-Nighttime, Sea God's Temple, Crystalia City-
A woman was sitting on a fancy chair in a fancy bedroom, while staring at bowl with some kind of liquid. The liquid itself was actually showing Soren and Lavenza sleeping on the couch-bed, before she closed her eyes for a bit and the image of the two disappeared from tbe bowl. At that moment she shed another tear and grabbed a piece of paper from a tissue box nearby and started wiping her tears.
*knock, knock, knock*
After she heard the door knocking, she quickly wiped her eyes, quickly grabbed the tissue papers that were littering the room and threw them into the nearby trash bin. After that, she calmed herself quickly before she said elegantly:
"Come in."
The person that came in was a short man with red hair, the short priest Toby. When he entered the room, he noticed that the trash bin had a lot more garbage than usual, most of it were paper tissues and then he decided to ask:
"Forgive for being impudent miss, but I must ask. Why are you using your third eye ability so much the last couple of days? In a couple of days, you have to perform the summoning ceremony and we need you miss to be on your best condition, so why are you tiring yourself out, at such an important time?"
When she heard Toby's question, she knew that at some point she would have to say it, but she still didn't want to do that, especially at this point of time. She didn't anyone to know the existance of her long-lost daughter, otherwise she would be only bringing trouble for herself and the church, especially those elder high-priests. So for now, she decided to be evasive for now and said:
"I was asked to look into something since it was an urgency and that thing required me to use the third eye to keep tabs all the time. That is all."
Toby saw that she was trying to avoid saying anything for now, so he figured that it must be some sort of super secret mission or something similar, hence the evasive answers, but he couldn't ask for more, even if he wanted to, so he decided to drop this topic and asked her something else:
"Then may you please rest for the entire day tomorrow? We require you to be on your best condition so that the summoning succeeds whne the time comes for you to perform it."
After she heard that, she felt her heart to calm down a bit and said:
"Then tomorrow will be my day off. If you have any kind of business to take care of with me, right now, yiu better speak your mind now, otherwise I'm not to be available, until the day of the ceremony."
After hearing that Toby felt relieved that she would finally rest after seeing her constantly using her third eye ability.
"Then it's better to take my leave. Rest well for now, Arch-Priestess Laventhign."
After saying goodbye to the Arch-Priestess, he left the room while letting out a sigh of relief. He was worried about her, since the ceremony was coming up and he didn't want any screw-ups on the last moment, hence he made sure to have her rest. While Toby was worriying about the preparations, Laventhign decided to make preparations for tomorrow. Since she had a day-off, she was determined to do what she wanted.
...
-Morning Time, Rohan's house-
The moment light came to the guest room, Soren's eyes started to open up slowly. Although they felt a bit heavy at the start, after rubbing them a bit, his eyes didn't feel heavy anymore and saw Lavenza curled up like a doughnut on his chest. Then saw the room itself and it was quite brighter than he thought. After Soren spent a bit of time watching the room, Lavenza also started twitching her eyes before she lifted her head and saw Soren's face staring back at her.
"Kyuu~ Kyuu~!" Then Lavenza rubbed her head on Soren's cheek. Soren felt quite ticklish while Lavenza was rubbimg her head on his cheek and he started laughing a bit.
"Hahaha, alright Lavenza. Good morning to you too. Hahaha..."
While Soren and Lavenza were having a but of morning fun, Rohan was already making breakfast for the three of them and he couldn't resist throwing a chuckle while hearing the two of them having fun.
After the two of them had their little fun time, they tidied up the blankets and went to the bathroom to do their business. The moment the two of them entered the kitchen, they saw Rohan already eating black bread, covered with some sort of blue jam and was drinking some sort of brown beverage. Then Rohan said:
"Come on guys, the breakfast won't eat itself."
After Rohan said that, the two of them sat down and started eating. At the time Soren decided to try if he could check some of the food and lady luck smiled at him.
[Cruxius bread: Made from the seeds of the Cruxius plant. Provides a decent amount of nutricion.]
[Molpis jam: Jam made from Molpis fruits. Molpis fruits are blue and have cyan exterior and are sweet by nature.]
[Mochicus Juice: Mochicus beans that has been juiced down. Mochicus beans by nature provide instantly energy if they are eaten raw, but by juicing them, they provide more energy, but it is provided much slower.]
After checking them, he saw that the cup itself was some sort of copy of a cup of joe, while the bread and jam were just recolored white bread and fruit jam. He felt slightly dejected that the otherworldy food was similar with his food from his previous world, but he realised that just because it was recolored and named differently, didn't mean it was the same.
After the trio finished their breakfast, they made their way towards the Adventurer's Guild, but then Rohan decided to go to a shop to buy something. Soren saw that he went into the shop and followed him and so did Lavenza. The shop they went to was some sort of weapon shop. There were weapon racks, glass displays for some of the better weapons and even a couple of barrels full of swords, spears and other weapons as well.
While Rohan was at the counter, Soren was watching the glass displays with the powerful weapons and saw that he could check them as well.
[Rosemary Sword: (DMG +217, FRDMG +20). A powerful sword made from rosemary steel and has been embed with a medium grade fire stone.]
[Blacksteel Knife: (DMG +152) A sharp knife made out of blacksteel metal. Perfece for night attacks.]
...
As Soren was seeing some the weapons, he saw a weapon that looked pretty powerful. The weapon itself a curved crimson knife with a serrated edge. After checking the weapon, the stats shocked him.
["Bloodlust drinker": (DMG +966, +10% LS) A masterpiece made from the bones of a rare blood-sucking piranha, combined with a mythril alloy and countless hours of hammering, tempering and sharpening. The result of the amount of work that was put into making it, was the creation of this scary weapon.]
This weapon almost had Soren's jaw drop on the floor, once he saw the crazy stats on it. After watching it in amazement, Rohan called him:
"Soren! Are you going to come or not?"
The moment Soren heard that, he was broken off his trance and decided to leave the weapon shop for now. He still couldn't believe the stats on the weapon were this high. After they swam for a bit, Soren noticed that Rohan was carrying something long and covered with a cloth. He wondered if it was a weapon but just as he was about to ask, he noticed that they just reached the Adventurer's Guild.
The moment the trio entered the guild, they saw that there weren't that many adventurers in the building, but it was morning so it was pretty normal for this time of the day. After the three of them made it to the counter, Jay appeared in front of them, although he looked a bit tired, he still was like he was full of energy.
"Hey Jay, didn't you sleep tonight?" Rohan asked with a worried look on his face.
"Nnnnnnggggggghhhhhhhh..... I did... for a good 5 hours. I had some overtime work to do , so by the time i was done, it was almost 1 in the morning." Jay said while looking half-asleep.
"You should take care of yourself Jay. Don't make yourself suffer." Rohan said.
"Any... Ways... Here Soren." Then Jay took out a gray card from his pocket. The card itself said:
[Name: Soren
Age: --- (Can be added later- CBAL)
Blood Type: --- (CBAL)
Race: Merman
Rank: F
Companions without a guild card in the same team: Lavenza/Sea Serpent/Rank F]
After Soren and took the gray card, he felt excited since he was a fully-fledged adventurer.
"Actually there is something I need you to do, Jay." Rohan said and then whispered something to Jay's ear.
"For real? Then do you have the things ready?" Jay asked. Rohan nodded and then Jay left.
"What did you ask him to do Rohan?" Soren asked curiously.
"You'll see in a bit. While he is gone let me give you a quick rundown on the way the guild works. For starters, what do adventurers do normally? The answer to that would be many things, from subjugations to explorations and escorts, but in a way, we do all kinds of odd jobs, that is all to it. Next, the way we get our missions is through the mission board on the wall over there." The Rohan pointed at the wall with posters and some of the people that were standing there.
"The mission board ususally has either collection or subjugation missions, but somethimes escort missions appear. If you want to do a mission, check its rank to see if it's in the available for you and then you can go to the counter to accept it. Of course if you fail the mission, you will have to pay 10% of the mission's reward as compesation and if you fail too many consecutively, you may have your card revoked. So don't try to bute more than you can chew. Next are the ranks. The ranks themselves go from F and continue to E, D, C, B, A, S and X. F being for newbies while X being for people who can do 1 versus 1 against mythical monsters. We also have a special rank G, but that is only for odd jobs inside the city, like deliveries, part-time jobs and what not. If you want to rank up, you have to do quite a few missions, build a bit of prestige and congrats, you have ranked up. Of course this works, only, until you reach rank C, since for rank B and higher, you'll need to take part into the monthly examinations that every guild does. Also, although it isn't necessary, it is still recommended to have a team by the time you reach rank A." Rohan fully explained.
Hearing that mountain of information, Soren then decided to ask:
"Then what is your rank Rohan?"
"Rank S, but don't say that to anyone. I hate being in the spotlight." Rohan whispered in his ear.
Soren was almost ready to scream but he held it and whispered:
"Rank S! But how!? You have been doing this kind of work for 5 years and you are rank S!? But.. Just..."
Just as Soren was started to lose it, Rohan then said:
"Relax Soren. You might think that getting there would take a couple of decades, but in reality, it doesn't take that much. The first few ranks can easily be passed within the first six months. Of course, a bit of luck is always involved, but even if you get unlucky, you can easily pull it off within nine months. The rank itself, represents your level of skill after all, rather than your overall power. So don't be suprised by the amount of rank B and A adventurers you see in the future.
Just as Rohan said that, Jay came out of one of the doors with a poster and put it on the wall. When Rohan and Soren saw that, Rohan then said:
"Perfect timing. I was almost ready to be done with my explaination. Anyways, the last thing you should know is that nothing will ever go as planned. There will be always some deviations or variables that could cause changes, so you should always be on guard and be ready for anything coming your way. Now check on the poster right now."
After Rohan said that, the poster that Soren saw suddently showed an interface that said:
[Mission: Kill 10 Sea Wolves. Time limit: 3 Days. Reward: 25 Copper coins.
Difficulty Rank: F
Do you accept: Y/N]