Mage's association "Avalon". What an exaggerated name. Picking up the elder contract paper, it grant's me access to extremely little resources, 0.01% per month, 80% of my great feats if any will be attributed to the mage's association and a measly pay of 5 gold per month. The prices of goods in this kingdom inflated due to good economy, bronze coins became obsolete, 10 silver coins equals to 1 gold coin and 1000 gold coins equal to 1 platinum coin. 5 gold coins could barely buy 2 to 3 meals. Find if you want to play that way...
Pretending to be extremely puzzled with a face of frustration and akward, I squirmed a bit in my seat, not too much to seem strange and only just enough tk be noticed. The
"head" 's face didn't change one bit, he took the bait. Nobody expects a seven year old to understand big words or contracts, but I had nothing better to do since I didn't like pretending to be a child and playing with other kids. Well I am a child, but other children act irrationally and annoyingly that it was unbearable, after a day, I never wanted to cross into that side of the neighbour hood ever again.
Putting the contract down, I go along with the flow. "Sorry, I can't understand big words."
"That is okay, we were prepared for that to happen, so in case we prepared a second contract called the "member" contract. It's pretty much the same, but the words are simpler and enough for you to understand. Picking up the piece of paper, I realised these contracts are special. Rather than paying the association, they're paying me. Well as the name stated, this was for the lowest rank, "member". Hehehe, they fell for my trap.
"Why does it say I get a salary of 2 gold per month here? In the elder contract it was 5..." Pretending to be confused, I gradually shift my expression to a worried look.
"Ah! That must be a mistake, we will correct it immediately." (Staff) After 5 minutes of waiting, the staff member came back.
" What is this "member" rank! I heard from outside that it was the lowest rank, please give me researcher rank instead! "
" Right, on the way! " (Staff) Another 5 minutes pass by and I kept my facade just as the "head" kept up his. The staff member was only level 100+ while the "head" was level 1000, what is this disparity? Well that would mean that most likely, both are staff members and only level 100+,so my tier-4 gem should be able to threaten them. When the staff came back out I asked another question, "Why are the resource access lower than before!"
"We will correct it, please wait!"(Staff)
A vein pops off on the "head" 's forehead. Now to initiate my plan. Standing up, I fake a worried expression. "Please wait here, I want to go see how the contracts are made." Nodding as if giving permission with a majestic air, I thanked the "head" and went towards the room. After closing the door behind me, the staff member was nervous. 'Shit, who knew she was literate!' (staff)
Pulling out the gem I display it infront of the staff member's face with a wicked grin.
"Is your life and many others in this building more important? Or is my contract more important~"
Understanding my intention, he placed his hands in the air in a surrendering position. "What are your conditions?" (staff)
"For starters, I want my pay to be at least 60 gold coins, recource access and rank will be the same as a researcher's. Print it out and get your colleague to sign it now."
After another 5 minutes passed by, the contract was in my left hand and the gem was in my right hand, the staff member's hand was in the air.
" Pfff, you think you can threaten me? The head of the association? "("head")
"For starters, the real head is stated to be in the main branch in the capital. Now sign this or die."
"Tch!" Signing the contract with a defeated look, I took a second to read the contract. "Sorry, but redo the contract, I want it written clearly so the you can't falsify the details. Redo it on the spot here."
After a while, a satisfactory outcome has finally arrived. Sealing the contract with my signature and holding the contract on me. I used [Mana detection-tier 3] on the contract. Alright no trackers. After a while, there were traps in the cave where I was grinding exp, so I needed to use mana detection to look out for them. With the contract sealed, I walked to the counter of resource management,showing the contract, I was given a "researcher pass" that was a necklace with a gold coin shape badge hanging at the bottom. For adventurers, their rank badge would be bars instead of coins at the end of their necklaces.
Already abusing my authority of access to 0.1% of the guild resources, I received a book that had the basic tier-3 spells that I could learn and multiple tier-2 attack magic gems. I can't be too careful in that cave. In the case of my faked death, for identification I gave the fake name "Emil Lily". I couldn't be bothered of thinking of a better name, if it was something this stupid, my pursuers would probably expect less out of it.
Going back to my base, I copied the book and used earth magic [Rock shield-tier 3] to make my base an actual shelter. Just in case, I made my base small and placed it at a distance away from the entrance of the cave, it was also camouflaged against the medium size hill where the cave was poking out of. Spending the rest of the night studying the magic inside the book, I thought 'I wonder if I could create my own spells?' and decided to decipher the symbols in magic circles. After a night, I found out some of the spells were extremely inefficient. Halfway through, I fell asleep.
The next morning, I wanted to test my new found knowledge of magic. You may think ' if anyone can learn magic just like that, what's the point of affinities?'. If you have an affinity, you do not need to memorise the magic circle and it will be engraved into you as a skill instead of a spell. If you memorised it, the same thing will happen, but one circle usually takes a couple months to memorise due to the sheer amount of components that make up the magic circle.
This time, I went much deeper into the cave then usual. I had the perfect spell to test out. Killing the small amounts of goblins and ogres with my experienced hunting skills, I finally made it to an area where there was a swarm of them. With such a satisfactory number, I stood still and made used of my newest magic. At tier 1 and 2, it pales in comparison to fireball but at tier 3,it surpassed the fireball, a big plus was the fact that it was AOE and affected multiple opponents at once. [Flame wave- tier 3]! A fiery surge of heat sweeped across the swarm of monsters leaving lots and lots of burned corpse on the ground. The goblin shamans at the back of the swarm successfully defended with their own [aqua shield]s, thinking they won as they are majority in a fight between spell casters they cackled at the back of sea of monster corpses. Too bad, I'm physical based. Closing in the distance in an instant, their heads all flew off before they knew what happen.
Level up! : lv 21 —> 31
lv 31 —> 36
Name: Emily Shuu
Level: 36
Health: 100/100
Mana: 1500/1500
Strength: 100
Vitality: 10
Intelligence: 150
Agility: 500
Skills:
[Storage magic-tier 5] [mana detection-tier 3]
[Flame wave-tier 3] [Fireball-tier 3]
[ Speed enhancement-tier 3]
[ High Speed enhancement-tier 3]