After sharing a confusing and awkward meal with Annali, Einer left the post and headed towards the town's center.
Judging by the rather scenic sunset to his right, Einer concluded that he had just eaten dinner.
Aside from some other irrelevant thoughts, he noticed the difference in his physical state now that he was alone and could better focus on himself.
His body felt more energetic, and unlike before he didn't have a sense of losing energy when while he walked. It seemed as though it would be no issue to continue walking forever.
Einer noticed an increase in awareness as well, his mind was incredibly clear, and his senses were much sharped compared to before. The vague feeling that he could 'think more' was also offsetting in some ways, and if he focused, time seemed to slow on top of that.
'It's most likely to be that vitality increased the quality of my sensory organs, agility my capability to make use of them to their fullest, and wisdom my ability to make sense and apply logic and reasoning to it all. Although I doubt that there's not more to it, it still seems likely that this is the reason behind the differences.'
He also examined and confirmed the mild increase in arcane energy and his ability to sense it, and the only stat he had left to confirm the change in was his force.
'I'll do that when I get to the training field.'
At the branch headquarters, Einer went through a similar process to last time, and eventually left a higher quality evaluation room with his updated ID and a Geode Ranker crest. My ID honestly hadn't changed much, only my level and rank being updated, with my skill loadout, age, height, and image remaining unchanged.
Although I wasn't really sure how things like appearance and attractiveness were assessed, even I could tell that my face looked better in the new picture that went above my name.
Seconds later the card went blank, until the next time I would send some energy into it.
Apparently this card didn't need regular contact with its owner to retain information, as that function was apparently only there related to concerns for new guild members.
'Seems interesting, but I can't think of why that might be.'
Remembering why he was here, Einer turned to his attendant who had done his reassessment, and asked where he could find the 'training field'.
According to them, he could be given specific instructions if he asked one of the receptionists on the bottom floor, so Einer went down the two flights of stairs required to reach the main lobby.
Einer sat down on one of the dark red cushioned seats that lined the lobby, and stared into the pretty wood wall across from him until he noticed a receptionist that wasn't busy.
It felt incredibly intimidating to voluntarily engage in conversation with someone, especially in a professional environment such as this, however he reminded himself of his value to the guild and the reasonable importance the Geode crest on his left breast gave him.
With shaky confidence, Einer approached and asked, "Hi... do you know where I can find this 'something or other' training field?"
"Our specialized training field built specifically for adventurer's use? I take it that this is your first time visiting, let me take you there."
"Yeah it is, thanks."
Einer was led, to his surprise, to a stairway that descended downwards, below the already ground level lobby.
'They can build stuff underground...?'
As he contemplated and made a big deal out of the possibilities and consequences of this otherwise trivial information, the receptionist led him down to a spacious dome-like room with a large number of doors spread out at even intervals.
"You can check for openings at the desk over there, and make a reservation for whenever you wish, although you will have to pay by the hour."
The receptionist then went back up the stairs, leaving Einer to it.
At the desk, a middle aged man who dressed like a manager sat going through a variety of different papers related to the upkeep of the facility.
Einer already felt himself warming up to the role of a reputable adventurer, and with much less hesitation than before he engaged.
"Hey, I'd like to reserve one of these training rooms, how much would that cost?"
The man looked up, but didn't even look at Einer, only checking his badge before snorting.
'eeeeeeeh? This isn't how it was supposed to go...'
Einer could already sense his esteem dropping, but he noticed quickly and held it up so that he wouldn't seem as exposed as he felt.
"Son, I don't think you can afford one of these rooms, and even if you can it wouldn't be for long. Instead of wasting time developing skills that you're eventually going to replace with better ones, you should go take on quests and earn enough to afford higher tier skill books for the future."
"about thaaat..."
'Waste my time developing skills I'm just going to end up replacing huh... if only.'
Einer looked down and coughed into his fist, recovering from the man's prickly advice.
"I appreciate the concern, but I can assure you that I know what's best for me."
The man finally looked up and made eye contact, surprised that his usual advice didn't seem to have any affect on the kid in front of him.
"I see. Well then, there's actually a vacancy right now, so a reservation won't be necessary if you want to use it right away. It'll cost 250 Dali an hour though."
Einer nearly fell over, the old guy had been right, he could only afford a single hour with the Dali he currently had.
Though he doubted that he could make much progress even with the x33.33~ multiplier, Einer reasoned that he might as well buy an hour time slot.
He reasoned that the facility had some aspects that made it worth what it costed, and considering that he would be most likely be using this place a decent amount, he might as well familiarize himself with it by taking a test run.
'With this modifier learning rate multiplier, and the fact that [Fireball] will remain my only skill, modifiers may very well become my greatest strength, so I see no reason to not spend at least an hour here.'
"Okay, I'll buy an hour's worth of time then."
The man merely responded with a grunt, to which Einer kept the pain from showing as he handed him 250 Dali out of his balance of 267.
'This really is a service meant for Geode Rankers and above, I can only afford it by using a large portion of what I earned from the emergency quest, which gave much more generous rewards than your normal quest.'
'Although, now that I'm this powerful, it shouldn't be a problem for me to earn even more than that just by doing those normal quests.'