After the talk with Anna, I left the Inn alone and started walking to Lorraine's shop. I completely forgot to ask her about the 'Basic Elixir' potion that I needed to reach the 3rd circle. I hoped she wouldn't be too mad about it.
I had lost the ingredients I had collected along the way, so I didn't bother with making the potion myself. I figured the biggest potion shop in a big city must have some in stock anyways.
Within 10 minutes, I reached Lorraine's shop again. I went inside the shop and asked for her. Within 2 minutes, I saw Lorraine hurriedly come down some stairs in the back and walk towards me.
"What's wrong? did you forget something?", she asked out of concern.
"I need a Basic Elixir potion, do you sell those?", I was straight to the point.
"uhh... yeah, how many do you need?", she responded in a very professional way, which I really respected.
"Just one. It's for an experiment.", I replied.
"Right. Do you want a bag to carry it?", she asked while turning away from me to go look for the product.
"Yes.", I responded.
I waited for 30 seconds and Lorraine was back, potion in hand. I took the potion from her hand and turned around. It looked like she was going to charge me for money, but remembered the deal we had. I chuckled a bit at her, which made her as red as a tomato again, but this time not out of embarrassment but anger. She couldn't say anything to me though. Also, I confirmed that the 'Basic Elixir' was under the 'Top Grade Potions' she said she would give me for free.
The potion itself looked bluish-purple with a lot of suspended shiny green particles in it. Those were probably the emeralds. The bottle looked very much like those antique perfume bottles, only difference was the cap, which was just a cork.
I went back to the Inn, and went inside my room after checking up on Anna. She was sleeping. I woke her up and said not to come into my room or call for me.
I recalled how the guide told me to reach the third circle. I took off my clothes, sat on the floor in a meditating pose and drank the potion.
Within 5 seconds of drinking it, I felt nauseous because my head started to hurt. It felt like I could taste the air, and see sounds... no, it wasn't air or sounds I was tasting or hearing... It was mana.
I could literally see and understand how the mana was flowing. But there was a problem. The mana in the room was mostly pure mana. The concentration of Dark mana was very little, and I needed dark mana to reach the 3rd circle.
'DAMNIT! I FORGOT I HAD TO MEDITATE IN DARK MANA!', I shouted inwards.
But there wasn't anything I could do about it. I carefully collected the scarce dark mana in my surroundings and started to create syringes with them. The process took at least a full 3 hours.
After 6 hours of hard work, I had finally created my 3rd circle and put it into a stable orbit around my heart.
[Difficult Task Accomplished!]
[Reward: 400FP]
[Total FP: 420]
The process was the same as reaching the 2nd circle, but twice as difficult, as I had to collect strings from 2 circles and weave them into a circle, instead of just one. I imagined that the rest of the circles are going to be even harder to do and require even rarer elixirs as catalysts...
'we'll see when we get to it...', I consoled myself and started to clean myself up with water magic.
I wore my clothes and left my room to visit Anna.
"Hi. I'm leaving for a few days, do what you see fit.", I declared to her and left the room.
"w-wait! I need s-some money to go read runesmithing books in the library... I went outside to explore the city on my own when you went into your room and found that out from Lorraine...", She said.
"Just get some top grade potions from Lorraine for free and sell it back to her for money. If she doesn't listen, tell her the 'Day of the Deed will be replacing me with nobles'.", it was a password I made up and told Lorraine about, in case she needs a reminder in public.
"huh...? okay, if you say so...", she said.
I left the Inn and looked for something like an adventurer's guild, where I could make an identity and make some money too.
The guide showed me the location of the nearest guild building and I went in.
The place looked like a giant tavern with men and women drinking alcohol and eating food, enjoying the afternoon. (yes, I had skipped an entire day while trying to get the 3rd circle.)
I walked up to the reception desk and a beautiful woman greeted me with the most formal, business-like smile I had ever seen.
"Welcome, mister, to the adventurer's guild. I haven't seen you around here, so you must be new. Do you want to become an adventurer?", she asked.
"yes, how do I become one?", I responded.
"Just tell me your name, give me your fingerprint and tell me what type of combat you specialize in."
"Long-short range combat, Sorcerer."
As soon as I said the word 'Sorcerer', almost everyone in the room fell silent and looked at me. Some with disgust, some with shock, some with fear. The people in this city definitely do not like Sorcerers very much, huh...
The tension was broken by the receptionist with 2 claps of her hand.
*CLAP CLAP*, "Go back to your business everyone! this is a professional place where there is no room for prejudice!", she said with that same smile on her face.
She gave me a card to write my name, and give my fingerprint in. It seemed like the card could automatically imprint the fingerprint, just like a machine.
"Thank you Mr. Xavier, now please put your hand on this crystal ball.", She said, passing a basketball sized spherical crystal on top of a pedestal to me.
I put my hand on it and it begun shining purple, showing three dark purple circles inside of it.
"you are a 3rd circle...", The receptionist said.
"This guild has a system of ranking adventurers based on their power. For mages and sorcerers that means the number of mana circles you possess. The order goes like this -> 1st-2nd circle = F; 3rd-4th circle = E; 5th circle = D; 6th circle = C; 7th circle = B; 8th Circle = A; 9th circle = S. The S stands for Special. There are currently only 4 9th circle Archmages and Sorcerers registered to the guild. 2 are humans and the other 2 are elves. Keep in mind, these are the 9th circle Archmages who are registered with the guild. Out of the 6 Demon lords, 2 of them are 9th circle Sorcerers. Most adult dragons are also 9th circles.", She said in a slow but steady speed, making everything I have to know very clear.
"So I'm an E ranked sorcerer?", I asked.
"Precisely. You can take any request with the difficulty of E from the quest board.", she said while pointing at a wooden board, 7ft tall and at least 13ft long with a lot of posters on it, stuck with board. I guessed those were the 'Requests'.
"You can post requests yourself too. Just make an appropriate poster and ask me, or any of the other receptionists for assistance.", she said.
'Very professional. I like her!', I inwardly thought while maintaining a stoic expression on my face.
I then took the card and put it in my pocket, while walking over to the request board to look for some requests to take.
I quickly found one, a request about slaying things called an 'imp'. The picture below it looked like a modern day 'Goblin'. It was printed with red and white paints, so I didn't know the color yet.
"I'll take this one.", I passed the poster to the receptionist lady.
With the same smile, She nodded her head and took the poster to write somethings on it, and then said, "You can now finish the quest. Take your time."
"Right, thanks.", I shrugged and walked away from the desk.
"hey, did you hear that?"
"yeah, he just said 'Thanks' didn't he?"
"yeah he did..."
"What a weird sorcerer..."
"Maybe he got a crush on Melia?"
"Huh! I'll kill him myself if that's the case!"
I head some questionable whispers before leaving the building.
'It's questin' time...', I hyped myself up for it, and started power-walking towards the exit of the city.