Summoner's Strange Party

"Finally… After 20 years of training and hard work, I'm finally an ADVENTURER!!!" I shouted as I lift my adventurer's card up high.

The registration process is pretty simple. You only need to go to any adventurer guild branch and talk to a receptionist. They will then present you with a board that has an intricate magic circle on the left side and a right-hand mark on the right side. Once you have placed your right palm at the hand sign, the magic circle will glow up for a couple of seconds and your adventurer card will appear. Adventurer cards cannot be forged, tampered with or destroyed. So it is not possible to have any fake adventurer's card being used without getting found out. One way to know if it is a counterfeit or not is by simply ripping it in half. But in some cases, there are fake ones that are hard to rip so fire magic does the job. Because of this, most adventurers incorporate their adventurer's card on their armor, sometimes at the area where the heart is located or sometimes on their forehead. Even if it's lost, it'll return to its owner's hand after some months. The fastest was one month and the slowest was eight months. Without your adventurer's card, you cannot accept any type of quests. So you either wait for it to come back or find it yourself.

Now, the contents of the adventurer's card are pretty simple. At the top left part of the card is my name, Greo Astral.

Below that is my level, level 3. About the levels. Every person's starting level is determined by four factors namely; mana, physical strength, magic aptitude, and innate talent. You wouldn't need to take any tests if you are registering as an adventurer, the magic circle can tell these things. I have no idea how that works.

Underneath the level is my class, Summoner. Classes are determined when a child reaches the age of seven. On the child's seventh birthday, the parents must take their child to the church for the "Class Reveal Ceremony". The class reveal ceremony is done by dropping a small amount of the child's blood into the water fountain with a crystal orb in the middle called the "Goddess Water". The crystal orb will glow and a symbol will show up. There are eight types of symbols that represents the class;

 Sword is a Fighter. They are one of the vanguards of a party that boasts their strength, they typically use longswords, axes, knuckles/bare fists, or any bludgeoning weapons. Most of the time, they are the ones who will engage in combat first.

The shield symbol is a Tank. Tanks are one of the vanguards of a party, they are proud of their high defense and high vitality, and they are the ones in charge of taking hits from enemy attacks using their shields. Generally, a tank has one sword and shield but in some cases, some tanks use two shields at the same time.

The dagger symbol is Assassin. They work stealthily and most of the time they are the ones who take on dirty work so their reputation isn't that good. They can dismantle most traps and they are also good at scouting areas, although not as good as archers.

The bow symbol is an Archer. They are one of the rearguards along with the mages. They are the ones in charge of aerial threats and scouting of the area. Their class skill called "Eagle View" enables them to see the terrain as if they're looking at a map, except that they can also see enemies that are visible through the air but hidden on land. The only downside is that they are vulnerable to enemy attacks while using the said skill.

The staff symbol is a Mage. Mages are one of the rearguards along with archers. Mages use offensive magic, defensive magic, and support magic. As archers cannot see all of the enemies, a mage can locate other hidden enemies by sensing their mana. After all, every living being in this world has mana.

Next is the Crafter. They are the ones who make useful potions, emergency weapons repair, trap-dismantling, and other stuff that are useful to the party. In emergency cases where the healing mage ran out of mana, the crafter's health potions would be proven useful. They also have a class skill called "Inventory" so they're a must in every party. Even the merchant guild treats crafters a bit special. The maximum capacity depends on the user's level and maximum mana. Known crafters have at least a maximum capacity of 10 huge castles. It's crazy.

Finally, the beast symbol. At first there's only one class for this but now it's split into two. If the beast symbol has a heart symbol behind it, it's a Beast Tamer. If the beast symbol has a magic circle symbol behind it, it's a Summoner.

Beast Tamer is pretty self-explanatory. They tame beasts and other beings that exist by going into "Familiar Contract" with them. Vitality and maximum mana capacity greatly affect the beasts and other beings that they could go into contract with. The past record shows that a previous beast tamer was able to make an ancient dragon to be its familiar. It's the newest class that appeared four-hundred and fifty years ago.

Summoner is a class that summons beasts and other beings whether the summoner knows they actually exist or not. Due to the nature of this class, magical knowledge and maximum mana capacity greatly affect your summoned beings. Summoned beings summoned by the summoner gain one unique skill.

Beast Tamers and Summoners are what people called these days as "useless class". Although discrimination isn't an everyday thing it's still pretty hard to join a party.

With the exception of Beast Tamer and Summoner, all other classes evolve into different higher classes. Well, I'll explain them some other time.

Going back on the adventurer's card, below the class is my rank. As I'm just starting, my rank is at the very bottom, Rank Bronze-I.

The rank goes up from Bronze-I, Silver-II, Silver-I, Gold-III, Gold-II, Gold-I, Platinum-IV, Platinum-III, Platinum-II, Platinum-I, Diamond-IV, Diamond- III, Diamond-II, Diamond-I and the last three ranks that only a handful of adventurers were able to reach are; Serpent rank with a total of five adventurers; Demon rank with a total of three adventurers; Dragon rank with only two adventurers. Many factors can affect your rank, your quest success rate and battle prowess. So all adventurers can get promoted or demoted.

Of course, everyone is eligible to do a skip rank test if they are confident with their skills and want to boost their ranks quickly. After all, the higher the rank, the better the pay. That also means higher the risks. But keep in mind that you'll have to pay for the test, the fee is the same whatever rank you want to reach so all you have to do is give it your best shot. If you failed, the proctors present would assess your performance and put you in a different rank base on their assessment.

Moving on, below rank is the party you belong to, it's still empty for obvious reasons.

Lastly, Bank. As you would expect, only the owner of the card can see the numbers on the bank. You can use your adventurer's card to withdraw or deposit your money through any guild and you can also use it to pay on most establishments. Of course, a merchant card also has this feature.

Now then… should I apply for a skip rank test or should I take one simple quest and rest once I'm done…? I'm pretty confident that I could reach Gold-III but, I don't have money for the test fee right now. I kinda… spent it all since it was the Light God Festival yesterday. Running to different kind of food stalls as if I'm a kid, how embarrassing.

While I was thinking about I should do next, an angry voice entered my ears.

"Greo you bastard! What the hell are you doing at the guild's roof!?"

Ah…

I was too excited earlier that I unconsciously climbed the guild's roof.

Looking down from the roof, you can see a vein popping up on his head, it looks like it's about to explode.

"Sorry, guild master! I'll quickly get down!" After apologizing, I hurriedly jumped down in front of him and apologized once more.

With an exasperated sigh, the guild master replied, "For crying out loud… I know you are excited but did you really have to do it at the top of the guild's roof? Look at how much attention you attracted."

Now that he mentioned that, there are quite a lot of people gathered here. I know I attracted some of them but that can't be the only reason, right?

"There are a lot of people than usual. Something happening?"

"Yeah, a Serpent rank adventurer is coming today. You didn't hear anything about that?" 

"Ah well…"

"Hmm. Busy on your training, I bet."

"Whoa! As expected of guild master, how'd you know?"

"…. That's all you did right after you came on this town…"

…right.

I was thirteen when I came into this town. When my uncle heard that I wanted to be an adventurer, he recommended that I start in this town as he owns a small house near the river. Of course, my parents and I gladly accepted it. Before coming here, I already trained in summoning magic for three years. My father was the one who taught me. Although he's an Archmage, he still has some knowledge about summoning magic. After that, he told me that a Summoner should also be able to protect itself and not always rely on my summoned being. And so, he trained me in using daggers for at least two years. 

Right, I forgot to mention that there are sub-classes. Unlike your main class, a sub-class is more like a second weapon of your choice that you want to master, so the second weapon that you chose would be the name of your sub-class. So my sub-class is dagger. Sub-class is not included in the adventurer's card since most adventurer stick to one weapon. There have been cases of people who mastered all types of weapons and after a very long time, their class changed into Weapon Master, their symbol is well… just a red hollow circle. Due to the fact that you need a very long time to become a Weapon Master, only the races with long life span such as elves and demons are able to do so. Weapon Masters retain their previous skills and gain an inferior version of some weapon skills. Used efficiently, they are a powerful jack of all trades. The currently known living Weapon Master is called Weiss, a demon who's also a Demon rank adventurer. His original class was Mage so you can say that he can infuse elemental magic to all of the weapons that he could use. Although it's only limited to the four basic elements Fire, Wind, Water, and Earth. I heard that he could go up to Dragon rank but chose to stay at Demon rank just because it feels right. That's what he said anyway. Honestly, I can kind of understand that.

Enough about Weiss. It's not like all I did was training. I had part time jobs as well. Although I was receiving allowances from my parents before, I stopped depending on them too much when I turned twenty. Thankfully, I only have to worry about to food, water and other necessities and not shelter.

"Guild master."

"What?"

"What's a Serpent rank adventurer doing here? Isn't this town considered as a starter town?"

"Look, this may be a starter town, but our town's adventurers are stronger than other towns, I'm confident about that. As for why he's here, I can't tell you that."

"I see."

That's understandable. He's a friend no… he's more like one of my uncles, but he's also a guild master, he can't just divulge any information. I guess I'll go take one gathering quest today and rest.

I went inside the guild and walked directly towards the request board.

Huh, there sure are a lot of subjugation quests today. Especially at Platinum and above ranks. Golem, Fire Serpent, Ground Dragon, even undead…?

Ah well, that's got nothing to do with me.

After taking a look at the other ranks' board, I went to Bronze-I rank request board. As you would expect, there's nothing but gathering quests.

Oh? This one is just a few kilometers outside the west side of the town. Let's see, let's see…

[Gathering Request: Greenlight Flower's leaves.

Total: 10

Reward: 5,000 oires.

Location: Helva Forest.

Duration: 3 days upon receiving the quest.

By: Celen Pharmacy]

Ten leaves of Greenlight flower. Should be easy. Alright, I'll take this.

After ripping the paper out of the quest board, I went to one of the three receptionists. The one in the middle, specifically.

"Good afternoon, Miss Bel." Her name is Bel. She has red long hair going down on her waist, and red eyes, she's slim too, and by the looks of it, it's an E-cup.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Greo. What brought you back here?" 

"Ah right. I'll take this quest. Here's my card."

"Certainly, please sign this."

Before taking a quest, they'll need to check your adventurer's card first and sign a paper slip. They'll input the quest's details into your card so even if adventurer's accidentally forgot what their quest was, it won't be a problem. And it's also to keep track of their quest. The paper slip is where you'll list the names of the adventurers who'll join on the quest. Since it's just me, I'll just write my name.

"Here."

"Thank you. Here's your card back. Good luck on your quest and take care." She said as she smiled warmly while giving me my card back.

So bright!

"Yeah. Thanks. I'll be back."

The quest's duration is three days and considering the distance from the west gate to the quest location… Alright, I can take it easy today to prepare and rest early for tomorrow.