As Jean was pulled into the guild hall he was overcome by the size of the room. The inside of the building was bigger than the outside. The ceiling arched sixty feet tall and had a minimum length of three hundred yards. Like everywhere else in the city so far, the place was packed with people tighter than a Dodgers game during the playoffs.
The three outworlders were all holding hands and getting dragged through the crowd by Gabe the outlandish adventurer local.
Jean noticed that everyone in the building had their auras retracted to not further suffocate the little space that they shared.
Gabe guided the group past others who seemed to be waiting in lines, but like always, Gabe didn't notice or care about being an inconvenience to the people around him as he barrelled through with his silver rank strength.
The squad got to a counter where Gabe immediately looked at the teller and said, “I’m here to assist in a novice border patrol with three first-timers. I’ve got two priority shifters.” Gabe gave the thin man with pointed ears a knowing wink.
The teller eagerly said, “Absolutely, would you like to go immediately? We’ve got a couple of supervisors on standby.”
“That would be perfect. You are very kind.”
“Thank you, sir. You can make your way south and give them this slip.” The teller handed a piece of paper that read, “1 super, 2 ams, 6 parts, 1 chaperone.”
Gabe took the paper and continued the arduous process of pulling three kids through the crowds. They followed an outer wall to the back of the building. When they were nearing the back, Jean saw that the back wall was mostly made of glass. There was something like a greenhouse attached the to back of the building. They got to the greenhouse, Gabe handed off the paper, and they walked into the first non-crowded area they had seen in the city.
The space was chilly. There were a handful of small parties huddled together, a few at tables, and most looked equipped for winter travel.
A young man in a wool jumpsuit jogged over to the squad. He was tall and muscular, with olive skin and burning red eyes.
“Hey, you must be the first-timers. I’m Titus. I’m guessing you guys are equipped for the circle trek? Come over here and I’ll introduce you to the rest of the party.” Then, Titus shook each of their hands washing each of them in a powerful aura. And then beckoned for them to follow over to a table with three others.
While they walked Gabe whispered back, “This guy is a fresh silver rank, who is probably taking a short break from his trek to pay back debts to the city. He’ll be helping you guys train for the next two days on the inner edge of the wild next to the city.”
Freddy looked like he had many questions, but they were already too close to the table with Titus and the three others, each in their late teens.
“Take a seat and we’ll make introductions, then I’ll explain the plan for our next couple of days,” Titus said.
When they sat each of the youths introduced themselves with their name, position, and their confluence essence.
There was a very thin man that looked like an emaciated elf with large eyes. He introduced himself as a healer/trapper with the charlatan confluence essence. His name was Tilmas.
Drimmette was from an underwater kingdom and was a Captoid, an aquatic humanoid. He spoke in a clicking whale tone, it sounded strange. Jean’s translation power worked its magic though to Drimmette’s pleasure. His position was as a fighter and his confluence Essence was Centurion. He also mentioned that his race could only emerge from the water after they reached iron rank and this was his week out of the water.
The third person was a Leonid girl, who briefly said she was a spell-slinger with the storm confluence essence. Her name was Crecia. She gave off powerful and lithe vibes, with her tall and limber form. Yet, she seemed the friendliest of the bunch, at least, she wasn’t shy like the other two.
Galadriel introduced herself first to the squad, “Galadriel. Tank. Boundry.”
“Jean. I’m not sure about my position, but I want to be an aura specialist or a scrapper, but I don’t know yet. I also don’t have a confluence essence.”
The several there looked confused about Jean not knowing what he was and especially about him not having a confluence essence. The impression that Jean got was just that he would be in the way of everyone there that was already suited to fitting in a team.
Freddy interrupted the stares by speaking up, “Freddy, bow user, Vessel.”
He got several nods of approval from the others.
Gabe spoke up. “Hi! My name is Gabe. And I’m a fighter and my confluence essence is Eclipse.”
Titus clapped his hands, “And I will be your guys’ supervisor. My name is Titus, and I’m a Zoner. That means that I specialize in area effects, which means I am well suited to guide a novice group in these weather conditions. My confluence essence is Boundary, like this lady.” Pointing at Galadriel.
“Now, without further ado, Gabe, you have something to show us?” Titus asked.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Gabe grinned and pulled an amulet out of his shirt. The three other young adventurers gasped at the sight. And Gabe tossed it to Titus.
“This here will give us far more experience than what most would get out of this trek. Was there another one?” He asked.
At that, Gabe gave Jean a nod and Jean remembered that he was holding onto a similar amulet in his Soul Inventory. He popped it out into his hand.
Jean got some looks with bulging eyes as Jean tossed it to Titus mimicking his mentor.
Titus caught it with a smile. “Having both of these will mean that I can have two man groups go out on excursions once I’m confident that the group could survive. I doubt I have to tell you guys about how big of an opportunity this is for you.” Now, without further waiting, let’s go into the wilds.”
_______
The group, Circle Trek 55th, silently piled into a tunnel at the end of the greenhouse. The glass door behind them was closed by an attendant. From Titus came bursting a wave of fire.
Everyone but Gabe flinched back as the wave of flame harmlessly passed over the group in the glass tunnel. It got significantly warmer, but that changed once the door to the outside wild opened.
A chill so cool that was painful washed over them as they stepped out onto the icy plane. Once the group was all the way out into the cold, more intense waves of the flame passed over the group until a line of fire encircled the group by 50 feet.
“This flame zone will keep the temperature above freezing. I’ll be able to heat the barrier more than this if we feel like we will need that to sleep, but this temperature is good for my efficiency.” Titus explained to the group as he continued to guide the 55ths away from the city.
“Once we get a mile or two down, the magical density and saturation will be high enough to spawn iron-rank magical manifestations. We will most likely find a few litters of frost rabbits, and we will take turns fighting off groups. Let’s buddy up in pairs: Freddy and Jean together, Galadriel and Tilmas together, and Drimmette and Crecia together. Gabe and I will only step in if your life is in danger. For clarity, we will not rescue you from being damaged by Iron rank monsters. We will watch monsters eat off your arms if we think you’ll survive it. Got it?”
The group gave out some mutters of understanding and walked beside their assigned battle buddies.
Jean was fine with being partnered with Freddy, but the feeling was not so reciprocated.
“I feel like it’s my destiny to suffer…” Freddy said with a modicum of sarcasm.
“Oh, come on. We’ll be a good pair. I’ll go it close, and you can shoot around me. It’ll be fine.” Jean reasoned.
“Yeah, but what happens when you put a portal under my feet and I fall twenty feet onto my neck? What happens then?”
“Dude, I’m sorry. And Galadriel’s fine, all right?” Jean only let anger show, but he was still aching for hurting Galadriel.
Freddy harumphed, and that was the end of their talking.
The group kept traveling until Titus held up a hand, “There are two seals ahead. They’ll be harder to kill. Drimmette and Crecia, you guys are up first.”
Titus handed an amulet to each of them, and the group watched them walk in the direction Titus pointed.
Ten minutes later Jean started to hear and see combat nearly a mile away on flat land. He likely wouldn’t have been able to see anything if the fight was just physical, but from their distance, the group could see jets fire and the resulting smoke. The combat lasted nearly ten minutes before the group went to see the result of the battle.
As they walked up, they saw two eight-foot-tall seal humanoids, covered in wounded grey skin. Each of them had massive tusks and undefined hands and feet. They were more lard and skin than anything else.
Crecia was binding a wound on Drimmettes shoulder by the time they got closer. Even though Drimmette was injured, Crecia looked far worse with bloodshot eyes and still breathing heavily.
“How did it go?” Titus asked the group.
Crecia responded first, “Awfully. There was hardly anything that I could do. They were resistant to all of my fire and ice attacks, so Drimmette here basically had to kill them himself.”
Drimmette made some sounds before Titus put a hand up and asked in Jean’s direction, “Can you translate?”
Jean nodded and translated, “He said that piercing was the only effective option on these guys, so he was well suited with his spear. He tried at first to block an attack with his shield, but they were too strong for that. He found that he could just dodge and stab until he worked away enough skin to get to its vital points.”
“Well done then,” Titus responded to Drimmette. “Take a good. Rest and meditate on the skills you used. Consider what other abilities could have helped as well.” Then Titus went to Crecia, “You were a bad match-up, but you can still consolidate your gains by figuring out how to make up for your weakness through versatility or raw power. How many essence abilities do you have right now?”
Crecia responded, “Only ten sir.”
“Hopefully filling yourself out will help too then. I suggest you finish your set before the next trek you go on.” Titus turned and spoke to the whole group. “We are going to pause for a moment to let these two recover some. But, I do believe there’s a large frost rabbit pack about a mile out. Freddy and Jean, collect Crecia and Brimmettes amulets and head out in that direction.”
_______
The moment that Jean put the amulet on, every chill in his body vanished. Even the dampness that was building up on his clothes evaporated immediately. The pair shared a look before stepping out of Titus’s Flame Barrier into the sub-zero temperature.
The amulets did their work keeping them comfortable. Out of curiosity, Jean brought out his enchanted cup from his inventory and poured a cup of water onto the ground. The water froze mid-fall and clattered on the ground.
Freddy gestured to the expanse, “Yeah, I can see why these amulets are in high demand. I think all of those lines back in the guild were people waiting to go out in groups with guys like Titus just to get out here to train and fight.”
“I think Gabe might be rich.”
“…so, how are we going to kill these bunnies?” Freddy asked.
“Well, if it was just me, I would coat them in acid clouds for as long as I could, and then try to tear them apart with my claws. I’ll see what Steve could do too.” Jean mused.
“Let’s do that then. I don’t think we should tell the others, but Gabs only has four essence abilities, and I only have my core four abilities.”
“What? Can you even fight?”
“Yeah. I can conjure a bow and crystal arrows. I can imbue them with purity and I can make a healing totem. That’s it.”
“Ok. That’s enough to be useful. But we need to get you and Galadriel some awakening stones. But until then, just stay back and let me handle things.” Jean stood up straight and started to shake out his limbs.
Freddy scoffed, “Jeez, we’re just fighting some bunnies. You don’t have to act like it's a big deal dude.”
Jean deflated a little but he didn’t let Freddy’s demeanor sway his own.
They were walking for about ten minutes before they started to get antsy. Jean let out his discordant aura in a field around himself. A moment later, he uttered an, “Oh.”
Jean stopped walking and put a hand in front of Freddy. “We are kinda surrounded by at least a hundred bunnies. They are underneath a layer of snow. I guess that they are waiting until we get into the very middle of them before…”
The ground shifted all around them.
“Stay by me until you can run,” Jean said quickly.
A hundred pure white rabbits shivered snow off of their backs, fangs bared at Jean and Freddy.