Lin Gui manipulated his oak staff.
He plunged straight into the guild’s entrance.
Passing through those massive arched doors.
A transition into an extremely open hall met his eyes.
The dome hung high, with magic glowstones embedded in every square of the ceiling.
They illuminated the entire hall as bright as day.
The floor was paved with smooth, grayish-white stone slabs, their seams fitting together perfectly.
The hall was packed with people.
It wasn't like the dense, silent waiting outside.
Instead, it was a noisy, boiling scene of bustle filled with the scent of commerce.
Registration for the transport team selection meeting had already been open for over half a month.
There were only three days left.
Almost everyone who could sign up early had already done so.
Someone like Lin Gui, who arrived just in the nick of time, was an outlier.
The reason the Transport Guild was still so crowded...
Was mostly because of recruitment.
On one side of the hall stood rows of recruitment boards.
They were wooden, about half as tall as a man, and plastered with recruitment notices.
Behind each placard stood several people.
Wearing various styles of clothing, they had different badges pinned to their chests.
These were members of the preparatory transport teams.
They strained their voices, shouting at the top of their lungs.
“Black Steel Preparatory Transport Team! Recruiting scouts! Mid-tier Transcendent or higher! Monthly salary: eighty thousand gold coins!”
“Silver Wing Preparatory Team! Missing one main-attack mage! High-tier Transcendent! Monthly salary: one hundred and twenty thousand! Magic materials included!”
“Iron Thorn Preparatory Team! Recruiting shield warrior! Low-tier Transcendent is fine! Monthly salary: fifty thousand! Also providing advancement resources!”
The shouting rose and fell, each wave louder than the last.
Every figure mentioned started at ten thousand gold coins.
Even more were offering all sorts of cultivation resources.
Precious potions, magic scrolls, equipment crafting vouchers.
Some even promised that upon passing the selection, they would immediately be allocated houses in any district within a city-state.
In the Adventurer's Guild, a payment of a thousand gold coins was rare.
Here, it wouldn't even be fit to be mentioned.
At the front of the hall was a massive magic bulletin board.
It occupied almost the entire wall.
Recruitment information scrolled densely across the board.
The font was a faint golden color, refreshing constantly.
Every few minutes, a staff member would walk over.
Using mana to manipulate it, they would swap in a batch of new notices.
The old ones were taken down, and new ones were put up.
It never stopped for a moment.
Lin Gui manipulated his staff.
He floated over the heads of the crowds.
His altitude wasn't high, only about two meters off the ground.
His gray, faded mage robes.
That simple, unadorned oak staff.
And those feet dangling in the air, not touching the ground.
They drew plenty of attention.
A few people looked up and glanced at him.
Their gazes lingered for a moment on his floating staff.
Then, they looked away.
No one stepped forward to invite him.
A mage who knew Levitation.
By default, such a person was already considered a success who had completed selection and become a member of a transport team.
The leap in status that they were fighting so hard to possibly achieve...
The other person had already accomplished.
The members of the preparatory transport teams didn't waste their energy on a mage who could use Levitation.
Their targets were those powerful Transcendents who hadn't been recruited yet.
They were looking for scouts, warriors, and rangers who could fill vacancies in their party.
They were not looking for a wizard who already had one foot through the door of a transport team.
Lin Gui continued floating forward.
Passing through that noisy recruitment area.
Passing through the crowds of people shouting at the top of their voices.
Passing through those constantly refreshing bulletin boards.
On the other side of the hall.
There was a row of independent rooms.
The doors were made of semi-transparent glass, with the soft light of magic glowstones radiating from within.
Those were the VIP rooms.
Specially prepared for true transport teams already registered with the Transport Guild.
At this moment.
Four transport teams were staying inside.
Through the glass.
Their gazes frequently fell upon that gray figure floating through the hall.
“Interesting.”
A man dressed as a scholar was the first to speak.
He wore deep-blue robes with silver star patterns embroidered on the collar.
In his hand, he held a long, thin pipe; it wasn't lit, but he habitually twirled it.
His gaze passed through the glass and settled on Lin Gui.
From top to bottom, then bottom to top.
Gray mage robes, faded from washing, with severe wear on the elbows and frayed cuffs.
An oak staff with a plain shaft, devoid of any decoration, lacking even a decent magic crystal.
Black hair, black eyes, and a face without much expression.
“A wandering mage,” he judged.
“Unaffiliated.”
“That rough attire isn't a disguise; he's genuinely poor.”
His eyes brightened.
“It’s highly likely he’s a bottom-tier mage who hit a stroke of incredible luck.”
“He probably learned Levitation from somewhere.”
He turned around, intending to head out.
“I’ll go intercept him.”
“I’ll invite him to join us.”
A hand reached out from the side.
It pressed down on his shoulder.
The scholar turned his head.
It was a scholar from another caravan.
This one wore a monocle and held a thick ledger in his arms.
Looking at the black-haired mage floating in the distance, his expression was very strange.
It wasn't surprise or curiosity.
Rather, it was an expression of disbelief, as if he had seen something that wasn't supposed to exist here.
The intercepted scholar raised an eyebrow.
He teased, “What, do you have your eye on that little fellow too?”
“But doesn't your party already have a witch?”
“And she’s your girlfriend, at that.”
He gave a wink.
The monocled scholar ignored the joke.
His gaze remained fixed through the glass on Lin Gui.
Watching that gray figure slowly float across the hall.
He spoke.
His voice was a bit dry.
“Don't waste your energy.”
“He won't join your transport team.”
The other scholar was stunned.
“Oh? Why do you say that?”
The monocled scholar didn't answer directly.
Instead, he placed the thick ledger he was carrying onto the table.
He flipped it open.
It was a map.
Hand-drawn and extremely detailed.
Mountains, rivers, city-states, and Forbidden Zones.
Everything was clearly marked in different colors of ink.
The edges of the map were somewhat worn, clearly having been consulted countless times.
His finger landed on a location on the map.
The Wall of Sighs.
The region marked in deep black, representing an absolute deadland.
Then.
His finger moved slowly.
From the Wall of Sighs, it went all the way Southeast.
Passing through Giant's Canyon, passing through the Carter Royal Capital, and crossing some paths that he considered the theoretically shortest routes.
Ultimately.
It stopped at Coppergate City.
His finger tapped lightly on the location of Coppergate City.
Then he picked up the newspaper from the table.
He stared at the news of the Dark Tide breaking out in the borderlands.
Then he looked up.
He watched that black figure who was about to reach the far end of the hall.
His expression grew even stranger.
His brows were tightly knit.
His lips moved.
He muttered a single sentence.
The voice was very soft.
But the scholar beside him still heard it.
“How... how is this possible?!”
Rate on N.U.
