18 Unexpected Appraisal!
Axel trudged downhill and passed the two bridges until he reached the south pastures of Tir Chonaill. From the time he drank with his Master until now, only a few hours had passed, and it was only noon so far. The Tir Chonaill Moongate had not opened yet so he could only wait until nighttime for it to activate.
Sitting next to the Moongate, he took a loaf of bread and had some lunch. He lazily stared out at the vast blue sky and breathed in some fresh air. Axel had not felt so calm in a long time. He had been fighting constantly and training with Master Max for an entire week in Alby Dungeon. Even a few minutes with the scenery could uplift his spirits. After a while, he felt bored, so he took out his short sword and walked over to the middle of the pasture.
As usual, there were a few gray wolves spread out evenly in the fields. For some reason, Axel did not fear these gray wolf anymore. He felt an unknown confidence welling up inside of him, and his five senses heightened to a startling level. He could grasp each and every breath of the gray wolves near him, and even knew what was the best position to be in as to not get ganged up on like before.
In a instant, he threw a rock at the gray wolf nearest to, and then he ran quickly away to lure the lone wolf away from the crowd of wolves in the middle of the pasture. The single wolf had followed Axel almost to the riverbanks on the west side of the pasture. Without giving the gray wolf a chance to use any skills, Axel ran quickly up to the wolf and used 'Smash' on it.
"Kaaaaassssssshiiiiiii!!!!!!"
A loud slash rung out in the air. What had initially been a weak stab with the old dagger was replaced by the weight of the slash generated by the new short sword. The sound of colliding with flesh seemed to reverberate in mid-air. The wolf's belly had been sliced open cleanly and its intestines could be seen flipping outside of its furs.
"Ugh, that cut went deeper than I thought." Axel said as he turned away from the scene. He was not used to the gore of organs coming out of the monster's corpses just yet. Even in the dungeon, he quickly moved on after killing each enemy.
After a while, he managed to recollect himself and began to skin the pelt off the gray wolf. He continued to repeat this form of hunting until the night fell. By the time the Moongate had opened, he had hunted 14 gray wolves and collected their pelts into his inventory bag. He was all sweaty from the continuous fighting but hard work reaped large rewards in the end.
"To Dunbarton!" Axel said as he stepped inside the Moongate.
...
As Axel stepped out of the Dunbarton Moongate, he noticed the usually empty Dunbarton Moongate filled with dozens of people, lining up to use the warp device. A heavy armored knight in golden armor could be seen on a large black horse mount, ready to pulverize everything in its sight. His lance that was the size of two broadswords seemed to stand out in the waves of adventurer standing by near the moongate. Axel guessed that this was the party leader of this large group of adventurers and they were about to embark on a very difficult mission.
"The Moongate's open now, everyone let's charge on forward to Peaca Dungeon!!!!!!!!" the golden knight screamed with fervor.
One by one, the huge crowd of adventurers disappeared into the Moongate and the golden knight was the last to go. In a matter of minutes, Axel was the only one standing from the sidelines, and had an awkward expression on his face as if he forgot to breathe in the few moments that the large crowd was present. He felt the dusting kicking up and filling his nostrils with soot.
"Aacccckk!! Acccccck!!!! This is pretty crazy for doing a single dungeon!" Axel exclaimed as he continued to cough and tried to inhale some air to freshen up his lungs.
By the time he hiked over into the main plaza of Dunbarton, the street lights were lit and the sky was black like the eternal abyss. As it was getting pretty late, he did not want to waste time, and headed over the request board where Eavan was stationed.
Eavan was just about to close up her counter and call it a day. It was time for most people to go home and eat supper. However, as she was about to get her baggage and head out, she noticed a young male with a medium build come into the area of the request board. As he came near the counter desk, he asked,
"Eaven, are you still available to process finished quests?"
The slightly dark haired tall teen had a short sword behind his back and some fresh scars from his forearms could be seen clearly. This had been clearly an adventurer that had just returned from a dangerous quest.
"You've caught me at the perfect timing! I was just about to close up, but since you have some quests to turn in, let's process through the materials quickly!" Eavan cheerfully said. Truthfully, she was a bit drained from work and wanted to go home as soon as possible, but she decided to take one last job to make sure this young adventurer would be paid as well.
As if she had seen a magic trick, approximately 20 gray wolf pelts appeared in front of the counter desk, towering over her slender figure.
"Ahhh! That's so many pelts! Um, in addition to the original request of obtaining 1 gray wolf pelt, the additional 19 pelts will be taken in for 240 gold each. Here is the reward of 5160 gold."
Eavan replied as if she had been jolted by surprise.
"Yes baby!!!!" Axel thought to himself as a slight smile converged on his face. With this hefty reward, he had acquired about 8000 gold in total, which was a decent amount of wealth to have for the lowest rank adventurer. This was enough to live off of for about 2 months without having to work. Not to mention, he had earned all that gold in less than 2 weeks. This was far beyond the salary of any non-combatant work in this world.
Next, Eavan took out the Elemental Orb and Axel swiped his hands over it. A dark green glow emanated from within, and Eavan's jaws dropped as if she had experienced another shocking matter.
"....Congratulations!--You've advanced to Level 12, and.....stepped into Iron rank!!!" Eavan gasped as she announced the results. She also did a quick appraisal of his stats for free as it was Axel's first adventurer rank up, and the following numbers appeared.
{Name: Axel, Race: Human, Age: 17 years old, Title: The Immortal}
{HP: 67, MP: 15, SP: 54}
{STR: 38, INT: 12, DEX: 17, WILL: 25, LUK: 10}
{Skills: 'Counterattack Rank F', 'Smash Rank F'}
{Transformations: 'Incubus Overlord'}
"Sh*t! What is this transformation ability? Could it be Cichol's curse had been implanted during that dream previously?" Axel thought to himself as he look down away from Eavan.
The next thing he knew, a cold murderous glare could been seen from Eavan as she put away the elemental orb.
