"Astoria is in grave danger and those guys are responsible for it!"

"...."

There was a deafening silence in the room. Everyone was expecting something but this was not it. The facial expressions of each member vastly differed. From the blank face of Jasper to the shock of Jasmine and the interest of Leon.

For some reason nobody dismissed it as a joke, Jaspers's reaction was given but Jasmine's expression was drastically different than what he expected. She was sweating and had started chewing on her nails, she would have started phasing around the room if it wasn't for Leon who gently placed his hands on her shoulders and soothed her.

"Calm down, let's hear him out first. He didn't even say what it was and you are already panicking."

"Uh.. Jasmine, are you okay? It's not like I'm hundred percent sure. It's just an observation"

"Don't worry about it Darrick, you can continue. I'm interested in your reasoning for you to come to this particular conclusion." Leon said with that same curious expression. Before Darrick could start a bell rang and the door opened to the room.

Five people stepped inside the room with plates, utensils and such things in their hands and placed them on the table in front of everyone per distribution. Then came ten more people with the food they had ordered placed on their hand with one person leading them who didn't have any of the food plates in his hand.

The presenter gestured for waiters to place the food and was about to start his explanation when he was interrupted. Leon raised his hand to gesture to them to stop doing whatever they were about to do, the presenter gave a deep bow and following everyone gave a deep bow and left the room, elegantly.

Rich thing. None of my concern, my concern is only the food.

"As I was asking, can you continue?" Leon asked politely.

"So my reasoning is a bit farfetched but it does make sense in my mind so bear with me even if it's nonsense." Darrick cleared his throat and started recounting. "This starts with the black market or Jimmy's stores to be exact."

"Do you guys remember when I said a stench assaulted my nose when I walked past the customer before us? That same stench was on these two mages. One thing I noticed is that the stench I'm talking about isn't a stench at all! It's a kind of how I sense the magical power of some people."

"You sense some people's magical aura differently than some other people?" Leon asked. Darrick did not expect any questions from Jasmine about how she reacted earlier and how she had started eating.

"I do and that's not important. What I inferred from this is both of them are connected to that woman who shops dangerous things in the black market while they are connected to the government."

"Are you implying that the square devices she was ordering are dangerous weapons? Jimmy himself explained that it was the newest untested and unknown devices that arrived there so it was yet to be appraised and you know what they are?"

"Yes, I'm implying they are dangerous. I know about that bomb from its head to tail. The model, the power, the range and the lethality it has, considering all that I'm sure that's a very dangerous weapon which should not enter Astoria no matter what but she casually ordered hundreds of them. What could its purpose be?" Darrick questioned and gave a little pause to stuff some food in his mouth.

"That's... I understand that but what of it with the mages?"

"If someone wants to destroy Astoria so bad would they stop at just bombing? They would aim for more destruction and the only thing I can think of for now is dungeon flooding."

"Your theory checks out somewhat, although it's a bit of a stretch but if everything else checks out then... Hmm. Those two mages are not clearing the dungeon so the goblins overpopulate and break out and there is probably more of doing the same thing in different dungeons. Very interesting." Leon stroked his chin as he contemplated the situation more.

"But the counterpoint is how have the authorities haven't found it yet? If this is actually as big as I think it is then someone would have noticed but that doesn't seem to be the case."

"Yeah, just some random spies won't work either. They have to be so much more thorough than that. That magic scent or sense or whatever was the only factor you have that helped you distinguish them from others but..."

"If the authorities are infiltrated we can't do anything about it on our own like filing a complaint. We will get caught and die in the middle of the night out of nowhere."

Then all of a sudden Jasmine who was eating to calm her nerves intervened and said,

"All this is a very big leap in logic according to me. It's not like there is only a government intelligence force in Astoria. The Caladric Academy, the Royal family, nobles, the back alleys and the sword branch. There are so many big shots here and I don't think someone would have enough manpower to infiltrate all of this *and* manipulate the situation."

"That's fair too but there is definitely something going on and we have to do something about it," Darrick said with determination burning in his eyes but his listener, Leon was attending to Jasmine.

"Have you calmed down? Do you need something else? Should I order more?"

"No, it's okay. I think I'm mostly fine now. I didn't think it would act up now and with that, the possibility of that future is a little more certain." Jasmine's ears were drooping low with whatever thought she had in her mind.

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"So why were you so freaked out when I said that the Astoria is in grave danger?" Darrick asked curiously. The other three looked alternately between each other's faces and nodded to each other. It was Jasmine who opened her mouth.

"There is no point in hiding it, you are a trustworthy person so please keep it a secret." She looked around like someone would listen in and said in a low voice. "The Astoria's destruction is set in stone but it was not supposed to be this early. To answer why I freaked out, it's because I have a compulsion in case of a large number of prophesized deaths happening soon."

"What in the actual fuck! You can't just whip out random things out of nowhere! I, I barely lived here and you are saying this place is set for destruction. Can we do something to stop it? We should do something like finding the bombs and identifying those people."

"If this was the destined destruction we can't stop it but this seems too early for it so we can try something," Jasmine said.

"No! It's none of our business to put our heads in the places where it doesn't belong. It's going to be very dangerous, so much so that even the stronger mages will be occupied and you want us to do something? That's just a dream." Leon instantly denied the idea of doing something rashly as rushing to do stupid things.

"Do you want to let so many people die for nothing? I'll regret it afterwards that we could have done something to help but didn't because we were scared. Is that what you want Leon?" Jasmine questioned Leon angrily.

"What I'm saying is, is it worth it to put ourselves in danger for strangers? When this whole fiasco seems dangerous enough harm ***us****."

"We don't need to rush in, we can investigate them so we have enough evidence to inform trusted strong mages so all this can be prevented. We also live here so it's not like we will be suddenly safe out of nowhere. How about we do that?" Darrick butted in the talk which was dangerously on the verge of turning into a quarrel or even a fight.

"Do you think they would just reveal themselves so we can investigate everything? They are thorough enough to infiltrate some of the big shots and you expect us to do what? Don't try to become a hero Darrick! It's really not worth it." Leon questioned in contempt about the stupidity of the suggestion.

"I di-"

"Everyone please shut up!" Jaspers's voice halted the conversation to a complete stop.

"This is turning something unproductive and ruining my dinner so plan about it at a later date but for now leave that as it is and eat your food calmly," Jasper instructed everyone calmly and the three started eating food calmly as an awkward silence permeated in the surrounding.

"So.. Uh... That... Oh yeah! I was about to ask some questions about what you talked about before but the conversation was moving too fast so I couldn't and we also need to talk about what was lacking in our preparations." Darrick broke the silence with the determination to get some answers and others nodded to start the questioning.

"So what I wanted to ask was about the advancing to Tier 2. How do you do that?"

***

It was almost nearing midnight with how slowly the group ate as they talked, in about an hour it would be 12. It was ridiculously slow but that was how it always was in movies so Darrick couldn't complain.

But still... I mean I gained a lot of important information and an expensive meal, really really expensive meal. Today was so fun although it was a close call for me but my work isn't done yet for today.

Darrick sat on his bed up straight and said,

"System, show me the profile."

With a small ting sound the system panel was visible in front of his eyes. The timer of 4 minutes and 11 seconds was ticking down but Darrick dismissed it like it was nothing important.

Profile:

Name: Darrick Vental (unknown)

Level: 9(unknown)

Age :17(unknown)

Race: Human(unknown)

Title: Emissary of creation(unknown)

HP: 75

MP: 225

Strength: 09

Stamina: 09

Vitality: 11

Dexterity: 17

Intelligence: 12

Mana: 15

Unused stat points: 13

Spell sigils: Imaginary(Ready for the evolution)

Spirit contracts: None

Alchemy sigil: None

ME sigil: Unknown

Darrick examined his profile from the top to bottom to see everything new on it. There were many changes in the panel that showed Darrick's growth throughout the day. The first thing he noticed was the level.

What in the actual hell! Five levels in a single day! I expected it to be level 9 when Leon said I'm on the cusp of breaking through to Tier 2 but seeing it live is crazy. It's also understandable since I killed a shit ton of them. Victim to the flames, haha.

He hadn't checked his profile since he put the stat points in strength and stamina but now that he could, it was raised by one on each stat. The stat was looking good but the unused stat points looked way better.

"13 stat points! That's just a dream come true! I can make at least two stats reach twenty now but that's probably not the best option I think. Let's think about a bit more."

How did I get 13 points from five levels? Nine points for level 5 and one for the next four? That's not impossible but five points for level 5 and two next four seems more logical. But that brings the question about previous levels' stats. Where did three levels worth of stat points go? I only had two and that does not make sense with the current calculation. Hmm, whatever.

Darrick dismissed whatever doubts he had because that wouldn't answer his question but only waste his time as the timer was still ticking down so he decided to think about where he should put those stat points.

"Three points for dexterity and that will be twenty so I can leave that aside for a while. Ten points remain." He eyed the stat panel and saw the mana stat. "You will also get three points. If only had a bit more I wouldn't have needed to use up my life force. Then seven more to go."

"One in strength, stamina, intelligence and vital- Wait what?"

When he eyed his vitality it was the same as before but the HP was a lot different than what he remembered.

Wasn't that 110 before? How does that randomly decrease like that? This is a system scam!

Then Darrick remembered Jasper's words that almost 30% of his life force was spent and when he did the math it was clear that his HP was also decreased by that same scale.

Maybe it was not random. So my life force is the HP and it's not how much health I have left? That's interesting but nothing to worry about. I have a sure way to increase my life force, how good is that? Haha. I love the system.

Because his life force had taken a hit he decided to put the remaining three points in vitality to make it seem how it was before as it should be 15 now. He tapped on each stat and increased them accordingly and spent all his points. Like last time it started buffering with the text buffering. Now only thing left to check out was the last part about the sigil evolution.

He was about to click on it to see what it meant by 'ready for the evolution' but before he could do that it disappeared. The timer had hit zero and the profile function had been disabled. It was now unavailable for almost an hour since it was just past eleven.

"Fuck you, system! Why are doing it to me? I swear it hasn't been 4 minutes since I opened the panel. Show it back. please..."

The system was unresponsive. Darrick cursed some more and shook his head as he couldn't wait till midnight to open it again so he just mumbled tomorrow and fell asleep immediately.