Fresh Start

The receptionist looked a bit surprised; he was about to knock on my door when I had opened it but after recovering, asked me to come downstairs. I thought I was in some kind of trouble but once I got down there, he simply handed me a plastic bag.

"Here, some guy left this for you."

Looking inside the bag, I found a pile of clothes that all seemed to be of decent quality. I didn't need to wonder who the gift was from as most of the clothes had the Kane Guld insignia embroidered on them. There was also an envelope inside the bag but I decided to open it in the safety of my room.

Upon seeing some of the contents of the bag the receptionist whistled in admiration before saying.

"You got family or friends living in Copperfront or something?"

I wasn't sure if I would call Adam a friend, he was still just an overly friendly stranger.

"I got it, none of my business." The man said after I remained silent.

"But in case you wanna go visit em', a bus comes here every day to take people into the city" he said handing me a piece of paper detailing the timings of the bus.

"It's free, so don't worry about paying." and he returned to smoking and watching the small TV behind his desk.

Looking at the note, the earliest a bus arrived was around 6:00 AM and was then scattered throughout the day. I decided to return to my room to better explore the contents of the bag, especially the envelope. Locking the door behind me and sitting on the bed I took out all the clothes and folded them, keeping them inside the cupboard, before finally opening the envelope which contained notes worth roughly 10,000 Credits inside.

Why did he keep doing this? I already told him that he had done enough and didn't need to keep repaying whatever 'debt' he thought he owed me, but he just kept sending expensive gifts. At this point I felt like I was the one who owed him a debt, and I hated that feeling, there was a reason that no matter how bad it got in my previous life, I never took a loan from those sharks like my father did.

It would help a lot, but I had mixed feelings about using this money, I knew it would be ridiculous to try and return the money, as he would simply say no, and I could really use it but getting handouts like this felt wrong. I wanted to repay him but that was stupid, the Kane family had a damn near infinite fortune, and he would probably just die of laughter if I tried to.

I decided to worry about it tomorrow, I put the envelope inside a locked cabinet, though I doubted it would be stolen here, my last experience with one of these did not go well.

It seemed recently I had been putting off a lot of things for my future self, I had barely spent 3 days here and I was starting to get lax, but there wasn't much I could do. My plan relied on if Corin could send the documentation on time and if the mercenary union would allow someone like me.

I wanted to register early so I could get the Combat Arts before they were taken by their original owners in the story which was only a week or so from now. Although the areas where they are found were not that dangerous, they still had low level monsters.

Locking the door behind me, I left the building and began looking for a secluded area that not many people could see me in. I was carrying nothing but the knife I had gotten from the guild building as I looked, it was difficult as outside of the newly erected concrete monoliths, most of the surrounding area was flat ground. That's why I was able to see the city and the checkpoint, but I hadn't noticed that behind one of the buildings was a relatively forested area. It had a few trees and had soft grass instead of the typical baron soil. A sharp contrast to the surrounding wastelands but as for how that was possible, it could be answered by looking at the sign at the entrance.

"Church of preservation: Tranquil Park", magic powerful enough to create a different environment and it seems they had used it to attempt to cheer up the refugees. Walking through the brick path, mana lanterns lit my way and there were several benches spread throughout for me to rest. The flowers here were incredibly vibrant and gave off a near artificially sweet smell and the bushes had been trimmed to create archways.

There was no one here, most likely because of how late it was, and the park seemed serene. I stepped onto a patch of land surrounded by trees and with a small pond in it which seemed to glow a faint blue, giving it a mystical and calming air, most likely due to the mana that this place contained.

This would be just a good place as any to practice as I had enough space to move around but was still concealed should someone visit. Unsheathing my knife, I stood on the empty grassland with closed eyes as I tried to recall the 1-star Combat Art, visualizing the movements that I had to make. Starting with basic footwork and simple slashing and stabbing techniques.

I gripped the dagger in my right hand and began to perform the four basic slashes, starting with the horizontal. As seen in the Combat Manual, I planted my feet and swung the dagger with all the force I could exert.

*SWISH*

The dagger sliced through the air and left a blue light trail in the arc that I had slashed. The knife was incredibly sharp, but my technique was wrong. I knew it somewhat instinctually, compared to the visualization in the manual my arm had been too stiff in the swing losing leverage and my arc had been too wide. The only thing I had right was the way I gripped the knife, although I could afford to have a lighter grip to allow for more maneuverability.

A manual could replace an instructor and speed up the process of learning, but it wasn't instantaneous. Getting into form again and attempting to fix my mistakes I swung again.

*SWISH*

The blue arc left behind was shorter this time and also thinner, I was getting there but this was just the first movement, if I wanted to be anywhere near competent, I needed a lot more than that.

I lost track of time as the only thing I heard was the sound of my knife cutting through air and the only thing I saw were the blue arcs left behind and I continued until I heard a mechanical chime.

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System Notification.

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