Adventurers, mercenaries in basic terms, but more restricted in their official conduct. They say they are free, able to do what they wish with little regard to authority, but if they break a certain set of rules, their life seems to crumple.
Adventurers are managed by the 'Adventurer's guild', who holds a monopoly. Though you may ask; 'How could the god's allow such unfairness?', the answer is obvious; They support the adventurer's guild's monopoly, they're probably the cause too.
You can tell by just looking through the common books, in fairytails, whenever the adventurer's guild is at the final breaths, doesn't it seem like a god always bails them out?
Yes, you can be an adventurer outside of the guild's influence, though almost no one would actually request some no name if they can get the guarantee of the guild instead. So you need fame, which you get through requests, but you almost never get requests if you're not a part of the guild.
And the adventurer's guild has rules for it's members, even outside of the job. Now, if you don't follow those rules, your life is over. But if you fear those rules, then you're bending to authority.
Now, can you really tell me adventurers are truly free?
-Exerpt from 'Adventurer's, those who call themselves free.' Written by 'Lucaric Ba'alhos', the mad god.
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Andrew stood with his father and other children that had recently gotten their class, standing in front of a hole with the elders of the cult.
It was first come first serve, and the cult was an early bird.
And more importantly, they didn't feel the need to tell glorified immigrants of their discovery.
Andrew was estatic as he felt the dense ambient mana radiating from the hole. Though others weren't so happy
"I wanna go home!" One of the children whined, obviously picking a combat class, not for power, but for prestige.
But Andrew wasn't like them, he wanted to see a real monster. Not one of those animals that evolved into a monster, a real dungeon monster that defied all reason and would almost certainly never appear in the natural world. After this, his mother could no longer reasonably say he wasn't ready to practice his magic. It was so exciting!
Just then the elders appeared, they were not ragged old men who had been degraded by time. They were in their mid 50's to late 60's, except for the great elder who looked as if he was 50-ish but was about 70~ due to his high level. Andrew had heard he used to be an adventurer, but retired to be the great elder of this fringe branch.
The great elder turned to Andrew, and walked closer "Are you the kid with a {Rare} class?" After a pause, Andrew nodded. Hearing this, the great elder smile "What type?"
"Uh... A {M- A wizard type." Andrew almost messed up by saying {Mad wizard}, which was a no go, saying that you were using a Madness class. was a big no go, unless you were in a place which was certainly closed off to all but church members.
"It's quite rare for a rare class to appear in such a small place," The grand elder said with a smile "You're quite lucky that I'm here, I've chosen to take you in as a disciple."
"-What?"
"You see, with the coming of the dungeon, we elders have chosen to nurture talents by appointing them as disciples." The grand elder explained patiently.
Andrew paused "My mom wouldn't like that," His mother kept telling him not to use madness-based magic ever since he had gotten his class "Don't you use... Y'know..."
The grand elder immediately frowned "And here I thought that I got it through her thick skull..." he whispered to himself, and then sighed "You don't have a choice, and your mother is a dullard and a half-wit who's only allowed to be here through you father." He got irritated at the thought of Andrew's mother and chose to just over power the child with the power of being overleveled.
So the grand elder picked up Andrew by the scruff of his neck and walked towards the hole and then descended it's stairs with the other elders following tow a bit later, having used normal manners of negotiation to convince their chosen child.
When the child and middle-ish-aged man entered the first non-stair area, he put Andrew down and started to talk as he readied a basic spell "Kid, I'll tell you something, your mother isn't a real member of the cult, or even the church. She is still caught up with the propaganda that madness drags the user into lunacy, that used the mad god as an example. But I'll tell you now, as long as you use madness correctly; You will be able to surpass any other in the same rarity and level."
He snapped his fingers the moment he saw something within the darkness, having
The moment it made contact, the balance of water and fire collapsed, and a sudden and violent release of steam followed in an explosive fashion. Said slime died without any struggle or pain "That was done with 2 MP, and it was extremely easy too. It wasn't even what I'd consider true madness magic, since it wasn't the control of madness mana, but the post-cast mixing of mana to cause a madness phenomena."
Andrew did not pick up on the second sentence as he felt an intense sense of confusion 'What happened, why can't I see?! What was that flash?!' You see, when as sudden intense light appears when your eyes are adapted to complete darkness, and a child was too stupid to look away and too slow to close their eyes. In such cases one may burn your retina "AAHHH!"
"Stop overreacting," The elder said as he tapped Andrew's head with a mix of healing mana and lightning mana which slithered through and into his eye sockets. The lightning mana paralyzed the nerves to numb the pain, while the healing mana fixed the retina "All better."
Andrew found his eyes no longer screamed in agony, and that his eyes were alright.
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While Andrew was getting to his senses, literally, the grand elder thought that it'd be nice to actually have a light source so he quickly made some light mana and cast the beginner spell 'Guiding lantern'.
Now, what Andrew came to was the grand elder and him standing in a cavernous room with a white ball of mana looming over the former, which lit up the room "Sorry kid, I'm used to the people accompanying me having a skill that protects eye sight, or the sense to close one's eyes in the face of intense light."
"What... What did you just do?"
The grand elder stated clearly and matter of factly "I put a ball of water mana around some fire mana and it mixed as it made contact with the slime, which is often referred to as post-cast madness, it is a 'Post-cast steam spell' that was created and spread by the mad god and is commonly used as an entrance into Madness based magic, and is often referred to as 'Gas chamber'-" But then he realized that Andrew knew nothing about this "It was magic, a madness spell specifically."
"Now come on, stop dawdling, I have an expedition to expedite." He said, after which he started to walk down the other stairway within the room. Andrew looked around, and then choose to follow behind. Though he knew it was stupid to follow a stranger, the grand elder wasn't a stranger and more importantly; My only light source.
One might think; 'Can't Andrew use fire mana to create a torch or something?' Well yes, yes he can. But it will last for a small amount of time due to his low mana regen and mana pool, and the fact that it wouldn't be a spell without something to maintain it inside it's structure would also make it far worse. And fun fact; Andrew liked to see things and not be practically blind.
Since the grand elder put little haste in his step, it took little time for Andrew to catch up with him.
Though Andrew didn't really know what to say, walking down a stairwell within a cave isn't the greatest of conversation starters if you ask me.
But the grand elder was a master of words, and could think of something to talk about, even in these trying times "Today you'll just be watching me as I investigate the dungeon, you will not be in any kind of combat scenario unless something... Less than savory happens. I'll make sure to tell you what I'm doing and try to explain why I do things, since I find it obvious your mother didn't tell you, since she's a coward and a fool. Do you have any questions to anything that may interest you?" Perfectly putting the pressure of the making of ideas to another, and also making it very easy to do so, lowering chances of complaints about it too!
Andrew thought for a moment "If madness doesn't cause insanity, then why does mom think that?"
"Propaganda."
"What's that?"
"Propaganda is... How should I put it in terms you could understand... I'll give you an example; If you were constantly told that drinking water was bad for you, thousands of books, preachers at every block speaking about how water is evil, so much that even if it isn't the truth, you start to believe the lie. That's what happened to your mother, she had lies forced down her throat, and if she didn't believe, her parents wouldn't take care of her. A total power imbalance, making it completely irrelevant if it were factual or not."
"That actually happens outside? How barbaric are masses?"
"Oh, we did it to you as well. If you couldn't tell, you speak differently than the kids from the caravan, right?"
"Yes, they do speak coarsely."
"Well, that's because the cult advocates for a refined form of speech due to it being included in scripture- You haven't accepted the mad god's bounty yet, yes?"
"Well, no, I haven't. My mother stopped my father from letting me accept it."
"Damn woman, ruining a young talent..." The grand elder cursed once more, softly "The mad god's bounty has a certain 'Bounty' which gets stronger by following 'Scripture', and said scripture commands you to speak like we do, somewhat like nobles of the empire. It's not that they're crude, it's that your standards are refined. And this is somewhat of an application of what happened to your mother, though not nearly as insidious as what she was subjected to when she was a young'in."
"That sounds..." Andrew thought of the correct words "Immoral, why do we let them do that?"
"We, as I understand it, let them trick the populace because they're stronger then us if they work together, and we don't want the masses muddling the church or the cult with their mediocrity. I don't buy that we can't stop it if we really didn't want them to," Though the grand elder would've liked to continue speaking, he saw the staircase end and show another room "I'll talk more about this later, just silently listen to what I tell you."
The grand elder hastily descended and entered the new room with his light "First, it's essential that you use at least three scouting skills the moment you enter a room when it's the first expedition of a dungeon since you shouldn't pre-fire. Second, after you've scanned the entire room for hidden monsters you use an inspecting-type skill that tells you about the monsters in said room, I'll be using
The grand elder could perfectly see the few slimes in the room and had already gotten their information, which he would look at after he killed them. He put shot out two small balls of fire mana, spinning inwardly at great speeds, and also quite a bit as a normal ball. Both hit their targets spot on, exploded, and killed the two slimes instantly.
"Now, why do you think it's important for you to learn the manner in which you should get information on a dungeon?"
"To share it with the cult if I find a new monster on a lower floor?"
"No; To sell it to the adventurers as a fellow adventurer, or say it in a, fake, drunken haze to integrate into the community or something. The cult, and the church overall gets a quarter of it's converts from retired or up-and-coming adventurers, so we are highly intertwined with that community, even if most adventurers don't know that. So information on dungeons is a vital tool to fit in. Now, I'll show you what these slimes are."
Variant AB slime Common
A slime variant with increased endurance to both magical and physical attacks.
Weakness; Aspected and magical attacks.
Variant C++ slime Common
A slime variant whose magical forces, that kept it together, were gifted with an improved scheme and was far more condensed too.
Weakness; Aspected attacks.
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"Wow! That's amazing!- The fact that you think I care about the specific details on a weak-ass slime, I'd rather you tell me about where the most nuclei appear." An adventurer told to Andrew, who followed the grand elder's advice on integrating into adventurer society, yes, from the response you could see it failed.
The grand elder did not honestly think there would be many slimes, they were usually used by a dungeon as newbie fodder, and there were almost never enough for any sort of proper hunting for slime nuclei even if they were valuable. But after the hidden tunnel had been found along with the great expanse of slimes had been found, the adventurers lost any interest in finding the core.
Slime nuclei were very valuable due to their scarcity, and are usually seen as; 'The way a new adventurer launches themselves from copper to bronze.'
While there was only one common core, there were a potential for thousands if not hundreds of thousands of nuclei just waiting to be mined.
One core for one man, many nuclei for all adventurers. The adventurers were obviously happy with the money, though it does seem the nuclei aren't appearing as much as in other dungeons, on par with the amount of slimes there were.
Though he failed, Andrew was not that sad, he'd rather grind skills instead of leveling with low-level slimes.