elf, but Vee lacked the same abilities I had, and this registration was being done through the crystal of the head of the entire guild! If her disguise was going to fail, it would certainly be through his tools, rather than a remote branch in a small town.

Let's hope that maybe Mother will pull some strings if anything goes wrong.

Vee, on the other hand, looked as cool as a cucumber, and I wondered where she got that confidence from. Maybe the idea of her truth being revealed didn't even cross her food-filled mind. Thankfully, the registration went smoothly, and Vee was officially registered and even evaluated. Unfortunately, she had no hidden affinities, but the guild registry confirmed and registered her dimensional one.

I thought Luther might question why Vee had only two affinities, dimension and corrosion, but I could've sworn he looked genuinely relieved by the revelation. Perhaps he was concerned she would be another elf with magic in the double digits, and this proved it was just the princess and me who were abnormal.

With her registration complete and her official tag issued, the next order of business was to celebrate and plan the setup for Vee's teamwork test. With travel arrangements likely taken care of, Luther was more than willing to pull some strings, though he seemed to be leaning toward Jet again, since if Vee worked with the Misfits, they'd be missing a rogue again.

I tried to suggest Whitney as an alternative, since I thought she and Vee would likely get along, but Whitney wasn't an official guild employee, so she couldn't do the evaluation. To his credit, Keldenar offered to make an "evaluation golem," but Luther turned him down, saying it would just make things messier.

With Vee's situation mostly sorted, and only the Misfits' agreement left, they began discussing the celebration. Luther wanted a small celebration in the guild hall, while Keldenar hoped for something much flashier, almost like a parade. He really wanted to show off, but the guild leader was shooting him down.

I was only half involved in any of this, since I didn't really care what they did as long as we moved on. Worst case, I could stand there looking pretty while doing spell formations in my mind. Yet my growing boredom came to a halt as a siren suddenly went off, possibly the worst notification I had ever received from the system. Thankfully, as soon as I opened the notification, the blaring stopped, though seeing it didn't make me feel any better.

<Emergency Quest issued: Save Leon!>

Oh, for the love of… You've got to be kidding me!