Under the blistering sun, a building was being made. There was nothing special about it. It looked similar to the buildings around the neighborhood. However, this building was completed in less than a day.

In fact, it only took an hour to complete. Not only that, the building was exactly the same as it was in the blueprints. All measurements were made perfectly. It was so perfect that one would have thought it was the blueprint granted life instead.

A group of shocked construction workers stood quietly at the scene. The original task was merely to have a low level adventurer help with carrying materials to the construction site. Along the way, one of the workers got injured. To think that the very adventurer that took up the request immediately replaced the worker and started working at demonic speed.

It was so shocking that the rest of the workers just stood there, mouth agape at the scene that happened before their very eyes. Even after it all, the coordinator just stood there stiffly, pen in hand unable to pen down the grade for the task he posted on the guild request board.

A slightly fatigued but satisfied Braiten looked at his handiwork once over. The faint glow of a non-elemental magic rune that increased his speed floated around Braiten as he moved quickly inside and around the house to make sure everything was perfect. This perfectionist streak of his was something he attained when his parents disappeared.

It was what he used to cope with the stress of suddenly losing his parents. It was through losing himself in the act of doing and the feeling of attaining mastery that he was able to drown away his sorrows. To this very day, just this act of doing was able to keep him in a very joyous mood for a while.

As he once again appeared before his employers for this task, the coordinator finally regained his wits. The document immediately gained an extra ‘A’ on it. The original reward of five silvers was immediately doubled to ten silvers.

Upon completion of tasks, adventurers were graded by their employers from A to F. An F grade meant that the adventurer failed utterly and quite severely at that. It also meant that the adventurer’s guild had to compensate the employer for the damage caused. This results in serious consequences to an adventurer’s career. An E grade meant that the adventurer failed, but no compensation was needed. A D grade meant that the task was fulfilled, but it was shoddily done and barely passable. A C grade meant that the task was well-completed, but was not considered exemplary. A B grade meant that the task was completed thoroughly, but was within the bounds of the task. An A grade meant that the adventurer had gone over and beyond expectations in completing the task. It also requires employers to give additional rewards to the adventurer.

Usually, the additional reward given is an additional five percent, nothing as drastic as doubling the reward. Furthermore, B grades were more common place as employers did not need to give additional rewards. This also meant that the minimum completion of tasks to rank up as an adventure is from the number of B grades obtained. 2 C grades equates to a B grade, and 4 D grades are worth a C grade result. E and F grades are counted as failures so they are naturally not counted towards promotion of adventurer ranks.

Braiten took the task report and reward from the coordinator’s hands happily as he gathered the other four task reports to double check that everything was in order. The coordinator had tried to convince Braiten into joining their construction company just as the previous four employers tried to entice him. However, he gently refused and thanked the coordinator for having him help out. With that, he went on his way with a bounce in his step towards the United Guild building.

***

Ten minutes later, a happy Braiten walked into the United Guild building. Wiatt was staring at Braiten with a strange look on his face as Braiten bounced all the way to the receptionist’s counter.

Accepting the papers from Braiten, Wiatt started to freeze upon seeing the reports. Soon, he stood there with a face not unlike a Haniwa statue. A much less drunk Dashurie coincidentally came out of the backroom and upon seeing Braiten and the frozen Wiatt, she took the papers off Wiatt’s hands and began to ruffle through them. Slowly but surely, she froze and her expression was exactly the same as Wiatt’s.

Seeing the strange looks on both faces, Braiten broke out of his joyous mood and asked while laughing inwardly at his two senior's reactions, “What’s wrong? Are you two feeling alright?”

That immediately broke Wiatt and Dashurie out of their stupor, to which Wiatt began hurriedly, “No, no. Everything is alright. It’s so absolutely, perfectly alright that I am shocked that you had A rank for all of your first requests. What kind of mons-…”

Dashurie interrupted Wiatt with a smack to the mouth and just said, “Well done, keep this up. If you go on like this, you’ll be a fine adventurer one day.”

Despite knowing that he had overachieved, Braiten decided to just go along with the flow and let himself get back into his elated mood, bouncing up and down a few times. This earned a couple of questioning looks from the two in front of him.

“Is there something you’re happy about, kid?”

Wiatt’s voice interrupted Braiten’s mood.

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“Huh? Oh, it’s just that it’s good to finally get some work done,” Braiten quipped as he returned to his happy mood and took out the papers that contained the next tasks that he was supposed to complete.  

Seeing the enthused look on Braiten’s face as he looked at his next tasks, Wiatt and Dashurie looked on with pity. Knowing of Braiten's seemingly common background, the duo thought that he must have lived a hard life and work was hard to find in the past for him. That also meant that the gold that he paid as mentorship fee was extremely hard earned. The misunderstanding deepened for Wiatt as he remembered that moment of hesitation that Braiten had before he paid that one gold.

Dashurie patted Braiten’s shoulders and told him to meet her at the guild building after sun up as she looked at him with slightly softer eyes. She also mentioned that they were going to complete as many tasks as they could regardless of the schedule with the reason that being efficient and fast is a good habit for adventurers. With that, Wiatt and Dashurie saw Braiten off.

After seeing Braiten off, Wiatt began to organize the papers and file them under Braiten’s name. Just as he was about to put Braiten’s file away, he felt something was off and paused. Then, he began taking the reports out again one by one and reading them over.

Task #1: Message Courier. Send mail to their respective owners in town.

Report: E rank adventurer Braiten successfully sent given mail to their respective owners. Additional – Urgent mail was also handled by him and promptly handed to the proper recipient. Total amount of mail – 201. Task handled within half an hour. A grade.

Task #2: Clean Public Bath. Make sure that the public bathhouse is extremely clean.

Report: E rank adventurer Braiten cleaned the public baths extremely thoroughly. Additional – Maintenance of public bathhouse was also completed. Task handled within an hour. A grade.

Task #3…

Reading through the tasks, Wiatt’s face grew sterner. He grabbed Dashurie out of the backroom and brought her to the five reports laying at his counter.

“All of these requests require many hours to complete and it took him only four hours in total. He would have been lucky to even finish by the end of the day and he went over and beyond to complete each task with an A grade,” Wiatt said to the disgruntled Dashurie with a hushed tone.

Dashurie was highly aware of the type of quests that she had prepared for Braiten despite being drunk throughout the night and morning. Outwardly, she showed calm but she was in total shock inside throughout the whole exchange earlier. It was all she could do just to tell Braiten to keep it up. It was only when Wiatt had asked about Braiten’s odd mood that she regained her calm.

The task completion speed for Braiten went beyond what others had been able to compete with when doing similar tasks. No matter how accomplished an adventurer or mercenary was, they have never been able to complete such tasks with this degree of proficiency. This was definitely a new record throughout this branch of the United Guild. Perhaps a new record throughout the whole United Guild, even.

Dashurie just sighed as she told Wiatt sternly, “don’t mention this to anyone. Don’t even tell that kid that what he pulled off was highly abnormal. You said that the kid was talented, had potential and drive. All the preparation I did was to bring him down a notch and make him taste some hardship to test his resolve. That was all for naught. I thought he was a cocky brat seeing as you interrupted my mourning and told me to teach him ‘well’. My expectations were completely blown away and in a completely different direction. You won’t be able to imagine what I was feeling when I looked through those reports. We need to nurture this talent carefully.”

With that, Dashurie whirled around and went into the backroom. She arranged the materials she was going to use tomorrow in her equipment chest and left the guild for her home. Once she stepped out the door, her pace quickened.

‘Finally done for today... I hope that there's enough time to spends with my girls,' she thought, expecting her two girlfriends to be in the mid-coitus in a marathon pleasure session to keep their minds off their girlfriend's death.

***

Meanwhile, in Braiten’s room at the inn, several bundles of ropes lay at Braiten’s side. A large basket lay at his feet as he weaved several separators to be used with the basket.

Whistling happily as he carried out his preparations for the next day, Braiten decided to cultivate a bit longer tonight. Little did Wiatt and Dashurie know that Braiten already had plans to excel for his upcoming tasks. He hopes to gain the attention of experienced personnel and advance through the adventurer ranks quickly. After all, one of his goals was very personal and he would need all the help he could get when he transitions over to a journeyman.

===

Author’s notes:

By the way, Braiten may seem OP as shit now, seemingly high level, eternal life, magic and him getting A ranks all around. However, he’s actually not that strong. As with all xianxia, there are stronger beings lurking out there.

Hope you guys enjoy this release. Thanks for reading!

Edit (07/06/2016): Made this easier to read, hopefully.