Rio left the arena from the back door and started to walk towards the hall. He planned on meeting Kal to ask where to get his mission.
When he passed through the gate which led to the hall, he was greeted by Mados and Kal. The Crevas father and son pair had left quietly after witnessing Rio's match. It was best to not humiliate themselves further.
"Nice to meet you Zephyr, my name is Mados, the Vice-head of this branch of the Association."
Suddenly, all the people present in the hall who didn't know about the recent match started to whisper among themselves.
Rio shook the hand that was offered to him. "Greetings, it is a pleasure to meet you too."
Mados then opened a warp gate to his office.
Rio gave a quick look and Kal nodded. Then, Rio followed Mados and went to his office closely followed by Kal.
"Now, I know you want that quest for your practice," Mados said while sitting on his chair.
Rio nodded, prompting him to continue.
"Would you mind showing your face to us? Mister Zephyr." Mados asked nervously, he was not sure if the guy would take offence to that type of question.
Rio looked at Kal and this time, Kal remained motionless.
"I thought the Adventurers' Association didn't bother about invading others' privacy. I think I was wrong." Rio said while standing from his chair.
"No, we don't, I am very sorry for asking that question." Mados said, slightly standing from his chair and putting the quest emblem on the table.
A Quest emblem was the sign of verification given by the Association, that one was qualified for a particular quest.
There was a number engraved on the emblem, S7.
"I hope you will accept this mission and forgive me." Mados said, with a nervous smile. For some reason, he felt threatened by Zephyr's presence.
Mados was one of the few S+ Adventurers, he practiced the Law of Mind, allowing him control over the mysteries of the human mind. But when he tried to see in Rio, he would always see the same wall made of bones and blood, it was akin to an abyss. He stared at the abyss, and the abyss stared back at him, both literally and metaphorically.
Then Rio took the emblem and blinked away.
"Wait- Did he just take the emblem and left?!" Mados was staring at thin air, where Zephyr was a few moments ago, and then back at Kal.
Kal just shrugged and moved to go to the hall, where Rio was waiting for him.
In the hall.
'Surprise mother fucker!' Rio laughed his ass off at the sight he saw just before warping away.
'If you think you can suck up to me, then you are sorely mistaken.' Rio slowly sat on the chair.
Suddenly, a receptionist called for his name. Rio politely went to her and she handed him a card that mentioned his name, picture, and his rank, there was a slot of mission points that were currently zero.
Mission points were awarded to adventurers according to the difficulty of the mission they completed. These mission points can then be exchanged by the people to get materials, equipment, or magic books.
This system was used which made money in the association useless, only those who contributed to the society would be able to improve and those who depended on their family background or their money would be left behind.
Rio left with the card and returned to his bench.
While he was sitting, suddenly, he was stormed by people. Most wanted to recruit him to their guild.
Guilds were a group of people who would party together to fight in dungeons. Most of them were like-minded people, and mostly the more powerful people one guild had, the more famous it would be.
Rio leaked a bit of his aura and suddenly all the weaker people turned pale and started to faint. With that majority of the people bothering him were removed.
'I love this filter.' Rio smirked as he got more personal space.
To those who were staring at him and remained, they got the feeling that they were staring at something frightening.
"I don't want any of you to bother me or else believe me, my aura would be the least of your worries." Rio said.
In Galen, the aura was possessed by only those who had attuned an average mastery one their Law and could muster about 70 percent of the power.
Rio was an exception as he didn't practice any Law, yet. His aura was acquired by him in battle. If one who was knowledgeable enough would notice Rio's aura, they would recognize it as the Blood aura, one that was formed by a thousand kills. But within his blood aura, also resided his Death aura, the one he acquired by a thousand near-death experiences.
Slowly, nearly everyone left him alone, the people who were away from the bench started to gossip among themselves and point at Rio.
"Why is that guy so rude!"
"I was breathless while I was near him."
"I wish I had someone like him in my team."
"One of my friends fainted and now is being treated by a healer!"
Suddenly among these people, a Blond guy started walking towards Rio. He was 1.8 meters (5'11") tall, and had a lean, muscular build. He was wearing a white shirt which was streaked on the edges with blue and gold.
While he walked up to Rio, no one noticed his presence, he silently made his way and when he came in the range of Rio's aura, his own Blue color aura started to clash with the Red aura and protect their respective masters.
The region where the auras clashed turned purple and started to shake violently, the guy put a bit more force in his aura and then sat beside Rio.
"I hope you don't mind if I sit beside you." The man said cheerfully.
"You are already sitting, why bother asking me?" Rio's reply was as cold as the silence that descended over the hall.
"Okay, let me cut to the chase then. My name is Alex, I want you to join my guild, we have another S class adventurer besides me and we could make the strongest team." Alex said confidently.
Few of the people present in the hall started talking among others.
"Wait did he say, Alex?"
"Isn't he the leader of White Wolves? One of the strongest guilds in the Kellar region?"
"What is he doing here?"
Rio stood up from his seat and started to walk towards the exit without saying a word.
Alex blocked his way. "We can offer you 30 percent of the loot we gain from every dungeon we clear and the guild shop would give you ten percent off on every material you buy. We would also watch your back."
'Heh, 30 percent, as if I can't clear dungeons alone, and I would never trust my back to people that I've just met.'
Rio released his aura at 10 percent of its strength and said, "Leave."
But Alex wouldn't budge so easily and stood his ground with his own aura. He practiced the Law of Light.
The people around them were starting to faint and backed off from them.
One was the coldness of death and the other was the scorching heat of light.
Rio was slowly increasing the power of his aura and added a spark of killing intent with it, the killing intent passed through Alex's aura and he broke into cold sweats.
Before any more damage was caused to the people, Kal came for the rescue. He came and condensed his aura around him and held Rio's hand and blinked out of the exit.
"You know that was dangerous right? People could have gotten hurt." Kal said looking Rio in the eyes.
"Yeah, I am really sorry for the trouble, Kal. Hope you can cover up for me."
Kal shook his head and sighed.
"Come let me drop you to the Warp Gate leading to Wales city. The city lord there is one of my old acquaintances so he might take care of you."
They then walked to the Warp Station from where Kal registered for Rio to reach Wales City.
Before Rio went inside the Warp Gate, Kal touched his shoulder.
"I made this for you just recently, it might help you a lot." Kal said, handing him a box.
Rio opened the box and found a gun that was looking better than his current one in every aspect. It was white in colour with red and black streaks around it.
"It uses the world energy around you for normal shots and has dimensional storage inside it where you can store energy crystals for it to use in places with thin world energy. I made it with the blueprints you gave me and it can turn into a sniper with powerful long shots and into a normal gun with more firepower and less range," Kal told Rio while explaining how the gun worked.
Rio hugged Kal.
"Thanks a lot, old friend."
And he left through the gate.
Even though Rio was not Kal's blood nor his student, he felt the pride of a father watching his son leave for the new world for the first time.
.
.
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