Return

The army reached the sanctuary safely and the low Ranks lined up for the distribution of the corpses. The Rank 4s had to decide who would get the genius's corpse, Deji said "I will not dilly dally about who deserves what, Pentagon had the highest contribution and Mira was the MVP, hence the genius's corpse should go to her or at least her team"

There were looks of disagreement on the faces of the Diamonds but they didn't say anything… Deji provoked them regardless by saying "Do you have a different opinion?" to the Diamonds.

Their leader, a man who looked to be in his twenties, Philip, said "Don't worry, we agree too". Deji nodded and said to Mira "Would you like to trade the corpse?" Mira looked at her team mates, smiled and said "This can't be for me alone, my team also helped".

The team members smiled, even Theo who always had the expression of a brick had his lips curve up a bit. Then Adura said with a wide smile "You're right! We did help, we will share it equally" Mira couldn't hide her shock at Adura's shamelessness, it was obvious that the genius only died because of her aura slash, without her it would have escaped, she only said what she said out of courtesy.

The members of Pentagon that were watching struggled to hold back their laughs. Deji ignored their team dynamic and continued "Since it's a new Rank 4 we've never seen I offer 100,000 en-code's for the corpse". Adura replied Deji smiling "As expected of Deji, the ancient one in a young man's body, you are so generous. But you know that this corpse is very special, it isn't like some random small fry that just has a different name. This thing could do magic, do you expect us to sell something that can be used to develop a whole new science for just 100,000 en-codes?"

Deji responded without a change of expression "Deal closed then, we can just hunt it ourselves, I'm sure there are more than one Hive geniuses and their bodies are probably in better condition than this one that has been split in twain". Adura was stung by his reply but she agreed "Ok, we accept" with a disappointed look.

Deji transferred 100,000 en-codes to Mira, he didn't care what their team agreed on; he decided she was the one who deserved all the pay. The Rank 4 teams dispersed and Mira was in pain as her team members looked at her like vultures.

Mira extended her hand in an attempt to send 16,666 encode to all of them and thought 'I will never show courtesy to these savages again'. The members refused her encode except Adura who took it saying it was payment for the negotiation.

Mira thought 'What negotiation? You didn't even manage to increase the price'. Mira calmed her anger and asked "What are we doing next?" Adura answered "We don't have anything planned, you can take solo jobs to get en-code, if you see any job that has prospect you can call us to join in…" she looked at Funmi and said "Can you explain solo jobs to her? Since you guys are heading to the same place". Funmi nodded and Adura continued "The reason we did this job is because we are required to do one of these every month".

The team dispersed and Funmi went with Mira toward their hotel on the way she explained what solo jobs were. Solo jobs were jobs that could only be taken at Rank 4, it was basically a Rank 4 doing a group of Rank 3s' job for a lesser pay than a group of Rank 3s would get. The jobs that required groups of Rank 4s were very few as the highest Rank monsters and undead in the area were Rank 6 so Rank 4s could handle most problems on their own.

Funmi asked Mira "What do you plan to do next?" Mira answered "I'm going to work out for a while. I haven't spent the en-code I got from selling the skilled weapon to Jola". Funmi nodded and said "I'm going to do a bunch of solo missions, I didn't really like you taking the spotlight during that fight and since I can't get skilled weapons now, I'll just get more stats"

Mira was surprised by Funmi's blatant jealousy she thought 'So petty!' Funmi seeing her shock explained "I'm usually the star of the team since I'm the fastest, the only person I had to compete with was Theo because of his precision, but now I have both of you and I didn't even perform as well as Theo so that makes me the third place, I might even be fourth since David killed the prodigy while I killed the horse. I need something that makes me standout"

Mira still didn't understand the sentiment even with all the explanation but she thought 'For her to be Rank 4 at the same time as me without having Jade's training and weapons as an advantage like me, she must have something that drives her beyond her limits and causes her to face her fears… it should be the same with every high ranker. Those who stay stagnant are left behind at the low Ranks and those who push the limits and overcome their fears get higher Ranks for doing their best since at the end of the day if a person wants to increase their Rank they have to fight a higher Rank monster than them'

They reached the hotel. Mira went to her room, had a bath and went to hit the gym. The gym had training equipments with weights made of heavy rooks and monster materials, the gym was tagged Rank 4 gym but there was no gym for any other Rank in the hotel. The gym was very large as the rock weights took a lot of space.

There were two men already in the gym, one was doing bench presses, he looked to be in his forties and the other was on a weird thread mill running slowly for a Rank 4, he looked to be in his twenties. They looked at her for a moment when she came in and looked away soon after.

Mira thought 'I'm surprised. No one has asked me for Jade's location even after the reveal of my armor' but she got her mind off the topic and went to one of the weights on the floor and tried it out.

The weight was just right, not too heavy. She did her stretches and began her workout.

…