Assimilate All Talents

The next morning, Sol left The Rusty Bed and made his way to the Adventures guild. The rowdy atmosphere of the guild reminded Sol of the one back in Initium but much louder. Even so, it was nice to know that one thing was constant no matter where he went.

Seeing Trevor working behind his counter with few customers as usual, Sol headed over and was quickly attended.

“Welcome back Sol! How did the defense go?”

“A few bumps along the road but overall a success. I was told I could claim the quest reward from the fort defense here.”

Trevor nodded, “Sure can, I already knew you would ask for that and got your records ahead of time.” He then reached under the counter as he pulled out a file. “Haven’t read it yet so let’s see…”

As he skimmed the paper, Trevor’s eyes widened a bit, “Woah, says here they wished to elevate the reward to A-Rank.”

“Really?!”

Although the Commander said he would give him the double the reward as the A-Ranker they recruited, Sol didn't think that also included the quest rewards…

“Yeah, I don’t know what you did but this paper with the seal from the Commander says you earned it. With the amount of points the A-Rank reward gives, it’s more than enough to rank you up to C-Rank. Sadly, while point wise it could launch you all the way to B-Rank, the rules won’t allow it.”

Sol nodded as he already knew that was going to happen. While it was normal for certified guild partners like military organizations or nobles to raise the quest reward for outstanding performance, there are limits to prevent it from being abused. One of them was that when ranking up, the surplus points that are left over from ranking up are null and void. This rule was put in place because of the actions of nobles abusing the system to quickly rank up their own people. There were other rules to combat the loopholes, as no one wanted to see a bunch of A-Rankers that had no actual ability. For example, the physical test for B-Rankers to rank up; if they couldn’t demonstrate the power of an A-Ranker, then it would be quickly seen in the test.

“That’s fine, that still means I’m a C-Ranker.”

Trevor smiled as he also pulled out a heavy pouch, “Yep, and you still get the full monetary reward. It’s out of their pockets after all.”

Accepting the heavy bag of 200 gold, Sol thought to himself he would have to go shopping to get some new gear. Sol also handed his adventurer’s card to get it changed to reflect his new rank. Trevor then left to process the new card as Sol started to ponder his next course of action.

‘I originally wanted to party up with Radiant Historia till I got to C-Rank, but that happened way sooner than intended. Should I go to a new city? Maybe soon but not yet. There are still parts of the city I haven’t seen yet and would like to explore.’ He also remembered another matter he had to attend to, ‘I… also have to stop by the church and tell them what I know.’

Trevor promptly returned with a shiny new silver card. The craftsmanship of the card itself was also of a much higher quality with no scuffs or abnormal bends on the edges.

“Alright, that should be everything Sol, need anything else?”

“No, I might check the board to see any interesting quests.”

“Let me know- ah wait. Sol, I should probably warn you.”

“Hmm? Warn me about what?”

“Well, you have been rising in the ranks pretty fast, you have only been here for a little under 2 weeks and made more progress than most. But that comes with some negative attention, I’d be careful not to go around telling others about your progress.”

While Sol had seen some super rookies back in Initium he never thought it was a bad thing; if anything, people celebrated having another capable person, “Has something happened?”

Trevor was conflicted on whether or not to elaborate, eventually he decided it was better to warn him, “Well… I’m not supposed to speak of this, but for the past 5 years, many rookies who have been ranking up fast eventually disappeared. At first, everyone thought they died outside adventuring, but some have disappeared when evidence showed they never left the city. A huge investigation was launched, but that was years ago and nothing came from it. What I’m trying to say is be careful, nobody knows where they go, but none have been seen since.”

Not expecting to be suddenly brought into a conspiracy, Sol felt a bit helpless and could only reassure Trevor, “I won’t tell anybody so don’t worry okay? I actually planned on leaving Kerman in a few days.”

Trevor felt saddened by the fact Sol was leaving but also relieved as it would be safer. “I’m sad you're leaving so soon, but it will be safer if you did. When do you leave?”

“Not sure yet but probably in a week's time.”

“Alright let me know when, we can go out for drinks before you go.”

Although Sol wasn’t much of a drinker, he agreed as he wouldn’t know the next time they would see each other. Saying goodbye to Trevor, Sol headed over to the board just to see the quests available to him here.

‘Slay rat king, gather midnight essence, escort caravan…’

A lot of these quests either fell in the party-required category or required long travel time. While he could probably go and kill the rat king himself, it was a quest that required a party to prevent foolish adventurers from fighting it alone for the high reward. Eventually Sol’s gaze landed on one that piqued his interest.

‘Sparring practice?’

If it was just normal sparring he wouldn’t mind, but this quest says that it specifically required someone with talents in both magic and a weapon. A rare combination as is, but it on the paper the quest giver is apparently the noble house of Valencia. While he didn’t recognize the family name as he wasn’t from this city he wondered why they would put up this quest when they likely had personal guards who could act as sparring partners.

Sol shook his head, ‘While interesting, I should probably slow down on questing for a while. I don’t know who could be kidnapping all these rookies, but better not give them a reason to go after me.’

Turning away from the C-Rank board, Sol left the Adventurers guild and made his way to the Church of Caela. He already told Diana he would head there to tell them all he knows of the harbinger, so he might as well get it out of the way.