Leaving the tavern, 6 began skipping back to his apartment with a glass full of fruit juice. His talk with Macason left him with more useful information than he expected.
6 mentally discarded all the useless chatter Macason spit out, which was more than even 6 could handle.
If any of the hundreds of people who had been annoyed by 6's bullshit in the past were here, they would've said it was like seeing double, if they could even follow along with the two's rapid words that seemed to be part of two entirely different conversations.
Awakening, which Macason mentioned, was something that went hand in hand with reaching the intermediate level, and thus wasn't something 6 could concern himself with just yet.
He was oddly obstinate about not sharing too much about the higher levels of adventurers, but through this brief conversation 6 realized that he wasn't even considered a basic adventurer just yet.
[Status Page]
[Name: 6]
[Title: None]
[Level: Beginner]
[Health: 220]
[Stats: I refuse to list your stats. Maybe gain something worthwhile, and then we can talk about it.]
[Comments: C'mon, man. Still?]
Initially, 6's level was [Useless], which didn't mean that he was truly useless. Useless was the word used on any adventurers status page when they had not yet gone on any mission.
Now that he had actually completed a mission, he was a beginner. The level after that was basic, followed by intermediate, and then advanced. These tiers were more than just their level of experience.
Unfortunately, it seemed that the Carusian salt, his two new skills, and his new armor, weren't enough to bump him up to basic, leading him stuck at beginner for now.
An intermediate adventurer was denoted usually by their awakening, while advanced adventurers were those that had taken it a level beyond, though what that level was, Macason refused to explain.
What Macason would explain was a bit of information on the awakening required to become an intermediate adventurer.
Firstly, the reason he only shared a bit of information and not all the information he had in it was simple.
There was only a bit of reliable information on it in general.
This was because awakening was highly dependent on the individual in question.
Most people, aside from special cases, would achieve the awakening in their own time, sometimes just days after becoming an adventurer, and sometimes years later.
Particularly rare cases involved people experiencing an awakening before ever even becoming an adventurer, or the moment they became one.
The only advice about achieving the awakening that Macason could give 6 was that everyone, without exception, had the ability to achieve awakening, and the most important thing was to find your own groove and stick to it.
An awakening could be as simple as thinking one thought and achieving enlightenment, or as complicated as needing to bathe in a lava pool while your heart rate surpasses 200 beats per minute.
But you wouldn't discover what that was if you didn't stay in your own lane, getting caught up in how others achieved their awakening would only push it further from your grasp.
Macason offered to explain the benefits that awakening could bring you, but 6 stopped him every time he tried, preferring to be surprised on the day he achieved his own awakening.
The levels of basic and beginner, on the other hand, were separated by the thinnest line, so much so that most people simply skipped the basic level altogether after completing their first mission.
6 silently promised to never willingly expose to anyone that he was once a beginner adventurer, for the sake of his museums.
The line was usually so blurred that a beginner adventurer wouldn't necessarily lose to a basic adventurer, as long as they played their cards right. Usually, as long as you could get your hands on a good weapon as well as a good skill or two, a beginner adventurer would make the step towards becoming a basic adventurer.
Adventurers weren't as common as 6 initially believed, either. A big part of what decides the strength of a Domus planet were their adventurers, and they were connected to the planet.
They were basically the knights of the Domus planet, and there was a limited amount that they could choose, based upon their strength. Trivrium herself only had a few hundred, and of the people in the bar, only 3 were adventurers.
This was all the bonus info that 6 came to learn by visiting the bar, though it wasn't what he came here for. He specifically came here to see if he could get some info about the alchemy planet, before he went out on his mission.
Macason said he could have his bartenders ask around, for a price, but that price was far out of 6's budget, a cool 2000 points.
With that hope out of the cards, and too lazy to actually do the talking to all of the strangers in the tavern himself, 6 could only resign himself to heading out to the mission without that information.
"Trivrium, is there anything else I should know before I head to the alchemy planet?"
[A few. Alchemy, in this world, is like more than an advanced type of science. That isn't always the case, as alchemy can vary from world to world, but you can think of it as such in this world.]
6 nodded, then asked "What does that mean for me?"
[Palon is only interested in the story of the world. If you find any alchemy based skills or recipes, Trivrium will buy them from you.]
"Good to know, good to know. What else?"
[This mission takes place in an open world. Trivrium only allows one adventurer to this mission at a time, however, you may run into adventurers from other Domus Planets during this mission.]
"Is it a free for all?"
[No. Only allies of the Donuts planet which rules it may accept this mission. If the situation doesn't force you, refrain from killing our allies please.]
Domus planets tend to want to hog as many benefits to themselves as they can.
Though this particular Domus planet was willing to share this mission, as it had already given up on this planet once its soul was destroyed, it wouldn't allow its enemies to accept missions on its Val planet, especially not when those missions could go to its own adventurers, or the adventures of its allies.
[Though, as the planet has been abandoned by its Domus planet, and has no consciousness of its own, there remains a possibility that it may have intruders who have snuck onto the world.]
"What do you mean by that?" 6 asked.
[Without someone actively monitoring who is going in and out, there are many ways for an intruder to find a way onto a planet. Additionally, even with someone monitoring, it is still possible using special methods, though those are rarer and you are not likely to run into situations like that before becoming an intermediate adventurer.]
"Hm, so I can run into intruders, who would likely be enemies of you or your allies…" 6 said aloud, thinking to himself as he tapped his chin. "I could…"
Trailing off into thought, 6 was imagining the lucrative rewards that would come with killing another adventurer.
Though they wouldn't drop their skills, obviously, surely their equipment would be fair game, right?
Even if they were low level like him, even something on a similar level as his armor would be more than worth the effort, and most likely they would have their own weapon.
His knife was special to him, but 6 wasn't foolish enough to assume he could rely on it forever, at least not until it was appraised.
A new weapon would be fantastic, and even if he couldn't use it, he could definitely sell it to buy another, or use the money to appraise his own.
[No, you likely could not. For one, adventurers of your level are more rare than intermediate adventurers. You would be far more likely, in general, to run into an intermediate adventurer than a basic or beginner.]
"Okay, okay, that is fair, I'll give you that. But if…" 6 said.
[And if it were an intruder, rather than an adventurer from one of Trivrium's allies, it is almost 100% certain that they would be an intermediate adventurer, and if you're extremely unlucky it could be an advanced adventurer.]
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Any beginner or basic wouldn't have a chance of getting their hands on a way to sneak into the planet, but-"
[More like they would die trying. That goes for you trying to sneak onto other planets as well.]
"But. As I was saying, you can at least let me dream. I gotta live with being weak, at least let me be strong in my head." 6 complained.
[Excessive fantasies often lead to impulsive choices.]
"I'm not even sure what the fuck that means." 6 said. "Besides, why do you still have more of your presence on me? You weren't this responsive before the spider's egg."
Though Trivrium was still referring to herself in third person for whatever reason, it was clear to 6 that she had more personality and was significantly more talkative currently, compared to how mechanical she was prior to his first mission.
He had even been considering calling the more mechanical version of Trivrium another name, to make a distinction between the two very different versions of her.
It would feel wrong calling her A-T, short for Automatic Trivrium, now, considering her personality improvement.
[Trivrium decided you had a higher value due to your successful survival during your previous mission, and thus left an extra grain of her presence with you.]