"Mana Exhaustion, huh?" Oslo muttered.
Come to think of it, it did make sense. If I were to exhaust all of my mana then there may be a chance that the mana I control will have same color all the way. There may be a chance that I could get rid of this hybrid. He stood up immediately patting his pant before shooting a last glance at the skill shop and walking away.
Although he didn't fully trusted the information the big mouthed beggar gave him and he thought of the beggar as some shady person, he didn't entirely ruled out the possibility. If there was actually a way to achieve something like that with mana exhaustion then it didn't hurt trying just once and there was also no loss.
From what he knew, the best way to exhaust mana was by engaging in battle. If one was to battle again and again, then there was no doubt that they would end up exhausting all their mana. So best way he could think of was by taking up on a quest from the Advent Guild.
He went straight to the guild that allowed loose adventurer like himself to take on a quest. Advent Guild was the best in comparison to others if one were to compare regarding quests and facilities they provided to loose adventurers who didn't like joining the guilds.
Loose adventurers were the ones who always wanted to go on a quest by themselves and solo the entire quest without the help of any party. The adventurers who liked to remain loose were either too strong or either too weak.
Strong adventurers were filled with pride and to arrogant of their strength, so they rarely joined any guilds and most of the time they would just start their own guild just to boast their strength and power they possessed.
And the weak adventurers couldn't even join the guilds because they couldn't meet the requirements set up by them. Most of the able adventurers would be roped in by well functioning guild leaving weak adventurers who are considered worthless just to become sellswords or one who did miscellaneous jobs. Some guilds would also rope in the low rank adventurers but not because they saw promising future in them but to use them as cannon fodder inside the dungeon.
The weak were supressed and strong dominated the land. But it wasn't an iron rule that weak were bound to suffer because they could just take some random quest suitable for themselves making a living for themselves...even if they had to stoop very low.
Before this, Oslo hadn't gone on any quest by himself because in his entire life he had never walked inside a guild and always lived off being a sellsword. Because of this, he had never experienced a quest going on for helping others and also didn't have any experience on dealing with the quest all by himself.
If he were to go on with this then it would be no doubt be his first quest like a first quest of a newbie adventurer.
When he entered the guild, he was greeted with a hall filled with adventurers in front of the wooded boards who were laughing and chatting among themselves about the subject regarding their adventures. It was his first time seeing so many adventurers gathered in one place.
The room was filled with scent of people and was lit dimly with a round sphere like figure at the ceiling which was about twelve meters above him which resembled miniature sun. The huge windows on the wall made fresh breeze of air enter the hall every now and then.
I was really a frog in the well. The world is vast!
He then saw a girl sitting in one corner of the hall and slowly walked towards her. Noticing Oslo, the girl politely asked,
"Sir, do you require any assistance?"
Oslo scratched the back of his head revealing an awkward smile and said, "How can I um...how can I find a quest suitable for my current rank?"
He thought that she might end up laughing when she heard her ask such question but he was surprised by the reaction he got which was the contrary. She still had a gentle smile on her face when she asked,
"Are you a new adventurer?"
He hesitated for a moment before answering, "Um...kind of..."
"Then let me see your adventurer's ID so that I can help you with your concern." She said solemnly.
Oslo took out a card that resembled the ID from the pocket of his jeans and handed it over to the girl. After analyzing it clearly, she frowned.
"This..."
Noticing her gaze toward the ID, he asked, "Is something the matter? Is there something wrong with my ID regarding my rank?"
"No!" She shook her head before replying, "There is no problem regarding the rank but it regards your name in the card. The space is left blank."
"Oh? It's only that. I thought that there might have been some serious issue."Oslo awkwardly laughed, "It is just a mistake from the past and nothing much. Just ignore it."
"From your expression I can tell that you don't mind it that much but is it really fine? You have to go on quests without any name, is it fine?" She asked again as if to confirm, "Is it really alright? If you want we can help you change the name in ID."
From what she knew, boys of this age would always like to show their strength comparing it with others and arrogantly boasting their strength. If they weren't able to show off then they might suffer from major setback so she had asked him to confirm many times because it concerned him and his achievements.
"No, it's fine. I don't want any changes,"Oslo said without any hesitation, "I like it as it is."
It was unlikely that the association would make a mistake regarding the ID of an adventurer, but you couldn't be so sure as well because there was a chance of it. He may have also stumbled upon such coincidence or so she thought. Sighing, she looked at her left pointing at the third board on the left wall.
"That is the board where you can find about quests suitable for your current rank."
The board she had pointed was where only handful of people were gathered. Unlike other at the sight side of the hall, chatting each other with a smile, they were just watching the board for a suitable quest and it wasn't packed with mob of people as well. Oslo went near the quest board and glanced through the quests that had filled the boards.
One. Two. Three.
Most of the quest on this board didn't contain battle with magic beasts. There were quests like taking a dog for a walk, or to protect some hotshot. The pay for these jobs weren't very disappointing as well because even taking a dog for a walk would earn him five copper coin and protecting hotshot would earn him twenty silvers.
The coins were named after the material used to make it. Copper was used to make copper coins, silver was used to make silver coins and other coins were constructed in similar manner.
The highest ranking coin one could obtain was diamond coin and it wasn't hard to make it as using magic to alter the shape of minerals made it a lot easier and the Magic Land was like a diamond mine, so diamond was easily found and making it was easy as a pie. The value of the coin was determined by the nature of material used and the value set by the Magic Council.
A copper coin was equivalent to thousand dollars, a silver coin ten thousands dollars, a gold coin hundred thousands dollars, a platinum coin one million dollars and the diamond coin ten millions dollars.
There was always a chance that an adventurer would just run away with the coin they earned but it wasn't much big of a deal as if found they wouldn't be reprimanded and would rather be compensated the amount equivalent to the coin before seizing it because after all they had earned it but if they had by chance found it...lucky dogs.
In Magic Land, these coins were used as currency instead of paper note and if one wanted to exchange it into the currency from earth then they could just exchange it through the association and transfer the equivalent amount to their accounts in earth.
Oslo was shocked seeing the quests. If he had entered the Guild before and saw that he could just earn five copper for taking a dog for a walk then he wouldn't have become sellsword. Seeing such money just for a walk, he sighed with emotion.
But he didn't want to take such quests right now because he had wanted to take on a quest to solve a problem that was troubling him which concerned his mana. If he couldn't solve it real fast then there was a chance that he wouldn't be able to learn any skill for years till he solved it. So he wanted to choose quest which rather had action than some simple task.
It was as if he was searching for a needle in a stack of hay, no matter how much he searched it, it was difficult all the same. But as he had expected, he finally found it. It was a quest that wanted him to kill some goblins that terrorized some village in the wild.
And much to his surprise, its reward wasn't any coin but a book. A skill book. The book that would help one in learning skill. He was enlightened again as he had never expected that quest could even reward him with skill books. Now he was more excited about the quest which provided him just what he wanted.
He took the pinned quest without hesitation from the corner of the board and took it to the girl from before. He showed it to the girl and said,
"I'll take this one."
"This one?" She glanced at Oslo from head to toe and seeing him with no hesitation, she said, "Ok then, I'll record it."
"OK," Oslo said and started walking towards the door.
"Wait a minute," The receptionist said, "What should I write in the place of your name?"
"Hmm..." Oslo pondered for a moment holding his chin.
"Just leave it blank!"