After the morning’s practice, I inquired about the books on hand in the guild for traits to Hiroaki when we walked back into the hall. He informed me he would have a few in his office for me to use, and I could come to meet him later that night after his last meeting at the seventh bell. I thanked him profusely and went in and over to the tattooed receptionist.

“Ah, Zeal. Kadler responded to your request and would be amicable to meet up with you tomorrow for an hour at the fifth bell for lunch.”

“Oh, thank you. Where would I meet him?”

“You can meet him here, then discuss where to go for food.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry, I never got your name.”

“It’s Draf.”

“Thank you for your help, Draf. I’ll see you later.

The man waved me away, and I turned to leave, but I had nothing planned for the day. I looked over to my left and at the quest boards, I’ve heard so much about. I turned back and walked over to Draf.

“Sorry, Draf. Could you explain to me how the quests work? I got nothing to do today and thought I could do a quest to pass the time.”

“It’s okay. You have escort and retrieval, extermination, collection, and finally, your odd jobs from the left to your right.

“Escort and retrieval are quests to escort caverns between towns. You also have crafters going out in the mountains for ingredients that need protection. You can also be sent out to other towns to retrieve goods and return them.

“Extermination is your find and kill quests. Sometimes it's just to clear out the sewers or go out and kill certain monsters to bring back parts. Every quest will have you going out and killing something or another.

“Collection quests range from going out to mine ore or harvest herbs to bring back to the guild. Most of these are open quests, and the guild will always pay you to bring those items back. You can pull off one of those pages for each, so you have the description and drawing of the item you need to collect.

“Your odd jobs are just that odd jobs. They don’t really fall under the other categories. They could be a noble who’s looking for guards or a farm looking for a spare hand on the upcoming harvest.

“On the top right of each quest, you’ll see a colored stamp. The color dictates the Class level of the quest, and the amount of stars gives the Rank. If there is no stamp, anyone can take the quest. The quest papers at the bottom are for the lower ranks. You will start there.

“Now below the stamp, you will see a ‘GCP’ with numbers next to it. Completing the quest will give you that many Guild Contribution Points. Once you have a hundred points, you can try and rank up. The awards are listed below the GCP, and you’ll get those as well on the successful completion of the quest.

“Any questions?”

“No, sounds simple enough. Thanks again, Draf.”

I left, walked over to the quest board, and looked down to where Luin typically was next to me, but she was missing. I looked around the room and spotted the blue Kobold over by the nurse's office hugging Vylria’s legs, who was patting her on the head. I left the two alone and continued to the purple felt boards on the wall.

Most of the quests I could see had green and blue stamps on the top right. I spotted a few of the white stamps on a couple of pages at the bottom of the collection and kill quests. The first page was for Bone Rank D, as it only had a single star. The quest was to go down into the sewers and kill Plague Rats. It had a GCP of ten and a reward of two copper per rat tail, with a minimum of fifty rats.

The second kill quest was for thirty intact bile sacks from something called a Fyrbee. The paper gave directions to a part of the nearby forest and how to remove the sacks from the creatures. The quest also warned to have Ice Balm on hand incase the Fyrbee’s attack gets on your skin. The GCP was fifteen and a reward of a gold for each lot of thirty.

I looked through the collection quests and grabbed one of each of the non-stamped ones. That way, if I came across any of them, I could harvest them. I decided I wanted to get some air, and the prospect of going in the town’s sewers wasn’t pleasant. I grabbed one of the Fyrbee’s quest papers.

I waved to Vylria, and she said something to Luin, who turned her head to regard me. I watched the Kobold wave goodbye to the beautiful blonde and came sprinting over to me on all fours.

“Let’s go do a quest.”

“Tay,” she said before stopping. “What’s a quest?”

“It’s like a job to go hunt monsters and collect their items. We get paid when we bring them back.”

“Oh, so we can buy more tasty food on the street?”

“Sure, Luin,” I said as I laughed. Damn, Kobold only thought of food.

We left The Guild’s hall and made our way to the west gate. The quest paper had a small sketched-out map for where the Fyrbees made their homes. The walk only took us a bit over an hour before we started to see the larger trees in the distance. Even from here, I could see the massive hives that took up a significant portion of the upper branches of those trees.

As we walked closer, I could see large objects darting about the trees. There were quite a lot of them. I walked over to a large fallen tree with what could have been a collapsed borrow beside it. “Ok, Luin, I know we never really talked about it, but what kind of magic can you do?”

“Luin only knows one word. I hear the priest talk about it lots and when I say it, melted the naughty Kobold,” she said with a devilish grin.

“How often can you use it?”

She shrugged, “Not know.”

“Alright. You stay here, and if you have to use it, do it. I’ll try and grab the attention of one Fyrbee at a time.”

“Tay.”

I looked over the fallen tree and spotted one of the bright red and black Fyrbees. They looked like a giant Bumblebee from back home, only with red instead of yellow. I created a Tier 1 Ice Lance and tossed it at the bee. It struck home, and the bee impaled by the lance went to the ground without a sound. I looked around to see if any of its friends would come to avenge him.

None came, and I walked over and collected the Bone Core and what looked like a small, leathery sack. My Auto Loot Trait must have known I was looking for the sacks.

[ System Notification ]

Rank B Bone Core has given 6 Energy

5% Bonus: 0

2 Energy converted to 20 Mana

[ Digestive System: 105/200 ]

Well, at least they were easy to kill. I wasn’t going to be doing much leveling. I wouldn’t need to cut out the sacks like the quest paper described. I looked around and spotted another bee. I cut that one and the next few that came across our downed tree.

[ System Notification ]

Rank B Bone Core has given 6 Energy

5% Bonus: 0

2 Energy converted to 20 Mana

[ Digestive System: 125/200 ]

I would have to fulfill this quest a few times before I got a System’s level off them. The next bee that came over to the flowers in front of us seemed to dart around much faster than the others. My lance just missing as it came close. It began to ‘buzz’ loudly before darting into the sky about ten meters above us. Then it spat out a glob of a red substance towards me. I quickly dodged the attack and was startled to see the ground around the location the glob hit was now burning with a raging fire.

I did not want to get hit by that attack. Before I could launch another attack at our buzzing foe above, I heard a deafening hum coming from the trees. I yelled for Luin to hide, hoping she just didn’t stick her damn head into the ground. A momment later, my Ice Armor snapped around my upper body. The hum grew louder before I realized it was a swarm of the Fyrbees coming out of the forest. There had to be hundreds of them.

I raised a large pillar of stone before hollowing out the center. I rushed inside and closed the opening part, so only a meter-by-meter opening was at the front. I began to summon Ice Lances, tossing them towards the growing swarm. That seemed to piss just about every one of them off, and I spotted the glow of the red glob attack coming from many of them. I willed the opening closed and could hear the splashes as they hit the walls of the stone pillar.

Within moments, the temperature inside began to rise, and I cursed myself as I realized I had just made a stone oven. I willed the ground inside the pillar to lower, and once I was about four meters below the ground, I created one of my Enforced Tunnels towards where I felt Luin’s presence. The tunnel went directly into what I assumed was the collapsed borrow of some animal. I could feel Luin just above me and willed the ground below her to drop out.

As she fell into my arms, I willed a pillar to rise from inside the borrow and plug the hole Luin dropped from. I let her drop to the ground and looked around. The borrow was empty besides some bones at the corner. I walked over to the wall and created more Reenfoced Tunnels away from the stone pillar.

When I was far enough away, I created a small hole going up and looked towards my pillar. The red and black creatures covered the entire thing. I ducked down and told Luin to stay put before running back down the tunnel towards the stone pillar. The air was becoming incredibly hot, and I could hear nothing but the low hum from above me.

I summoned a blue Tier 1 Fireball and launched it upwards before sprinting away. I willed a pillar to close off the tunnel as I ran into the borrow and across it into my larger tunnels just as I felt the shockwave of the explosion. I reached a sitting Luin and looked out my tiny hole. I could see a few of the bees still flying around must most seem to have vanished in the explosion. I grinned as I realized I could quickly level this way.

I made the hole bigger and helped Luin climb out before pulling myself out. I looked around for the missing Kobold and realized she was running towards the bees. Seeing the small creature running towards them, the remaining bees began to converge. I tried to yell but couldn’t get any words out as Luin said something, and a large blast of fire erupted from her mouth and engulfed the remaining bees.

I was stunned when they all vanished into ash before turning into white sand. It seemed Luin had also gained the Auto Loot Trait, or my explosion had done some damage already. I was about to congratulate her when I watched her lean to the side, swaying before falling over.

I rushed to her side and looked down at the Kobold.

“Luin can use it once, then big headache,” the grinning Kobold said.

I laughed at her and scanned the area, not wanting to have other Fyrbees sneaks upon us. Not seeing any more threats, I looked down at the crawling Kobold going for a core. I watched as Luin picked up a Bone Core and tossed it into her mouth. She hummed a moment before crawling to the next. She picked up a leather sack and regarded it for a moment before tossing it to the side.

I joined her and began to collect the Bone Cores and sacks littering the grass and flowers. In total, we collected a hundred and twenty-seven of the Fyrbee’s sacks. I split the cores with Luin, I wanted to find out how her leveling worked, and this was as good of a time as any. I popped the last core into my mouth and displayed the results. I had used way too much magic with the Earth spells.

[ System Notification ]

Twenty-Six Rank D Bone Cores has given 52 Energy

Thirty-Four Rank C Bone Cores has given 136 Energy

Seven Rank B Bone Cores has given 42 Energy

Three Rank A Bone Cores has given 24 Energy

5% Bonus: 12

54 Energy converted to 540 Mana

[ Digestive System: 200/200 ]

I looked at that ‘5%’ on display. I wondered if I could rank the Trait up higher and have it eventually cover my Mana costs. I selected my last Rank 1 System.

[ Toxin System: 137/200 ]

I debated using a couple of the Azure Cores I had in my bag to finish the System but decided against it. With Lastaf’s warning in mind, I would keep them in case of emergencies.