Major and Minor Stages

"Umm…Is there anything wrong…?" Lucas asked the receptionist girl in front of him.

Ever since he walked out of the teleportation hub and walked to the middle of the city, Lucas was aware of all the looks that he had gotten.

Everywhere he went, people would turn their heads and look at him as if he was wearing a crop top inside a traditional church.

It also didn't change when he entered the request hub, all the people there looked at him weirdly, including the receptionist in front of him.

'Well, considering your current outfit, I guess you're quite a show to watch.' Maya spoke, bringing up the elephant in the room that Lucas had somehow missed.

Although the outfits Lucas and the people had were certainly different, Lucas didn't find them to be shocking as the outfits of these people were nothing unfamiliar to him.

Just like traditional Eastern clothing, the ones that were popular in kingdom dramas back on Earth.

Albeit there were differences in the details, the essence of the clothing was the same.

So when Maya finally brought that fact up, Lucas had just realized that he stuck out like a sore thumb with his jeans and cotton t-shirt.

But there was nothing he could do about it since he was too poor to afford anything to begin with.

"There's nothing wrong. I'm sorry, this is my first time seeing an otherworlder with my own eyes. I've only heard about them before." The receptionist finally spoke, her eyes still scanning Lucas' outfit up and down.

"Ah, yes. I believe I'm one of the first ones to walk around the city.

Nice to meet you, I'm Lucas." Lucas offered the receptionist girl his nicest smile.

"Nice to meet you too, Lucas. My name is Suwon."

Lucas then asked Suwon about the request hub, and what he should and could do there.

"Just like the name suggests, mortals or cultivators can put up requests here.

The others will find these requests and they can decide to take on the request if they are interested in the request itself or the reward price that is offered.

If you want to take a request, you have to bring it to me, or any other receptionist first so they can verify the request and notify the person putting up the request.

You would need to meet the request's requirement to take on a request and we would be the one doing it to make sure that both parties will benefit.

Also, you need to register first if you want to take these requests. It usually costs you 1 silver to register, but the kingdom decided to subsidize otherworlders that came this month and you can register for free.

Do you want to register now?"

Wanting to take on requests as soon as he could to earn money, Lucas decided to register right away.

The process was simple enough that Lucas found himself standing on the front of the request board 5 minutes later.

He just needed to write his name and his cultivation base, then the Suwon used some kind of device to upload his name onto some kind of database, one that didn't seem to use CPU and servers, and that was it.

Usually, people would need to confirm their cultivation base first, but Lucas had only started cultivating, and even the receptionist was able to tell that, so the process was cut short.

Right now, Lucas spent the last few minutes scanning the request on the far right of the board, which was meant for people in the first Major Stage of their cultivation.

It was a new term for him, but Maya quickly explained it to Lucas.

'Even though your cultivation technique was different from others where they made their runes on their limbs first and you on your whole bones, the stages weren't that different.

There are several Major Stages, like the first Major stage is to carve runes into your limbs or your bones in your case, then the next Major Stage is carving the runes on their other set of limbs, and you would need to carve the runes on your muscles.

That was the Major Stages. While the Minor Stage, both the common cultivation technique and my cultivation technique had 7 stages. 

The magical runes on your body had just been carved and they hadn't matured to their final stage yet. And there are 7 stages to reach that maturity. Hence the 7 Minor Stages.

Each time you gathered enough mana and broke through a threshold, you entered the next Minor Stage until the magical runes weren't able to improve anymore.

And that will be the time for you to move on to the next Major Stage.'

Maya's explanation was easily understood by Lucas as he already knew of the knowledge from the high-level technique book that Maya gave him.

However, the technique book didn't tell him the names of these stages as the stages were what the cultivators made themselves to identify the changes in their bodies.

So right now, Lucas was currently in the First Major Stage and the First Minor Stage of cultivation.

Although Maya told him that his mana would be way more than other people because of his unique cultivation technique, and he would be able to deal with people higher in Minor Stages of cultivation, Maya discouraged him from standing out too much.

'You would be dead the second they found out your cultivation technique wasn't the same one that everyone else was doing.

That was what had gotten me sealed in the first place.'

With that in mind, Lucas searched for a request that he, fresh from the womb cultivator could take on.

There were actually a lot, like the ones where he needed to hunt some rabbits or gather herbs, but they all only gave him 1 to 5 silver coins, which was far too little for 1 gold or 100 silver coins.

He scanned the huge request board from top to bottom and finally found one request that stood out from the other.

It was a request that was more like a recruitment poster. The poster was searching for an employee for his pub and the reward was 1 gold/week.

Which was an amount that could make an ordinary mortal live very comfortably in the city.

Besides that, the requirement was only to be in the First Major Stage of cultivation below the 7th Minor Stage, and also under 20 years old.

Even with his short life experience, Lucas knew that something that was too good to be true was indeed too good to be true.

'I might lose a kidney or two.' Lucas thought as he read the request carefully.

'There might be a catch, but there shouldn't be anything like that. The request hub was responsible for any requests that were put up on their board. They wouldn't allow a criminal to put up a request to make it easier for them to traffic human organs.' Maya explained as she also read the request.

'With that being said, you might have to do special 'services' to earn that 1 gold/week.' Maya added, making Lucas cough so hard that people began to stare at him even more.