7. The Guild

It took me two days of travel to reach Shinir City. The city was a lot bigger than I expected. 15-meter-tall walls surrounded the city and a lot of people were walking in and out of the city. I walk up to the guards and one of them looks at me and reaches his hand while saying ''two copper coins''. I search my bag and find what I'm looking for. A little brown leather pouch that Uncle John gave me. I take out two coins and give them to the guard who moves aside to let me in. ''Where is the guild'' I ask him. The guard gives me the directions and I walk off. 20 minutes later and I stop in front of a giant building with a flag hanging on top with a sword and a shield. I walk in through the open doors and am greeted by the strong smell of alcohol. Groups of men and women are drinking and playing cards. I walk further in when I see a giant man walking towards me. The giant man is bald and with muscular arms almost as big as my torso. ''What you want kid? This isn't a daycare'' he says menacingly and gives me a just as menacingly stare. I look behind him and realize that the hall has gotten quiet. Everybody is looking my direction and I feel my face flush a bit from the sudden attention I'm getting. ''I just wanted to speak with…'' I didn't manage to finish my sentence before he interrupted me ''GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!'' he says as he pulls out a knife from his back and swings it threateningly… or at least he tries to. I feel no threat from him nor any murderous intention. Not only that but he is holding the knife wrong. I can just hit it out of his hand if I wanted to. There is an awkward silence as I don't back down and he doesn't do anything. ''Ahahah, he's not afraid of you Chef'' I look at the direction the voice came from and see a man in leather armor looking at me with a smile on his face. The bald guy sigs and puts the knife away ''sorry kid, it was a bet to see if I could scare the next person'' I nod at him and he continuous ''I'm Bakir, I'm also the Chef here so people just call me chef'' I again nod at him and present myself ''I'm Noah''. A woman with blonde hair and a suit walks up to us and pushes the bal… Chef away. ''What can I help you with?'' she asks me in a light and sweet voice. She looks to be 24 years old, but you never know with people who cultivate. I pull out a letter from the bag and hand it to her. She looks at it and nods ''Follow me''. We walk further into the building and up the stairs and to the furthers door. She knocks on the door and a few moments later the door opens. A man in a suit stands to the side and leads us in. I walk in and see a spacious room with books and a woman with red hair in her 40s is sitting at the other end. The young woman walks up to the red hair woman and hands her the letter and walks out. The man who opened the door also walks out and closes the door behind us. Does this woman have a man who just opens the door for her? She must be pretty rich to have that. She looks at the letter and gasps in surprise. She opens the letter and starts reading it. Uncle John put a mana stamp on the letter so she should be able to feel that it's real. She puts the letter down after a few minutes and looks at me ''So you are from the Devil prison…'' I nod at her. She looks at me for a few moments before asking ''how Is John doing?'' ''Uncle John is doing fine''. She looks down on the letter and sighs ''I haven't visited him in a long time, I should go see him soon''. The Devil prison isn't of limit for people. You can go and visit your relative if you want. You just can't go in. Even if there aren't that many guards there, it's still a dangerous place. Sensei said that the prison is counted as one of the five death zones. The monsters in the prison would kill for a chance to see fresh meat… they would probably kill just for fun too. No… not probably, I know they would kill for fun. I've seen it happen. ''So, John says that you are a genius at the 6 stage of mana core'' she looks at me skeptically, while I nod at her. ''Let me see'' she says as she reaches for my hand. I rouse my mana and I feel her probing with her mana. I look at her surprised. While she was probing me, I was also probing her. She is at the 8 stage! ''Hoo… he wasn't kidding. You really are at 6 stage. Did you do nothing than train your whole life kid? How old are you?''. It looks like she doesn't care that I probed her stage. ''I'm 15'' I look at her and she is looking at me waiting for me to answer the first question, which I find truly stupid. ''If I didn't have sensei and a mana stage of 6, I would have been dead now''. She removes her hand and looks at me again with a facial expression I can't really explain. I've seen it before on sensei, but I don't know what it means. ''It must have been rough kid''. I shrug my shoulders. I don't know if it was rough. I don't have anything to compare it to. I don't really know how people live in the outside world other than what sensei told me and what I saw in Darv's village. ''So, you want to be a adventure?'' she changes the subject and I nod. ''Let's go down to the training room than. I need to see how strong you are'' she says as she gets up from her chair and walks towards the door. I get up from my chair and follow her down. We go past the hall full of drunk people and I see a few stares at us or rather at the red-haired lady. We go down to the basement where there is a big field with workout equipment's. She stops a few meters ahead of me with a playful smile on her face ''I usually don't test to see adventures level. But this is a special case. You should feel proud'' she says as she grabs a wooden sword from the rack behind her and throws it at me. She grabs another one and we both get ready to fight.