After making his way through the crowded streets, Kyle reached the centre of the marketplace. The foot- traffic was much lower here and there were no stalls or vendors. This part of the market was reserved for larger shops and other commercial organisations.
Kyle entered one of the buildings and walked towards the reception.
Kyle took out a slip of paper from his bracelet and handed it to a receptionist. The receptionist checked the slip of paper and passed it to another person after confirming its authenticity.
The person in turn went inside a room behind the reception and returned a minute later with a wooden briefcase and a strange expression on his face.
When the receptionist saw the logo on the briefcase, his reaction was no different from the man who brought the briefcase, but he regained his neutral expression quickly.
"Sir we will need a drop of your blood for the verification." The receptionist said as he passed the briefcase to Kyle.
Kyle took the briefcase and put his finger on a paper wrapped around the handle of the briefcase.
Soon, a drop of blood manifested at Kyle's fingertip and dropped on the paper. With a sizzling sound, the paper and the drop of blood disintegrated under their eyes.
"Thank you. Please visit us again if you need our services." The receptionist politely said to Kyle.
After walking out of the building, Kyle rented a room at a nearby inn. Inside the room, Kyle opened the briefcase with a key and pushed it open and a slight smile formed on his lips.
Inside the briefcase, there was a light armour, four red colored palm sized crystals with a tint of rainbow colored flame encased in its centre, a bank card and some currency coins of the first floor of the Ascension Temple. There was a hint of surprise in Kyle's usually indifferent eyes when he saw these crystals which later turned to a gloomy expression.
Kyle lifted one of the crystals and a notification appeared before his eyes.
[Life token ×1 detected]
[Absorb life token ×1?]
[Yes/No]
'Yes' Kyle said in his head and proceeded to absorb two more of them while storing the last one in his storage bracelet.
After putting the bank card and the currency in his storage bracelet, Kyle walked out of the inn.
Now that he had four extra lives, it was time for him to start his first mission. With this thought in his mind, Kyle walked towards a large building located beside the office of the mayor of Aseles.
Before Kyle were dozens of billboards with all sorts of missions posted on them like helping the farmers of nearby villages to drive out wild beasts or finding herbs or scouting missions to locate certain plants, beasts, etc.
Kyle looked through the information provided and detailed descriptions of all the missions that he was interested in. Although the first floor of the Ascension Temple was limited to the power level within mortal bounds such that a well trained human before the appearance of Ascension Temple also had a chance to complete them, it was still one of the floors with maximum failure statistics.
Most people failed due to not understanding the proper mechanics of the mission or overestimating their own abilities.
After browsing through the details of all the missions that he was interested in, Kyle finally decided on one of them and took off the paper with mission description from the billboard.
The paper immediately disappeared in his hand and another notification appeared before Kyle.
[Generating Mission]
[.....]
[.....]
[New Mission : Beast clearance hunt.]
[Description : Join the city guards of Aseles city in the monthly beast hunt to clear away the beasts from important routes of the city. The set of teeth and claws of the beasts will be used as the proof of the hunt.]
[Mission rank: F]
[System rewards : 20 exp per kill]
[Participants limit : __ ]
[Duration : __ ]
[Rewards : 20-50 silvers per set of claws and teeth of the beast killed.]
This was a mission available throughout the year and had a rather good reward. Even if the beasts at the first floor of the Ascension Temple lacked the intelligence of organised movement and the tendency to create beast waves, they were still a threat to people passing through the forest. As such, the authorities still had to organise these beast hunts.
There were three ways for someone to get a mission in the Ascension Temple. First was to get it directly from the inhabitants (npc's) of the certain world, second to pick up missions posted with various organisations run by both humans of earth or the inhabitants which would then be generated as missions in the system and third was to trigger certain events or stories in the form of missions.
Once Kyle chose his mission, he immediately left the building and headed towards the southern gate of the city. After getting out of the city premises, Kyle dashed towards the forest. His beast hunt had begun....
'Baam!Baam!Baam!' The sound of something heavy hitting the ground was heard as a creature that looked similar to a bison, but the size of an elephant rushed towards Kyle with bloodshot eyes.
The creature bellowed as it thrust its giant horns towards Kyle while an intimidating aura spread around it. The visual impact of the scene would have frozen any regular human due to fear. But facing such a scene, Kyle still remained calm and collected.
Taking a deep breath he immediately shot forward. When the bison was within a close range, Kyle jumped upwards. His jump paired with the beast thrusting its head towards the ground enabled Kyle to temporarily be above the neck of the beast. At the highest point of his trajectory Kyle swung his sword in a vertical arc.
The sword cut through the upper part of the neck of the bison and left a few inches deep cut on its neck.
The bison bellowed in pain as Kyle stepped on its back and thrust his sword on its backbone. Blinded by the sensations of pain and rage, the bison raised its forelimbs and stomped crazily on the ground around it.
Kyle immediately got away from the range of the crazed bison and waited for it to grow tired from all the stomping.
After a series of erratic stomps and leaps, the bison started showing signs of fatigue when it was already dozens of metres away from its previous position.
Kyle, who was following the bison from behind, immediately dashed towards the bison while performing two consecutive diagonal slashes from his sword.
'Energy cut.' Mana projected in the shape of 'x' appeared at the tip of Kyle's sword and then launched towards the bison at a blinding speed.
The bison fell to the ground with a scary looking cut opened in its stomach just beneath its ribcage.
Although not dead, the bison wasn't far from death. Kyle watched patiently as the bison slowly bled to death.
[Gryph Bison ×1 killed]
[+20 exp]
[Mission : Beast clearance hunt.]
[Beasts hunted : 14]
After hunting more than twenty beasts of different species, Kyle decided to call it a day and returned back to Aseles city.
After collecting the rewards of his hunt, Kyle returned back to the inn room that he previously stayed at.
As soon as his head touched the pillow, a notification appeared before Kyle's eyes...
[Exit Ascension Temple]
[Yes/No]
Kyle chose yes and the now familiar process of teleportation repeated once again. When Kyle opened his eyes, he was already at the spot from where he had teleported in the morning and it was already past 3 in the afternoon.
Kyle freshened up and cooked himself something to eat. While he was cooking the food, some scenes from his past began playing in his head.
'You have returned? Good. Go quickly and wash your hands while I arrange the food for you. Now quickly go! Go! Go!'
'You are asking how the guild is doing? Well, it's the same as usual.'
'Kyle quickly come here. Take a look at this sword. Isn't it awesome! I got it by completing a very tough mission. You like it right? Right?... Alright then I will give it to you when you grow up.'
'Kyle grow up faster. Then we can go to complete some missions together. I will protect you...'
Kyle still remembered the melodious voice with absolute precision even after five years, but he didn't know when he would be able to hear it once again.
In the beginning Kyle used to think about the time that he spent with his parents so that he would always remember his purpose. Over time, these memories began to come in his mind without any conscious effort.
Every time that Kyle remembered what happened to his parents, he would be filled with rage and his determination to get stronger would flare up.
After eating the food, Kyle rested for half an hour before getting up and putting on his training gear.
Just as he had warmed up for the training session, Kyle heard the doorbell ring.
When Kyle got to the door, he saw three people standing on his door in the monitor. These people were wearing the uniform of the Ascenders Division of his high-school. The new session for Kyle's batch had yet to begin, so these were likely students from the senior batch.
Kyle opened the door and let the three of them to the living room and served them some snacks.
While they were taking sips of the tea without a word, Kyle looked at them. The one sitting at the centre was a girl with shoulder length hair and matching pair of grey colour. She had an athletic body and exuded an elegant aura.
The one sitting to her right was a boy who had well defined muscles and tanned skin tone. There was an aura of raw power radiating from his body and looked like a soldier from the Era before the appearance of the Ascension Temple. The last one was also a boy, but he looked rather normal when compared to the other two.
These three had an air of authority about themselves and maintained distance from each other.
While Kyle was evaluating them, they were also doing the same. They also didn't bother to conceal their auras of peak level four and level five ascendants while trying to pressurise Kyle under their auras.
Seeing that Kyle wasn't the least affected under their auras even after some time, the three withdrew their auras and put down the cups they were holding at the same time.
The first one to break the silence was the girl sitting in the middle.