After finally getting their guild cards, Cecil and Lucia exited the guild. The two were fascinated by the details written on the cards.

Name : Cecil Silvaria Age : 14 Class : Magic Swordsman Stage : Mana Vapor - First Stage (5000 units) Rank : 1 Star – Stone

Name : Lucia Age : 13 Class : Enchant Spellcaster Stage : Mana Vapor - Second Stage (1000 units) Rank : 1 Star – Stone

"How'd they predict our stages so accurately? They even quantified our mana without an assessment test!"

"I thought there was going to be a test before we got the card too~"

Both Lucia and Cecil honestly thought there would be some kind of assessment before having their cards issued. What surprised them was that the assessment itself had begun the moment they picked up the magic pen to write their information down. The pen itself needed one to imbue magic into it in order to operate, so when they started imbuing their mana into the pen in order to write, the pen started recording the amount of mana they had inside their mana points.

It caught them unawares and when the guild staff gave them their guild cards, there was a strange expression on her face as well as a more respectful tone and attitude that she gave off when handing the cards to them. It was unusual of course, since the stage and quantity of mana they had inside their mana bodies weren't in line with what a normal person's quantity of mana when they were at the first stage of mana cultivation.

Normal people at the Mana Vapor stage would have a mana quantity of 100 – 500 units. Mana Sea stage would have 500 – 1000 units and Mana Core stage would have 1000 – 5000 units. Only people at the perfect stage of Mana Core would have a quantity as high as Cecil's. This was Cecil's amount while he was only at the Mana Vapor! Not to mention Lucia who had a mana quantity at the Perfect stage of Mana Sea while only being at the second stage of Mana Vapor.

For Cecil, it was already explained before by Lucia's mother, but Lucia herself had that large amount of mana attributed to the fact that her mother's mana technique being so unique. The guild staff had already alerted the guild master of the two abnormalities that have just registered. So when the guild master came down to meet them, he halted when he laid his eyes on Lucia.

After scrutinizing Lucia for a bit, the guild master had a brilliant smile plastered on his face. Then he told the guild staff that took their assessment that it was better if they kept things in a tight lid for now. After which the guild master followed the two out of the building.

Lucia and Cecil were currently seated in a café across the guild building. After they finished ordering their food and handed the menu back to the waiter, a golden haired fox man abruptly sat himself in an empty seat at their table.

"Well, aren't you two a promising duo." Said the elegant fox-kin male that had seated himself across from Cecil and Lucia.

"Uhh, who are you?"

"Haha, no rush, no rush~"

"..."

The man had fox ears just like Lucia, but they were golden in color. He also had golden eyes just like Lucia's father and if they took a closer look at him, he did somewhat resemble Lucia's father.

"We don't know you, but aren't you rude to not introduce yourself?"

"Ah, where are my manners. I'm Kozaqi. Guildmaster of the adventurer guild based in Forest Hill Town."

"Wah?"

"..."

The duo speechlessly stared at the pretentious and shiny bastard that was in front of them. This guy... was the guild master?

"...and what would the guild master want from two newly registered newbies?"

"Haha~ no, it's nothing. I thought I'd come down and see how my niece is doing~"

"N-niece?"

Cecil immediately turned towards the girl who was seated right beside him. She equally had a confused look on her face.

"Haha~ I guess big brother doesn't talk much about me huh~"

"... you look a little like papa..."

"Haha, that's 'cause your papa's my big bro! Which in turn, makes you my niece~"

It turns out that the guildmaster of the adventurer guild in the town was Lucia's uncle. As for why he rudely interrupted their lunch...

"Well, a little birdy of mine came to report about two children with abnormal mana quantities~"

"Abnormal? Oh yeah... I guess that's us."

"Yes~ well, when I saw my niece here, I figured how she would have abnormal amounts of mana, I guess sis-in-law taught you 'that', right~?"

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"..."

Taking a glance at Lucia, Cecil found that she seemed a bit uncomfortable talking to him.

"What I couldn't figure out was how you, a normal boy, would actually have such an incredible amount of mana in you. Though I won't pry, since you're my niece's boyfriend. Just make sure that you keep that hidden, alright~"

"Wh-wha? B-boyfriend?! I-i-i, m-m-me w-w-with C-ce-Cel?!" Lucia exclaimed with a start.

"Hah?"

Cecil only responded with a dumb look on his face, while Lucia turned red as a tomato while trying to say something.

"Mr. Uncle, please don't try and embarrass Lucia."

"Hoho~, well, anyway boy~ you understand what I'm implying yes? The dangers and everything?"

Although, Cecil was a bit confused, he remembered what his father once said. 'A man should always use 20 and hide the other 80.' He never understood what it meant, but the situation right now kind of clicked with what his dad always kept on saying. Not to mention the current tension the human and beast-kin continent were in right now. It was better if he kept a low profile and not attract any attention towards himself. Attention and, as the guild master said earlier, danger.

"Yes, I understand."

The cards had the function to hide every other information on it with the exception of the name and rank. Lucia and Cecil were already planning to hide everything else besides their names and ranks, so even without the guild master's warning, they would have done so anyway.

"Good~, well I won't keep you lovely couple from having your lunch~"

"Uh, okay."

"C-c-c-c-c-couple??!"

Lucia has been inarticulate ever since the word 'boyfriend' was said earlier. Cecil didn't have any particular reaction towards what the guild master said though. It wasn't any surprise, however, since he never had any contact with relationships and such, so he couldn't fathom the reaction Lucia had.

"Hey, Lulu."

"Y-YES!?"

"Calm down, let's just wait for our food and eat. Don't pay attention to what your weird uncle said."

Although he said that, Cecil himself pondered back at what the guildmaster said earlier. While he was thinking, Lucia on the other hand was twiddling with her fingers and taking glances at Cecil. Seeing that he had no reaction whatsoever to her uncle's previous statement and instead was thinking about something else, Lucia became a bit disappointed.

"Stupid Cel..." She mumbled to herself.

Cecil was too deep in thought that he didn't hear her mumbling and just stared off into the distance. 'Odd, normally this should have been a flag. The Guild Master finding out our true abilities, forcing us to do some super hard quest and whatnot, but this sure is unexpected.'

It was odd indeed, normally the guild master would guide and recommend promising adventurers, but all he did was tell Cecil to hide his actual strength.

'Maybe has something to do with Lucia, since he is her uncle.'

"Hey, Cel? What're you thinking about?"

"Just about your odd uncle. I can't believe someone like him is the Guild master."

"Eh? Uhh, yeah. I've never heard mom or dad talk about him before."

"Figures, I don't think your parents wanted you to know about such an odd uncle, haha!"

"Hahaha, I guess. Let's hurry and eat. We still have to meet up with Scarlet Blaze after this~"

"Yeah."

'But, hiding my actual strength, huh?'

Cecil already had the thoughts to hide his actual strength. Since just by using his martial arts alone, coupled with the fact he could now integrate mana into his martial arts to some degree, it was no problem for him to face G-B ranked monsters single-handedly. And this was him being only 14 years old!

This wasn't the only thing he was hiding. On their way to Forest Hill Town, Cecil had asked Lucia to disguise his human features. So by using Illusion Magic, Lucia was able to disguise Cecil as a fox-kin just like her. The Illusion spell that Lucia used was a custom-made spell created by Mrs. Anna.

It was a one-time cast spell that transformed the target into what the user imagined when the spell was cast. So right now, Cecil did not look human. Instead he was a three-tailed fox-kin just like Lucia. He had black triangular fox ears on top of his head. His tails were also black, but the tips were white in color. His pupils however were gold-colored just like Lucia's pupils.

It wasn't anything special like him wanting to be the same like Lucia, but one time he saw his eyes while activating mana sight and it somewhat scared him. With mana sight active, his black colored pupils had a gold tint and a gold colored ring in his pupils that constantly pulsed, following his heartbeat.

In order to not look weird, he asked Lucia to change his pupils' color to be the same as hers. This way when he activated his partial mana sight, the weird change in his pupils wouldn't be so noticeable. Of course, Lucia took this the wrong way. The small 'good' misunderstanding earned Cecil a little kiss on the cheek from Lucia, which he of course, thought nothing of it.

Looking at the pair, people from Earth would think Yin and Yang. With the food finally arriving, they quickly put a halt to their thoughts and started digging into their meal.

"Hmm, taste okay. But it's not as good as what Mrs. Anna makes..."

"Haha, Mama's dishes are always the best~!"

As soon as they finished their meal, they got up and paid, after which they quickly went to the town square. Upon reaching the town square, they went towards the Monster Hunting Event booth, but quickly spotted Cathy and Tyr waiting by the side of a stall near the Event Stage. They quickly went over to them and greeted, "Hey, Tyr. Hello Cathy." "Hi~"

"Ah, Cecil, Lucia! Finished eating?!"

"He-hello..."

Tyr was as loud as always and Cathy only greeted them with a small hello.

"Yup, so... where's the other two?"

"They saw you heading over so they went ahead and registered us into a party for the event."

"Oh, okay then."

After chatting for a bit, they both spot Milly and Miles heading back over to them.

"Hey! Cecil, Lucia! We took the liberty to register ourselves as a party already, you don't mind right?"

"No, it was our intention in the beginning."

"Great!" Milly exclaimed with a huge smile.

On the side, the quiet Miles spoke up, "The event will start tomorrow at 9 in the morning. We should all head back and finish up anything we're doing. Prepare anything that needs preparing for the event then get a good night's rest."

"Okay then, Lucia and I will go bring food for our monster companion. We've already prepared everything we needed for a journey before even going to the guild. So, see you tomorrow."

Cecil and Lucia headed towards the gates they came in from this morning with some barbecued meat that they bought from a stall near the guild building. Reaching the gate, they passed by the guards and noticed that they are different from the ones that received them this morning. The guards all worked on shift so the morning and afternoon guards were different. They quickly reached the ranch they left Silver at. and after briefly greeting the ranch master, the two of them quickly headed towards Silver.

Silver seemed to have picked up their presence from afar, so he was already waiting for the two by the ranch gate.

"Hey Silv, sorry we took so long. Here's your food."

Silver replied with a happy bark and started gulping down the meat.

After finishing the meal, they took Silver out and hunted a few monsters in the forest surrounding the town as an after-meal exercise. When evening approached, they headed back into the town and found the inn near the town square that Milly from Scarlet Blaze recommended to them and quickly checked in. Other than the small episode the duo had when Cecil asked for a single room with a double bed and Lucia overreacting to his request, there weren't any problems and the two were able to get a place to rest and wash up in.

Before going to sleep, both Cecil and Lucia took a bath using the room's large basin. Lucia was embarrassed to take a bath together after she became self-conscious about herself being with Cecil, but Cecil on the other hand didn't really care about it and thought it would be more efficient if they bathed together. He was naturally met with a smack to the head by an extremely embarrassed Lucia when he suggested it, so they took turns bathing.

Even though Lucia was embarrassed to bathe together, it didn't stop her from sleeping with Cecil on the same bed. What more, the two of them were even cuddling–though it was mostly just Lucia clinging onto Cecil like an octopus. The two of them were both excited to join the Monster Hunting Event which would be taking place tomorrow, but it didn't stop them from having their precious sleep. Today marked the first of many nights the two of them would spend together on their journey.