Since time was of the essence as they only had only a few hours remaining untill they reach Blythe, Rex used all his willpower to shove the metaphorical realization of an elefant in to the closet and used this time rather efficiently to attain as much knowledge about the basics of existance in the States of Zharr. From what he understood, Zharr was a collection of city states united in their desire for unlimited trade. Their motto was "Everything is a comodity", and as such their cities were always active and full of opportunities to earn money. One only had to be at the wery least decent at their chosen proffesion to make something of themselves. An as common sense would dictate when dealing with shrewd merchants- wealth and power were the main leading factors that denominated ones status there. Rex also learned about guilds, as one would expect from fantastical setting, Multinational corporations what operated by their own rules and were powerfull and influential enough to bend most of the rules of the countries they operated withing to their advantage, after all, no nobility could afford to piss off most of the adventurers, merchant or alchemist guilds.
Adventurers guild was as cliche as it can get. Ones you sign up you can take the jobs posted on their boards that ranged from monster extermination, to herb gathering to gods above know what else. However since Aron and his band were mercenaries he couldnt explain the intricacies of the guilds inner workings, ranking up and other things, he had as barebones knowledge as one could posibly have. Same stereotypical troupe could be glimpsed from the other guilds. Are you good at mixing things- acchemy is the way to go, have a knack at peddling and bullshiting your way into lucrative deals for you- go for merchants. As for mercenaries, nothing much changes. Someone get to know about you and the work you do or have done, then they decide they like your way of doing things, they contact you and try to get you to do whatever they want to achieve for a certain sum that you both can agree on. Mercenary contracts paid the best as Aron put it, because they would be equivalent to personal quests in the edventurers guild. One has to have reputation and quite the record of completed missions for the big spenders to learn of a certain adventurer.Rex wasnt too concerned about being ripped of regarding monetary things as he has noticed slight fluctuations in peoples energy then they are telling bold lies, of course he coudnt sense shit if the lies were subtle, or half truths, but it was good enough. Rex decided to check out adventurers guild first, and read through the contracts they sign as he was not inclined to bend over and wait for suprises from one of the most influential megacorporations of this world.
People here used the most predictable currency one could ever expect. Copper coins to silver coins to gold coins. Some super rich people when dealing in the most exotic of wares would use platinum coins, or in case of unicorn trades or something just as absurd there were orichalcum coins. the standart conversion went 10 coppers for 1 silver, then 100 silver for 1 gold 100 gold for 1 platinum, 100 platinum for orichalcum. Apparently spacial artifacts were a thing, but besides lesser bags of holding that were quite common and used to cary money, proper spatial storages were quite rare and as such quite valuable. Stay for a night with supper and breakfast in an average inn cost a couple of silvers and Aron paid Rex 2 gold coins for his asistance in the raid and killing of a few monsters along the way to said raided village.
Once they arrived in Blythe, Rex saw your stereotipical port town. Built in several levels, with port being the lowest level, then what looked like some sort of indrustial section with warehouses, shady looking pubs and brothels for sailors to get drunk and unwind.The next level was moslty common folk living quarters, with some lesser workshops and small shops here and there. Then came the market. Quite expansive as it was a port city and goods for 3 different states and overseas went through it. Most of the guilds had their local branch buildings on this level and all the best shops for adventuring, which included armor, weapons, alchemy and magical trinkets were quite close to the adventurers giuld. This guild was situated rather close to the common district and its close proximity were a lot of inns too. The last too levels as one would expect were quite rich and extravagantly decorated, packed with parks and small flower gardens. Those were respectivly the noble quaretrs and rulers mansions. In the nobles quarter were sitated the filthy rich merchants, the villas of different aristocrats from other states, as Zharr dended to be quite neutral in their political stance, as such their cities were quite the good place to have retreats for relaxation on hiding in case shit hit the fan in their home nations.
Population was also quite diverse, ranging from humans to catfolk to dwarves to all kind of other weird species. While the great majority of the people were humans, and as Aron stated this whole continent was mostly populated by them, purely due to the fact that they bred like rabbits and were quite the agressive in their expansions, there didnt seem to be aaa that much tension on the faces of nonhumans. It seemed as if their problems were quite the same as any other everyday person looking to earn a living.
Before Aron and Rex had left the ship Aron did offer Rex a certain magical ring for fifty silver, as it was the going price of such an item in the magical shops that could help him hide his extraordinary eyes for a day. He did mention that one could eventually learn to do that on their own, so the choice was Rex's, and he willingly agreed to such and exchange, leaving him with a fifty silver coins lighter. Then Aron took care of the miniscule paperwork to register his presence in the city as a contracted mercenary and then he showed Rex a few of the more reputable inns around and bid himm farewell, reminding Rex that he can always come and join his merc band.
After securing himself a room at one of the inns Rex decided to visit adventurers guild and see if it was quite the same as he was envisioning it having read countless fantasy stories in his, he supposed, now previous life.That was a whole another can of worms for him to come to proper terms with, and as he reckoned, not something one can do starving or lost and without any immediate preprepeared distraction in case his coming to terms with it takes him down some unforseen rabithole.
The guildhouse was rather well built brick building with quite large double door that had seen better days and one could asume has met its own share of misadventures involving one too many drunk or pissed of adventurer either coming or leaving. the roof was covered in some sort of browninsh tiles, and, oddly enough, only one chimney, which felt rather odd considering the size of the building. Upon entering the building in view came a hall with a few tables with chairs around, situated to the sides of the room, no doubt for either waiting for remaing party members or discussing job strategies, necesities and what not. At the end of the hall there were a large counter flanked by stairs leading to both upper floors and basement, and there were several people working at the counter. Quest related, loot exchange, status etc. and info, written on sighnboards above the various guild clerks. Rex noticed that all the clerks were good looking women, probably to smooth out interactions with the more rowdy and rugged of the men, as he asumed that discontent about one thing or another was rather regular thing from tired and streesed men coming to finalize their quest details.
Rex approached the clerk at the info window and was quite dirrect in his reason for approach as he asumed there must have been more that a few secret admirers of the women working here, coming to disrupt the work just to court them. "I want to know the rules and obligations one has to follow, if you are registered with the guild. If there is any sort of written rulebook or anything of the sort i would prefer acsess to that, if posible." Rex asked in a neutral tone. "We do have a rulebook, I can also provide you with the contract you would be singing if you were to desire to become and adventurer. It contains all benefits the guild provides as well as rules and obligations our adventurers are bound to follow. Would you like to read it?" lady at the counter asked in a rather sweet voice with friendly and inviting smile. She, as all guild clerks, was trained to subconsiously use a sort of analysis magic that would warn them if the person in front of them is much stronger or weaker than them. And since she recieved no ping back from the person in front of her, it meant that the person was at least rank B, or higher potential adventurer, since the magic coudn't ping power levels that were more than a single level above the user, and since she was D class in overall strenght, no ping meant B class or above. Such adventurers were valuable, increadibly so, and anyone who managed to sign such people would get hefty bonuses, not to mention priority in being able to be their liasons in guilds. Some of the more powerfull adventurers even developed such a liking for their liasons that they requested their transters to wherever they were adventuring. And such odd requests were always granted for S class and above purely due to the monetary value such adventurers bring. And by being a liason to such adventurer there was always a chance to bag them, and since had more money thanm they could spend no sane working girl would pass up such an opportunity.
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"Yes" Rex answered, recieved the contract form, and went to one of the tables to read through the contract form. guild provided acsess to quest in all of their branch halls, guildcard that served as their identification and would allow them to gain acsess to quite a wide locations and seemlesly uncontrolled ability to travel through states as no sane aristocrat would impede the workers of a company that quite literaly solves all their major issues that requires deep specialization or great combat potential since all most powerfull people ussually get lured by the freedom and reach the guild offers. Monster disecting, guild personal armor and weaponsmiths, alchemist and so on with discount to their services based on ones rank, appraisal and many other such advantages. While adventurers had quite a lot of benefits by joining the guild Rex noticed a few points in the obligations that made him think deeply if such a company was his path. Guild benefited from adventurers by imploying quest feels that the questgivers would pay the guild in adition to the rewards that the client would provide for mentioned job. Guild would asess the dificulty or danger of the job, and then according to the calculated grade would recieve fee for posting said quest in addition to advising on the minimal rewards that should be offered, based on clients need for the resolutions speed and other factors. Besides the fee, guild would recieve a small percentage of the quest rewards and small precentage of all goods sold to guild related busineses. There were quite strict regulations regarding the dungeons that guild members could enter as all known dungeons were evaluated and marked with minimal class, and no adventurers below mentioned minimal class could enter these known dungeons. Adventurers also were obligated to accept guild issues special misions that were calculated to be in their class. There were other guidelines that were of no major note regarding loot splitting amon guild adventurers when teaming up and other such things, but Rex didnt care much for those as the mandatory forced missions and dungeon restrictions were a dealbreaker for him. There is no way Rex would reaveal his full capabilites in a world where a single man could take down armies, and being restricted from acsessing dungeons for being cautios was a no go. Not to mention that all that monster hunting would increase his strenght for sure and repeated class advancement when he has no reference for proper normal would bring too much attention of the super strong and petty people in power. Rex returned to the clerk lady he recieved the contract form from, returned it, grunted "Not interested.", and turned around and left.
He spent some hours and walking around in the markets of the town, questioning about buy and sale prices of various monster parts, herbs, gems and other items. he bought a small holding bag that could hold up to fifty gold for twenty silver, and a decent blade for fifty silver and once he was done shopping he returned to the inn where he booked the room. The inns room was booked for three days that cost him four silver a day. After an early supper he droped on bed and went over his plan for the next few days. He had planned to delve in a local dungoen that was classified by guild as D rank. Dungeons were locations with overly abundant mana for whatever reason that coudnt be explained, and in such mana convergence places sometimes formed mana pearls. These pearls then eventually grew bigger abnd gibber untill they started to warp the world around them, twisting the existing flora and fauna in unexplainable ways. The longer the mana pearl existed the more it grew, the deeper in the earth it sand untill it phased in its own space. creating an entirely new ecosystem, not just twisting the original one where pearl formed. If someone were to reach the dungeons core - the mana pearl and destroyed it, its personal space would slowly be absorbed into the wolrd enriching the region even more. Then ,in time, a new mana pearl would manifest repeating the process. However one has to know that the older the dungeon the deeper it goes and more and more powerfull monsters dwell within. As such even a dungeon that classified as rank C for example would, if it has existed long enough, in deeper floors be classified as B, a or even S class. As such cases where dungeon cores are actually destroyed are increadibly rare and even then those dungeons would be quite young. What also muc be noted is that dungoes are divided into two grades. Normal grade and special grade. Special grade dungeons are incredibly rare and are asumed to appear around once in every ten thousand times. unlike normal ones these special grades do not only grow deeper but they evolve in their entirety. So where normal dungoens guild class will always stay the same since the more powerfull monsters will live deeper in the dungeons, the special grades monsters are all the same level of power and grow sronger with dungeons development.
With several next days planned out to earn some extra money it was time to let the skeleton out of the closet to accept and deal with the few choices he made while asuming this was all a dream. He did kill a few people, condemned the rst of the small village to life in slavery and raped a woman. He spent most of the night looking for exuses and reasons that would help him accept his own actions, for he knew that if he didnt deal with it, it would slowly eat him from inside. burn him out and break him. Its not like he was a proper sociopathy who reveled in the suffering of others. And while he did think of possibly torturing someone had the government gifted him with such a specimen, if only to see how he could deal with his actions afterwards he wouldn't have ever done that in reality, but extreme questions require extreme answers or at the very least unorthodox scenarious to explore. The simplest way to solve it was through creating a sets of guidlines that he would follow. He wasnt planning on burning everything in his path, nor was he inherently agressive man in his life, but in this world he would have to be ready to kill. As for the people of echlisiarchy that he helped enslave he had no sympathy to give. Their people had attacked him on sight, and to begin with, it was their nation that discarded him to the forest as an infant all because of his eyes. Only on the last boat ride to Blythe did he realise that he survived only thanks to his unique ability to absorb energy. The extreme situation must have triggered his ability in overdrive and because of it he went into crysalis like transformation to force his growth by absorbing surrounding energy in exessive amounts to grow to a point where he could function as an individual organism. A nation that condemned you to die only because of a genetic deviation (he asumed) that was in no observable way malignant. It would be the same as condemning someone to die if they were born with blue eyes for example, or dimples. And since such people cared solittle for his life why would he care for theirs.