The defeat of the dragon led to victorious screams after the dragon fell to its misery from the ball mysteriously repelled back, Shura and Kazoru knew the person was, it was none other than Akira. Impressed and acknowledged his greats, Akira was the one who made the ending sweet.
Amazed and delighted, all would celebrate.
Kazoru rested peacefully while regaining mana, and Shura on the other hand went out searching for Akira.
Shura wandered through the murky snow with every step he took he covered his eyes, but then came the unexpected, a naked man who he mistook for a perv. The image was obvious when seen carefully. It was Akira who was plodding around naked. Akira was shivering excessively and on the verge of passing out from the merciless cold.
"Sh-Sh-Shu-ra th-thank God! Y-y-you're here!" Akira stuttered as he was shivering madly, unable to speak clearly.
Again, Akira was truly immortal but clothes couldn't copy his ability.
"M-M-Mind giving me your sp-p-spare clothes?" Akira stuttered, his teeth trembling, and to be truthful, Akira's flaw was his clothing; despite being immortal, he ran around naked anytime he perished from fire, acid, or explosion.
"..." Shura remained silent and stunned because he imagined Akira had unusual hobbies such as running naked through a wintry landscape.
"Bye now," Shura said as he turned around and walked away.
"HEY! DON'T LEAVE ME HERE, YOU JERK!" Akira threw a snowball and Shura dodged it by moving his head without looking behind him.
"I don't want to be involved with some kind of perv. I'm cool with exhibitionist, but leave me out of this." Shura reasoned with his dignity and self-respect.
"WHAT. DID. YOU. SAY?! UNGRATEFUL JERK, I SAVED YOUR ASS!" Akira's face flushed with embarrassment as he realized he was naked. And it was at this point that Akira would require more spare clothes. If it hadn't been for his trip into the jungle, he would have one at least spares.
"Don't worry, I'll ask Kazoru to make a new coat nice and warm. Stay here for an hour or two." Shura lied to him because it would only take 10-30 seconds to give him a new coat.
"W-Wh-What!? An hour??? You kidding?!" Akira got left alone in the misty snow.
2 minutes later...
Akira was given extra clothing and coats by Shura. Finally, Akira felt relieved.
"Phew, finally nice and warm!"
"Great job you did there! Without your help, the dragon would only kill us all except you." Shura thanked him for his selfless act. Though he knew that Akira would survive and the rest of them would die.
"Aw shucks, I'm flattered" Akira accepted his "rare" compliment.
Shura and Akira went back to their allies and rested until the gate of the exam opened for them to exit.
They won, 322 examinees survived and those who helped Akira and his friends were only 32.
Two minutes ticked by, and everyone's bodies lighted up brightly. Then they would all slowly disappear, like teleporting at a snail's pace. Suddenly, they were back in the exam field, everything normal again.
A voice boomed out, "Congrats warriors! You faced those tests head-on, proving yourselves worthy of becoming Celesta's finest!" The examiners were practically cheering.
"Now, let's talk about your official warrior duties..." the voice continues, but a hand shot up from the crowd.
"Hold on a sec," someone shoutee, "What about the people who, you know, DIED in there?!" Everyone started murmuring about the poor warriors who didn't make it.
An awkward chuckle came from the speaker. "Haha, whoops about that! We didn't mean to, uh, kill you all. We actually have placed a 'Revival Angka' to keep you safe."
Who or what Revival Angka was baffled the people. They only saw the dead bodies of their pals, with no indication that any of them had been revived.
"The goal of Revival Angka is to bring back a dead person here, not elsewhere. They will spawn into the revival room once you have finished the examinations. Compared to the realm you were in, the time here is very different."
"This brutal approach was used to heighten the tension and put both the mental and physical strength to the test through the excruciating trials we gave. So if we've terrified you to death or even traumatized you, kindly pardon us on behalf of all examiners." Speaker made a bow.
"And... Do not worry! Those who have failed will be able to participate again next month. Your chance to become a warrior will be yours, so train while you can! We will also give you all 3 Revival Angkas, so you won't fail so easily, but if you fail again... Then wait until 6 months." The speaker explained.
"Let's set all of that aside now. There have been cases of examinees attempting to harm another. This is not acceptable and will be severely penalized for both betrayal and friendly fire assault." The speaker informed.
"The examinees who participated these kinds of act will be called forth. Sinoru Gonta, Akume Saranara, Solgad, Zemmon, and Elza Macquire." The screen projector displayed the face of the examiness who attempted to harm other examinees, including Akira and Shura.
"They will be sentenced to five years in prison, be permanently barred from taking any warrior examinations, and be prohibited from hiring warriors to assist them. This rule was established so that none of you would ever undermine any warriors or examinees. Let that serve as a lesson to you all, for only God understands the motivation behind such abhorrent behavior. Last but not least, we genuinely hoped that nothing similar to this would ever occur again. In other words, we will put our faith in each and every one of you after you have finished becoming a warrior."
The punishment gave a fright to everyone and if they were glad having followed the rules.
He was unable to stop the anguish that was on his face. He desired to achieve popularity and sought to become a warrior, but all of his opportunities were lost.
"Now, let's speak about how will you decide to become a warrior!" The speaker changed the topic.
"First, feel free to go solo and step out the field. Second, if you'd like to team up with others or be mentored by veterans, please head to the warrior selection room. If you're not selected by them, then the only options you have is to go solo. For your time, I'm grateful. Good luck and best of all wishes to you." As soon as the speaker left the platform, the warriors were left to decide for themselves.
"Well, an interesting options to play, what will you choose?" Shura questioned Akira's decision in what would he choose.
"I'll go solo. Can't let all my seniors and the professionals take all the credit. Playing solo always been my thing." Akira gave his reason to why he would go solo.
Akira didn't want to be weakened and pampered by relying solely on the seniors, so he wanted to tackle it alone. Shura opted the same and went solo. Shura clarified that there was a matter that needed to be handled.
Meanwhile, Kazoru joined his family and joined the squad. Before parting ways, they all spoke their goodbyes and wishes for the future and hopefully this wouldn't be the last they meet.
Kazoru ran off to the warrior selection room, Shura and Akira gave their parting fist bumps.
As soon as they parted ways, Akira went into the mission room to gain experience and strength—it was revealed from the "Celesta's Guide Book". He reasoned that because he had nothing better to do than pursue monsters, it would help him become stronger. He would always have the possibility to get stronger as a result of what Akira said, regardless of the task he was performing hard or easy.
Akira was taken aback, nevertheless, at the numerous monsters in the city. According to what he had heard, even if the city had the reputation of being the safest, dozens of warriors still had to be employed. Though the city was considered safe with many warriors standby, this month, Celesta was facing troubles with monsters overrunning the city with no clear explanation. It was strange yet intriguing in how the monsters would pass by Celesta's guards.
The mission room was located from the south area, near the heart of Celesta. Meanwhile, the Warriors Exam Headquarters was from the east. The walk he took was twenty minutes long, due to its range being close.
He looked through the mission board that was placed like a holographic board akin to his system. To find a suitable mission that could offer, he checked through every word he found challenging. The mission had different rankings and different tasks but the board had only 3 ranks shown while the other ranks were declared unavailable.
- Rank E
1. Mow the lawn commissioned by Sellia (Message: "Please mew my lawn, I'm to old and fraiil... I promise to whip you ap a feast:)") [EXP+2,000]
2. Hunt a massive boar from Southwest of Akitomi forest (Warning: the client's informed that the boar has massive sharp horns that could do major harm.) [EXP+1,000]
3. Cutting the logs commissioned by Zenery (Info: The wood has the dexterity that warriors rank C able to cut.) [EXP+2,000]
- Rank D.
[Unavailable]
- Rank C
[Unavailable]
"What's with all these ranks and what's with the Exp?" After making his way and check through the list of missions, baffled and full of questions, Akira stroked his chin.
Then, a random person answered behind him, the guider.
"Ranks show how difficult the mission is." The man explained. It was a man wearing a neat suit, standing behind him happily and explaining it to Akira. He was just passing by until he saw Akira was baffled about the ranks.
- Rank E: Tasked with doing simple tasks from clients request and commission. (No level of difficulties.)
- Rank D: Tasked to help someone who got robbed or troubled based on personal problems that could include endangering their lives. (Weak level of difficulty)
- Rank C: Tasked to fight enemies that came from a gang, killers, criminals, and more. (A village level)
The above list was a newbie form of a mission. Until the exp, exclusively came from the mission board was full, for example: Akira with 5,000 exp which meant he could unlock a Rank B mission and further. Note: It could make an exception.
- Rank B: Tasked to fight monster invasions commissioned either by clients or the authority. (Town level)
- Rank A: Tasked to fight highly ranked monsters potentially threatening many casualties. (Streets level)
- Rank AA: Tasked to fight people with main abilities or system that were considered very dangerous. (City level)
- Rank S: Tasked to fight a very strong enemy that could be a potential threat to Celesta and many lives at stake that could reach hundreds of thousands. (Small country level)
- Rank SS: A potential threat to the whole continent and multiple countries that could endanger millions even nearing hundreds of millions. (Multi continent level)
- Rank SSS: A potential threat to the whole world and could reach galaxies, multi-billion lives are at stake. (Multi galaxy level, planetary level, and star level.)
- Rank Z: A potential threat to the whole universe. A level where kings and celestials faced such problems. (Dimensional level, multi-universal level, and above all.)
He explained the difficulties of each mission; he was referring to how difficult it was, not how strong the enemies were. But Akira misunderstood it as it meant that it was a monster rank.
Amazed by the explanation of each mission, Akira gave his gratitude to the man with a bow. The man gave a smile and returned to his workplace.
"Z rank, huh...? Guess reaching that would be absolutely impossible..." Akira straight up thought the rarity of the case, considering it was a universe level. Might be impossible, but then again, he had immortality, which was probably possible that he would meet the universe's demise.
Now his curiosity was more peaked how the king would look like. A title so great he could face great threats and demolish them without a sweat.
He pictured him as a badass guy with a handsome, masculine face with a peak human condition.
Hours went by, Akira gave his best and took all the mission available.
He was told that he was ranked as D and could not use any mission except he was ranked above that. The exp on the mission board prevented him to search through every missions from B to Z, so his available option was for E to C. It made his face fell flat knowing that.
To see a rank, they had to go to the PSD as well, which showed their ranks, their main abilities, their stats, and a radar chart of their powers. But, Akira didn't want to go there. He thought that he had already seen his system, so there was no need for him to go.
Just as he was doing his mission, he finally found a rank B mission. He wasn't tasked; instead, he found 3 wild orcs in the woods, walking their way to Celesta.
Excited and thrilled, he killed them off quickly and gained 6,000 exp in his system from that, without the help of others. However, Akira was confused that the orcs came out of nowhere.
Supposedly, the rank of him fighting an orc should be Rank D. This was because the wild orc was considered weak and wasn't difficult, to begin with. The official info however, stated if it wasn't commissioned or directed by the officials, it couldn't be declared as a mission more like vigilante work.
After doing all the tasks available directed from the client's commission, he went back to the mission room and was rewarded with all the missions he had done. Each mission rewarded him greatly based on how the mission was done that could potentially gave you a bonus and the rank as their main rewards.
His reward was 3,300 Gols and 17 sea gems with an added bonus of 250 Gols. It wasn't much, but it was honest work. Usually, 3,550 Gols would be enough for 2 weeks, living in the expenses in his village. However, this would only take him days in the city expenses, unless he didn't waste any of his money. (Excluding taxes.)
These sea gems were stated to increase one's weapon strength, but Akira was completely clueless about how to use them so he kept it inside the system inventory and they disappeared in an instant. Upon completing every mission he was commissioned, he explored Celesta.
Vast and rich with state-of-the-art technology and equipment he had never seen before. A place where he felt like a caveman. People were dressed elegantly with a complex taste of fashion, meanwhile for Akira, he only donned a simple cheap jacket, shirt, and jeans.
The idea came into his mind, and the thought of shopping was on his mind, so he went shopping to find items he could buy. However, they were all expensive and left his jaw dropped. Every items were so well made that even buyers would be deceived into buying a rock and called it as modern art. Clothes were no exception, his whole calm demeanor was destroyed of how rich people were in here compared to the village.
The cost was shocking, the price that was labeled in the price tags was a hundred thousand gols, and even a hundred thousand could have him bankrupted in an instant, alternatively he went window shopping instead. Basically, he was saving his money for weapons and he was good at saving too, which was why he had no spendthrift mindset.
Finished with window shopping, he climbed the skyscraper and took in the city's breathtaking views. The flying cars, the citizens' walking, the setting sun, and the city's wondrous skies and its unique architecture. Traveling from one place to another never ceased to bore him, like the whole ground was his amusement park.
Living a day going through Celesta, Akira rented a room for him to live in and put an end to his adventure for now. It costed 3,000 Gols per month, and this was the cheapest offer of a room.
His room displayed a simplified furniture, clean mattress, a chair with soft cushion, a table for studying and eating, a kitchen near the bathroom, and a good view from the balcony to see the city.
Akira lay down on his mattress, staring blankly at the ceiling. In deep silence as he was all alone, he never thought that he would miss his home just after he got into Celesta and fulfilled his long wishes to get here. Neither his friends nor his family accompanied him, so he never get to enjoy the same laughs and joy back in the village. However, he harbored no hopelessness as he would continue to become stronger and would invited them to the city.
With a small sigh, Akira eventually fell asleep.