Chapter 6: [Brass] Rank

Crimson stepped into the oversized office of the Guild Master. It was a simple room of dark wood and stone with bookshelves and cabinets lining the walls. There was a desk with stacks and stacks of paper in the center of the room, and the man behind it towered above it all.

The Guild Master was a massive Bear-Kin, and was in all ways broad. His torso, arms, neck, head – everything Crimson could see – was broad. There were massive scars lining his arms that prevented swaths of the man’s thick arm hair from growing, and the fur on the man’s bear ears was black.

He looked rather out of place surrounded by all the paperwork which dampened the naturally intimidating air such a huge guy would normally give off to almost nothing. He just looked like an adult that tried to shove themselves into a child’s desk.

Approaching said desk, Crimson stood quietly as he and the Guild Master looked each other over with piercing gazes. He wasn’t sure what the Guild Master was trying to see in him, but he was just trying to get a feeling for the man.

Crimson, taking a chance, made eye contact with the Guild Master. After doing so he had to repress a smile as the man showed absolutely no reaction to his gaze. Score one for his eyes not affecting those significantly stronger than him. He was on his way to proving that theory to be correct.

After a long moment of silence the Guild Master spoke, “While I am aware of your name, I will still have you introduce yourself after I have finished my introduction.

“My name is Lars, Guild Master of the Adventurer’s Guild – Falst Branch. In my active time as an Adventurer I was one of the titans known as the [Shield Titan] with my brother being the [Spear Titan]. I ended my active career at [Cursed Albium] rank. I am currently a Lv. 87 [Stonewall Defender] with the [Proud Knight] and [Unbound Guardian] [Sub-Class]es. My strength will go no further beyond this point, I have retired.

“Now, what about you boy?”

Crimson processed what Lars had said for a moment, no wonder he gave off such a great pressure, but at least he had the needed level of strength to back up his position.

Crimson responded, “My name is Crimson. I lack any form of [Class] or [Title].”

Lars rested his elbows on his desk and leaned forward a little for his gaze to bore into Crimson’s eyes,

“What kind of [Classes] do you want to get?”

“I am undecided.”

“Do you at least have a general idea?”

“Of a sort. I have ruled out a few ideas. I don’t wish to be any form of [Healer] or [Tank], and I lack the desire to use a spear of any kind, but aside from that I’m fairly open to ideas.”

“From the desires you’ve expressed as well as the fact that you’ve joined [Brass] rank, I think it’s fine for me to assume that you want a combatant [Class]?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to attempt to learn magic?”

“Certainly, I need to try all my options.”

Lars growled a little to himself and appeared to sink deep into thought for a moment.

“Is there any way I can persuade you to consider a non-combatant [Class] or at least a non-combatant [Sub-Class]?”

Crimson frowned in thought, “Why would you like me to consider such a thing?”

And when will I get my pay and card? He silently added.

Lars sighed, “Simply because of what you’ve been able to accomplish. You’ve been in Falst a week and a day, yet you’ve accomplished more than what should be possible for someone without a [Blessing], much more than that, you’ve accomplished something I doubt anyone without a high level [Scribe] [Class] would be able to accomplish. I personally find it to be a waste for you to not utilize your talents.

“Once more, is there no way I can persuade you to take the [Scribe] [Class] as even a [Sub-Class]? I can promise you an instant job with much higher pay than you would normally be able to access in such a short amount of time at such a young age.”

Crimson didn’t even need time to deliberate, “My apologies Guild Master, but the path I need to walk isn’t one where a [Scribe] has any place.”

The Bear-Kin grunted, “We’ll see, the future holds many possibilities, I’ll hold out hope that you will change your mind. Now, to the business at hand, here is the first thing: your guild card.”

Crimson took the card – just slightly wider than a playing card if about the same height – and inspected it closely. It was made of [Brass] and was reasonably thick. Information was carved into it like his name, his physical description, his age, and his home town, but not in that order. Considering how finely the words were carved into the card it finally made sense why making it took so long, but that wasn’t the most interesting thing about his card.

No, the most interesting thing was the mana he could feel running through it. It wasn’t a lot, but it was definitely there. It was patterned, well regulated, and it gave a…warm feeling.

“Since you have been accepted to the guild as [Brass] rank we require that you attend the various classes we have on offer, we’ll also need to arrange for a few different adventurers to work with you to help you figure out the [Class] you want to take.

“As you have expressed interest in magic I feel it best to inform you that there is no way for you to cast spells if your mana hasn’t been awoken. Some walk in here not knowing that and assume that anyone can cast spells if they want, but the truth is simple: you won’t be able to manipulate or sense mana until it is awoken.”

The Bear-Kin bore his teeth in a massive sadistic grin, “If you want your mana awoken for a magic [Class] you’ll need to pay extra. It will cost 500 Royals.”

Crimson shook his head, “My mana is already awoken, there is no need.”

Probably best not to mention that Crimson hadn’t needed anyone’s help to awaken it.

Lars…lacked a reaction aside from dropping the “smile,” but he nodded after a moment. “Very well, there are a few spells in the guild library, you may learn any you wish. If you need help, please inform us so that we may arrange for a magic teacher.”

Crimson bowed slightly, “Thank you.”

“Yes… Now, as for your pay, It has been decided that you will be paid 485 Royals for your work. To be completely honest, it’s underpaying by quite a bit, but I couldn’t get any higher amount authorized. Will you accept this amount?”

Well, even if it was underpaying Crimson only had 12 Royals left, so it would be more than sufficient. Not only that, but if he could make Lars feel like he was in some form of debt to him…

“I do.”

“Good. Since you have joined the guild it will be added to your account. You will report back in three days for the beginning of the official [Brass] class. We just had five applicants a few days ago, so we’re just waiting for their cards to be finished.”

Five applicants…

Lars continued in his thrumming deep voice, “Until then, you are free to do as you please. Dismissed.”

——

Lars watched as Crimson bowed silently and walked out of the room. He found the boy to be disappointing. To have such a profound talent as a [Scribe] yet refusing to develop it…

It frustrated Lars.

He wasn’t one to give up on something he wanted, but he didn’t hold any power or authority to allow him to make the boy take the [Class], and if he tried to force him he would be…removed. The Adventurer’s Guild wouldn’t stand for such a thing, and Lars wasn’t interested in bringing down the wrath of the Grandmaster.

Well, that was as far as direct actions he could take. As far as indirect action…he could try breaking the boy’s will. A boy his age, regardless of how unbreakable his will had seemed during their eye contact, would easily crumble when forced to work hard.

He’d quickly give up on magic – learning it without help was a level of difficulty that could make a grown mage cry, and while Lars would provide a teacher if asked, the man he had in mind would scare the kid away from magic in a day.

As far as any form of combat [Class]… he could have his brother act as the boy’s Weapon Master. He could push the kid to the breaking point without much issue. With those two options closed to him, Lars could be certain that he’d be more… willing to listen to his suggestions.

He couldn’t allow talent to be wasted after all. Well, if he was honest to himself he wouldn’t be pushing so hard under normal circumstances, but for the fact the boy was a pious believer of the gods with matchless faith to have written such a marvelous prayer.

Lars had forced himself to hold back tears with Emma in the room, but had let them flow freely when she’d left. Such a display of religious love! Oh, how Lars wished to share even a bit of his piety!

As a fellow believer and someone who tried to look out for the young [Brass] rankers, how could he let the boy go down the wrong path?

——

Crimson headed straight to the library. Since he had three days he would use them wisely. He could split his time today between the library and the training field at the guild, tomorrow he could finally go exploring the underground passage he’d found, and the third day he could use for a request at the guild.

The library was on the third floor, and he’d wanted to enter for the past week, but he’d forbidden himself knowing that he would forget the task he’d needed to do.

Regardless, the time for holding himself back was over – he could now enter the library.

Looking around, it was a simple room of the same dark stone and wood as the rest of the guild building, the bookshelves were all of a light colored wood in contrast to the dark colors and there were rows and rows of shelves with glowing crystals in sconces all over the room. To his left, there was a desk for a librarian, but there was no one behind it. No surprise, most of the guild staff didn’t report to work till after 10 and half of the Adventurers didn’t show till 11 at the earliest. It hadn’t taken long for Crimson to learn that the vast majority of Adventurers were a lazy bunch who put in the most work right before the weekend to earn their drinking money – the dungeons made things way too nice for them.

Put simply, there were two kinds of dungeons: Natural, and Godmade. Natural dungeons were the dangerous kind, the big danger with them was that if they weren’t cleared in a certain amount of time they would break open and let their monsters spill out. It wasn’t hard to imagine the result of that occurring.

The Godmade dungeons were safe. By any metric Crimson could use they were safe. If you died in one, you could respawn an infinite number of times. There was a debuff and a penalty associated with dying, but it wasn’t major in light of the fact that you spat in the face of death.

The risk vs reward was also a major thing, natural dungeons gave quite a bit more in the way of rewards, but the risk was death. Godmade dungeons had practically no risk, so the rewards were low. They were more like training grounds than anything else, but they were enough for a lazy Adventurer to get enough money to live and drink without much effort.

Falst had three Godmade dungeons nearby – Crimson knew this much from just hearsay, but a quick peruse through a book later he knew a bit about them. The first was [Goblin’s Manor], a Lv. 1 dungeon with a Lv. 15 boss. The second was the [Crystal Caves] which was Lv. 25 with a Lv. 35 Boss. The third and final one was the [Hallowed Graveyard] which boasted twin bosses, one being Lv. 60 and the other being Lv. 65 despite the dungeon being only Lv. 45.

He chuckled, Falst was well primed for having people with decently high [Class] levels, but their own fear, laziness, and disinterest kept them low. Some would die in a Godmade dungeon, and the trauma would keep them from ever entering one again, something that weeded out a lot of the dreamers who wanted to be a hero, but lacked any understanding of reality.

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Some wouldn’t ever be able to reach a high level because they were lazy, simple as that. The last group just stopped caring, these were usually dreamers that woke up, but chose not to leave their current occupation and contented themselves with bullying monsters with levels way lower than them to survive.

Overall, Adventurers were a sad lot. Fortunately, that rule didn’t hold true for all of them.

Regardless, Crimson moved on from that little mocking pity party and focused on what he was actually after for his visit: magic. He needed to understand more about how his mana could be used. He could learn actual spells later, but he couldn’t wait on learning more about his actual mana.

Crimson wandered up and down the rows of the library methodically checking the spines of every book and pulling down any with mana in the title. At the end of his passes he had a grand total of three books. They weren’t even thick, just barely passable as books and not pamphlets. Not good.

It barely took any time for Crimson to read all three, and most of the information was stuff he’d already figured out. In order: mana was a pure manifestation of magic that in its base form couldn’t interact with anything but mana.

The next thing he learned was that mana could interact with the world only once an element had been injected. That, in essence, was what a spell is.

The next piece of information was that mana was cultivated somewhere in the body, but the enlightened races lacked the ability to detect it until it left the body.

Crimson was already proof of the untruthful nature of that “fact.” Maybe it was a general rule with a “but” that nobody had noticed. Put simply, he was a rare case. Good thing he’d never mentioned to anyone that he could sense it in his own body. It could have caused trouble.

As far as the next neat little “fact:” almost everyone needed outside assistance to awaken the use of their mana.

Because of the way the system worked it was possible to use the [Magic Pool] as a source of fuel for [Skills] of every kind of [Class] imaginable, but casting magic required the ability to pull mana out of the magic pool. This essentially mean that [Skills] were impossible without the system, but magic was.

The other “normal” way to awaken mana would be trauma. The one folio that had talked about this method went on to extol the gods for their treatment of these people stating:

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“Ah! How great the mercy of our beloved gods who grant unto those who have peered into the blessed world of magic, through their pain and suffering, such great rewards! It is clear on every account that those who awaken through this way are blessed with greater [Classes] than their peers!”

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The gods had nothing to do with it. The system merely granted an appropriate level of power unto someone who had a greater experience. It was like the difference between someone who just got their drivers license and someone who was just licensed to drive a race car. On the one hand, the first just had the bare minimum amount of experience to handle a car, on the other was a person with a greater amount of wisdom and experience who had long surpassed the first in capability. Giving a race car driver a simple drivers license in exchange for their efforts make absolutely no sense. That simple.

All that aside, he refused to believe that pure mana was useless. The fact that all three folios agreed that it was impossible to detect mana within a body and that it was impossible for someone to awaken themselves without trauma made it completely clear that these so called “experts” had absolutely no idea what they were talking about and left a lot of room for possibilities.

Crimson sighed, then returned the “books” to their proper places. It was then that he noticed something that hadn’t pierced his focus during his original search: the dust. The place was absolutely coated in dust. A thick layer of it.

The tables had been kept clear, but everywhere else was void of a dusting hand. Crimson shook his head and sighed, what was the point of knowledge if it was left abandoned?

Several hours later Crimson left the library brushing dust out of his hair. He’d found a few very interesting books and had started reading one, but he’d need to come back later to check them out. The lack of a librarian had stopped him in his tracks when he’d tried to check them out and the little barrier over the door kept him from walking out with them – neat little security system, felt like walking into a wall.

Crimson headed down to the training field and grabbed a bow off the racks. It only took him a few shot arrows to realize that he didn’t like the bow. True, he wasn’t expecting to be good on his first try, but he was looking for a feeling of “yeah, this is what I wanted.” Not exactly specific, but whatever.

Crimson quietly put the bow on the rack and went to pick up the weapon he’d been putting off: the sword. He’d avoided it up to this point because it felt like defaulting to the standard if he chose a sword, but he’d put it off long enough.

He neatly lifted the longsword off the rack it was resting on and began to swing it around a little. It felt all right. He closed his eyes and focused on the sword in his hands, as he did so the feeling he got was “almost right.”

In other words, he was definitely choosing a sword, but a longsword wasn’t meant for him. He grabbed the Estoc - no. Rapier? No. Bastard sword? No. He took one look at the Greatsword and said no.

He sighed. Though there were a few other types of sword left, Crimson went to the sword he’d been purposely avoiding.

As he held the katana, a few feelings conflicted with each other in his heart. One: the feeling of “this is it!” and the other being: “you’re such a nerd!” As he started swinging it lightly around the “this is it!” feeling started to drown out the “you’re such a nerd!” feeling. Well, he’d be using a katana.

Crimson scratched his head for a moment in thought. How rare and expensive were katana? He might have to practice with a longsword as well, just in-case. That decided, he needed to figure out his back up weapons.

He’d learned his lesson during the hunt with Billy: try to match damage types. The slimes had been extremely resistant to piercing damage, so the spear didn’t work well against them, but the hammer had easily killed them.

With that lesson in mind, Crimson had a weapon for slashing damage, but he’d need some form of backup for the other two types. It wouldn’t be convenient to carry an estoc or a rapier around, so he’d need a knife.

On the racks, there were two kinds of knives that fit the bill: sais, and stilettos. He squelched the nerd feeling once more and picked up the sai first. Fortunately, he put it down quickly. While it could do piercing damage, a sais main purpose was to catch an opponent’s blade – not what he was looking for.

The stiletto on the other hand fit the bill perfectly for what he needed. The one in his hand had a bit of a blade, but it wasn’t much. Everything was focused on the tip of the stiletto. Great, just what he was looking for.

With slash and piercing damage more or less taken care of, that just left blunt damage. To be completely honest to himself, Crimson knew he didn’t care about this kind of damage too much. Was it important? Yes, but he found it hard to care when he found blunt damage dealing weapons to be so…inelegant. Yes, it was a stupid reason, but he couldn’t deny the feeling.

He tried all forms of blunt weapons in his quest to the primary weapon choice, but he’d hated them all almost as much as the spear. His first taste of the distaste was when using that hammer during the slime hunt, though he hadn’t realized it at the time.

Now, fully aware and functional, Crimson began to rationalize skipping blunt damage for the moment. He couldn’t have too many weapons on him at once – it’d slow him down. He (probably) wouldn’t have the money for yet another weapon at the end of his year’s time. Other good reasons!

Crimson sighed, he’d have to table the issue for later.

He scooped the katana up once more and began doing the traditional overhead training slash with it, but with his own little twist: he’d alternate hands. Left, right, both, left, right, both, and so on. He’d change every ten swings.

He was left handed, but it was best to start with both hands from the beginning – being able to use both hands was way too valuable.

He spent the next few hours working with the katana, working out, and just trying to get used to it. He didn’t know any proper forms and even regretted the swings he did earlier: he didn’t want to develop any bad habits.

At about 5 he stopped, rinsed himself quick, then rushed up to the third floor to “his” office to pick up his bag. His bag in hand he –with a little bit of pride in the action- went down to the lobby skipping steps on the stairs and moving quickly enough to skid to a halt in front of Emma’s desk in the now full Guild Hall.

“Emma, are you the one I talk to about withdrawing?”

“No, I’m just here for new registration, remember?”

“That’s a lie, you do other things. Anyway, how active is your position?”

“Fairly, more so than the rank advancement desk.”

“Great, anyway, who do I talk to?”

“You go to that desk over there and she can give you directions, but why do you need to withdraw?”

“Well, I need money don’t I? I’m going back to my old inn, so I need something to pay the guy with. Also, I want to check some books out from the library before I leave.”

He probably should have talked to Emma before grabbing his bag and saved himself a trip.

“Well, I can help you with the library, and you don’t need to withdraw the money. Your guild card can act like a stamp. You just press it onto the bill they give you and they can bring the bill to the merchant’s guild –we partner with them and the crafting guild- so they can receive their money.

“That, doesn’t seem safe.”

“Don’t worry about it, there are safety measures in place. Everyone knows that stealing a guild card isn’t profitable. It just brings trouble.”

Crimson looked at her skeptically. Oh, she didn’t react at all to the eye contact, nice.

“Don’t look at me like that! It’s common knowledge! Look, when you use the card to pay it records who uses the stamp as well as whether they were using it by their own free will. It can even detect mind control, hypnosis, and even when you’re being manipulated. It makes it suicide for anyone to try to steal or use by force, it’s the guild card!” She sounded like an infomercial salesman.

Crimson sighed, it didn’t seem like a perfect system, he could already see some ways to break it, but he would have to trust it for now. He’d just treat his guild card like he did his purse and call it good.

“Okay, with that taken care of, can you help me with checking out a few books?”

“Sure!”

“See, you did lie, you do other things.”

She stuck out her tongue at him.

——

Crimson flopped back down in his old room, and stared closely at the trio of books in his hands: the first was the spell [Magic Light], the second was [Dancing Autumn Leaf] which was a style that focused on single handed katana forms and a fast Iai – perfect for him. The third book was [A Basic Guide to [Classes]].

He decided to focus on the first one for the moment. It was the most needed, and the fact that he wanted to explore an underground space on the morrow just helped that justification. The fact that he wanted to learn magic had nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. Nope.

Anyway, opening the book to read he was surprised to discover that it was a story book. There were 14 different sections to it, each telling the same story, but with slightly different details and tones. Each of the sections had ten short chapters.

Crimson flipped through and noticed that each of the chapters had a different heading: [Fire], [Water], [Earth], [Wind], and so on. So, if he was thinking correctly, this spell had different forms. Since “common knowledge” dictated pure mana was useless without an element, each of the different chapters was focusing on injecting a certain element into the mana to provide light. Considering the fact that different people had different affinities for the various elements they were probably all included to make the spell as accessible to as many people as possible.

Since Crimson had absolutely no idea what he had affinities for –mana aside- he decided to go based off the color. If he put fire into it the light would be red, water: blue, and so on. So it would be best for him to choose metal since a silver light would be the most steady – assuming it was the same color as steel like he was imagining. It also matched his eyes which was a stupid reason, but he didn’t have anything better to go off.

Crimson focused on that section, started from the first chapter, and tried his best to figure out how to cast magic. The story itself wasn’t that interesting, but it did have some nice imagery. As he read he felt his mana stir a little, but as he focused on it it stopped. In a moment of realization he laughed to himself a little. Since he was so aware of his mana he’d have a difficult time learning it like everyone else did.

Apparently, they used imagery and emotion to shape their mana unconsciously, but Crimson was so aware of his own mana that it actually inhibited the process.

Now, how would he go about learning this spell? He wasn’t going to give up, but this method wasn’t meant for him. If he knew how to form mana even a little he might be able to use his own method to learn the spell, but he had no idea how to go about doing that. In a flash of genius he realized that he’d need a magic version of redneck engineering to solve the issue.

His mana HAD moved for a second there, so what if he moved it to where it was and kept reading? If it moved again he could keep it there and advance the process step by step. He could forcefully tailor the spell to the approach that regular people used.

Crimson began to read once more, and when his mana stirred he focused on how it moved, and when it settled as he focused on it he intentionally moved it back and held it there. He went step by step as the mana moved down his arm over the course of minutes eventually reaching the finger tips of his hand. His right hand – just in case he was doing something stupid.

As he reached the tips of his fingers he reached the last paragraph of the first chapter and was forced to read it several times to get the right pattern for his mana, but as he did so he felt something enter into it, like sliding a square block into a square hole on an infant’s toy. As it settled into the pattern a light appeared on the tips of his fingers and he began to laugh to himself.

The laughter became stronger and stronger – lasting for a long period of time. If he’d had any neighbors they’d have thought him mad!

Crimson didn’t care though, he just undid the spell by pulling the mana apart and then reformed it easily. Now that he knew the pattern it wasn’t difficult at all. It was helped by the fact that the pattern itself was very simple. Staring at the steel colored light he took note of the fact that even the mana felt metallic as it sat on his finger tips.

Though his laugh had stopped, his grin refused to fade as he used the illumination of his new [Magic Light] spell to read the second chapter.

He repeated the process of patterning the mana once more and after a decent half hour of work he was able to get the light floating above his palm instead of on his finger tips. The second chapter had helped him twine a rope of mana to connect him to the [Magic Light] and provide it a source of energy. If he cut the rope it would fade away after a few seconds. He could even anchor the rope to different parts of his body, so it didn’t necessarily need to be right over his palm, but at the length of rope he could form it would only be three inches away at max.

Crimson looked outside and saw that he still had a bit of time before the sun set, so he would be able to finish the third chapter and possibly the fourth at this rate. He’d just have to be careful not to stay up all night to finish all of the chapters… It would be a difficult battle against himself.

The third chapter was a fairly simple affair that helped him increase the distance of his mana rope to allow him to be a foot away from his [Magic Light]. It didn’t take him as long as he thought it would, so he went to work on the fourth chapter.

The fourth chapter was an interesting thing as it focused on movement, essentially allowing him to move the light without moving it’s “anchor.” Before, the light had been fixed relative to the anchor he’d made it connected to, but with the fourth chapter under his belt he learned how to use “strings” of mana in tandem with the rope to move it around without moving his body at all.

As Crimson watched the light spin around his head to form a halo he felt yet another rush of joy and excitement. Maybe the path of a mage was right for him?

He glanced outside and saw that the sun was setting… but it was fine, he could still finish the fifth chapter before bed. He wouldn’t have to deal with the dark anyway.

Crimson turned his attention to the fifth chapter. This one was actually a bit of a struggle for him, taking a few hours, but he was finally able to get it after some work. Chapter five dealt mainly with cutting off the [Magic Light] from its source. It was like putting a battery in a light instead of having it plugged into the wall. For Crimson, it was rather weird forming it without the rope supplying the mana, but as he learned how to create that “battery” in the [Magic Light] he was able to finish chapter five - after he’d been forced to re-read it several times. He could now make the light last as long as he wanted based off how much mana he filled it with. Just a bit and the light would go out in a few seconds, half of his remaining [Magic Pool] gave him twenty minutes. Crimson was eventually forced to stop his fun once he ran out of mana. It normally seemed so endless, but he’d never tried to cast magic before – it burned a lot of mana.

Well, it was a good time anyway, it was probably close to midnight, and he’d be getting up early like usual. He needed to sleep.