When Ethan felt that he got most of the common knowledge available to the free city folks, it was the noon of the second day at the library. Naturally, it was impossible for him to memorize everything. He only remembered the most important subjects, the ones he thought about more than once. Memory transfer didn’t improve his ability to memorize. It was just like reading the books himself, but much faster. Regardless, he could’ve always asked Ani for the things he forgot.
He leaned back in his chair with a stretch. Looking around, he realized that the librarian had changed, but the staff was the same as yesterday. ‘Ani, we got a lot of data, don’t you say? Percentage-wise, how good are we for you to do simulations?’ he asked, hope brimming in his voice.
‘Less than one percent, but it is getting close.’
‘What the hell? That was hundreds of books. What else do you want?’
‘In order to convert this world to a virtual one, I need to understand the laws that govern, the elements you are trying to comprehend, and the mechanisms of mana. It is difficult to learn it from books. Watching others’ applications of mana or experiencing some skill improvements through you might be much more efficient. If I fill the gaps myself, it won’t be useful for your practices.’
That… was a long explanation, just like the old times, he thought with a mirthless smile. Looks like my dream of spamming the skills every night until I get better is still a long way off.
Ethan left the library with a mild headache and fuzzy steps. A few heads turned toward him as he walked. Likely because there was no one else at the library gates, in contrast to across the street. There, stood the three stories high Adventurer’s Guild, an archaic building that welcomed the busy crowd.
Gazing at the people who were flying around, I should ask Zach about these flying artifacts tomorrow, he thought before making his way to the guild.
Inside the building was a huge bar with a loud crowd. Some played cards with curses, and some drank with their friends or told stories to others. A few wore robes, but many had their armor on. At the bar's end, a few clerks sat behind a long desk, talking with adventurers.
When he entered from the door, many people turned to look, but their gazes didn’t linger for more than a few seconds. A smirk stretched on Ethan’s face. This was exactly what he wished for from this world. No one knew who he was, and if he told someone that he was an assassin, they would probably say, ‘Oh, good for you. We also needed a scout for our party.’
He walked toward the clerks, and his smile got even wider as he recognized some fellows with the same occupation.
‘’Good afternoon, miss. I hope you are also experiencing the thrill of a charming day!’’ he greeted cheerfully.
The young human girl with long brown hair looked at him with an amused expression. ‘’That’s one way to put it.’’
‘’As long as it works. Ethan,’’ he said, extending his hand.
‘’Miranda.’’ She grasped his hand. ‘’So, what can I do for you, Ethan?’’
‘’I would like to join your guild. I originally wanted to get an identity badge but now that I’m thinking of it, doing some missions also sounds good,’’ he said, looking toward a large mission board. ‘’What is required, though? I'm not supposed to give you a piece of my soul, right?’’ he asked, half-joking.
‘’You can keep your soul,’’ Miranda said with a smile. ‘’We need your name and your cultivation level. You also need to bind your badge with your blood, but no worries, its only function is to upgrade your level accordingly, and we never share our member’s tier with others.’’
‘’Well, I guess I’ll take your word for it,’’ he said, mildly hesitating. ‘’How about the other branches? Can I use it anywhere in Azora?’’
‘’Of course, we use an ancient rune for the badges. You can even use it on other continents,’’ she joked. ‘’And since you’re applying from Ehrendil, you can get citizenship of the free cities with your badge, by only paying a fee of a mana stone. But only after a month, after they made a background check.’’
Getting the adventurer badge was faster than he expected, while the citizenship was a welcomed bonus as he was already planning to use the teleportation gates. He cut his finger with a poison-free spider leg and dropped a blood drop on the badge. The dull star-shaped artifact absorbed the blood and changed its color to yellow. Although he felt a slight connection, there wasn’t anything else.
Ethan looked for the available missions. There were many options, starting from tier 1 to tier 6. He thought either high tiers don’t do adventuring or they lack them in Ehrendil. Even in the bar, there were only a few tier-5s; if you don’t count the people with seemingly no mana whatsoever.
Rewards for the missions also varied from a silver coin to hundreds of gold coins. He looked for something around the Primordial Realm, but they were all above his abilities and related to the Serene Depths. Ethan had no confidence when it came to water. His [fabric tear] wasn’t working in solid objects. Would it work in water? He had no idea.
In the end, he chose a mission that was close to the path he used to come to Ehrendil. He needed to collect Blue Root Grass which he vaguely remembered from a book, an ingredient for a local beer. 10 gold reward for a barrel of it was a pretty good deal. The cave system that contained the grass was also a habitat for rock worms. The mission was recommended for a party of tier-3s, as there could very well be a tier-4 worm king. Ethan had no plans to fight a tier-4 for now, but he also didn’t plan to return unless he became a tier-3. So, it could be perfect as the last stop before coming back.
When Miranda didn’t even bother to warn him about the recommendation, he couldn’t help but ask, ‘’Anyone could do this mission without a party, right?’’
‘’Of course,’’ she replied, raising an eyebrow. ‘’But I hope you are not that stupid. There might be dozens of tier-3 rock worms. This one is difficult even for a decent party.’’
Ethan waved his hand dismissively, ‘’Just asking. You know I’m new around here,’’ he said while thinking that it was actually a pretty good hunting ground even before tier-3.
He was still going to buy some skills, but as he liked the atmosphere here, he decided to spend an hour or two, listening to the gossip of the town. Walking to the bar, he sat near the bartender who was one of the few tier-5s in there.
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‘’Say, what was that beer that contained Blue Root Grass?’’ Ethan asked the bartender.
The kind-looking old man raised his head, ‘’Ehreneer,’’ he responded with a doting grandfather expression.
‘’Right, get me one of those, please.’’
Ethan enjoyed his drink even more than the whiskey-like beverage he drank at the Pink Pearl. As he was planning to buy some more for his trip, he realized a new group had entered, and they were looking at him from their newly occupied table. Two elves and one human, all males. Eventually, one of the elves, the only tier-3 at the table, walked toward him.
‘’The armor you’re wearing, it was a custom design for a friend of mine, called Nuvian,’’ the elf with the stony eyes stated.
Seriously? How are you so sure? I bet if I lie, he’ll show me the engravings that say ‘belongs to Nuvian’ at the bottom of it, Ethan mocked internally and decided to be honest. ‘’He tried to rob me but got robbed instead. He is still alive if that’s what you are wondering,’’ he said calmly, keeping eye contact.
‘’And I’m supposed to take your word for it?’’
‘’That sounds like a you problem.’’
‘’Then I’ll fucking make it yours.’’
He took a step toward Ethan and raised his fist. Ethan got up and blinked half a step to the side before punching his throat with all he got. The elf first hit the bar counter and then to the floor, gasping for breath. His friends who were sitting at the table jumped immediately, but before they moved, an oppressing aura washed over the entire bar. Everyone got tense, and Ethan even got goosebumps on the back of his neck and felt a little weak at his knees.
Cough!
He looked at the coughing bartender and saw the old man pointing at the wall behind with a thumb, where it says; NO FIGHTING IN THE GUILD.
The aura disappeared, and everyone relaxed a bit. The [Mana Aura] needed both a strong killing intent and a deep mana pool for a good effect. This man lacked neither.
The friends of the elf ran toward the guy who was still having a difficult time. As he got the attention of everyone, Ethan thought it was time to leave. He gave a silver coin to the bartender and said, ‘’Sorry for the trouble. Keep a few bottles of Ehreneer for me. I’ll come to buy it tomorrow.’’
‘’No problem,’’ the bartender replied before whispering a warning with a good-naturedly voice, ‘’And using skills in a bar fight is something looked down upon.’’
Ethan rubbed his own neck, rather embarrassed. ‘’Uh, I didn’t know that.’’
The bartender just smiled and got back to his work. Ethan moved to leave the guild after giving a wave at Miranda and received a stiff wave back. He glanced at the now crimson-faced elf who looked about to pass out against the help of his angry companions and tried to convince himself. I would’ve beat him even without the skills.
The bar turned to its usual noisy way, but he still felt a few eyes watching him. No one tried to stop or follow him after, and he reached the skill shop in a short walk.
The last time he checked most of the skills and had a rough plan for his shopping. Firstly he wanted a skill with a low mana consumption that would replace his knife throwings. There was a lost time while throwing a knife, and his body movements did tell his enemy what to watch for. He already changed his build as a Rogue/Mage and had a good amount of mana. If he could find something to work with [Fabric Tear], that would be ideal.
Secondly, he wanted a stamina-based skill as a backup, as he often found himself with low mana yet more than half stamina. Since he intentionally distributed his stats poorly, it was only natural to go for a variety of skills to make up for it.
Inside the shop, at every skill, there was a description and estimated times of usage for a tier-1 user. That was the closest thing he got for a mana consumption. After half an hour, he decided on two skills that were perfect for him and relatively cheap.
[Shadow Spikes] was a variant of earth spikes he saw from Oliver, although much weaker in comparison. The skill used the shadows on one's body, so one had to position his hand-or any part of the body- against the sun and use the shadows on the opposite of the same hand. The range was merely 2 feet. When used in the sun, the material that came from the shadows got weaker and dissolved in a few seconds. That was why while [Earth Spikes] was 10 mana stone, this one was only 6 golds.
But Ethan couldn’t stop imagining the possibilities. He could’ve used the inside of his coat’s sleeve with a [Fabric Tear], and the shadow spike would appear 50 yards away right in front of his enemy's skull. They wouldn’t even see where it came from, and it would be almost instant! Every spike needed about 10 mana. Used with fabric tear, it made 25 mana each time. He could use 20 of them and still have the mana for another 20 [Blink].
The other skill he got was a popular one called [Long Jump], which gathered a large amount of stamina in one's foot and used it all at once for a straight jump. The range was about 10 yards, and it used 50 stamina. Honestly, for a price of 15 gold, it was only so-so, but the other stamina-based skills were much more expensive and inefficient at low tiers. He wanted this one as a backup for manaless times.
Initially, he also wanted to choose a skill for Beet, but as he didn’t know where its talent lay, he didn’t want to risk it. Calling over for a staff, he told him his purchases, but before buying the skills, he heard a girl crying at the talent line.
‘’What’s that about?’’ he asked to staff.
‘’Another giftless, she’ll never reach tier-3 in her life,’’ the staff whispered with pity in his voice.
There is such a thing? He suddenly felt lucky for his below-average talent; coming to this world and finding he couldn’t progress, would be a very cruel joke. ‘’Does that happen often? And can you tell me what kind of talents are there?’’
‘’Not often, but it’s not rare either. After the giftless, it goes as below average, average, above average, high, and top talents,’’ the staff explained. ‘’There are also elemental talents, but that’s very rare. They could only train in one element, but it's even better than top talents.’’
It was like he guessed, but he didn’t find anything about this elemental talent in the library, making him wonder about what else he didn’t know. Buying his new skills, he left the store. After some debate with himself, he decided to visit Pete and tell him that he was going on a trip. He was planning to stay another week, but the fight at the adventurer’s guild made him a bit anxious. Oliver and others still didn’t return, and their families were rather powerful, making him want to leave the city before it got more complicated.
Buying some street food, he slowly walked toward the biochip user, who usually stayed in the same place. And as he guessed, it brought him to a butcher shop in the slums, where he found Pete and another man working on the carcasses.
‘’E-Ethan,’’ Pete exclaimed, ‘’I didn’t know y-you were coming.’’
‘’Just wanted to check on you and see if you are up for another drink,’’ he said with a smile and turned to nod at his boss as a greeting.
‘’I-I mean, I still have another h-hour-’’ Pete looked at his boss, hesitating.
The boss waved his hand with the big knife, ‘’Go, go! I told you not to hang out with that, Rafael. Go out with others by all means,’’ he said. ‘’Hell, if you find a girlfriend, I’m giving you three days off!’’
Pete gave a flustered smile, while Ethan chuckled, already liking his boss. After a quick clean-up, they headed to the Pink Pearl.
‘’Ethan, how about a tavern this time? Some of them also have good music,’’ Pete suggested uncomfortably.
‘’But they don’t have Leyla and Alisha,’’ he replied with a smirk. ‘’The last time you made Alisha laugh until her eyes teared. Don’t tell me you don't wanna see her again?’’
Pete looked away, ‘’I d-don’t even remember that clearly. She was the elf girl with a stringed instrument, right?’’ he asked before peeking back at Ethan.
‘’Yep, and the half-elf with darker tan is Leyla. I think we have a good shot. At worst, we’ll just eat, drink, and have a good time. Don't worry, it's on me,’’ he assured, patting Pete’s shoulder.