It took Alex 5 days to master the three new skills. The E-ranked {Lightning Strike} and {Ice Dome} took around 2 days each to learn, while the much simpler F-ranked {Detection} only took him 1 day to learn. He spent another day to charge the two {Skill Gems} to full capacity. He has spent one week to prepare for the E-rank area. Now, feeling ready to face the E-rank area, he steps out of his training room and enters the [Transporter Capsule].

"Fay, send me to Gaia City."

"Okay," Fay replies to Alex and immediately executes his command.

....

Tall, futuristic structures surrounded a large square. A huge number of people wearing all kinds of strange clothing and carrying different types of weapons can be seen everywhere in this large square. An orange "sun" that looks bigger than the sun on earth shines its light from the western sky, causing the large buildings to form large shadows towards the east. Despite the orange sun, the sky still appears to be as blue as earth's sky. In fact, the blue sky here is even clearer than some parts of the earth where pollution has caused the sky to appear more gray than blue. Even though the problem of atmospheric pollution has decreased due to the new technological advancement made by the discovery of the Realm of Defenders, it still exists on earth.

Alex Volff appears in the middle of this large square wearing his old iron leather set with the {Black-steel Katana} on his left waist and the brown pouch hanging onto his right waist. He looks around in wonderment at his surrounding. The large orange sun surprised him a little, but for someone who has seen two moons in the sky, it only took a short moment for him to calm down. The way he looks around so much, made him look like a country bump who just arrived in a big city. In fact, this is not a bad description. The scale of this Gaia City is indeed much larger than the Beginner Town in F-ranked area and his hometown on earth. He's indeed a country bump who just arrived in a big city.

"Excuse me," a girl's voice sounded in Alex's ear along with a tap on his shoulder.

"Ah..." he jumps forward in surprise.

Alex turns his body around to see two people arguing with each other. One of them is a large middle-eastern man about 180-190 cm tall. He has a large blade hanging on his left waist and the same brown pouch Alex has on his left waist. Opposite him is a beautiful middle-eastern woman. She has long dark hair, big gray eyes, olive skin. The curves of her perfectly proportioned body can be seen through the skintight leather suit that she is wearing. She is carrying a crossbow on her back and two small quivers filled with arrows on her left and right thighs.

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"You shouldn't surprise people like that, Alia" the man is scolding the woman in front of him.

"But... I called out to him multiple times and he didn't respond," Alia offers her rebuttal.

"But, still... You shouldn't just startle people like that."

"Hmph..." Alia harumphed and turns her head away.

"Huh... This girl," the man shakes his head and turns to face Alex.

"Hi, my name is Bassel, and this is my friend Alia. May we know your name?"

Alex is startled by this sudden introduction from this man. It takes him a few seconds to respond.

"Ah... My name is Alex. Do you need something from me?"

"Oh, nice to meet you, Alex. We were wondering if you'd like to party with us. We saw you looking around and thought you were looking for a party to join," Bassel replies with a smile.

"Party?"

Alex looks at the man in front of him then to the woman who is still turning her head to face sideways. He starts looking around and sees groups of people holding all sorts of planks with written text on them in different languages. Due to the automatic translation ability of his [Magic Chip], he can understand all of them. They all share the same content, "Looking for party member(s)".

"Yes. You're looking for a party, aren't you?" Bassel replies.

"You see, we want to form a 5-man party. We don't have a permanent party right now. The other people we used to party with have ranked up and now hunting in the higher leveled area. We have teamed up with another Defender. He was looking for another member and just contacted us that he has found one other member. We saw that you still have your F-ranked equipment and figured that you're the same as us, an E-ranked 1-star Defender. If you agree to join us, then we will have 5 people in our party and we can start hunting," Bassel continues his explanation.

Alex starts to consider this offer. Before he went out of his personal room to this Gaia City, he has decided that he wanted to try this party system. Based on Fay's explanation, it seems like starting from E-rank, the hunting method is focused on partying with others. Otherwise, it will take a long time for a single Defender to finish off 500 creatures of the same rank.

He had wanted to look around for party members as soon as he entered Gaia City. It's unexpected that others have tried to recruit him first. As he looks around, this kind of thing seems to be a common sight around here. Of course, he can't make a rash decision. Partying with others mean they have to depend on each other in battle. A single mistake or a member with evil intention can mean a life being lost.

His problem is that he doesn't know anyone in this city. In other words, he has no one he can trust right now. Of course, it also means it doesn't matter who he chooses to party with. He still needs to be careful all the time. The only other problem is the competency of the party members. He doesn't want to party with incompetent members and lose his life because of others' mistake.

After finishing his train of thoughts, Alex replies to Bassel's inquiry.

"Can I meet the other members first before answering?"