Back home, Lu Yun lay on his bed and focused his mind, willing himself to transform into a wolf. Just like before, it worked smoothly—he became the small wolf. He tested a few attack skills on his pillow.
★ Headbutt (Lv.1): Leap to attack targets within 3 meters, dealing 150% physical damage with a 5% chance to stun for 1 second. Cooldown: 2 minutes. Each level increases damage by 10%, stun chance by 1%, and stun duration by 0.1 seconds.
★ Claw Strike (Lv.1): Instantly deals 50% physical damage. Cooldown: 8 seconds. Each level increases damage by 5% and reduces cooldown by 0.3 seconds.
★ Bite (Lv.1): Causes bleeding, dealing 10% physical damage every 2 seconds for 20 seconds, stackable once. Cooldown: 10 seconds. Each level increases physical damage by 2%. At levels 4, 7, and 10, the stack limit increases by 1.
He also had Shadow Claw, but with only two pillows on the bed, they couldn't withstand his attacks; after a few strikes, they were utterly destroyed.
Lu Yun realized experimenting at home was a terrible idea—fur flew everywhere on the bed and the floor was a mess. He slapped his forehead, returned to human form, dressed, and started cleaning up.
Once tidied, he decided to postpone skill experiments. First, he needed to research in the game what was really happening. Putting on his headset, he resumed playing.
At level 10, Lu Yun left Misty Forest and headed to the adjacent map: Million Stone Forest.
Million Stone Forest was the territory of the Phantom Lynx, one of the twelve main tribes of the alliance, though not a playable race. Lu Yun came here to grind reputation with the Phantom Lynx. As his reputation rose, he could learn four non-attribute skills from them—very practical ones.
Another thing: at level 10, players could create or join a guild, and every guild had a guild territory. In the game, guild territories appeared as dungeons on the map—for example, a cave at the mountainside or a light portal in the forest. Inside, they were large areas, standard size 50×50 tiles, each tile 25×25 meters, totaling 2,500 tiles, equivalent to 625 square meters per tile—essentially one mu. The total standard territory was 1,562,500 square meters (1,250 meters per side).
Current guilds could not access that many tiles—the available territory depended on guild level. Besides the central tile with a free territory stele, each guild level granted extra tiles equal to (level + 1)². Level 1 gave 1 + 2² = 5 tiles; level 10 gave 1 + 11² = 122 tiles; the UI capped at level 15, giving 1 + 15² = 226 tiles.
Guilds initially received barren land, which had to be developed—build houses, facilities, farms, pastures, etc. Each guild territory had its own resources and specialties.
For example, basic resources included stone, wood, iron, and food. Taking stone: level 1 stone territory yielded 10,000 units of level 1 stone per day; level 2 territory yielded 2,000 of level 1 stone, 2,000 of level 2, 50 of level 3; level 3 territory yielded 2,000 of level 1, 500 of level 2, 300 of level 3. This balanced quantity versus quality.
Besides resource territories, there were special territories with unique NPCs, goods, or skills. But these were not in newbie territories—all newbie tiles were level 1 resource plots. Thus, anyone familiar with the game would avoid starting a guild in newbie zones. This was why Lu Yun was heading to Million Stone Forest.
As he traveled, he opened the guild recruitment channel. Immediately, dozens of invitations popped up, with some actively sent to him:
"Wolf's Ambition invites you to join Rabbit's Tail""Rabbit's Tail? What kind of name is that? No."
"Really a wolf invites you to join Rabbit Intestine""Rabbit Intestine? What the heck? Not suitable, no."
"Do you want to join Three Hundred Wolves""Only three hundred? Too small-scale, no."
Within minutes, Lu Yun rejected over ten guild invitations—names like "Wolves and Sheep are Family," "Vegetarian Wolves, We Don't Eat Bunnies"—he found them ridiculous; he considered himself a serious player.
Finally, he saw one guild with a decent name recruiting: "Wolf Tracks Across the World". He liked it—it resonated with his mindset.
He clicked to join immediately and was admitted.
"Welcome, new friend.""Welcome, welcome, heartfelt welcome.""Come in and state your gender: males report length, females report measurements."
A few long-time members cheered. Lu Yun, seeing this often, didn't respond. As more players joined, he entered the channel and typed his first word: "Welcome."
He checked guild info. When creating a guild, one could choose the guild system: Electoral, Dictatorship, Elder, or Corps.
Electoral: Members meeting requirements (time in guild, level) can vote on guild matters. Most members participate.
Dictatorship: Traditional system, president holds all power but may delegate or retract it.
Elder: Power concentrated in a few members, also called parliamentary system.
Corps: Loose alliance, sub-guilds under a main guild; corps leaders manage internal affairs and coordinate with others for major directions.
"Wolf Tracks Across the World" used the Corps system. For Lu Yun, it didn't matter—he didn't rely on gaming for a living. Ranking preference: Corps > Electoral > Elder > Dictatorship.
Traditional MMORPGs favored Dictatorship—efficient and convenient. But in Soul Journey, a metaverse economic game, guilds could generate real economic benefits. Distribution of profits was tricky; as Lu Yun saw during beta testing, human nature reveals its ugliness under massive incentives. That was why he ranked Dictatorship last.
He checked the guild roster; since it was newly formed, all members were under the president "Unmoving". As more joined, lively but meaningless chat continued. Lu Yun ignored it, focusing on traveling, analyzing skills, and thinking about real-world applications.
By the time he reached Million Stone Forest and completed the first set of tasks, the guild reached 100 members, qualifying them to request a guild territory.
Lu Yun felt motivated, ready to guide the process based on beta experience.
"President, are you at the main city? To choose territory, we need to talk to a deputy lord. Phantom Lynx has several deputies; check which one manages guilds." Lu Yun called out in public chat.
"I know, I'm already at the main city. Deputy Stone Claw—I'm ready."
"President, once you list available territories, I'll help. I played the beta before."
"Okay, Blood March. In beta, there were 20,000 spots; our dozen classmates didn't get any. Since you've played, give advice."
"No problem. President, send the available territories quickly. Move fast. Be polite with high-level NPCs—treat them as real people. It's all advantage for us."
"OK, I'm always polite." Unmoving replied.