They stopped in front of a large abandoned building, but one look at it told them it was anything but abandoned.
"Alright, here we are," Barion said, pointing.
Emery recognized the area. This building was just a few dozen metres away from where he'd first encountered that tiger beast. It was wholly populated with Beasts and Awakened alike.
This area alone was Hemp and Carlos' hunting grounds.
Multiple people in strange clothes walked into and out of the building at all times. A few of them looked like Barion with several defining features, standing them out from everyone else.
Most of them held Beast corpses in their hands, several of which looked strong.
A large man trumped most of them. He was taller and bigger than most professional basketball players. A mantle of blood and bones crowned his head, matching the bony exterior of his armour. The man held in one hand a spear, in the other hand a large eagle-like beast that was twice his size.
But the man logged it around like he was carrying a small stone.
Everyone stopped to look as the man approached the entrance, kicking anyone out of his way.
Emery was almost one of those victims.
Barion quickly dragged Emery to the side before that could happen. "Come on, let's go inside. Awakened culture has deemed it rude to stare at your betters. Don't ask me how they came to that conclusion after only one year."
"Who was that man?" Emery asked after the large man was out of sight.
As soon as that happened, everything went back to normal. People continued walking as if they hadn't just seen anything.
Barion also walked towards the building, still using his mist to hold the beast corpses above his head.
Emery noticed the wide berth people gave him, so either this was strange or he was notorious around here.
After thinking for a little while, he concluded the second probably was the answer.
He followed after as they entered the building. The interior was a bustling marketplace. Merchants selling wares and equipment, food stalls, weapon stores. Rows and rows of little booths filled the entire floor.
Emery held Elyn's body a little closer than before. She was hard to carry but he wouldn't let her go for fear of losing her.
"Right, you asked who that man was?" Barion said, his voice somehow reaching Emery's ears despite the noise.
"Yeah."
"Well, put simply, that's one of Hemp's senior commanders, Konnor. He doesn't take any orders that don't come from the man himself, but he is also free to make decisions that won't directly affect his boss."
Emery's eyes widened slightly. Senior commanders?!
"What about his rank?"
Barion wagged his fingers in the air slightly, causing the corpses above the wag slightly.
Everyone around left some space as they noticed him.
"Ah, I'm not really sure. That beast he just killed looks awfully like one of the Class Seven Threats terrorising the south entrance of the city. So I'm guessing Class Seven or Class Six."
Class Seven or Class Six.
And the man spoke about it so casually, too.
"Are you shocked?" Barion asked.
What kind of question was that even? Of course, he was shocked.
"Yeah, that dude is pretty strong."
After that short conversation, Barion went silent for the rest of the journey. They climbed the stairs a few times until they finally got to the area they needed to be in.
This floor was relatively empty, with a few rooms here and there. A large booth sat at the centre of the floor. There weren't a lot of people on this floor, the ones that were here all looked strong, carrying a few bags dripping with blood.
'Beast corpses,' he realized.
Barion didn't waste any more time and quickly walked over to the counter of the stall.
"How you doing, Chris? Just came here to drop some items," he said.
Chris was one of two men who sat behind the stall. He had black hair and a pale shade of green eyes.
"What are you doing here? I thought you left for some other city?" the man asked.
"I did," Barion replied, "But I forgot to carry any money for gambling. So I brought a nice little corpse for you guys,"
"Who's this guy, then?" the other man asked, pointing at Emery.
"Oh, him? I met him out in the forest with his lady friend, they were fighting a Class Nine threat. Close to killing it, too."
Chris raised an eyebrow. "So? That's not exactly a rare occurrence,"
"No, it isn't. What's rare is the fact that the beast was a rare type. It was a teeny weeny snake close to evolving into a Wyvern. It had also unlocked its transformation abilities, if not I reckon they might have killed it right there."
Chris paused to regard Emery and Elyn once more.
"That is interesting indeed. But why did you bring them here, though?"
"No particular reason just wanted to help them out."
Chris and the other man stared at Barion for a long while before talking once more.
"So, this is your entire haul today," the second man asked.
"Nah, the Class Ten beasts belong to the kid and his girlfriend. I'm only here for the Class Nine, the Class Ten money is theirs."
"Okay," Chris nodded and grabbed the beasts that Barion set down next to the stall.
After a while, he seemed to have finished calculating the value of the beasts.
"Well, your Class Nine comes up to about 100,000 credits based on its special race as a pseudo-Wyvern. And then for the other guy, he has about seven Class Ten beasts here, a pretty good haul for a first-timer so I'll give him 75 for everything."
Emery's mind blanked out for the first time since the conversation started.
They got 75,000?
Then the realization set in. They earned 75,000.
"Transfer the money over to my account, I'll be going now."
Then he left. Emery didn't realize when that happened, the sheer amount still shocked him.
Finally, he came to his senses and asked for the first thing on his priority list.
"Is there a hospital nearby?"
"Yeah there's one just a few-"
Thud!
Emery dropped to the ground as soon as he heard the words 'yes'. He'd been running on fumes the entire time.
"Hey, someone take the two of them over to one of the infirmary rooms." Chris yelled, calling on the lower-ranked workers, "They're both in critical condition. And make sure to take care of them as quickly as possible."
"I want to speak with them as soon as they wake up."
Emery sat up on the soft hospital bed. Well, not soft, but after months of living on the ground, anything was far better than what he was used to.
It was a relatively empty room devoid of any of the classic features of a normal hospital, but the overhead lights indicated that the room was at least being maintained. He instinctively reached for his arm to tie the cloth wrap, but met a strangely textured surface.
'Bandage,' he thought, sighing in relief for a brief second.
He wouldn't lose his arms anymore.
For a while, he sat on the bed, not knowing what to do next. He'd ticked off a lot of the goals on his list, so this was a little confusing for him.
"What else remains?"
He evaluated everything that had happened to him this past day until he finally got his answer.
"Right, the mission rewards from the system,"
As soon as that happened, a loud ding! Sounded in his brain.
[Wait patiently. Random offensive skill generating!]
A massive wheel-like object appeared in his vision and spun faster than his eyes could follow. The wheel spun for several minutes until it finally slowed down and landed on something.
[Ding!]
[Offensive skill: Razor Knife acquired!]
A bit of information flowed into his mind on how to use and activate the skills. It was different from when he'd done the action and then gained the skills in his previous fights. It was the complete opposite of that.
Hmm?
Emery focused on the skill to get the rest of the details from it.
[Name: Razor Knife (Active)]
[Effects: The user can use a knife with razor-like precision. At its highest level, tiny invisible razor blades can cut the opponent from several metres away.]
He heaved a sigh of relief. It certainly could have been a lot worse than that and luckily for him, this skill wasn't even that bad. He was just a bit at a loss as to how he would use it.
"Would I go around using basic cooking knife techniques to apply this skill?"
That was an answer for another day. He put the thought aside and moved his eyes over to the next one.
Specific Skill.
That was… great. But he wouldn't rush into it and pick something useless. So he skipped over that one for now and moved on to the last one.
Job Equipment.
His job on the status page was listed as Chef, so did that mean his job equipment would be simple chef tools? If so that would be pretty underwhelming, he had to admit.
"Well, you only live once, as they say."
So, without thinking further, he willed his mind to press the non-existent button. The same large wheel spun around quickly for minutes on end till it slowed and finally stopped on a single option.
[Ding!]
[Job Equipment: Enhanced Cherrywood Ladle, acquired]
A bright light appeared where the giant wheel once floated and a small brown ladle appeared, dropping into his hands. It looked ordinary.
A ladle. Well, that would definitely be the catch of this whole reward system, one couldn't always get what he wanted or what was useful.
Emery sighed and focused on the ladle.
[Name: Enhanced Cherrywood Ladle]
[Properties: Enhanced wooden ladle. Stronger than normal ladles. Difficult to break]
He frowned a little. It really was just an ordinary ladle. Or was it? The system didn't seem like the type to give out completely useless items, but he put that thought away and returned to observing the ladle.
After looking at it and finding nothing, he grew bored.
"Is there somewhere I can store this stuff?"
[Ding!]
[Job perk unlocked!
[Chef's Pantry activated!]
A dim light emerged, and the wooden spoon disappeared from his hand. That was convenient. At least he wouldn't have to carry anything on his back again.
Seeing as that was done, he thought of one more thing.
"Have I improved any bit since I got the system?"
There was no way the answer was no, but Emery just wanted to make sure of it for himself.
"Status!"
[Ding!]
[Name: Emery Fenon]
[Job: Chef]
[Level: Three…Exp:35/900]
[EP: 45]
[Attributes:
STR- Not enough data > Class Ten
AGI- Not enough data > Class Ten
INT- Class Ten
DEF- Not enough data > Class Ten
DEX- Class Ten]
[Skills: Basic Knife Skills, Basic Cooking, Beginner's Instincts, Stealthy Blade, Razor Knife (Lvl 1)]
[Summons: One– Elyn]
[Status: Injured (Healing)]
A mixture of emotions passed through him all in that minute it took him to read everything on his status page. He was Awakened. At first, it seemed like some sort of cruel joke fate was playing, where he would just wake up on the brink of death. But not again.
A Class 10 Awakened.
Filled with a brand new confidence, he decided to stop being so reactive.
"System, how are energy points obtained?"
[Ding!]
[To answer your question, energy points can only be obtained through two ways. The first is through killing monsters. This way is highly based on chance if you've noticed. It isn't guaranteed that you'll get energy points with every kill. The second is the system's missions. Energy points are fixed and guaranteed for those, but missions are highly difficult to come about]
Hmm, that was probably the reason he didn't get energy points every time he killed a beast.
That made sense.
Emery asked the system a bunch of things for a while till he got satisfactory answers. Most of the gaps in his knowledge had been filled and he wouldn't be half as lost the next time he was to go out.
"I should be able to infer the rest by myself," Emery said, shutting his eyes to rest a bit more. But the system wouldn't let him.
[Ding!]
[Energy required for next summoning is achieved!]
[Would you like to summon now?!]
[Would you like to summon now?!]
[Would you like to summon now?!]
The words blared and sounded in his head three times. Emery wanted to rest but with this, how could he even?
****
Author's note: I thank and appreciate everyone voting with power stones. Please review, they are helpful for books in their own little way.
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