"Why don't you just carry us there with your lightning speed?" Arthur asked Elijah while all three of them were using Gradus to quickly move throughout the forest. "And where are we even going?" He fired off another question.
"We're going to the Mercenary Guild in Vlas, the capital of Mortalia." Elijah explained. "And I'm not carrying you guys there because I'm not supposed to be here. Or more like, you guys should act and proceed thinking I'm not here. I will not do anything to help you guys unless you're about to die. This is your and Claire's mission alone." Elijah said, making sure they understand that he's going to completely stay out of it.
"Come on Arthur, it would be boring if we were just carried there! It'll be fun." Claire said. "Fine, fine. Anyway, what exactly is the mercenary guild?" Arthur asked. Claire gave Elijah a look. "Wow, you really don't know anything huh? I really do wonder where you came from sometimes." Claire said.
In the last few months of training, the Stormcrests wondered about Arthur's origin often. However, each time Elijah told them to let him talk about it once Arthur wanted to. Elijah knew that Arthur didn't want to talk about it and seeing no threat from Arthur he decided he would simply wait till Arthur felt ready and talked about it himself.
"The Mercenary Guild is where most Zealots work. Of course, there are also Zealots from the Zeal academies who either join the military or become part of the royal police force. However, most Zealots are simply normal people who can use Zeal, the mercenary guild offers them a place to work.
It takes in requests and missions from other people and grades them, letting mercenaries who are on the same or above grading complete those missions in exchange for money. The guild of course takes a cut." Elijah explained.
'Seems similar to an adventurer guild from the stories in my previous world.' Arthur thought. "So what exactly is this grading system?" Arthur asked.
"Oh right, I was supposed to teach you that as well. Heh." Elijah said, playing off him forgetting to teach Arthur something important. "So there are 5 traditional ranks. From weakest to strongest it's Novice, Initiate, Adept, Savant, Sage. Almost everything is graded in this way. From your Zeal reserves, to your strength, to the strength of Zeal Beasts, to the difficulty of missions, and so on." Elijah explained the grading system.
"Traditional ranks? So there are more ranks?" Arthur asked.
"Well, there is one more rank above it. However, only about a few dozen people have ever reached this rank. Much less are still currently alive. So you and almost every single other person don't need to worry about this rank for now." Elijah explained.
"You say you're the strongest. So have you reached that rank?" Arthur asked. Elijah smiled back and said, "Of course."
"So what rank am I? Like where would I fall if you had to rank my overall capabilities and strength?" Arthur asked. "Your overall strength should be at the low Initiate rank currently. Your Zeal reserves however were already at the Adept stage when you arrived here, another reason why we took you in so easily. By now it has reached the Savant stage! Even if just barely." Elijah praised Arthur.
"But I have multiplied my Zeal reserves a dozen times and only gone up one rank. Is the difference between ranks really that severe?" Arthur asked, also shocked at just how much stronger other people were. He thought he was already pretty strong, but he was at the low end of the 2nd lowest rank!
"Well yes and no. The difference between a Novice and an Initiate isn't that big. An average Initiate could probably take down 4-5 Novices. However the higher you go up in ranks, the bigger the difference becomes. Even if a thousand Sages banded together, they couldn't win against me." Elijah said with a big smile.
Claire also smirked. "My Dad's pretty strong huh?" She boasted. "Yeah, he sure is." Arthur nodded. "What rank is Claire?" Arthur asked. "Probably at the average Adept range." Elijah said with a thoughtful expression. "If you think about her tactical prowess she should probably even take down a high Adept or low Savant if he's caught off guard or underestimates her." Elijah said, highlighting the smartness of Claire.
"Even though she might act childish sometimes, in a battle she is very serious and her intelligence truly shines. I wonder who she got that from." Elijah said. "I'm not childish!" Claire retorted.
Elijah and Arthur shared a laugh. Claire pouted but she didn't say much more. All three of them spent the rest of the day chatting until they finally exited the Cursed Forest. "Wonder why we weren't attacked by any beasts." Arthur said as they finally arrived in the plains.
"That's because I am here of course. Do you think any beast would dare to come near me? Unless it's one of the 7 Mythical Beasts they can't even show their face!" Elijah said.
"7 Mythical Beasts?" Arthur asked. "Don't worry about it for now, we're about to reach Vlas let's speed it up. I don't wanna sleep outside today." Elijah said, all of them putting more power in their Gradus.
About two hours later they finally reached Vlas. It already became night by now. "Woah." Arthur said, admiring the giant walls protecting the city. "Here, wear this." Elijah said, throwing a mask towards Arthur which he quickly caught. "For what?" Arthur asked, looking at the mask.
"Well, you said you still needed time to figure out if you wanted to be part of the Stormcrests or not. If they see you with me, your life will never be normal again. Everywhere you go, they would recognize you as part of the Stormcrests and an unbelievable amount of people would try to kill you. We don't lack in enemies." Elijah explained.
Arthur nodded seriously and put the mask on. It was a black mask, with features of a fox. It had red streaks and symbols on it, giving it a certain otherworldly look. When he put on the mask, it felt like it clung to his skin and made him less... detectable?
"What is with this mask?" Arthur asked. "It's imbued with Zeal runes." Elijah responded. "Ah." Arthur quickly understood.
A few weeks ago, on a particular evening when Emory once again blasted Elijah against the wall, Arthur had asked what the wall was made out of to not crack at all. Elijah explained that the walls were covered in runes.
Zeal runes are similar to coding. At least that's how Arthur thought about it. You could basically 'enchant' something by using Zeal runes. For example, the Stormcrest house is completely covered in runes.
Some runes say 'Sturdy', 'Hard', 'Unbreakable', and so on. Others cause the house to be more resistant towards certain things such as 'Fireproof', 'Zeal resistance', 'Pull and Push resistance', and a lot more. This allows the house to be completely safe against natural disasters and makes it incredibly hard to damage using Zeal or similar methods.
The mask Arthur had currently on was imbued with the runes 'Fixed', 'Firm', many other hardness runes, some stealth runes, some anti-zeal runes, and a self-repair rune.
"Halt! Identify yourselves." The guard said. He then had a look of shock on his face and immediately said, "I deeply apologize Sir Stormcrest. Please come this way. OPEN THE GATES!" The soldier recognized Elijah and commanded the other guards to open the gates.
Arthur was surprised. 'I know Stormcrests were well known but this is just wow.' He thought as they all entered the city. It was giant! Even though they were just on the outskirts of the capital, it looked like a giant metropolis. Every building looked to be made of expensive materials and looked very big!
"Woah." Arthur couldn't help but express his wonder. Claire giggled at him. "You haven't seen anything, these are just the outskirts. The closer you are to the royal palace in the middle, the more extravagant it gets." Claire told him. She had been in the capital a couple of times already.
"We won't go anywhere near there. The Mercenary Guild has an outpost that is pretty close to the eastern entrance that we just came through. We will sleep in an inn for today before bothersome people show up." Elijah said.
"Bothersome people?" Arthur asked. "Since we're pretty high profile the guards will report our presence to the royal palace. Once the Queen learns of us being here she will send bothersome people here that will just slow us down." Elijah explained.
"Are you...or rather we on bad terms with the Queen? Why would she try to slow us down?" Arthur asked. "Haaa...she always sents bothersome bodyguards or protection. As if I would need protection. Very annoying, let's just hurry along and quietly sleep in an inn for today." Elijah answered.
Arthur nodded and all of them used Gradus to rush towards an inn. 'The Smiling Goat Tavern' is the inn, or rather tavern that they ended up in front of. Elijah threw a pouch of coins towards Claire. "Disguise yourself and rent two rooms for one day. Arthur go with her but take your mask off." Elijah said.
They did as they were told. Claire used her Essence to disguise herself as a plain-looking girl with brown hair, dark green eyes, and a slightly darker skin tone than her usual pale look. She also changed some other facial features to create even more of a difference between her previous and current look, such as the shape of her nose or the placement of her eyes and so on.
"You could do that the whole time?" Arthur asked. "I can do a lot of things that you don't know about." Claire said with a smirk and went inside the tavern, not waiting for him. Arthur quickly entered as well while Elijah disappeared.
The interior of the tavern was very warm, full of candles and a burning flame in the fireplace. The air is thick with the smell of meat and alcohol. Everywhere were people roaring in laughter and enjoying their beer. Maids ran around the place in a hurry, sometimes carrying a dozen beer glasses with them!
Arthur and Claire quickly hurried towards the receptionist. "Excuse me, we'd like to rent two rooms for tonight please." Claire said. The woman behind the counter looked at them. "Aren't you two too young to be sleeping in taverns by yourselves?" The receptionist asked. Claire rolled her eyes and showed her the pouch of coins. "Oh! Certainly." She gave them two keys. "Room numbers are on the keys, go up the stairs, and on the left will be your rooms." She explained.
"Oh and can I get some food brought to my room as well? 1 portion of today's special." Claire said, just wanting any food so not even asking what that special was.
"Of course, it will be there in about 20 minutes." The receptionist said smiling towards them both. Claire paid and then both of them went to their rooms. "Goodnight Claire." Arthur said. "You too Artie." Claire said while entering her room and closing the door behind her.
'Artie?' Arthur thought as he entered his room. "Ah! Oh..." Arthur was shocked at first seeing another person in his room but calmed down once he realized it was Elijah. "Artie huh?" Elijah said with a smirk, teasing Arthur.
"Whatever." Arthur said, tired from using Gradus the entire day. He fell onto the bed and closed his eyes, drifting to sleep. "Heh." Elijah chuckled, going to sleep as well.