Chapter 93: Having a Coffee Break

Joshua woke up fairly early the next day just because of the fact that he was so use to getting up at the time. Even so his body felt well rested so he decided to get on with his day. After getting a quick shower and noticing even more streaks of silver starting to appear in his hair Joshua decided to make his way down stairs. He was surprised to find that the house was empty for the moment with both his parents already out and about while Amy had stayed overnight with Naomi to see what she was up to.

Instead of cooking himself a meal Joshua felt it was a good opportunity to go out and have a nice relaxing coffee while thinking over all of the things that were going on lately. He hadn't been to see Aunt Betty in a while and this was a good enough excuse to go pay her a visit. Besides he'd probably need to go check on the guild hall nearby. So Joshua made his way out the door and took a portal to get out of the housing district and go towards the market area. It was a decent walk from there, but Joshua didn't get to see much of the hub city during the early morning hours so he decided to enjoy his stroll.

When he reached the area where the café was located near his guild hall he noticed that the stores in the area were a lot busier than the last time he had come around. The recruitment drive seemed to bring some attention to the area and all of the shop owners latched on to it and generated their own publicity from how things were going at the moment. Even if it was mainly the morning food stalls that were busy during this time of day the other businesses in the area were getting attention as people walked around while eating their food. The park like atmosphere of the place was also a good place for picnics during lunch so Joshua knew that the business wasn't going to slow down at any point in the day.

Joshua had a wide smile as he entered Aunt Betty's café. He wasn't surprised to see the grandmotherly figure going from table to table talking to regulars while the younger staff did most of the work. She brought the recipes and created the atmosphere for her café but she left most of the work to her staff. When she noticed Joshua her smile seemed to grow even bigger as she waved him over towards a nearby empty table that he could sit at. Joshua made his way over and sat down while she finished her conversation with the other customer.

It didn't take long for Aunt Betty to make her way over and give Joshua a big hug. "It's been a while since I last saw you. I'm guessing you've been caught up in some kind of expedition or something else." Aunt Betty said as she took the seat across from Joshua after finishing their hug.

"Yeah, I've been caught up in two of them actually. Just now getting some good free time to relax, but I'm sure I'll be going out on another one later." Joshua said with a smile. He didn't even bother looking at the menu since he always got the same thing if there wasn't some type of special going on. Since he didn't see anything new and interesting on the board above the checkout he was certain that he'd go with his usual this time around. "Have I missed anything interesting happening lately?"

"Not much has been going on outside of the usual around here. A few guilds conquering a dungeon here and there. Unlike you guys they tend to brag about it a lot as if they took over a city or something. Can't believe how some young folk act these days. Oh there was one other thing that you might find interesting." Aunt Betty said excitedly as if she was about to fill Joshua in on some high level gossip.

"Must be something interesting for you to be so excited about it." Joshua said with a chuckle getting a stern mock glare in return telling him to just shut up and listen. He had received similar looks from his own mother from time to time.

"There's a big rumor going around that the World Government Guild has been having some change in management lately." She said as if it was some world changing news. Joshua was a bit interested, but he didn't think too much of it and just let her continue talking. "Apparently the big mistake with large town subjugation put that Kyle guy on thin ice. I'm just surprised it took such a tragedy to get them to change directions. I'm not sure how it is in other hub cities but it seems like ours got the bad apple when it comes to government groups."

"We will just have to wait and see what kind of changes they make, not much else we can do with all of the restrictions in the hub city. They've probably realized that people are going to stop supporting them if they keep making so many mistakes." Joshua explained getting a small nod in response from Aunt Betty.

"Hopefully that makes a difference. It is one thing for some of these small guilds getting in trouble, but when the biggest group in the entire hub city is constantly getting in trouble it becomes bad for everyone. At least your alliance seems to be making some progress." She said with a smile before getting up. "I'm guessing you want the usual?"

"You know it." Joshua said with a smile as Aunt Betty went off to place the order. Joshua smiled at the antics of the woman as everyone in the café seemed to be having fun with their own conversation. Joshua was certain that several of those conversations were probably started by Aunt Betty herself just based off of the way she had come over and started gossiping about things with him.

A few minutes later one of the serving girls brought over a cup of coffee along with a breakfast bagel filled with bacon and eggs. Joshua thanked her before focusing on enjoying his meal. While eating his bagel and drinking his coffee he started to think about some of the stuff that had been on his mind since last night. He thought about the capabilities of the new blue prints they had gained, he thought about the next expedition that was going to happen soon, and he thought about how their new base construction was going at the moment. The main thing that kept coming to mind however was the skill card that was sitting in his inventory.

The moment Joshua had finished his bagel and started sipping on his coffee he pulled out the silver skill card in his inventory. It shined brightly and looked like a credit card from before the massive change the world went through. Last night the system had told them all that they could look into the data files to find out any more information on the skill cards, but everyone was tired and Joshua could tell that was going to be a long discussion so they decided to put it off until later.

Joshua pulled up the system and started looking for the data files on skill cards and was happy to find a few more interesting facts about the things that the basic introduction didn't go over. He wasn't surprised when he found out that any skills gained from the skill card could be used in the future even if you changed jobs in the future. This made sense simply because if you lost the skill the moment you got a second tier combat job then it would be a waste to use the skill card until you upgraded your job.

Another fact that Joshua noticed that was a bit more surprising was that you could actually sell and trade the skill cards to other people. Since they were the first group to come across some it made sense that they hadn't seen any in the auction house, but Joshua doubted that would become something that you'd normally find there. Skill cards seemed too valuable just to sell to other people. Even a bronze level skill will come as the best version of that skill if you used a skill card to get it in the first place. It's not like there's a limit to the amount of skills you can have. Even if it ends up being a bad skill you can just not use it, but giving up the chance to get a useful skill just for some system points seems like a bad deal. Though in the future Joshua could easily see them becoming a common currency that's more valuable than system points for trading purposes.

In the end there was only one thing that truly mattered to Joshua about the skill card and that was whether or not it was worth using it right now. If he had a regular tier one job then Joshua wouldn't use the card no matter what. Most tier one jobs didn't have a lot of room for quality when it came to their skills and wasting a skill card with such a job would be a huge let down. Luckily Joshua wasn't in that position. Since he had a unique job whatever skill he gained from the skill card would be related to that job and could end up being incredibly useful in the future even when his job upgrades.

After a few minutes of thinking about it Joshua finally decided to take the plunge and activated the skill card on his aura user job. The card glowed for a moment before disappearing and sending a ton of information into his mind. That's when a system window popped up in front of him to explain what happened.

[You have used a silver tier skill card…gathering information and determining skill… You have gained the skill Aura Strings.]

The moment Joshua saw the name of the new skill he had just gained he had a small idea of what it could be, but he needed to check it before he started celebrating. The fact that it was a skill with aura in its name alone was already working to his strengths. He quickly went into his own skill list so that he could pull up the new skill and see the information about it.

[Aura Strings – A skill that allows the user to create strings with his aura that can be used in a variety of ways depending on the type of string formed. The string changes depending on the amount of aura used to form the string. The string can be as thin as silk or as thick as rope depending on how much aura is used when forming it. At the first level of this skill three strings can be formed at once. As the skill levels up the amount of strings that can be used will go up and the amount of aura needed to use and strengthen them will go down.]

After reading through the skill description Joshua was glad that he decided to use the card after all. It wasn't a skill that was devastatingly powerful or lifesaving like his reset skill or aura shield, but the versatility of the skill was going to be incredibly useful.