After that unexpected moment with the adventurer, Reiki felt more relieved. However, it didn’t take long for the guild’s members to register that he was here to meet the Guildmaster. As he was seated, Ephyr was explaining to him how their language system worked. After getting permission from the currently staffed receptionists to take it down to show him. The high quality paper like the one used for the request he held was rarely seen in public. At least that’s what he was told, when he’d asked just a few minutes prior, during his wait, about the differences in paper quality on the open Questboard.

‘So for this sound, I don’t do it at the top of my mouth?’ He asked, pointing at an odd shape made up of what looked like a triangle pointing to the top-left, on a hollow circle with two lines parallel to the long edge, the one furthest from the triangle shorter than the other.

The language model was a bit confusing to him, but also very intriguing. It had a symbol that resembled something akin to a clicking tone made by placing the tongue on the left, or when flipped, right side of the mouth before making the clicking noise. Some sounds were very foreign to him, to the ponit that he felt invested in learning and upgrading his Translation skill. A skill he’d briefly noticed on his personal status window.

Ephyr didn’t know much about the language, but she knew enough to teach him a few of the sounds she’d learnt during a monster raid on their borders she’d been assigned to one time. According to the brief history she’d remembered, the language is most common in a country much further west of their empire, called New Draconia. Often labelled by adventurers as “Land of Dracka”.

‘I’m guessing they speak other languages there as well?’ He asked, after counting the symbols that represented the clicking sounds.

‘Not all of them do, but yes. They have a young dragon interpreter who is rumoured to know up to five languages fluently excluding two they’re trying to learn, but I’ve never met them to confirm that.’ She said, before she noticed Aerys, Quinn and another human had appeared at the top of the right-hand set of stairs. ‘Looks like our time is up.’

She added that last part as she took the request he handed back to her and hung it back up on the Questboard. By the time she came back, the other three had made it to their table.

‘Hey Reiki, meet Ren Morrow. He’s the Guildmaster of Fruntel.’ Aerys stated, gesturing with her left hand casually, palm up, towards him.

‘Hello there, lad.’ He spoke, the subtle baritone under his chipper tone in his voice giving Reiki the impression he was a strongly motivated man. ‘I hear that you’re new here. Would you like to sign up to our guild?’

‘...’

Reiki was left speechless as the words sank in. He’d completely forgotten why he’d come to the Guild in the firstplace. Not only that, he’d soon learn that he’ll need to make and earn an income of his own to stay alive. Luckily, he had these people he could turn to for advice, ideas, and answers to any questions about being an adventurer.

‘... Uh, right. Yes, I’m here to sign up.’ Reiki stammered, as he slowly made his way across the lobby to the stairs.

Both sides were seemingly guarded with two armoured adventurers sitting at the bottom of each of the banisters. Neither stopped them, but they both gave Aerys a wave and a warm smile, which Reiki guessed he could see on her face from where he was walking. Upon reaching a room somewhere above the reception area, Ephyr and Quinn both stood outside the entrance.

‘Go on, it’ll be fine.’ Assured Ephyr and Aerys simultaneously, which they both giggled at after noticing how in sync they were.

With a final and gentle pat on his back, Reiki stepped into the office. It was roomier than he expected it to be, but that didn’t change how anxious he was at being in a room with no support to keep him calm. Then again, this was probably a side effect of him being attached to his sister, despite being a low-level “shut-in” for most of his life.

‘If you feel uncomfortable, I will allow you to bring in one of Aerys’ private escorts.’ Ren stated, as he took his place behind the desk with his back facing the slightly dimmed lighting coming in from the guild’s entrance it overlooked.

‘... Can I bring in the… um, the tiger girl?’ He said anxiously, wondering what was about to happen.

‘Ephyr? Why not Quinn?’ Ren replied with surprise, as he’d thought Reiki had wanted another male to be present, instead of a female. Then quickly reminded himself to understand that some people have various reasons for their actions and waited patiently for his response.

‘She was the one who brought me here and guided me through one of the languages I noticed on the boards.’ he said, a little quieter than he would’ve liked.

Ren noticed that he had not been sitting this entire time, having chosen to stay standing, and was displaying very obvious signs that he was anxious. Instead of gesturing to sit by the table that allowed him to look out over the entrance, he got up from his seat, directed him to sit on the sofa-like seats with the knee-high table between them. Within the time that he’d sat down, Ren had opened the door and brought in Ephyr.

‘I had no idea you were acquainted with Miss Ephy–’

‘Mrs now, sir.’ Ephyr interrupted, lifting her right hand up. ‘I’d just been proposed to prior to coming out here today.’

That was a bombshell that had surprised both Ren and Reiki into silence for a few minutes, before Ren broke it with a short congratulatory speech.

‘Uh, congratulations!’ Was all Reiki could give in response. ‘Who proposed to you?’

‘My boyfriend of four years. You’ll recognise him when I say he’s broad-shouldered and muscular, whilst also having the ability to–’ She began, quickly divulging a story that, long story short, described her fiancé and that he was a well-kept adventurer. She apologised profusely afterwards, not meaning to sidetrack the real reason for this meeting.

‘Right, thank you Ephyr.’ Ren cleared his throat before continuing. ‘So… Ree-kee–’

‘It’s Reiki… sir.’ He interrupted, quickly applying the formal title in his haste to fix the mispronunciation. ‘Like a sun ray, with a key. Ray, Key. Reiki.’ He added, giving a description for the way each part is pronounced.

‘Huh. That’s actually a cool name.’ Ren said, to which Ephyr simply nodded heer head in response to.

To Reiki himself, he could tell that Ren was being honest about his name. He noticed that Ren came across like he had a calm, courageous and outgoing yet caring personality. Before his mind could drift off, Ren returned to the matter at hand.

‘So, Reiki… How does it feel to have exposed, and potentially defeated one of the biggest political threats to our country?’ Ren asked him, leaning forwards enough to show he was being attentive but not enough to show that he was being deadly serious about it.

‘I… I don’t know. I just wanted to escape that place, but I don’t remember anything after feeling dizzy.’ He replied, then recapped his story of waking up fuzzy headed in the middle of nowhere, recalling his cover story of dead relatives through to how he woke up in Hibel, the Sister-City of the Capital, Froesé.

‘Wow…’ Ephyr exclaimed after she had heard about his little adventure.

Neither her, nor her Royal Guard colleagues had known about the conditions Aerys had gone through, but for her to be in such a delicate state causing Reiki to

‘Are you able to picture the two adventurers you’d bumped into?’ Ren asked, grabbing a shoddy looking quill and a misshapen piece of material that looked like a badly crafted piece of paper.

‘Uh, I think so?’ He replied, as he started to recall those memories as best he could from his heightened state of mind back then. ‘The man had a long jacket that came down to his knees at the back, or something like that, a thin black and red longsword on his back with some symbols on it, the woman had a… I don’t know how else to describe it, but it looked like a battle-ready purple kimono with gold hemming to me. The details might be slightly off, but that’s the best I can remember, sorry.’

‘It’s perfectly alright.’ Ren replied, as his lips curled up gently whilst jotting this all down. ‘Can you remember their name at all? I think I might know of them.’ He added, as he placed the paper down on the low table’s surface.

‘I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t.’ Reiki replied, with complete honesty.

‘It’s alright, kiddo.’ Ephyr piped up, nudging him gently with her exposed shoulder, the side with leather armour.

‘Besides, I think the king was going to give you a massively overcompensated reward for taking down a major criminal activity hotspot,’ Ren spoke, as his eyes drifted to the windows and looked to Reiki as if they’d defocused. ‘...but if anything, I think you should at least deserve the chance to prove yourself as an adventurer.’

It was revealed briefly to him after the mention of the prize, that King Malachi had also listened to his daughter and the two adventurers that Reiki had met. They’d come to agree that a young man like himself shouldn't be rewarded with various jewels, or other older standards for defeating such a large illegal act.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Instead, he’d been given the chance to see if he’d be able to handle the job of an adventurer or, if that doesn’t work out, another well-paid job. After brief consideration, he decided that the choice to be an adventurer with his current skills would be amazing to deal with. But there was just one concern of his which unsurprisingly didn’t feel right.

‘...The adventurer job, do I need to just sign up and get a card, or is there something else I have to do?’ He asked, looking Ren directly in the eyes with obvious concern.

‘You figured that out?’ The edge of the Guildmaster’s smile rose slightly alongside the raise of his eyebrows, a hearty smile grew after his brief surprise. ‘You’re the first to ask that in the past few months. As it turns out, we have a training system in place in this country of ours.’

As he said this, he got up from the sofa and went behind his desk. It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for, but it did take a few minutes. After searching through four different drawers on the left side of his desk before a cabinet on the right, he’d found what he was looking for.

‘Aah, here’s what I’m looking for!’ He pulled out an ornate device, setting it down gently onto his desk.

Reiki eye’s almost popped out of their sockets when he immediately realised what it was, his timid thought overridden by his knowledge of magical artifacts. As he stood up, Ephyr joined him by the desk as Ren turned the device around to face him. Upon closer inspection, it was adorned with a crest similar to that on Aerys’ dress he’d spotted, with a ring of variously shaped and coloured orb, crystals and gems circling between two gold rings surrounding a larger orb in the middle.

The artifact had a slightly rusty yet nostalgic feel to it that, if he asked the right question, would also include some nostalgic history behind it.

‘Is this what I think it is?’ He asked, to which Ren responded with a gentle nod.

‘Yes, it’s an older model of what we currently have to register elemental affinities. It was gifted to use by Aerys’ great-grandfather.’ He added in response, as he pulled out a bronze card-like object with two gems embedded in it from the top-most draw to his left. ‘I tap this once on the central gem to activate it, then I can deactivate it by flipping it over and tapping again. A rather crude but simple way to protect the device from being overloaded in a short amount of time.’

‘That’s incredible, how it’s lasted so long.’

‘It sure is.’

‘...’

‘Why don’t you give it a shot?’ Ren asked after the brief silence, as he pushed the device a tad bit closer to the teenager before him.

‘...Really?’ Reiki’s eye lit up with passion as he watched it get turned on. ‘How does it work?’

‘Well… In the beginning, we just had people touch different gems of each element, excluding what we now know as the Null, Void and Light elements, to measure their affinities. However, this was a very tedious method. Someone with a rather quirky personality had taken it upon themselves to develop a multi-elemental Sigil they called an Affinity Reader.’ Piped up Ephyr, as she pointed to the two white and black crystals at the top and bottom of the device, and the orb in the middle that was three times larger than the stones circling it.

‘I’m impressed you remembered that from your classes, Ephyr.’ Ren mused, with a two-clap on top of that.

‘What can I say? I had a good tutor.’ She beamed, before bowing her head slightly, but noticeably. ‘Although, it’s currently the only thing I can remember from the session of magical artifacts.’ That additional response confirmed to Reiki that they did call them artifacts in this world.

‘Wait, so there’s stuff I need to learn to be an adventurer?’ Reiki spoke, finally registering what was going on before him.

‘Yes, that is the case for everyone here.’ Ren replied quickly. ‘After all, we did have a period where people were abusing their adventurer title a few decades back, so we adopted a system that forces people signing up as adventurers to take on a slightly grueling training course.’

Reiki’s face paled a little at the sound of such a course. After all, he was hoping he didn’t have to spend ages sitting at desks or spend countless hours honing specific skills. But he was wrong. His hand he’d raised slowly retreated to his lap, clasping the other one as he stared out of the window. It didn’t take him long to work up the courage to change the topic.

‘So, I don’t know what Aerys has told you, uh, Ren,’ He started, getting the guildmaster’s attention after the brief yet not awkward silence. ‘But I have a power that I don’t think is all that common here.’

‘Aah, I read in her letter something about that.’ He threw a letter, with a freshly opened and broken wax seal, towards him. ‘Feel free to read it. She even mentioned how your unusual abilities helped with a case that the King had been trying to solve from his predecessor’s now retired Royal Advisor.’ He added, as Reiki grabbed and opened up the letter tentatively.

It described in her persiective of this gentle yet powerful green aura that emanated from him in waves of lightning. It didn’t look like they knew what electricity was, but her description was very accurate. It didn’t take long to finish reading it. It also said to let him read it right at the end, with a very heartfelt thank you for saving her life.

‘I’m at a loss for words.’ Reiki mumbled after a few minutes of silence, shifting to holde one arm up by the elbow as he started to think of how to describe her analysis of his powers. ‘The mention of my voice in her head is what I call Telepathy, and the way I moved at great speeds is just simple superspeed. I had no idea that she was lucid enough to see what I’d done before her, despite the fact that from my perspective before my mind completely blanked over.’

The two looked at him in surprise, for a good twenty seconds too.

‘What, what’s wrong?’ He asked, when he’d finally had enough of the silent treatment he was getting.

‘You see, only a tamer has the abil–’ Ephyr started, but was interrupted by a man who’d barged into the room, the door stopping just short iof hitting the wall as he was being held back by a few staff members.

‘What is it Vincent?’ The look of dread adorned his face, as a wolf-man with a half-wolf face and almost fully covered arms of fur in a sleeveless armoured vest and partially covered chainmail .

‘Sir, pardon the interruption, but a Guard just called around to let you know that the leader of that operation in Hibel has just come too and has stated where your daughter was being held!’ The young man exclaimed, causing the guildmaster to immediately stand up.

‘This meeting with you is adjourned for, Reiki.’ He said, as he abruptly apologised, put the device away and left promptly with the wolf-man guiding him away. Not without briefly stopping at the door. ‘We can test your abilities in an our or so, if I’m back by then.’ He’d added, before he rushed off.

Down in the lobby, they could hear it, but upon approaching the window they could see three guards and Kae, their General, being surrounded by a large group of adventurers who kept a big gap from them as the guildmaster strode with intensive purpose.

‘Well, that was interesting.’ Ephyr stated, as she carefully picked up the device and card, then put them back in their respectful places. ‘But as I was saying before the interruption, the last time we heard of someone sharing their mind in anothers was with a level five tamer, who had a very deep connection with their contracted critter. Shame they weren’t an adventurer, but their skill let them be entertainers for a short while until their partner silently passed in her sleep in their arms.’

He found this very impressive, but he wantedto know what the limits were to his abilities. After all, he could detect that he couldn’t read some of the minds below when he attempted to send out a psychic pulse. A mild one, due to his Telepathy only being around a level 1, but one that wasn’t detected apart from one person who immediately snapped her head up to the window. He recognised her just before his mental scan reached Princess Aerys.

‘Ephyr, I hope you don’t mind keeping this between the guildmaster and Aerys’ family, but I discovered that there are limits to my Telepathy just now.’ He stated openly. ‘There are a few men and women down there I can’t read mentally, who I think are over-intoxicated. At least that’s something I can trust you with delivering the news to?’

‘You can do that?’ She was astonished that his ability hadn’t taken a toll on him, until she looked at him.

His face had gotten a thin layer of sweat that neither she noticed nor Reiki himself knew about. She grabbed something from within a hidden compartment on her arm and hastily forced it to glow. Before turning completely towards him.

‘Your face is coated in sweat. Are you sure you’re okay?’ She asked with a hint of concern for him. ‘Do you mind if…?’

‘Uh, yeah. I do.’ He said, getting offered the material with the circular, moon-like silver glow that looked embroidered into it.

However, as soon as she let go, the glow immediately shattered into a fine and wispy dust with a sound similar to a broom sweeping glass over a rusted metal surface. Her eyes widened in surprise at the way her basic cleansing spell, from what she knew the commonly used Null spell “Fast Cleanse”, disintegrated before her eyes as he brought it up to his face and wiped the sweat off it.

’I forgot that mental strain would show up with sweat.’ He said, only to get no response for a good minute.

It took all of her willpower to not yell at him for disabling her cleansing spell, when she sensed his complete confusion.

‘You… We need Aerys in here.’ She stated, racing out of the room, to Reiki’s bewilderment.

In just a minute or so, both Aerys, Ephyr, two unnamed but apparently well-trusted adventurers and a few staff members were present to document something about him that he suddenly felt extremely self-consscious about. It was all so much for Reiki, that he didn’t bother registering what the races were of the new faces in the room. Even though he had no idea what they were, besides one of each party being human. Just as they were setting the Affinity device up on the desk, facing the centre of the roon away from Reiki, another unfamiliar familiar face entered the room.

‘Sorry I’m late! I’ll stand in as actin’ Guildmaster until he returns for a search party.’ The man said, his voice gravelly and rough, but strangely soothing. ‘So what’s this about our newcomer ‘ere?’

‘This kid–’ One of them started before he was interrupted, by the princess no less.

‘This guy, is Reiki.’ She stated proudly, as she removed a dimly glowing sigil from the back of her right arm and put it in her small bag on her waits before gesturing with both towards him.

‘Please, place your hand on the device.’ One of the staff members said, after tapping it with the activation card on a green gem on the back that he hadn’t noticed before which lit up the gems to show they they were working.

He gingerly placed his hand down as instructed on the device; fully flat against the round surface, palm and all. A brief pulse of coloured light in every gem deactivating wasn’t what had just startled him, it was the gasps of disbelief. The room was silent as they all collectively tried to work out what just happened. Aerys was going to be the first one to speak up, as her semi-active noble facade dropped completely. Reiki was overwhelmed to the point that he felt nauseous as everyone all suddenly screamed collectively. It didn’t just feel like they had screamed though, as some were releasing their magical auras which threatened to knock him unconscious with the pressure they were emitting. It was almost like they were using his Telepathy skill against him as they all yelled the words:

‘YOU HAVE NO MANA!’