After half a day of sea travel, the boat with the two siblings arrived. Logan happily got off the boat but his sister had to be supported by him.
"Urg…" she groaned as she forced down the retching.
Yep, she has sea sickness and a very severe one at that. The first day she could barely move and vomited everything out. The sailors took out a hammock and had her sleep on that until they arrived on land.
Even so, she still had to get up and move around before getting on land which naturally caused her to have this reaction.
"Seriously, when are you going to get over being seasick?" Logan commented with a chuckle.
"Shut up." Olivia said through her groans.
Logan just sighed and let her be.
He also didn't carry her on his back or anything because she wouldn't accept it at all so he just let her support herself on his shoulder while he supported her body by hugging from behind.
He led her to a nearby bench before going to a food stand.
He got a few fruits and some water and squeezed out the juice, added some sugar and gave it to her.
After a short sniff, she drank it all down.
He then gave her a few entire fruits which helped her feel better until she gathered herself up.
She still wasn't in top shape so Logan rented a room with two single beds for them and left her.
"Where are you going?" Olivia asked.
"Going to look around. It's been 10 years so I want to have a look and maybe get some information." He said and walked out. That said, at his waist were both his swords.
The simple wooden sheath contrasted heavily against the decorated sheath of the new sword.
He left the inn and walked around. Most of the things he checked were street vender prices and store good prices as well as quality.
He naturally purchased a few things. For one, he got a book on monsters which gives basic information as well as items of value from these creatures.
When he finished he looked around and got his barings.
After figuring out where he was, he walked into the smaller streets and soon into alley ways.
When he stopped, he found himself in front of a familiar old shop and an elderly elf sat there on the porch on a rocking chair.
"It is good to see you sir." He said.
"Oh, do we know each other?" He asked curiously.
Logan smiled as he expected this and held his right hand up and revealed the brand on his hand.
The elven man's eyes widened and a smile appeared on his face.
"Child, it is you huh. To think you are almost an adult already." He said and moved his eyes to his waist and raised his brow. "Why do you have another weapon child." He asked.
"It is a gift from my adoptive father." Logan said and sat down on a chair next to the old man and told him about his life, new family and training.
The elder elf nodded with a smile. He said nothing until the end when he waved his hand in a gesture to show him.
Logan took out the new sword and showed it to the old elf.
He pulled out the sword and looked at the beautiful design but he did not openly praise it and instead looked at it from different angles.
Then, holding it horizontally, he passed his finger along the blade.
An almost imperceptible hum could be heard before he sighed and sheath the sword.
"It is a beautifully crafted eastern sword made by a very skilled smith. Sadly, this sword lacks quite a bit to become a Legend sword." He said.
"Like what?" Logan asked curiously.
"Naturally, material. Your own sword only survived the strike of lightning because it was reforged with thunder dragon bones and had a strong legend as a dragon slaying sword but this one does not have this. Before even thinking of making it a Legend sword you need to, at least, kill something equal to a thunder dragon alone with this sword. Although it is a very good sword with great compatibility with your own sword. Using a wind sword along thunder magic is indeed a smart idea of your father but that is in regards to normal swordsmen." He said.
"I see, I was wondering if it was possible to get a second sword but it seems not." Logan said but not in the least sad. The sword itself is very strong and you can't expect to make every weapon you touch a mythical artifact. One is already enough.
"Still it is a sword with potential. If you ever encounter a place with intensely rich wind mana, locate the most central area of that region and plant this sword upon the very core of the region's magical network. The magical winds will definitely gather in this sword and may very well transform the sword." He said and handed it back to the boy and asked to see the thunder sword.
Logan handed over the sword and he looked at it and smiled.
"Your bond with the sword has grown nicely over the years. It seems you have trained greatly with it." He said.
"Yes sir. When I train with it, it just feels like everything I learn is much simpler compared to when I use a different bladed weapon." Logan said.
"Of course it is different. It is no different from learning to dance from a teacher and learning to dance from a novice. The sword itself innately learns things related to itself and passes it on to you. It is still not completely conscious. When the sword is reforged by me, you will see a huge change in training afterwards." He said simply.
Logan nodded and was given back the sword.
"I never asked for your name sir." He said.
"Ah yes, that is true. It is Elas Grefir." He said.
"I'm Logan Holt McEwin." He said.
"Good, I shall remember that name so that in the distant future I can see your story to fame with this sword." He said and laughed.
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Elas gave Logan a few bits of advice before the young man left and returned to the inn.
Olivia was in the dining room much better and most signs of seasickness were already gone. After a night of sleep she would definitely be back to full health.
Logan joined her and later the two returned to their rooms and went to sleep early.
The next morning they both headed to the adventurers guild. It was by no means a small building.
It was a 5 story construction built in pyramid style. The lowest floor is the tavern and kitchen, floor 2 has the guild inn and emergency clinic for rescued adventurers brought back.
Floor 3 is a high level training facility strengthened by high level defense magic to allow really strong people to exert high levels of force.
The fourth and fifth floors are administrative floors.
The two entered from the front and headed to the right side of the tavern where the guild reception was.
"Hello, how may I help you?" The pretty receptionist asked.
"We came to register as adventurers!" Olivia replied.
"I see, the test is pretty easy." She said and crouched down under the desk and pulled up a stone tablet with a magical formation.
She took out a metal dog tag and placed it in the middle.
"Place your hand over the tag. This is a magical identification tool. For novice F ranks this tool can easily look through your entire body and obtain a comprehensive identification of your power and see if you are up to standards. If you are, the tag will be imprinted with your information and we will be updated with your current information." She explained.
Olivia was first and touched the tag. A faint light quickly spread from her hand over her body and slowly penetrated deep all the way to her bones.
After it covered her body, it returned and the tag shined for a moment and the light dulled.
Olivia took her hand off and found the tag had engravings on it with only her name and rank.
Next Logan did the same and it followed the same process and when he took his hand off, it was no different from his sisters.
The receptionist punched a hole through the tag and passed a metal chain through it and handed the tags to each of them.
"Alright, it is done. You are now official adventurers. To access the mission board, you can go to that orb over there and access the magical archieve to get a comprehensive list of missions from this country and many other countries." She explained.
The orb in question was a huge globe floating over a large platform. The globo had many grids on it and information flashed quickly within the transparent interior.
This is the guild nexus, a magical artifact created by one of the brightest minds amongst the guild researchers.
The two thanked the receptionist and walked over to the orb.
At the platform were several people looking through the magical machine's missionboard.
To access, they had to go to a port on the platform and insert the tag they got.
When they did, it would activate the nexus with a certain level of 'authority' depending on their strength and rank.
As F ranks, they could only accept F rank missions and view E rank. This is very different from ancient times when lower ranks could accept higher rank missions.
The reason is that ranking has become more comprehensive with very detailed grading methods capable of properly ranking danger.
Previously a rare variant monster could appear and be ranked D rank but its actual strength is only E rank. It is this kind of thing that previously permitted that old system but it no longer works like that.
Logan saw many F rank monster missions appear all around him but he ignored most of them and opened a mission filter.
"Lightning attribute monsters only." He thought and punched in the command.
To his shock, the tens of missions was reduced to just a few. Even more frustrating was that when he looked, most of the missions were E rank and not F.
He added the filter for F rank only and it was reduced to a little over a dozen.
"How are there so few…" he mumbled and sighed before reading each of them.
They were pretty basic missions of hunting specific monsters. That said, most of the creatures were higher grade F rank monsters.
Only the last one was viable but still a huge headache.
"So all that is left is hunting Crystal Back Lightning Lizards. Why am I so unlucky, damn it!" He cursed inwardly.
Crystal back lightning lizards are monsters who are born with a purplish crystal on their backs and bluegreen scales. They travel in packs of upwards of 20 at a time.
Their eating habits are also an annoyance. Normally they feed on bugs but their primary food is actually lightning itself.
Gathering in groups is a means to protect themselves from the discharge and spread it around.
The final great pain is that they have very pesky predators. Unlike themselves, this predator is very fast but very vicious.
As for the lizards themselves, their attack methods are generally faintly charged with lightning and use it to stun enemies.
At the end of the day, he was forced to accept the mission because he simply had no other safe option and could only pray to god that he did not encounter the E rank predator.
Olivia was smiling, “What mission did you pick?” Logan asked curiously.
“This…” she said, aiming the magical display at him.
He slowly read it and raised a brow.
Mission:
Magic anomaly
With the intense war in the last few years, the land in the west has experienced heavy changes. One such change involves a strange magic anomaly which is being called rifts. When the occurrence happens, magical monsters appear. Initially there was no known report of these creatures and only recently people have been calling them Rift Demons, though they are different from those of the ancient demons.
Objective
Hunt and kill at least 100 and bring back their corpses for research
He looked at the reward and was surprised that they were paying 500 Tips. Tips are the coinage used throughout the continent of Nuntip. As it can be observed it is named after part of the continent name itself.
Most countries don’t have a unique coin of their own mainly because it is difficult to maintain a constant output of things such as coins. The Tips though are made by the continents biggest empire far to the south west and as trade expanded in the early years, most nations ended up using this similar money. The denominations are divided in 1, 10, 100 and 1,000.
Below that, each nation uses their own coins made of simple metals like bronze, tin and lead. Iron is not used due to rust and gold is too precious of a material.
“You should be careful, although these things appear weak, you never know when something strange will pop up.” Logan said.
“Yeah yeah, what did you pick?” she asked.
Mission
Lightning Crystal Harvest
The many magical disturbances have caused many freak thunderstorms to appear. This allowed Crystal Back Lightning Lizards to proliferate greatly. The Lightning Crystals on their back are a great resource of many magic engines due to it’s high energy transmission output.
Besides culling the population, harvest the crystals.
Objective:
Harvest at least 100 crystals
Reward:
300 Tip per 100 crystals
“Why are you picking lightning creatures?” She asked.
“Remember that because of my affinity I am also resistant to lightning so it is natural to do missions that fit you best.” he said.
She realized this point when it was pointed out and nodded in agreement. Still she frowned, “Be careful of Lightning Weasels, they are a major threat for us who just joined the guild.” She said.
“Yeah I know, if this wasn’t the safest of the lightning monster hunting missions I wouldn’t have picked it.” he said.
Olivia nodded in reply.
They used the Nexus to find the places these creatures could be found. The western region was now very different and even more dangerous than some other places. Even transport through it has to be careful due to the sudden magical turbulence that can spring up randomly.
Logan picked a newly formed thunder region near the thunder forest he had been hit by lightning when the thunder sword was hit.
He used the network to find a transport to the nearest safe zone and found there was a military camp which was functioning as an adventurers drop point. He booked a ticket and after a short while he logged off and went to the receptionist and got his ticket.
His sister was the same but she would go more towards the central west region.
The two waited together and Olivia left first before Logan got on the air ship heading to his drop point. It would be the first time in 10 years since he returned to this once prosperous land.