Michael and Astraea walked to the adventurer’s guild in silence, he was not sure if he imagined it, but it appeared like she was mad at him.
Though he couldn’t recall what he had done to wrong her, they barely even spoke.
Even upon arriving at the guild, she refused to talk, he even tried striking up a small conversation, but he was ignored.
‘System.. can you analyze what I did wrong?’
Hmm… I can’t find any problems, she might just be mad at someone else instead, maybe the vampire lady, would explain why they were fighting constantly.
‘Could be..’ Michael replied with some doubt, he wished he had more memories back so he could remember Astraea, it did not feel good to be the only one in the dark.
Well, look on the bright side, once you reach Tier 2, you can go through Ascension, you might gain some insight there.
‘Does it work similarly to the trials?’
Yes, though it shouldn’t be that grueling, it usually plays out a scene from your past… Never mind, it will probably be difficult.
‘Wow.. thanks for the pep talk’ Michael rolled his eyes and walked up to the receptionist.
The guild looked pretty much the same as the others he had seen before, for some reason they all followed along with the same style.
“Hello, how could I help the two of you?” The receptionist spoke and Michael explained that he wanted to accept a quest of sorts.
They were asked to provide some basic information about them before heading out to some type of examination site which seemed to have some target dummies strewn around everywhere.
‘Why do I feel like the test from the trial was a bit more… straightforward?’ Michael wondered and the system quickly replied.
It measured your mana, not your combat skills, this one is the opposite, however, if you show you have talent with mana, it works just as well.
‘Oh yeah.. that’s true.’
Michael and Astraea were asked to show off their abilities while the receptionist gave their information to the examiner.
“Michael, 14..? .. you go first, attack that dummy” The man pointed at a target dummy that seemed to be the most worn out of them all.
He judged Michael based on his age, even when he didn’t exactly look it.
Due to the stats he acquired when he first got here, his rate of growth had increased by a lot, obviously not to the point of him becoming an old man faster.
But it was enough to make him push past puberty and quite a while ago, he assumed it happened during his time in the temple.
Even his voice had gotten deeper, he just hadn’t noticed at the time since he really didn’t have many people to talk to aside from Freya.
Michael nodded at the examiner and walked up to the dummy, summoning a single Sword of Light and slashing it down.
It appeared like nothing happened, however, in the next moment, the dummy was perfectly split in half.
He turned around to notice the examiner’s shocked expression and walked back next to Astraea.
“R-Right, good job Michael, that was impressive. Next.. Astraea, you do the same but on this dummy.” He pointed at a target dummy that looked a bit sturdier than Michael’s.
And without even moving from her spot, she cut it in half, similarly to Michael.
‘I just barely saw it..’ Michael sighed and watched the examiner drop their documents before quickly bending over to pick them up.
“Y-You two pass, take this” The examiner handed the both of them green empty plaques.
“Head back to the receptionist with these, I wish I could give you a higher rank, but this is the most I can do, sorry” The examiner apologized and gave their documents back with a little stamp on them.
“Thank you” Michael said and along with Astraea, headed back to the reception to finalize their Adventurer IDs.
The receptionist seemed surprised upon seeing the color as it was definitely not common for people to get something like that just from the test alone.
‘Do you have the adventurer rankings for this world?’ He asked the system as the receptionist began filling out the documents with random stuff he couldn’t care less about.
It goes from F to A, there is also an S rank but it’s very uncommon in this world. You got rank C, it’s considered the maximum you can get from the very start.
‘Surprised they are just giving the ranks out like it’s nothing, I expected more tests to come, can just anyone get C rank then?’ Michael thought about it as destroying the target dummy was pretty easy.
He doubted that he would have struggled with the one Astraea destroyed either.
“There you go, all done” The receptionist took their documents but instead gave back the plaques which were now containing both of their names.
And right below them, the clear italic C Rank, it didn’t feel so bad, every single time he did adventurer stuff, it brought him excitement.
“Can we start picking out the requests right away?” Michael asked the receptionist as he looked at the wall that contained all of the requests.
Just like in his trial, they were all embedded in a wooden wall, being held up by miniature knives.
The receptionist began explaining with a small smile “Of course, just make sure the requests you are going to take don’t go 2 ranks above yours, the highest request you are allowed to take is B rank.”
‘Fair enough.’ Michael nodded at the receptionist and headed straight for the wall of requests.
They all seemed pretty straightforward, the animal searching ones even made him chuckle a bit.
However, as he kept looking through them all, he noticed that none fit his usual style, most of them were pretty simple.
And surprisingly, there were barely any monster subjugation requests, the little ones there were, all belonged to the D rank or below category.
Michael did want to relax, however, by slaughtering monsters that could not even see his attacks, he would not grow.
Even while slacking off, he wanted to improve his skills.
Michael finally gave up on finding something good and resigned himself to his fate ‘It’s a dud.. where are the cat finding requests…’
However, a small tug on his sleeve made him turn around, it was Astraea and she was holding up one of the requests in her hand.
“Let’s do this one” She said and gave him the paper, letting him read it.
‘F rank..?’ Michael looked back at Astraea with a tinge of doubt which made her eyebrows twitch.
“Read it fully” She said while pinching his arm.
Michael would have considered it playful had she not been much stronger than him, she could probably swing him around with that little pinch.
“Fine..” He agreed and she loosened up, staring at him with expectation.
‘House rebuilding request.. really?’ Michael thought as his doubt had not disappeared in the slightest.
However, as he continued reading, his eyes widened.
‘My items are randomly disappearing and my house looks twisted, can someone come fix it, I will pay with beer.’
It sounded stupid to those who didn’t know anything, however, luckily, Michael managed to encounter a similar situation as this on his travels.
The rift.
‘Yeah.. in the city, at that, it sounds pretty serious’ Michael handed the request back to Astraea and nodded.
That small gesture made a wide smile appear on her face before she quickly went to the receptionist and accepted it.
‘So the rift is dangerous right?’
Right.
‘But if it’s another world entirely, then it’s not?’
If someone from that world is forcibly trying to enter this one, I can assure you that they don’t have the greatest of intentions.
Michael watched as Astraea walked back to him with the request stamped and rolled up.
She relayed what the receptionist told her, there wasn’t much information, just the general location of the request and of course, the prize of beer for completion.
‘I want to vomit just thinking about beer…’ Michael shivered and referenced the location to his map.
He did that pretty quickly as the system managed to perfect its abilities further.
‘Say.. the training, was that what you were referring to when you told me I would need to be alone and a have lot of free time?’
Yes, however, there is another portion that you still have yet to do, it is a bit different and it would be best if the others do not know about it for now.
‘Why? Can’t you just tell me then? What’s with the suspense..’
All I am going to say is that it will be similar but different, in the end, it will produce the same result, that is, making you stronger.
‘Fair enough..’ Michael sighed and followed after Astraea who went ahead.
‘Why is she so fast…’
