Lilliana
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This board is truly gigantic... But which quest should I take?
After completing my new adventurer's card, Alice explained to me how quests and adventurer's ranks were working.
To put it simply, adventurers were classified into ranks, from H to SSS. These ranks corresponded to their level. This gave an idea of how powerful an adventurer was.
As for the quests, they were also ranked in this way. An adventurer could not take quests higher than one rank above his own. So, I was limited to G-rank quests, for example.
In addition to that, the quests were separated by family or type. There were five different types of quests: the first type, called "harvesting" quests, the "purging" quests, the betting quests, the mercenary quests, and finally the fifth type, the exploration or information quests.
At the lowest ranks, only quests of type one and two existed. So, I could only choose harvesting or purging quests.
On the board, the quests were displayed by posters, arranged in columns according to their rank. Whoever wanted to take the quest only had to take the form and present it to the corresponding counter to officially validate the taking of the quest.
But here's the thing. Most adventurers did their quests in groups. That was the norm. Unfortunately, I was alone. While I was confident about taking out low-level animals and monsters, I didn't think it was a good idea to take a purge quest alone.
Fighting a monster one-on-one was different from fighting a group of monsters, and during a quest or a journey, no one could know what might happen.
So, it was normal for me to go for a quest of the lowest rank. But which one? A monster loot quest? Or a simple harvest of plants?
After thinking about it for a while, it was very clear to me that I was going for a plant harvesting quest instead. Indeed, there wasn't much difference between harvesting monster loot and hunting them.
I decided to take a random plant collection quest since I knew nothing about botany.
It was written: "Harvest of Abundance flower". The customer was a herbalist's shop called "Amanda's remedies". A drawing of the flower was attached, as well as a map of the area indicating where I could find it: the glade of thousands stars, located one league east of the city.
I validated my quest and left the building.
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Soon, Lilliana left the city. To reach the Thousand Star Glade, it was necessary to first take the main eastern road. It was a large commercial road going deeper into the forest, towards the neighboring country, located more than a hundred leagues away: Menska.
After following this road for almost half a mile, Lilliana entered a small path, surrounded by flowerbeds. There, thousands of insects were foraging and enjoying the exceptionally rich flora. Of course, this was good for the insectivores, especially the chickadees and other sparrows.
This beautiful landscape also hid a dark side: such a fauna inevitably attracted predators, such as foxes, or wolves. The latter could be dangerous for novice adventurers.
Fortunately, the mana in the air was relatively low, so the presence of monsters was extremely rare, which limited the dangers. Of course, Lilliana knew nothing about this.
She moved forward little by little, going from clearing to clearing. After following the trail for nearly an hour, she finally came to a huge plain.
There, the diversity of flora and fauna was matched only by the beauty of the landscape. Lilliana had never seen such a spectacle. She remained motionless for almost a minute before being able to recover.
"It's beautiful."
The Thousand Star Glade truly deserves its name. A subterranean formation concentrated all the surrounding mana in this gigantic area, allowing countless plant species to live in harmony. The mana was so dense that it was visible to the naked eye, illuminating the surrounding area with thousands of glittering particles.
Among the plants that could be found, many had pharmaceutical properties. This environment was one of Avrel's treasures and one of the reasons why herbalism and alchemy were so developed in Aeira.
This kind of formation was not unique, but it was the only one within a radius of fifteen leagues of Avrel.
Many individuals and professionals hired adventurers to harvest resources in what was sometimes referred to as the Elf Garden.
Lilliana was not surprised to see other adventurers roaming the clearing, looking for rare plants or answering a quest.
She had to find the traces of the Flower of Abundance. According to the drawing, it was a white flower with three oval petals. A very classical flower, in short.
Lilliana walked carefully through the area. No path allowed to cross the garden without damaging the plants, so it was up to the adventurers to be careful.
Five minutes after observing the different flowers in search of the one she was interested in, Lilliana managed to find her first Flower of Abundance. Although very simple, the pure white of its petals was enough to make it attractive.
"Good! Only 9 more to go and I will have fulfilled my contract"
Thus, for an hour, Lilliana tracked down these flowers. She passed many adventurers who greeted her. Most of them wore simple linen outfits, so some looked at Lilliana and her leather outfit with a great jealousy.
This did not bother Lilliana, who was used to attracting attention during her travels. She only hoped that one of them would not get carried away and start attacking her to rob her.
Fortunately, her fears and suspicions were unfounded, no adventurer present at that moment had even had the idea to attack her.
After collecting the necessary ten flowers, Lilliana returned to town. When an adventurer completed a quest, he or she had to hand in the proof of completion of the quest as well as the quest statement itself to a guild representative.
Lilliana being a beginner, she handed the flowers to Alice Chandra, her advisor.
"Welcome back, Lilliana."
Alice greeted Lilliana with a big smile. For some strange reason, the number of adventurers waiting in front of Alice was very small, compared to the huge lines of people waiting in front of other counselors. Lilliana didn't ask herself any more questions and approached her counselor.
"Thank you. Here is my quest, and the flowers to complete it."
"Ah, thank you, congratulations on completing your first quest."
Lilliana simply nodded. She didn't consider herself to have done anything exceptional, not even having had to fight or explore dangerous lands.
"Well, here's your reward!" resumed Alice. "Seventy Astels."
Lilliana's eyes lit up. It was rare for her to have so much money.
"Haha" Noticing Lilliana's strange expression, Alice could not help but laugh.
'She's kind of cute, looking like that...'
"Lilliana, if you want, I can store that money in your adventurer card. It will also have a direct payment feature too, that way. It does cost ten Astels, but I assure you it will be worth it when you start completing quests with a better income."
Lilliana came to her senses and stared at Alice.
"Alright, I'll take that feature then."
Alice borrowed Lilliana's adventurer's card and applied a seal with a magic pen tool. At the bottom right of the front of her card was a number: 60. This was the number of Astels she had earned from the quest.
"Your card now serves as a portal for your money. You can move it in and out as you please."
Lilliana took out the few Astels she had, adding them to her card. This brought the number on the card to 64.
Alice did not know how to react to this, seeing the meager fortune of her client. She just smiled.
'I wonder how she managed to survive on so little money...'
After that, the two greeted each other, and Lilliana left. She browsed the market stalls for a while. Unfortunately, sixty-four Astels was quite a small amount of money for adventurer items, so she did not buy anything. When the sun began to set, Lilliana looked for a place to sleep.
She rented a single room for two nights at 12 astels per night, including breakfast and dinner.
It was a more than reasonable rate, especially considering the quality of the cover and the rooms. She was delighted with her discovery. She had already decided: tomorrow she would go on quests again, amassing a small fortune to be able to live adequately.
'But that's not all. I have to get stronger'.
She was lost in her thoughts, staring at a silver bracelet attached to her wrist, having the word 'Kuiperna' engraved on a small plate.