Chapter 14
In the morning, Nick meditated near a tree and tried to collect a large amount of mana for the road so as not to use mana potions. He and Liam thoroughly prepared for their first mission. Nick acquired two artifacts that changed the color of hair and eyes. He considered that it was much better to be a handsome teenager than a very prominent son of a noble family. Without these artifacts, everyone could recognize him and Liam, although they did not appear in public, they were well known among noble society. The second thing he acquired was a good sword made of mana steel. As far as he knew, adventurers preferred to use exactly such swords, they were easy to make, did not require much care, but most importantly, they did not cost much. Every adventurer had such a sword, well, if you count rich novice adventurers. For Liam, he bought a staff that had about 7000 MP. In order to use the mana stored in the staff, it must be filled with your own mana, fortunately Liam had long been charging this staff with mana and now it was completely full. Nick was upset that he could not carry the staff with him either, it would be very unlikely that a swordsman had good mana management skills at his age, without being specially trained, or without a good pedigree. He also took a good leather armor from the storage, which looked like ordinary. Only an experienced merchant with a specialized appraisal skill could estimate that the armor is worth much more than it looks. Nick agreed to meet Liam at his mansion and then go to the city of Neuton.
Nick stood up from his seat and walked towards the estate's exit gate. Just as he arrived, he saw Liam, deciding to size him up so he wouldn't screw up with his status.
Name: Clayton Reeves 17 years old
Race: Human [Uncommon] Lvl 26
Class: Water Mage Apprentice [Uncommon] Lvl 53
Class: Not Selected
Nick could easily break through the hidden status when he knew about it, but that was not his goal. The assessment did not give any errors, so Nick was satisfied. He looked at Liam's status again.
Name: Liam Changeable Water 14 years old
Race: Human attuned to water mana [Rare] Lvl 23
Class: Blocked
Class: Blocked
Nick was very upset that he did not have a race that would help him to be a mage. And Liam's race gave 14 characteristics per level more than his own. But thanks to his physique training, this gap was not so big. Liam had about 200 characteristics more than him. Nick did not think that characteristics were the most important thing, since his chance to defeat Liam was quite high, due to his greater speed. After checking his status for the last time, he approached Liam.
Name: Virs Isuel 17 years old
Race: Human [Uncommon] Lvl 29
Class: Sword Mastery Apprentice [Uncommon] Lvl 58
Class: Not Selected
"Hello, are you ready to go into a world full of dangers and adventures!"
"Yes Dylan, I'm ready and don't start making a comedy out of it. Today you and I are just going to complete one task and register in the guild."
"Ha ha ha, you speak as if you think nothing will happen, it's obvious that something interesting will happen."
"Okay, call it whatever you want, let's go. I want to go home today, not spend the night at your mansion."
"You'll see, I'll be right!"
Liam and Nick left the mansion through the back door and turned on the amulets to change their hair and eye color. Nick wondered how they worked and it turns out it was more complex than just an illusion. This amulet worked as something that constantly sent out healing that changed the pigments in their hair and eyes. This could easily be resisted with mana, or life force, which negates the effect. In general, it is also possible to resist healing, or reverse healing.
Nick tried to assess the outside world after leaving the mansion. Everything was quite normal, green grass grew everywhere and there were some green trees. Without wasting time, they went to the city of Forestford. It was a city that was located on the territory of Count Varion, it positioned itself as an ordinary city with a large industry for the production of food and other plant products. The city was also famous for woodworking and weaving cotton fabric. In general, it was a large city with a population of about 200,000 people. Naturally, it was impossible to live quietly and peacefully in the magical world. Wild animals and all sorts of weak monsters walked near the city. Actually, this is what adventurers are for, they are paid to get rid of all sorts of problems. There were not so many wild animals or monsters outside the city, but the further you move away from civilization, the more of them you meet along the way.
After 20 minutes of fast walking, Nick and Liam approached the gates to the city. Guards met them in front of the gates.
Name: Galan Darn 39 years old
Race: Human [Uncommon] Lvl 50
Class: City Guard Swordsman [Uncommon] Lvl 123
Class: Carpenter [Uncommon] Lvl 63
Name: Rick Barien 45 years old
Race: Human [Uncommon] Lvl 57
Class: Vigilant City Guard [Uncommon] Lvl 136
Class: Forest Bow Hunter [Uncommon] Lvl 160
Nick was surprised that these people had such a high level. Having quickly calculated using the Approximate Calculation skill, he realized that the first one had about 400 characteristics in all indicators, and the second one had about 600. But these were guards and they most likely did not have a mana core. In general, in terms of characteristics, the first one was 2 times stronger than him, and the second one was 4 times stronger. But he was sure that he could defeat the second guard, because at high levels, the quantity and quality of skills are important. It is easy to tell what skills they have by their classes. The first one had the Sword Mastery skill [Uncommon], and the second one had some skill related to vision, or evaluation, also [Uncommon] level. Perhaps they had a couple more unusual skills, but this would have little effect against his 13. From this, Nick concluded that although the guards were dangerous, they were not particularly dangerous for him.
"Hello, please introduce yourself and tell me why you are in town."
"Hello, we want to join the adventurers' guild."
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
"Okay, come in and don't make trouble."
Nick had imagined the conversation with the guards in roughly the same way. One guard looked them over and, not seeing anything suspicious, simply let them through. Nick was glad that there was no deep entrance fence to the city, or anything else. This meant that the city was ruled by truly kind people, or simply smart ones. Nick didn't know yet which ones.
As he walked through the city, he noticed that most of the houses were made of wood and had glass windows, the streets were paved with smooth cobblestones, and overall everything looked very clean. The city felt peaceful, even though it was a stone wall. Nick saw many fruit trees and well-kept flowers. He liked the view, all the people they passed did not look poor. So as Nick walked, he often assessed the different people. He saw many different classes, mainly: Cooks, Weavers, Woodcutters, Carpenters. All of these were [Common] level classes, about every ten people he saw someone with [Uncommon] class. The most memorable one he saw was a man who looked to be 40 years old.
Name: Reginald Vont 90 years old
Race: Human [Uncommon] Lvl 93
Class: Outstanding Spear Adept [Rare] Lvl 213
Class: Senior Army Officer [Uncommon] Lvl 140
This guy was strong by the city's standards. It was obvious that he had decided to stop his advancement up the military ladder and live a peaceful life. Using the skill Approximate Calculation, he found out that his average stats were about 1000. This was a lot, although he calculated based on the almost maximum possible stats per class level, he had no doubt that his physical stats were above 1000. Actually, this is the spread of stats for different class rarities per level.
[Common] 1-10
[Uncommon] 10-20
[Rare] 20-50
[Special] 50-100
[Epic] 100-200
Walking to the main street, Nick saw a large building nearby with a sign saying "Adventurers' Guild." He pulled Liam by the hand and they entered the building together.
Nick often imagined how this moment would look like, he thought that as soon as they entered the guild they would immediately earn the attention of all sorts of thugs and other nasty things. But in practice, it turned out to be much less exciting. Inside, they were met by a calm atmosphere, many people were looking at the sign with tasks, and others were just waiting in line. Further into the hall, he saw pleasant tables with chairs on which people were sitting and talking about something. Inside the guild, no food or drink was served, which Nick suspected contributed to the calm working environment. Without thinking twice, he and Liam stood in line to see the administrator. Naturally, Nick was evaluating the different people inside the guild along the way. Everyone had unusual classes and even a couple of rare ones, but he did not see anyone above Lvl 200. And in general, most of the people looked young. Nick suspected that there was simply no more serious work in this city, since everything above the rare rank was handled by members of his family. As much as Nick wanted to avoid drawing attention to them, he was wrong about one thing, people aged 17 had a class of around Lvl 30. He already knew that he would turn yellow for not bothering to find out what the average level was for ordinary people at that age. Approaching the administrator, Nick assessed her.
Name: Karen Roykhim 28 years old
Race: Human [Uncommon] Lvl 30
Class: Adventurer's Guild Administrator [Uncommon] Lvl 56
Class: Not Selected
The girl looked to be about 20 years old with dark hair and pretty features. She smiled at them pleasantly and started a conversation.
"Welcome to the Adventurer's Guild, how may I help you?"
Nick decided to speak for Liam, as he was generally very uncommunicative with strangers.
"Hello, we would like to register with the adventurers' guild."
"Mmm, okay. Please fill out the forms and come to me when you're done, I'll take you to the examiner."
"Thank you."
The girl handed them two forms along with pens and they went off to fill them out. The form was pretty simple. Nick had to fill in his name, place of residence, class name, answer a couple of simple questions like what would you do when a monster attacked someone and so on. It took them about 20 minutes to fill out the form. Luckily, Nick had thought through his backstory better and filled in the address of one of the clan's trusted workers, which is what Liam did as well. When they approached the administrator again, she led them to another part of the building, to the training ground, reading the forms along the way.
"The forms are filled out correctly, but you still have to go through an interview and get approval from the guild examiner."
There were several people in the training room who were training with different weapons. Among them was the examiner. The girl addressed him while Nick was evaluating him.
Name: Rex Theroux 28 years old
Race: Human [Uncommon] Lvl 70
Class: Sword and Shield Adept [Rare] Lvl 173
Class: Martial Arts Instructor [Uncommon] Lvl 120
"Rex, we have newcomers joining us, come here, you will check them out."
"Okay Karen, you can go."
The examiner stared at them and mentally assessed them.
"Hmm, have the high nobility really come to visit us? I can't imagine what the high nobility finds interesting in the life of an adventurer."
Nick and Liam put on a stone face and simply decided to deny everything.
"What are you saying sir, we are very far from nobles. We just live in a rich family and decided to earn some money."
"If you knew anything about our profession, you would understand how stupid this sounds. You won't be able to earn enough for a training sword on your first missions. But I don't get paid for this, so I'll just explain to you that your fake statuses don't matter considering how expensive your equipment is. No one in their right mind would wear new clothes to their first meeting with the guild."
"Yes sir, we understand, we just wanted to be more prepared."
"It doesn't matter, you with the sword will spar with me and show me the skill of strengthening, and you with the stick will cast a couple of spells."
Nick approached the examiner and he snatched the nearest training sword for him. Having caught the sword, Nick went on the attack, using only basic sword techniques and relying on the skill of approximate calculation in predicting the examiner's attack. The man, in turn, easily took his blows and occasionally counterattacked. This was just a warm-up fight for both of them. On the level of Nick's characteristics, he moved like the best champion of his world and was twice as fast and strong.
"Okay, use the enhancing skill."
Nick decided to use the single strong strike skill. By manipulating stamina, he was able to increase the strength of his next strike by about 15%. But the examiner blocked it just as easily.
"Not bad, for your level. You pass, send a mage. I'm counting on a spell that can damage the training dummy."
Liam and Nick walked up to the line where 25 meters were marked. The examiner waved his hand and Liam began to assemble his spell. He participated in the spell "Water Arrow" level 2.
"Water arrow."
His spell easily traveled 25 meters and left a small dent in the tree.
"Almost good, try something else."
Liam frowned slightly and decided to cast his level 3 spell, "Explosive Ice Arrow", but after getting kicked by Nick, he decided to change his spell.
"Ice arrow."
His projectile crashed into the dummy and left many light cuts on it. Liam deliberately did not cast his spells very quickly and most likely that is why the examiner decided that he was not satisfied with one spell. This time the man nodded his head contentedly.
"Okay, let me read you the list of the guild's demands and you sign it, then there will be a long lecture on how to act in different situations."
Entering a small room, they read a document that explained the obvious rules, there was only one interesting point in it. That in the event of a monster attack on the city, adventurers are obliged to defend it. Having signed everything, they listened to a long lecture on why adventurers are adventurers and not mercenaries. The examiner spent an hour referring to mercenaries as complete trash and extolling adventurers. Finally, after all the torment, they went to the guild hall to choose the first quest for enrollment in the ranks of the guild. They were given the opportunity to choose a first-level quest. Standing by his daughter and looking at the various quests, Nick would look for something that was both interesting and quick. He saw many different quests for finding all sorts of plants, killing wild animals, and helping to protect caravans. There were either no monster hunting quests, or they were of a higher level than the one allowed for their first quest. Adventurers also had different ranks, but he didn't announce what class level they were, but rather explained their merits and the number of quests they had completed. There was bronze rank, iron, silver, gold, platinum, mithril, and then he didn't know. Most likely it was something like that. Nick decided to choose the quest to accompany a merchant to the nearest city, it was 100 kilometers to the south, he needed to meet the merchant in half an hour at the southern gate. Nick expected to finish the quest and make it home for dinner, it was now about 10 am, so he thought he could handle it. Having decided on the quest, Nick and Liam left the adventurers' guild and went to the southern gate.