Echoing (I)

◇Ace

๑Theo

~Caleb

۶Ty

◯Trevor

Mercenaries from the capital were known as Echos as the mercenary guild in the capital was named Echo. The act of solving quests from this guild was known as Echoing. Today, Caleb would go Echoing in order to obtain some petals and at least appear normal. They had stayed outside the city "sleeping" but they remained awake and practicing their magic.

They had to rent a hotel room and buy food so no locals would suspect something was off with them. They decided to do some of the simplests quests there were.

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Quest: Builder

Aim: Help mass produce bricks for construction

Rewards: one petal per ten bricks produced

Requirements: Earth magic level 1

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It was their first quest that also had some requirements. Most F rank quests didn't but some were specific for certain elements such as the making of bricks from earth. It was one of the most simple tricks of earth magic. The reward of one petal per ten bricks seemed very generous in Caleb's eyes but most people would have a hard time making more than fifteen bricks as the mana of most F ranks was not very high.

They signed up for the quest at the desk where the dwarf was yesterday. This time he didn't eye them up and down as they were doing something normal and the quest itself was nothing spectacular.

"The meeting point is by The Behemoth, which is the arena at the outskirts of the city. Walk through the commoners merchant district and then the slums to exit the city. At the right you will see a stone path that leads to a huge building. That is the arena. Be at the entrance at exactly 6:00am tomorrow."

They didn't really have a watch yet so they stayed the night in the meeting point to avoid being late. As the sun was rising, some people started to arrive at their meeting point, some of them eyed them and said nothing while others just nodded at them.

By the time 6:00am hit, there were over ten people at the meeting point. A man in his thirties arrived with a couple of city guards. City guards were usually higher rank Echoes. Almost every job was performed by Echoes in this city. That is why even though it was called the Neutral Grounds, there were lots of gangs, slave markets, contraband and corruption.

"Listen up everyone, your job is to produce as many bricks as possible, we will be working inside The Behemoth. For every ten bricks you produce, one petal will be awarded, as it said in the quest board. We will also need to transport the bricks to the warehouse inside the city, this can either be done by you or some other Echoes, the same rule applies, for every ten bricks transported, a petal will be given. Now get to work."-As he said this the doors to The Behemoth slowly opened revealing a battle arena with mounts of dirt on the floor that would be used to create the bricks.

The arena was huge, it was not named The Behemoth for nothing. Compared to modern buildings it was not as impressive so Caleb and the rest were not as impressed. However, gasps could be heard coming out from the rest of the Echoes who were commoners and had only seen the arena from the outside.

They immediately separated from each other as they did not want others stealing their bricks and claiming rewards for themselves. They specially eyed Caleb as hw was the youngest, people believing he was incapable of producing his own bricks.

Most of the present Echos had only the Earth element under their command as possessing one element was the most common thing in the world. Some had two but none had four as Caleb did. Or so they thought he did.

He started slow, producing a couple of bricks every hour as he observed the rest of the people here. Some had already produced ten bricks but were exhausted, unable to perform the other job which was transporting these bricks.

◇Should we go all out?◇

๑Of course not, we need to pace ourselves๑

~He's right, we don't want unwanted attention~

◯We are tetracasters tho, wouldn't it be more suspicious that a tetracaster cannot produce more bricks than a normal caster?◯

~Actually you're right, we must at least create a hundred~

۶We need money so maybe more?۶

๑Fine๑

As it involved Earth magic, Ty was in charge of the body for now. He then proceeded to speed up and a few dozens of bricks were produced in two hours, this made the total of petals received so far to be five. They needed more tho, as not only they needed to appear normal but they also needed to buy equipment before heading into the academies.

At the end of the day they had over twenty petals as they had also helped in the transportation of the bricks to the warehouse inside the city. This was not a surprise to the man in charge as he knew this kid was a tetracaster, so he paid him twenty five petals in total and offered him to come work again tomorrow.

Twenty five petals was not a lot since they needed a thousand for a flower but was enough for a warm meal and a shared hotel room. They ate at a bar called "The Tributary" and stayed at "The Obelisk Motel". In this world, an obelisk was a Descendant that resembled a zebra but had control over the light element so it was basically a shining zebra with claws and fangs.

The meal and motel cost them two and four petals respectively bringing their total profit for the day to nineteen petals. It was definitely not bad for their first days as Echoes.

The next couple of days, they returned to the arena making bricks and then transporting them to the warehouse. They had started to eat three or more meals a day as the other Echoes kept a close eye on them. This meant that their daily profit went down to an average of fourteen petals a day as sometimes they got more than twenty five. They had also moved into their own hotel place in order to practice magic without prying eyes.

They had managed to move up a rank and were now an E ranked Echo. This opened new opportunities for them. They had already set their goal of buying a grimoire they saw in one of the noble merchant shops, it cost two flowers. Which was indeed a lot. They also wanted to buy a spatial rune which allowed them to store items in their own spatial area. The total came down to three flowers and they had little over a hundred now. They would have to keep Echoing.