Far too late to act subtle now. Pulling the anime hammer outta his buttcrack and smashing the idiots kinda killed that plan. It's now time for shock and awe.
Though it would be kind of funny for the MC to snap his fingers and have a twister shave all the hair off his body.
That's actually a fairly good point.
At the start of the arc, Sylph strictly told the MC to NOT catch any attention to himself, to not expose so much of his power.
First thing they do: Pick a fight and show off their power, kinda.
So if they already forgone their main objective, just cross it off the list and act on their strengths and move on.
They don't even want to set up a main base in the city -- they're there primarily to level up, gain resources, etc, to then improve the state of the wastelands, and the MC's base.
It doesn't matter at all what sort of reputation the MC has in the city, it's not like he's going to spend the rest of his life there, he's there for a week for fuck's sake.
I get that being a Chinese, xianxia murderhobo is not a smart idea, but if the MC is going to avoid conflict, at least actually avoid conflict. A scene like the guild-master pissing on the MC is just annoying. I'd rather the MC either flood his room, or not take any form of offense at his attempts to rile up the MC.
Again, if the MC doesn't want to "go overboard", there are much better ways to do so without pissing off the audience.