Chapter 12: Becoming an adventurer!

Lucian and Ron had ended up eating and drinking until late. Ron had gotten very drunk trying to keep up with Lucian, who wasn't feeling the effects thanks to his regeneration abilities.

They had both ended up passing out and sleeping on the table. Little red had enjoyed the all you can eat it had experienced and fell asleep in Lucian's cloak as usual.

Morning soon came and with it, so did the large number of adventures who were starting work.

Lucian slowly opened his eyes and pulled himself from the table. He could see that groups of all sorts of people and other races were currently queuing up to get their hands on quests.

Humans, Elves, Dwarfs, and even beastmen of all kinds could be seen. Lucian had remembered when he played the game. You had a choice of what race you could play as.

Each race had its own strengths and weaknesses, as well as starting stats. If he remembered correctly, Beastmen were the strongest, followed by Elves, then Dwarfs and finally Humans, each with their own traits and abilities, different to each other.

Lucian looked across the table at Ron, who was still passed out.

"Hey, wake up, Ron," Lucian said as he kicked his leg from under the table.

Ron jumped upright from the pain.

"I'm up! I'm up!" He shouted, looking around franticly.

Nobody paid him any attention as it seemed passing out here was normal, with a few others who were still asleep.

Ron settled down when he realised what was going on and sat back down slowly.

"Man, that hurt." He said rubbing his shin.

"What time is it?" He then asked, taking another look around.

"I'm not sure. Early, I think," Lucian said.

"Ah man, why did you wake me up?" Ron said as he put his head back down on the table, clearly still suffering from the drink last night.

Little red also woke up and yawned as it stretched its little arms out. She was getting bigger again and was close to being fully grown.

Lucian smiled and gave her a bit of cracker as the little Goblin smiled and munched on it without a second thought.

"That's fine, Ron, just tell me how I become an adventurer, and I will leave you be," Lucian said.

Ron opened his eyes and looked at Lucian for a moment before he shot upright again.

"That's right!" He said, slamming his hands on the table.

"We need to get you registered!"

With that, he got up off the table and took Lucian over to the reception. The girl there was different to the one last night, but she smiled at them both never the less.

"Good morning!" She said, greeting them.

"Morning," Ron said as he leaned on the desk to steady himself.

"Looks like you had a rough night." The receptionist said with a slight chuckle.

"One of us anyway," Ron said, looking to Lucian, a little jealous.

"How can I help you both?" She proceeded to ask.

Lucian here would like to register with the guild." Ron said, standing back up putting his hands on his hips.

"Okay, let's see here." She said as she pulled a slip of paper from one of the draws.

"So your name is Lucian." She said as she wrote it down.

"Can you please confirm your race and age?" She then asked, looking him in the eyes.

Lucian seemed a little surprised at the question as he thought it would be obvious. But then again, with white hair and red eyes, maybe not.

"I'm a human male. I'm sev..." He started.

"I'm twenty-two." He said after a slight pause.

She didn't pay any mind to his pause and proceeded to write the information down.

"Alright, that's all done." She said, rolling the paper up.

"Normally, we would request an upfront payment of twenty copper coins... However, my sister told me what happened last night and that you are to thank! So this time, it's on the house!" She said, crossing her arms, impressed.

"Well, looks like your luck keeps on improving, eh, Lucian," Ron said, patting him on the back.

"All that is left is to conduct a strength evaluation to finish registering you with the guild."

Ron chuckled.

"You'll have no problem with this one."

"Please follow me, sir." She said, heading towards a door in the back.

Lucian hadn't seen it at first and watched as she placed a crystal against it, opening the door. Almost like a key card.

"This way." She said with a smile.

Lucian followed her down a corridor and past many different rooms.

She could see the question on his face and smiled.

"This area is reserved for Steel rank adventurous and above. They get their own facility's away from the lower ranks if they wish." She said.

"Here we are." She said, opening the door to the last room.

Lucian followed her inside, seeing there was nothing in the room other than a large black mirror.

"If you would be so kind as to place your hand on the mirror in front of you. It will assess your combat strength and abilities, deeming weather or not you are worthy of joining the guild." She said.

Lucian stepped forward and placed his hand on the mirror slowly.

Nothing seemed to happen at first and the two of them stood in silence as they waited.

Soon the mirror turned from black to transparent and Lucian could see his own reflection with a question mark above his head.

"Is that my rank?" He thought as he looked at it harder.

As he did, it opened a stat screen displaying his own rank as he could do with others.

Name - Lucian.

Class - Human. - Summoned hero. - Demon lord.

Skills - Enhanced demon strength and ability. - Demon regeneration. - Power of Warth. - Fireproof. - Hero's perception.

Rank - ?/20 - Demon/Hero.

Stats - Strength ?/10 - Speed - ?/10 - Intelligence - ?/10.

Magic - 8/8 -Water - Fire - Wind - Earth - Lightning - Dark - Light - ???.

Lucian stared hard at his stats screen as it was the first time he had seen it. However, the blasted thing made no sense at all. All he could see was the question marks instead of numbers.

"What the hell is this?" He thought as he read through his abilities and class.

Suddenly the mirror started to vibrant and then gave off blue sparks as the glass cracked.

Lucian pulled his hand away and stepped back.

"What in the?" He said.

The girl was just as shocked, panicking a little, thinking he had broken the mirror.

"Oh my..." She said as everything settled back down.

"What was that?" Lucian asked.

She shook her head.

"I'm not sure. I've never seen anything like that before." She said as she placed her own hand on the mirror slowly.

The mirror came to life right away and glowed blue, displaying her stats to Lucian.

"No matter, it seems to be fine." She said, pulling her hand away.

"It's known as a magic mirror. It can read your strengths and ability, tell you what, if any, magic affinity you are attuned to. We here at the guild use it to make sure people are strong enough to join. These things are quite expensive too, you know." She said, placing her hand on her hip.

"I can't seem to get a read on your strength, but as long as the mirror glows blue, that's a good sign. If It had tuned red, then that would mean you weren't strong enough."

"Right... Do you get many turn red?" Lucian asked.

"Yes, we do. You see, the adventurers guild offers a lot of opportunity and fame. We can't just have anyone join up. Otherwise, it would ruin our reputation. You have to have at least a basic combat ability."

Lucian nodded, his curiosity satisfied.

"Alright, one last thing." She said as she placed the piece of paper with Lucian's details against the mirror.

The mirror absorbed the paper and returned a copper coloured crystal.

The girl took the crystal and handed it to Lucian.

"Here you go. This is your ID crystal that is proof you belong to the adventure guild. It's a magic crystal that is now bound to your person until you resign from the guild or die. That way, you can't lose it." She said with a wink.

Lucian nodded and handed the gem to little red, who was hanging on the back of his shoulder.

"Why don't you look after this for me." He said, smiling at her.

Little red nodded and started chewing the thing as she played with it.

"Okay, if you would be so kind as to follow me back downstairs, I shall show you how to take and cash in quests." She said, opening the door for him to exit.

Lucian followed her back downstairs, where they met up with Ron.

"So how did it go? No problem, right!" He said.

Lucian nodded.

"Alright, over here, you will find the quest board. This is where you can choose quests that you would like to attempt. I must warn you, they are put in rank order, up to steel rank. We do advise new adventurers to stick to their own rank as the nature of some quests can be life-threatening."

It went silent for a moment as Lucian looked at all the quests the guild had to offer. He could see all sorts of requests from ingredients gathering, monster hunting, assisting the military in guard and patrols. Rescue missing, escort mission, you name it.

"Looks like it's just like in the game." He thought to himself.

"With that said, we can only advise adventurers on taking quests more suitable to their rank, but we cannot stop them." The receptionist said with a heavy smile that Lucian noticed.

"Does that happen a lot, too?" He asked.

The receptionist flinched a little as Lucian picked up on her emotions quickly, and she shook the thought away.

"Yes, but never mind that. We all make our own choices in this world." She said.

Ron also picked up on her attitude but decided to leave the matter alone.

"Anyway, welcome to the adventurers guild Lucian. I do hope to see you around here often." She said with a smile before she bid them farewell, returning to her post.

"Well, it looks like your an adventurer now, Lucian, congrats!" Ron said.

Lucian nodded and continued to look at the quest pool. He could see that each quest had its ranking labelled on it, along with the reward. Naturally, the more challenging and higher-level the quest, the more it paid.

If he could remember, 100 copper coins made one silver. 100 silver made one gold and gold was the highest currency in Astaria.

"I wouldn't worry if I was you, Lucian. If you can hold your own against a griffin, then these quests here will be easy!" Ron shouted, not realising how loud he was talking.

His words didn't go unnoticed either as many of the other adventurers turned around to get a look at him, all of them staring hard as they tried to read him.

"If I were you, I would learn to hide your magical ability." Satan suddenly spoke up.

His voice actually shocked Lucian as he hadn't heard it in a while.

"I'd almost forgotten about you for a moment." He said in his mind.

Lucian decided to take the bait.

"What makes you say that anyway?" He asked.

"It would seem that my power has granted you access to all of my magical abilities... It is indeed rare to find a being that has all of the magical affinities."

Lucian took in what he was saying.

"And your point is?" He asked.

"You fool. My point is that if the wrong person sees your abilities and demon class. They might just separate your head from your shoulders... Food for thought, little hero." He said menacingly.

Lucian took a moment to think before he answered.

"And just how do I do that?"

"So you're asking me for help now?" The demon mocked.

"Shut up..." Lucian said out loud, accidentally.

Ron gave him a funny look as even he could feel the hatred coming from him.

"Err. Lucian, you ok, buddy?" He asked, raising his hands in defence.

Lucian realised what he was doing, and he settled down, noticing all the stairs he was getting.

"Come on, Ron, let's get out of here for now," Lucian said as he didn't like the attention.

Ron nodded slowly and followed him out of the adventurers guild onto the street.

"Umm. Lucian." Ron said.

Lucian turned to face him, knowing what he was about to ask.

"What was that back there?"

Lucian sighed a little and looked down at the floor.

"Sorry, Ron. I had a little flashback... I don't really want to talk about it." He said.

Ron nodded.

"I understand." He said, letting it go silent for a moment.

Lucian looked up, looking out towards the town, taking in the sites, when an idea popped into his head.

"Hey, Ron, how well do you know this place?" Lucian asked.

Ron looked up.

"Pretty well, I would say, considering I grew up here." He said, giving a light-hearted chuckle.

"Really, you never said."

"Well, it never came up," Ron said.

"Well, how about you show me around town? After all, I'm going to need to know my way around," Lucian said, tickling little reds chin as she popped her head out of his cloak.

"Yeah, that doesn't sound like a bad idea! But lunch is on you!" Ron said as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Sounds like a plan!"