Entering the mansion brought them to a completely new scene. The entire entrance hall was massive with paintings, sculptures, others pieces of ornaments. A massive chandelier hung on the ceiling. On the side and back of the hall, they could see several booth stalls with long lines in front of them. People in black and white official wear moved around. The whole thing seemed like an old-style government office which was even more bizarre considering the sheer opulence overflowing the place.
Initiates flooded the room with the entrance hall full of chaos. It seems despite Knight Rylee's rush, other groups came here before theirs and were now wandering around the hall possibly scouring for information.
Not wasting any time, they also joined in but the long lines deterred them from sticking around for long. Moving back, Noah started the discussion.
"This isn't going to work. We need to wait at least an hour before getting our turn."
"I have got an idea." Ava's statement piqued the interest of the other two. Seeing their attention was on her, she continued.
"We can be dumb and try to brute force it like the others or we can be smart and ask someone who knows their shit." Ava pointed at the office workers carrying papers on them running all around.
Noah and Shaun were on with the idea. So, the trio started looking for a good target.
They soon locked on one as the best possible target. A girl around 15-16 years old who clearly looked new on the job. She was clumsily handling the papers and was flustered by all the people moving around her.
Ava was the one who called out to her since they didn't want to scare her off and she was least likely of them to do so.
"Hey, you okay? Maybe I can help you"
"I'm fine. I can handle it." the girl shyly said trying to move out of the crowd but utterly failing at doing so.
"You don't seem to be fine. Here, this will be okay, right?" Ava said swiftly pulling her out of the crowd and then just as naturally took half the stack of papers from her hand.
"Tell me where you were going to take all this, I will help you put it there."
The girl was confused at the sudden turn of events. She wasn't able to form a coherent response, ultimately uttering a weak reply.
"Um..., The office over there, I was taking it there."
"Sure, let's go there." Ava said smiling while urging the boys to follow along with her eyes.
Both Noah and Shaun were slack-jawed at the ease in which she handled her and gave a mental thumbs up to her performance.
The girl headed towards the booth on the far side. Ava along with Noah and Shaun followed behind her.
"Are you new here? You were looking quite helpless back there." Ava continued the conversation.
The girl tilted her head a bit and blinked her eyes not able to gauge the intentions behind the questions.
"I am. It's only been a week since I got the job here. It took a few years to get my Scribe Profession to decent LVL. I was also quite lucky to get the job here." She answered Ava.
The trio's ears perked up instantly hearing her words.
"Oh, is that so. You must be quite lucky then, mm-. Right, I didn't get your name? Just so you know, my name is Ava." Ava continued prodding at her to get more information.
"My name is Nephra. Um, do you know why are those two following us?" The girl named Nephra whispered to Ava looking cautious pointing at Noah and Shaun.
"Don't worry about those two. Those are my friends Noah and Shaun. Hey, you two. This is Nephra." Ava reassured her while introducing the girl to the boys.
"Hi, Nephra"
"Nice to meet you"
Both of them greeted her with a smile which she reciprocated with a shy smile.
"Nephra, you said something about your Scribe Profession. Can you tell us more about that, you may know who we are. We are visitors so we don't really know much about Professions." Ava softly said letting her understand what she wanted.
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Nephra suddenly stopped in her steps also making the entire trio halt.
"Neph?" Ava said nervously wanting to know if she said something wrong for her to suddenly stop.
Then, all of a sudden she jerked her head up to look straight at Ava. She was taken aback because Nephra was glaring at her with anger. Before Ava could question her, Nephra erupted in anger.
"So, you just wanted something from Nephra. That's why you helped her." She said while putting on what she thought was an angry face. Though to the outsiders, it was something else entirely. She was just puffing her cheeks out while pouting. Coupled with her strange way of speaking, she could probably threaten a puppy.
The boys wanted to laugh at the cute display but they were also a bit disappointed because certainly, this case was hopeless, they had to look for someone else now.
"Well, that is true. I helped you because I wanted to get information." Ava said seriously.
Nephra became angrier at the admission. She was tired of people being friendly with her just because she was useful to them. She wasn't some tool and Nephra would tell that straight to their face. She was about to excuse herself but Ava cut her short.
"But that is only the partial truth as I would have helped you regardless. After all, I couldn't just leave a cute girl looking helpless all alone." Ava declared with a bright smile directed at Nephra.
Her face became blank. The sudden reversal caught Nephra way off guard. She started fumbling with her words before hanging her head in embarrassment.
'Nice save' Both boys thought seeing how she turned the situation easily.
Though that was because of how innocent and naive Nephra was. She was just a kid who didn't seem to have much experience with people despite her intuition.
"Shall we move now, the papers won't deliver themselves to the office." Ava said seeing how flustered Nephra was.
Nephra nodded meekly and then moving on. She wanted to just get away from the awkward situation she was in.
The group of four moved silently for some time before Ava restarted the conversation.
"So, can you help us know more about Professions, Neph?" Sometime in between Ava started addressing her with a nickname. Nephra though was busy thinking over her words and therefore didn't notice it.
"Sure." She said softly before taking a deep breath and started explaining.
"Professions are umm, they are sort of like normal jobs but they provide extra benefits from Akasha. One gets a Profession unlocked after repeatedly practicing activities related to a Profession. Like a Blacksmith forging weapons, a cook making and serving food, a tailor making clothes and a Scribe making and handling records and paperwork. All of you get that much, right?" Nephra confirmed if they were following when the trio responded with a nod. She then continued her explanation.
"People generally hire those who have high Profession LVL and those who have advanced Professions have high status. There are few grades to Professions with rare ones offering more stats and better Skills. Normal Profession includes Farmers, Workers, Miners and others like that. Rare ones include Apothecary, Artificer, Cook, Scribe, Blacksmith, Craftsman and many others." She then looked upwards recalling some information in her distant memory.
"I don't know the exact difference between them. Mom says it has something to do with the complexity of Profession but she also said no two Professions are exactly the same and even Rare Professions have ones which offer better stats." Nephra finally concluded having said all she knew about Professions.
"Do you know where we can learn those Professions?" Ava asked the question of the hour.
"Well, generally, one can learn Professions on their own but it is very slow and inefficient. Instead, it is better to go for apprenticeship since the masters will help the apprentices and makes leveling Professions much faster and less frustrating." She answered before pointing at the booths.
"Lucky for you, counters have been set up in the hall for visitors especially. You can go to any booth and choose which Profession you would like to pursue. They will then register your identity and hand you an appointment letter along with a map to where you would be learning and practicing your Profession."
The discussion went on like this for a bit where they asked about other things they were curious about. Like how those who specialize in Profession are called Civilians and those who pursue their Class after the Rite are called Professionals despite the obvious irony.
When asked about it, Nephra mentioned that each evolution unlocks an extra Profession Slot and since Classes provide more Records compared to Professions, therefore Professionals evolve much faster in earlier stages. In conclusion, Professionals have more number of Professions than Civilians in general. This is the reason why Professionals have a much higher status in society compared to the average Civilian.
Gradually, the topic of conversation shifted from formal talk about Professions and Evolution to casual talk about their daily lives along with friends and family. She made quite an amazed face hearing about their past lives and all the devices and technology they used.
"Those technology you mentioned sound a lot like magical items that Artificers make but you mentioned they didn't use mana. So, were they something like the Engineers I heard about in the Capital?" Nephra had quite a thoughtful look on her face pondering about the technology and other devices but the trio could only see a cute face mumbling some words.
In this manner, they went about from one booth to another till all the paperwork was distributed. It took them about 15-20 minutes to do so and they very much enjoyed each other's company. The trio was happy to know more about Akasha and Profession while at the same time befriending her whereas she was happy to know about the visitors and their world along with making three new foreign friends.
"I would like to meet you again sometime soon." Nephra smiled at the trio.
"Same here" Ava replied with a smile.
"We will visit soon." Shaun had a fun time knowing the cheerful girl.
"You can maybe introduce your family to us next time." Noah also enjoyed their time with her and would be happy to visit her again.
The trio stood and waved their hands while Nephra went about her work.
"Shall we move now?" Ava asked the other two when she was gone from their sight.
Nodding, they went straight to the booths.