“Wow, Eli. That sounds incredible, I’m very proud of you,” my father said with a small smile. I had just finished describing what had happened since I joined the adventurers guild and left for Gorok. My mom still seemed uneasy with the knowledge that I was fighting every day, but she seemed proud of me in her own way. My father had traveled with adventurers during his youth and knew that while it was dangerous it also gave you the strength to handle yourself against monsters.
“It has been incredible, every level I’ve gained I felt like I was becoming more of who I’m meant to be, in a way.” I said. Explaining the past few weeks of my life to them had given me a different perspective of the struggles I had made it through recently. It truly dawned on me how much I had learned and advanced over the past few weeks.
“Well, I spoke with James’s father last week. He said James had reached the E-grade, is that something that happens when you reach level five?” my mother asked. She had just served us dinner and we ate slowly as we continued chatting about myself and how the shop had been doing.
“I’m not sure. Gary said he asked some adventurers but they just ignored him. F-ranks don’t really talk to higher-ranked adventurers at the guild, it’s obvious that they don’t want to talk to us,” I said with a grimace. It was similar to how nobles treated people in the market district when they rarely found themselves outside of their inner walls. I had learned years ago that it was just the way that the world worked, the more powerful don’t care about those without strength.
“I want to leave some money with you every time I come back home. Hopefully, you’ll be able to afford a place in the nobles district before the next horde comes.” I said seriously as I placed a small pouch of ten silver on the table.
“All right, as long as you keep enough money to help you stay alive. I know you said that better gear is incredibly expensive, so you need to save what you earn to afford something as soon as possible,” my mom chided me a moment later after my father nodded to me and grabbed the pouch.
“Yeah, it’s going to be a while before I can afford something that will really make a difference, I think,” I responded. “I also wanted to show you this skill I earned.”
“Rejuvenation”
“Rejuvenation,” I cast on my father and then moved to my mother as my dad frowned. Neither of my parents spoke as they waited for the effects of the spell to finish.
“Eli, this is amazing! I feel like I’m your age,” my mother laughed and stretched as she stood up.
“Thank you, Eli! I feel amazing, you didn’t mention a healing skill,” my father shook his head in wonder as he moved around.
“Thanks. It’s been extremely helpful for adventuring; it’s probably the biggest reason we’ve advanced so quickly,” I said with some pride, although I knew that it wasn’t something that usually got us through a fight. “All right, I have to head out to meet everyone. Don't tell anyone about my healing skill, please. I’ll be back again as soon as I can, I love you both.” My parents both promised to keep my skill secret and made me promise to stay safe. I headed back towards the adventurers guild soon after and saw the rest of my team waiting for me outside the entrance.
“Hey, everyone,” I said after I joined them at the front of the guild.
“Hey, Eli,” Gary responded, “let’s head inside.” Gary led us to the attendants by the portal to Gorok and we paid the fee before heading through to the other adventurers guild.
Gabrielle took a seat at an open table, “So how long do you guys want to stay in the city?”
“How about a week?” Zack suggested. I wasn’t sure what I’d spend my time on for a week but I wasn’t against taking a longer break.
“Sure, that’s fine with me,” I shifted in my seat, “I want to learn about how to become an E-rank while we’re here, too.”
“I can help with that,” a tall man with dark brown hair and a tanned face answered from beside our table. He looked like he was about my age so I immediately assumed he was an F-rank adventurer like us. “Gary, good to see you again. How did your teams hunt for Awakened monsters go?”
“John, hey, take a seat,” Gary pointed towards an empty chair at our table and the man sat down with a nod in thanks. “This is the adventurer that told me about the Awakened hobgoblins deeper in the bloodfields. We managed to hunt down a few of them during our last expedition. Thanks a lot for the information.” I nodded with Gary when he thanked him, I hadn’t met many others in the adventurers guild who were willing to help anyone else out.
“No problem, I’m glad it went well for your team. My team has been hunting them for a couple of months now while we’re trying to save enough gold for E-rank monster cores. I heard you saying you didn’t know how to reach E-rank,” John motioned towards me, “well it’s the same as Awakening the first time. Consume a monster core a rank higher than yourself and you’ll be able to pass level five.” I leaned back in my seat and frowned. If I remembered right, the guild bought those for 5 gold per core.
“You mean we’re going to need five gold each just to keep leveling?” Aaron slammed his fist into the table. “That will take months…”
“Yeah, that’s the reason why most newly awakened are still F-rank by the time the monster hordes arrive. Only nobles or extremely gifted teams are usually able to earn E-rank before they’re stuck on the walls of some city fighting a horde.” John said. “Although, I heard from another team that there are areas even deeper in the bloodfields where E-rank Awakened live. I told Gary about the F-ranks to see if you guys were capable. How would your team feel about going on an expedition to hunt for our own cores? Think about it, don’t give me an answer tonight.” John stood up when he finished and waved goodbye.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Well, that was a lot to dump on us, eh,” Zack laughed.
“Yeah, we’re going to need 25 gold to get all of us to E-rank…” Gabrielle trailed off.
“25 Gold or we hunt with John's team. If they’ve been hunting Awakened for months already they must be strong. They might not be able to advance their class levels but they can still work on their skills.” I said.
“I don’t know if we’re ready for that, Eli. The F-rank Awakened hobgoblins we’ve been fighting recently haven’t been easy to take to down and I’m sure the E-ranks will be much stronger.” Gary responded worriedly.
“They’ll be stronger,” Aaron took a sip of ale, “but we’ll have a team of ten experienced adventurers. With five of us the biggest danger was us getting overrun by regular hobgoblins, goblins or wargs.”
“Having more people doesn’t really mean we’re that much safer,” Gabrielle replied sternly. “Remember the first group we teamed up with for a dungeon?”
“That’s not the same, though. Neither one of our teams knew what we were doing back then,” I replied.
“Let’s take some time to think about it, like John suggested. We’re going to be in the city for a while, we don’t have to figure this out right now.” Gary raised his hands to calm us down. We spent the rest of the night lounging at our table eating stew and drinking ale.
I woke up to my head pounding and I immediately regretted drinking so much ale throughout the night, although it was nice to just hang out and talk with the rest of my team without the threat of monsters constantly hanging over our heads. I slowly got up and shakily made my way to the bar to get some food, and Gary joined me a few minutes later after I had been served.
“Morning, Eli,” Gary rubbed his temples and looked down at the table. I squinted at him and grunted while I focused on eating my food and drinking the milk I ordered. I finished eating and relaxed while the rest of my team joined us one by one over the next few minutes.
“I hate you, Aaron,” Gabrielle stated firmly. “I’m never drinking ale again.” I winced after I looked over at Gabrielle and saw dark bags under her eyes and a grumpy expression her face as she gave Aaron a dirty look.
“That was a crucial part of being in an adventuring team,” Aaron defended himself weakly. “You don’t need to yell, it’s already loud enough in here.”
“Vigor,” Zack cast and immediately he sighed in relief. I looked up and glared at Zack with everyone else at the table.
“Seriously?” Gabrielle looked disgusted and turned her chair to face away from Zack.
“Eli, did you try rejuvenation?” Gary whispered across the table. I had completely forgotten and I immediately cast on myself after I realized. The spell slowly eased the feeling of pain in my head until it was completely gone. I cast on Gabrielle once my spell finished working since she looked like she was in the most pain out of everyone else.
“Wow, Eli…” Aaron looked disappointed in me as he sighed at us across the table.
“Sorry, I’ll get you guys next,” I responded somewhat guiltily. “What’s everyone doing today?”
“I’m heading to the market to look at armor if anyone wants to join me,” Zack said.
“I’ll go with you, I looked at some wyvern-hide armor in Brightswell but it cost a few gold just for a jerkin,” I complained. “ Are you going to look for more leather armor or some metal like you were saying a few days ago?”
“I want to see the price for a chainmail jerkin, at least.”
Aaron spoke up, “Well you better not be leaving until you cast rejuvenation on me and Gary.” Aaron narrowed his eyes at me and I saw Gary stealthily looking at me from the corner of his eyes.
I laughed, “Calm down, I won’t leave until I can cast on you both.” I spent most of the next hour chatting with my team and eventually headed out to the market after Gary and Aaron were appeased. Zack found a chainmail jerkin for fifteen silver that he purchased along with a thick tunic to wear beneath it. I bought a cheap short sword on the way back to the adventurers guild since I had been wanting to learn how to use some other weapons while I had the chance and a replacement shield for the one I broke the last time I was out with my team. The next few days passed similarly as I split my time between training with my team and talking with some of the other adventurers staying at the adventurers guild. Most of the adventurers I spoke with were only level two or three and only hunted the dungeons right at the edge of the bloodfields. I enjoyed learning the short sword a bit after Gabrielle showed me a few of the forms that another adventurer taught her while we were in the city previously. I was still planning on using my short spear when we left for the bloodfields but I felt that learning the basics of other weapons would help me learn how to fight against the variety of weapons that the Awakened hobgoblins had been using.
“So I know we’ve talked about it over the past few days but we need to come up with a decision now so we can let John know if we’re joining his team or not,” Gary stated at breakfast. We had been in the city for six days now and we planned on leaving tomorrow early in the morning. “Raise a hand if you want to join them.” I glanced around briefly and raised my hand alongside Aaron and Zack.
‘All right,” Gabrielle sighed. “Are you going to show them your healing skill, Eli?”
“Only if I need to, but we’ve talked with the rest of his team, they all seemed like good guys.” I pointed out. We had been sparring with the rest of his team while we were here to understand what everyone specialized in. John's team had three archers and two warriors, which made them a lot stronger than us in an extended fight. They relied on their essence less than we did overall, although they likely had some powerful skills as well. With our decision made we set out to grab a month's worth of rations for 5 silver from each of us. John had recommended we plan for a long expedition, although we wouldn’t know how long we would end up staying in the bloodfields until we were there. I checked my status to see the progress I made during our week in the city.
Eli - Lvl 4 Druid
Experience - 2730/5000
Strength-8
Dexterity-9 (+1)
Perception-7
Vitality-8
Spirit-9
Willpower-9
Barkskin - Level 7\10 Upgradeable
Experience - 220\6400
Thornbolt - Level 5\20 Upgradeable
Experience - 240\3200
Rejuvenation - Level 4\10 Upgradeable
Experience - 290\1600
Entangle - Level 3\5 Upgradeable
Experience - 200\400