Avery kept her eyes trained on the time panel while waiting for the stumped mage to respond. She didn't appreciate that Wallice was so weak willed to have fallen under [Stupor] just because of the few things she mantioned.
Avery didn't know that hearing the head diciplinary officer's name would scare Wallice more than Bolt could. And even if she did... It would be better for the mage to not admit it in front of Avery.
The tapping on the back of the chair grew incessant. Avery was having a hard time deciding whether to give Bolt a free pass or just give the mage a kick herself. The former seemed like a good idea but doing so might cause a riot among Avery's pets. But the latter required her to stand up. Avery didn't want to stand up; she just found a comfortable sitting position.
"What?" Color was returning to his face. Wallice unknowingly saved Avery from making a decision that had a very high potential to force him to respawn when he spoke.
"What did those old fellas offer you to make you forge mission permits?"
"[Alchemy Advancement]," his voice was so low that he was practically chewing on it. If Avery didn't have high [Perception] stats, she might not have caught his words.
"That makes sense," Avery nodded.
All classes and sub-classes would reach a bottleneck at every five, ten, and/or fifteen levels depending on both difficulty of the class itself and the individual's level and class level.
Class advancement is a tall order after a tall order. The higher the level, the harder it is to advance. While class advancement can be achieved by self-experimentation and from gaining experience, there is no doubt that acquiring advancement knowlege or having someone as a guide would speed up the process by at least ten folds.
Wallice being a [Mage: level 36], having an alchenist sub-class is hardly a surprise. Potioneering and magic go hand-in-hand, higher levels of alchemy simply can not be done without magic. Because of that, alchemists without a mage profession usually end up taking one of the lesser magician classes like [Magi] as one of their two sub-classes.
Avery didn't need to examine Wallice to know that he had reached alchemy's second major bottleneck, [Alchemist: lvl 25]. What's more is that alchemy is one of the hardest classes to advance in.
Alchemy usually requires an imense amount of materials, knowledge, and practical experiance just to reach an elementary level underatanding which is equivalent to Porcelain rank.
"Since that's the case, I won't ask you to surrender the advancement knowledge to the fort. Although, teaching a few of our people shoud be doable for you. I will also need you to disclose all the information you have on the Alchemist Guild every time you sell yourself to those frustrated old men."
Before Wallice could voice out any form of protest, Avery went ahead and said, "It's non-negotiable."
Whatever thoughts he might have had against Avery's order had long left with the wind. He was somewhat familliar with Avery's personality and was clearer than more than half of his fellow fort members about some of her methods. He knew he could only swallow whatever grievances he may have had and smile.
"Since you put it that way, I guess I don't have much of a choice." A grim smile made its way to his face as he continued, "I do have one problem... I made an oath of silence and signed it with blood."
Avery touched her chin, her glazed over for a moment. "Hmm... That is a problem. Tell me the contents of that oath you took. Verbatim."
"In exchange for two levels of [Alchemy Advancement] knowledge, I, Wallice M. Canterford, swear to never speak of the agreement to provide the Alchemist Guild to with a means to recieve mission approvals without going through the usual routes nor will I disclose any information on the Alchemist Guild that I recieve through this transaction. May lightning strike me and reset all my achievements upon reviving if I go against this oath."
Avery looked up, her gaze seemingly piercing through the layers of wood, stone, and clay above their heads. "Why haven't you been hit with lightning yet?"
"I did."
"Huh? When did that happen." Avery looked at the mage with an odd sort of confusion.
"Uhh... When Bolt hit me..." This was probably the one and only time when Wallice was actually thankful that Bolt hated him. He'd still rather not have the gryphon anywhere near him.
Avery was mentally giving Bolt a thumbs up. It seemed as though having a pet that's sometimes unruly can be helpful on rare occasions like this. Then again,
"Putting that aside, your oath does have loopholes that we can take advantage of. There are three methods I can think of that can keep you from turning into a blank slate.
The first method is simple but will definitely be painful. I'll just ask Bolt to give you a good shock and beat you up a little. The second method is just plain troublesome. Play at the edge of your oath. You'll probably need to think of every loophole you can and work around it. Which will it be?"
"What about the third option?"
"Don't bother with that one. Forget about the workload after, even the materials needed for the third option are simply unavailable for anyone below Diamond rank. In fact, even Platinum rank adventurers might have a hard time gathering the materials. Do you think you're stronger than a Diamond rank adventurer?"
Color that had just returned to Wallice's face turned and left. He just barely qualified to be a Silver ranked adventurer. To him, just the gap between Silver and Gold was too large. The absolute minimum level requirement to qualify as a Diamond rank was to reach level 61. That was simply too far away.
"Then I chose the second option." Wallice didn't need to think. Allowing Bolt near the mage was something his heart would never willingly chose. And the third option wasn't even an option.
Avery didn't really care much about Wallice's decision. Both methods would still give her an excuse to poke fun at those disobedient grandfathers. Wallice was only an unfortunate casualty.
"First thing to note is that you only promised to not speak of your agreements. The slightly more troublesome part is the second thing you promised. Non-disclosure of information on the Alchemist Guild that you recieve from the transaction. Writing down the agreement itself might be possible but doing so might give us a few problems."
Avery tried to think of a method that might allow Wallice to let her know about their plans without arousing the Alchemist Guild's suspicion.
"You know what? Just show Tomoyo their mission application forms. I'll tell you what to do afterwards."
Avery's offhanded statement only made Wallice lament at how irresponsible the woman in front of him was.