Elina frowned for a brief second. Usually, newly formed clubs that didn't have any external funding had to rely on some missions issued by the school according to the level of their members. They had to complete a fixed number of missions in order to secure the funding from the school.
Since she had decided to do it independently without any help from her family, the new club of hers had to rely on these missions. But, they only had enough members to form one team with two extras.
If they didn't get more people, the members of the single team would have to take on all the missions, but the problem was that these seven members were all divided on three different floors, so it was impossible for them to work together. She couldn't slow down her progress and wait for other members, similarly she didn't expect anyone else to do it as well.
"Alright, I will accept your conditions." Elina said as she passed the form to Kyle.
Elina had a slight smile when Kyle handed the form back to her after filling. Although the vice-president of their club was important and it wasn't worth losing a third rank ascender just to recruit a first rank, just for a school club, Kyle was different.
Even with her high level, the students who had been studying in the Pre-Ascender division of this school still believed that Kyle was better than her. Since they believed that Kyle was better than her, wouldn't she be wasting Kyle's good reputation if she didn't use his name to recruit other first years?
As for Ryan, he volunteered to join her club himself. She had already shared her thoughts with him that it would be beneficial for the club if they were able to persuade Kyle to join them, but he still had to go and provoke Kyle. As for the backing from his father, weren't they just trying to court favours with her family, did he really think that she needed his father to back her up in the school? How laughable!
Kyle knew a majority of thoughts going through Elina's mind, especially those about using his name to recruit first years, but he didn't bother to point it out. Anyway, no matter which club he joined, they would all try to use his name to recruit other first years.
After filling the form, Kyle got up and left for the teachers office. He wanted to finish all his backlogs as quickly as possible so that he could devote more time to level himself up.
At the same time, Ryan who had been waiting for Kyle in one of the empty classrooms was fuming with anger as he silently counted the number of minutes that he had been waiting for Kyle. After waiting for more than half an hour, he got up and left the classroom with a darkened face. He would definitely teach that f*cker a lesson if he ever crossed paths with him again.
"Are you going to the central zone? But I heard that the central zone is much more dangerous than in the Kingdom of Velonance." Reiler asked Kyle with a worried expression.
"I have something important to do in the central zone which I have to complete before I ascend to the second floor. Besides, aren't you going there as well?" Kyle replied as he looked at the father-daughter pair sitting before him.
Since one of the Conditional rewards that he received from the True Monarch's path was obtained by defeating the floor Dictator, Kyle of course wouldn't give up on the reward, especially when he knew that rewards achieved through Monarchs path were all unimaginably good.
Since all his stats were already nine and ten being maximum, he was very close to meeting the condition of all stats maximum permissible on the floors, so he would have to make this journey sooner or later.
Since today was the weekend, he could travel for two days without worrying about lagging behind in his studies. Kyle wanted to rent another carriage to travel to the capital of this kingdom and then take a teleportation circle to the central zone.
When he was on his way to rent a carriage, Kyle coincidentally ran into Marcle Salts and his entourage who were also going to the central zone via the capital of this kingdom. He had totally not seen a guard in the uniform of the ministry under Marcel Salts who was waiting at the shop in front of the inn he was staying at. This person ran away as soon as he saw Kyle.
The Transcendents had an Association which worked across the floors. Its base on the first floor was located in the central zone. This Association not only trained Transcendents, but also had means to take them to upper floors and back. Since daughter Salts was now a Transcendent, she was of course going to join this organisation, but not before father Salts showed off his incredible daughter before the king and his ministers.
Since the teleportation circle to the central zone was located in the capital and Kyle was going there as well, the duo offered to take him with them which Kyle gladly accepted.
The journey to the capital took one day and Marcel Salts was done with his task at the court in half a day after which they directly took the teleportation circle and arrived in Accelente City, the home to the Transcendent Association in this world.
Just like this world, there were many other worlds that were a part of the first floor of the Ascension Temple, but they belonged to different states and were managed by the governing guilds of those states respectively. Till now, humans had recorded more than a thousand worlds on the first floor of the Ascension Temple, out of which some were shared by multiple states, while some like this one were governed by a single state.
All these worlds were interconnected by a series of wormholes which were present at different locations and guarded by the Transcendent Association.
Some of those adventurous ascenders had tried exploring the worlds on the other ends of the wormholes. They would either appear in one of the worlds controlled by humanity or be blocked by some invisible screen before finding themselves back to their last entry point in a semi-illusionary state.
"Alright then, I will be parting ways with you here." Kyle said while getting out of the carriage. He would be taking up some missions while the Salts duo would be going directly to the Transcendent Association.
"Be careful!" Reiler said as her parting words and Kyle waved back at her.
After that, Kyle rented a room at a nearby inn and 'logged out' of the Ascension Temple. Kyle immediately took a bath and cooked himself a simple meal.
After resting for some time, Kyle returned back to the Ascension Temple.
Accelente City was much larger and densely populated when compared to Aseles city and there were many more missions available which were posted on boards outside many buildings.
When Kyle was going through the missions posted outside one of these buildings, he heard a masculine voice behind him.
"Hey kid, would you like to take on a mission?" Kyle turned back to face the man who was wearing a soldier's uniform and looking at him sharply.
"I would like to hear the details of the mission before deciding." Kyle replied in a plain tone.
"Are you sure? This is a very important mission which is issued by the Transcendent Association and I am not allowed to reveal it unless you accept it." The man said as he got nearer to Kyle until he was covering more than half of Kyle's field of vision with his hulking frame. The man also released a powerful aura which had a slight tint of murderous aura mixed in it.
It was clear that he was trying to pressurise Kyle into accepting this mission without sharing any details. In other words, it was a trap.
Either this mission was meant to lure Kyle to somewhere so that he and his probable comrades could rob or even kill Kyle, or the mission was so hard that the man himself was afraid of attempting it.
It was clear from the aura released by the man that he was a veteran who had been through some war or had been a part of some murderous fight, a mission which he didn't dare attempt should obviously be very tough.
"Then sorry, I don't think that you should be giving this mission to some stranger like me whom you are meeting for the first time. You shouldn't trust any stranger with something so important. I suggest that you do it yourself." Kyle replied in a plain tone devoid of any feelings. As long as the other party didn't provoke him, Kyle didn't want to get into trouble with him.
Although with his present stats, Kyle wasn't afraid of anyone from this floor, Accelente City was controlled by the Transcendent Association. Even if all his stats had been raised to eighteen each under the effect of the Conditional rewards of Monarch's path, there may be someone with much higher stats hidden in the building of the Association.
Also, as long as Kyle hit the man while he was dressed in the uniform of the city guard, it would be considered as challenging the authority of the Transcendent Association.
Kyle didn't have any interest in provoking unnecessary trouble and walked away while avoiding the attacking range of the guard in case he attacked Kyle for some reason.
The guard looked at Kyle's back in a daze for a few seconds before his expression turned ugly and his face reddened with rage.
'How dare that kid ignore him! He was someone who worked for the Transcendent Association. Since when was any half-grown son of a b*tch able to decline him. Did that f*cker mistake his order as a request? He wouldn't be a human if he didn't teach that kid a lesson.' The guards face darkened each passing moment, he even released a thick murderous aura which frightened away all the ascenders and inhabitants nearby.