The circus was a pretty undesirable place to work so every class that placed you there were deemed bad by the common man. The best were simple but easy tasks like [Scholar] or any administrative tasks that paid absurdly well.

These people were living extremely baseline lives: they would eat, perform, sleep, and repeat until they grew high level enough to be famous or die trying.

Much like Earth, this hope is what kept these miserable people from giving up, like a fire on a candle, but as the ghost of time crept up on them, and since appearance is key during shows, they would get abandoned and left for dead as ageing hit them.

There were some redemptions to this life, like the freedom they had; that depended on the [Circus Master] if they had one at all, but usually, a happier performer was a better performer. They had a range of skills that they could get as inherent skills, this was good as they could usually do a different job if monetary reasons demanded of it, and if they were talented they could always try to gain a self-taught skill.

As the morning sun reached its peak, Seth was enjoying a walk down to the local circus. He noted that it was deep in the city's entertainment district, yet near the closer end of the poor section. The higher levelled enjoyed their sophisticated and mannered jousting whilst the lower enjoyed a more brutish method of a tavern brawl.

This was Darters finest, beating each other up for glory and coin, truly an epicentre of fun, blood, and ambition. Here lay a circus, its wide tent filling up the area as far as the eye could see. Glittery letters covered the front sign: `A Tent Of Laughs` which was an awful joke befitting of the clownish signboard with a large clown equivalent laughing so hard it got crosses in his eyes.

Seth could immediately tell this clown show was an absolute mess, but, its performance could make up for it, so he bought a ticket from an overly happy ticket woman, and he slipped inside the folded covers of the tent.

The noise was the first thing he noticed, it was an annoyingly joyous soundtrack that was awfully repetitive and made Seth uncomfortable as he took his seat on a stool that was lacking the clutter that many others were. He waited as the circus filled up and until the torches were put out and darkness filled the tent.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys, and girls, we welcome you on a ride of excitement, if mystery, and one of intrigue. Today you shall all see what you shall never forget, tricks that plague your mind for the rest of time and freakish stuns that leave you speechless for days to come. I am your host Liam and without further ado let the performance of a lifetime, begin..."

The Blonde teen on the stage with a freakishly loud voice disappeared and thus the performance began. Seth thought such an introduction was impressive, but would they follow through on his high expectations?

No, they didn't.

He left the circus 5 minutes later, like most, and decided he was better off looking for some brawl instead of that shit show.

Where did he even begin, the lion tamer was a serious danger risk and a performer seemed to have broken a few bones. The poor guy had to be rushed off on a stretcher towards the nearest healer.

The only shred of talent he saw was that host, who despite looking so young gave him the only moments of entertainment in that entire show. Though Seth did admit that the poor performer who broke his bones did give him the most entertainment, but that didn't count, as it was accidental.

The host commanded presence, and attention and was clearly a league above his colleagues, so, why was he in such a dump? Seth looked around a bit after the show and found out that the young man's father was a gambler and the owner of the tent, who was a casino owner, needed a new host for his circus so they came to an agreement: the kid's fate was sealed.

Seth liked the guy so far, he was talented and had no large personal commitments that would tie him down. All he did have was a debt that Seth would be willing to pay if he gained a new recruit, but he still needed to check for one last thing. Where did his moral compass lay?

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Now how does a man test for morality? A wallet drop was a decent idea, but Seth thought that method was rather shallow, what he needed was a thorough test.

So, Seth came up with a fairly decent idea and enacted his test at once.

The set-up was simple: a beggar's clothing, a hat of sorts and some mud on the face. Once he was dressed up he walked over, with a hunched back, towards the side tents. He then started wandering around asking for money from the crew.

Kicking people out in this situation was a big no-no as the [Beggar] class was a strangely powerful one and had collected the right of entry to nearly every place imaginable. It was easy to level up and, for some, the dream class. You worked your own hours, though you would have to pay to join a guild which was just a union for classes and then boom, you were self-employed.

The reason they dressed so poorly was to get more donations, you did level on success after all.

And success Seth had, he was gaining money as fast as he would if he were to be pickpocketing. Sympathy was truly a leverageable flaw that Seth needed to utilise more. Morally he was fine with this as well, as he thought that he was going to rob them anyway, so hell, even better if they handed their money over themselves.

Now after joyfully collecting a side income, the main prize was down the corridor. Liam saw the beggar and winced but kept moving. Seth moved up to him and asked for some coin.

"Good Sir you could not spare a coin for me, just one will make my day?"

Liam put on an expression of disbelief and decided to offer a deal.

"Well I think we both know that you are not poor, one coin is your minutely income, so, how about I do you this? I will give you a silver coin, if, and only if, you go into that office over there and tell me if a man is inside of it. Deal?"

Oh, Seth was now extremely interested in this young man. His blue eyes and blonde hair made him decent looking and with his good vocal skills and seemingly good linguistics, he was a dangerous Bachelor that many would fight over, and, now he was also morally grey.

Perfection.

Now how would Seth win him over?

Seth moved to the office and opened the door, following Liam's instructions. He saw nobody in there and shook his head to Liam, who then hastily moved in and walked into the office.

He seemed to be looking for something.

"Where is it?" he said as he frantically searched through a desk Seth found remarkably similar to the ones his dad made.

Seth himself gave the room a good look around and saw that an ink painting was rather askew. It detailed the scenes of a waterfall and Seth found it to be calming to look at.

Such was the skill of any good [Painter].

Seth decided to first bribe Liam, then rope him in with financial incentives. "Yo, dude whatever you're looking for, that painting right there is a tad bit tilted. Could be nothing but my instinct says otherwise."

Liam stopped frantically searching through the desk and moved towards the painting which he took off and looked behind. There was a safe built into the wall, top-class stuff. Somehow though, Liam pulled out a golden key that unlocked the damn thing.

Seth was beyond stunned. `How did he get the key?` was his main query, usually they were always heavily guarded by the owner. It seemed Liam was more desperate than he thought, to take such a drastic measure whatever was in that safe was so valuable Liam was willing to put his life at risk for it.

The safe was at an angle to Seth so he could not see the content, but Liam seemed to pull only a glittering object out before quickly closing the safe and putting the painting back.

"Thanks, dude, I owe you too much to even count. We need to move though, so take a peek into the hallway and tell me if the coast is clear."

Seth obliged and checked the hallway. Some old man was coming in this direction. `Is that the Director!` Seth quickly signalled danger to his pal and they quickly hid Seth was behind a bushy plant and Liam was under the man's desk.

In he came, the door creaking as it opened. Seth behind the leaves, observed as the man dropped heavily into the chair and wheeled himself in to take a stack of papers and start marking through them.

They were there for hours, and it flowed like a sloth as the man slowly went through a mountain of paperwork. When he finished, he put the finished ones in his bag and the unfinished ones placed back into the desk. He was about to leave when he noticed his painting was leaning in a different direction.

He stopped, questioned his mind on his insanity and decided it wasn't enough to move on. But. He looked for more when he stopped looking at his desk. During this Seth was dead still, one would almost think him a corpse except for his violent heartbeat pounding in his chest.

The old man walked over and seemed to use a skill as he swept the office where he found nothing of interest. He frowned and left, not before fixing his painting's orientation.

Both young men sighed as he left, and they both crawled from their position once they were sure he was gone.

"You are a legend, my guy! Now, how about we escape then celebrate over a cold one ey?"

Seth was shocked at Liam's casual voice but quickly moved on and said something fitting of character, "As long as you're paying!"