Going Hunting

Noah woke up abruptly. He frowned as he massaged his forehead, wondering why he had such a vivid dream of his past. In the end, he could only sigh. "Fuck." Looking at the glimpse of sunlight reaching his room, he got up to freshen up. Since it was morning, he would head out to the Association to pick a mission.

Covered by his oversized cape, Noah walked into the branch. The first person he met was, of course, the sly receptionist from the day before.

"Sir Ron, I'm guessing you came to pick out a mission for your first day." The man, whose name turned out to be Rey Turner, smiled as he spoke with a flattering tone. He knew better than to antagonize someone with an Emperor Grade Battle Soul. He quickly brought out a list to show Noah. "Sir, it's best to choose these bronze level missions. They offer the best awards and I even grouped them, I hope this helps."

Noah nodded in appreciation, this kind of meticulous person was always useful to him. He read through the entire list before giving it back to the receptionist. "Give me a list of the association's cultivation resources." This was one of the main reasons he had become a mercenary in the first place. Cultivating without proper resources, even with two Emperor Grade Battle Souls, would be extremely slow compared to those rich aristocrats. Even if one happened to be the most talented person in the world, you would get nowhere without cultivation resources.

Rey, the receptionist, was exceedingly quick to fetch out a list for Noah to see. The list contained the resources, their use and their cost.

Seeing this, Noah contemplated for a bit. A smile graced his lips as he glanced at two items that could help him at the moment and what more they were very cheap, at least cheaper than the others.

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Chaotic Essence Gathering Array (Low Grade) - 50,000 essence coins.

A small essence filled pattern drawn upon a mat with a unique ability to gather essence more smoothly to aid ones cultivation. The material used to create this item is peculiar as it's made from the body parts of Fiends, because of this, the item is more prone to aggressively gather essence thereby making it chaotic. For this reason, it's advised that the person who buys this item to be versed in body strengthening as it would cause a great strain on the body.

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Chaotic Core Strengthening Elixir (Low Grade) - 70,000 essence coins

This item can reinforce the essence core of a Battlesoul master and improve his cultivation speed. Using this with an Essence Gathering item increases cultivation speed. This item is also made with Fiend body parts so it is advised to use sufficient healing elixirs while in use as it could strain the essence core of an individual.

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Noah chuckled as he read the description. As someone who possessed a Dragon bloodline and practiced body strengthening martial arts, these side effects were basically non-existent to him. He was even happy as because of these effects, the prices of these resources were low as even the most basic normal Essence gathering item or elixir cost at least 100,000 essence coins.

Thinking back, he had thought that the 250,000 essence coins his foster parents had gave him would be much but now, he had wasted about 100,000 buying a house to live in (He did this because Ivory City is quite close to the Soaring Star Academy so he would stay for his 2 remaining years.) and the remaining 150,000 would now be reduced to 30,000 because of the resources he was currently buying.

Sighing, Noah tossed a bag of coins to Rey and spoke. "Order these two items for me and keep them before I return. I'll choose the three missions which involved Fiends."

Rey held the bag in his hand dumbfounded as he felt the heavy weight of the coins within it. This further proved his speculation of the man before him being a rich noble son out to gain experience, of course in his mind he still thought of Noah as a dwarf, as no idiotic family would send out an 11 years old boy to fight in the wild. "S-sir, the first mission has been acquired and is being executed by a team of mercenaries, would you like to join them?"

"No." Noah immediately chose not to team up for this. He needed to be alone to fully battle. 

Rey was shocked. He knew how fierce Fiends were. These beings were otherworldly beings whose world was connected to theirs. They seemed similar to humans but took a more crude method of utilizing Essence. Unlike humans who cultivated their Battle Souls, Fiends cultivated their bodies in a rather chaotic way but it also made them walking treasures as their bodies could be defined as resources. A very well refined body of a fiend could be used to effectively gather essence unlike the crudely made ones that Noah sought to buy. Their body also made it difficult to fight against as their skin alone could rival steel. It was very hard for low level Battlesoul masters to defeat them alone, they usually created teams to wipe them out. Yet, Noah actually wanted to take them on alone, this was very shocking. But he couldn't do anything about it and could only sign in Noah's fake name. "I wish you luck sir."

Not bothering to see the disbelief in the other's eyes, Noah only nodded before leaving the branch.

After leaving, he stopped by a store selling magical equipment and bought an item which could warn him of living beings around him. After all, he decided to work alone for the secrecy and he had to be careful when venturing into the wilderness to hunt.

Looking at the forest entrance before him, a rarely seen smile, filled with fighting spirit, appeared on Noah's face. He still remembered the hidden contempt within Rey when he spoke of hunting a fiend alone. He wanted to see just how strong those beings were. With this thought, Noah dashed forth into the forest.