Dirrale returns with impeccable timing. Walking past Jellal she glares at him with a look that speaks for itself. If she could kill him with her eyes he’d be dead a thousand times over.

She passes the paper and rectangular card she brought back to Aegis before retreating behind her desk.

[In order to register you need to fill out this form for us to keep on file, and drop a bit of blood onto this card. The form is basically for our records and so we can help pair up adventurers, while the card is what ties you to the network.

Our network has different nodes all over the world and is used by every nation in existence today. Once you’re in it’s impossible to escape, even if you evolve, wear a disguise, or die you’ll still be in it. Every time you enter a city legally it’ll be recorded, and the same is true with any crimes you commit will be.

To get the most benefit out of your status as an adventurer you have to be active. Not taking any quests during a specified time period will list you as inactive revoking a majority of the perks. The time frame will get longer the higher your rank is so if you don’t want to waste time on quests I would suggest increasing your rank as quickly as possible.

At the lowest rank you’ll be allowed up to two weeks between quests before you’re considered inactive, while the highest rank will give you two full years between quests.

In emergency situations we may issue an emergency quest which will be sent out to every registered member in the area. This is done through the network and is based on proximity to the node. Emergency quests are mandatory, with major penalties being given for disregarding them. Penalties range from fines and reduced rank to having your status as an adventurer revoked.

It’s possible to have someone specifically request you for a quest, but it isn’t mandatory to accept. Refusing may affect your reputation but there are no sanctioned penalties like with an emergency quest.

In order to reduce the number of casualties among new adventurers we require new recruits to be looked after by a mentor before they gain the benefits of being registered. Once they’re given the stamp of approval the adventurer is no longer considered a fledgling and will receive full benefits.

Hmm, that should cover everything. I can block access to your information but I can’t do anything about the rules. You’ll need to gain a mentors approval and complete quests just like everyone else if you want to receive benefits.]

After finishing his overly long spiel he passes the form to Jellal to fill out. The form is straight forward, requiring name, age, gender, race, and specialty. Jellal blazes through the form writing as little as possible.

With that taken care of Aegis passes him the card. Pricking his finger, a single drop of blood falls onto the surface of the card before soaking into it. A faint light envelopes the card for a few seconds before fading away, proving his success in registering.

Lines begin appearing on the surface of the card, slowly forming letters. When everything is formed the card resembles a simplified version of his status screen.

Name: Jellal

Gender: Male

Level: 10

Race: Goblin

Age: 0

Rank: F

Escort: 0

Miscellaneous: 0

Subjugation: 0

Looking at his brand new id he’s thankful he was able to level up after his evolution since it kept everything on the card from being at the lowest possible level.

[I’ll need to borrow your card for a moment in order to block the information.]

Aegis takes his card before walking out of the office. Since his business is just about finished Jellal puts his mask back on before flipping up his hood, hiding his appearance. While they’re waiting for Aegis to come back Dirrale and Jellal busy themselves with a staring contest.

A minute passes in silence before Aegis steps through the door. The updated card only shows Jellal’s name and his guild related stats. Looking at the card he nods in satisfaction before looking at Sionia.

[As per the agreement I’ll be leaving the captives to you. It may take a while to drag so much dead weight through the forest so let’s meet where we last met at around midday tomorrow.]

After one sidedly nominating Sionia to play babysitter for the captives he turns to Aegis, who’s patiently waiting for his report about the other side of the stream. Acting as if he forgot Jellal turns around to leave causing Aegis to yell out in an attempt to stop him.

Without looking back Jellal stands in front of the door. He clears his throat in preparation for his report before making it as brief as possible.

[Basically the largest groups of monsters you find on this side are about the same size as the small ones on the other side. Plus none of the stronger monsters have made it across the stream yet. Taking into account their massive numbers advantage you guys are boned harder than a pair of skeletons making love in an ancient mass grave. Later.]

Having played around enough Jellal pushes open the door and strolls through the hallway. On his way back to the first floor he receives a lot of stares from the staff but he disregards them.

Passing through the front door he arrives back at the main road. He thought about stopping and picking up a quest on the way out so he could get it out of the way, but decided not to since he still has to deal with a mentor after he accepts his first quest.

Since there’s still time left until his equipment is ready he takes a stroll around the plaza. Not finding anything of interest he wanders over to the tent in the middle of the plaza.

The guards watch him like a hawk as he enters the tent. Chained to poles on either side are the slaves up for sale. They’re covered in dirt, not having the opportunity to bath and clean themselves up as they wish. Their matted hair looks almost natural on most of them, suiting their bandit like appearances.

The only slave for sale that isn’t grimy is the sole female who’s dressed in clothes that emphasize her curves. When she sees Jellal looking at her she puffs her chest out and gives a flirtatious smile.

‘Oh, a seductress? It’s a shame I don’t have any way to ensure a slaves loyalty or I’d buy her and let her roam around the city. Having someone with her particular set of skills could be handy after all. It would work if I had some way to track her but I don’t even have that.

Still, maybe it isn’t bad to leave her here. It’s obvious what she’s planning by how she reacted when I was looking at her. If she’s that obvious the chances of her causing me trouble due to her lack of subtlety increases exponentially.

The rest of the slaves aren’t much better. They were quite expectant when they heard me approach but when I came inside they immediately changed their tune. If the guards haven’t prepared an ambush for when one of their allies to buy their freedom they’re either idiots or blind.’

After looking around the tent Jellal quickly gets bored and bails. The woman does her best to sell herself, but her wispy voice falls on deaf ears.

Continuing his exploration he fails to find anything of interest. Instead of hanging around the plaza he shifts his approach to checking out random stores.

As he roams around he tries to pawn off his useless items on the cheap. By matching the types of items he brings out with the items in the store he has moderate success since no self-respecting merchant would pass up such a prime chance to turn an easy profit.

With a bit of luck on his side he manages to get rid of most his stock, but continues his exploration regardless. When he’s finally wasted enough time he makes a b-line for the store he left his saws at. Pushing the door open he finds the old shopkeeper sitting behind the front desk.

[You got my stuff geezer? Don’t tell me those rickety old bones of yours couldn’t handle such a simple job and you’re waiting to grovel as an apology for your arrogance?]

[Humph, I may be old, but I aint so old I can’t take care of a few toys. With how long it took ya to get here I thought you were planning on dumping your trash on me and making a run for it. It’s a good thing I didn’t throw your junk away. If I did people might accuse me of bullying kids.]

The old man fishes the items out from behind the counter as Jellal approaches. Snatching them from his hands Jellal gives them a once over to make sure everything’s in order. Confirming everything checks out he throws them into his bag before pulling a one eighty and leaving.

Annoyed at the smug face of the owner he can’t help but spit out a comment before the door closes.

[Not bad, if I didn’t know any better I would think it’s the handiwork of a partially blind man instead of a bat like geezer. Maybe next time I’ll find a monkey and see how they do.]

The door swings shut behind Jellal before the owner has a chance to respond. Knowing the old man can only swallow his words or talk to himself like a senile old man, Jellal smirks under his mask.

With his business taken care of, Jellal struts along the main road without a care. He drifts along until he makes it back to the gate. While most people rush to get inside the city before it starts getting dark, he leisurely passes through the gates and into the embrace of the great outdoors.

On his journey home Jellal has plenty of time to let his thoughts run wild. This is especially true for the section leading up to the forest. Since there are so many adventurers making their way back from the forest he chooses foregoes flying until he at least reaches the forest.

‘Having to run back and forth is really a drag. Now that I can come and go as I please I need to deal with the annoyingly long trip. Flying’s all well and good but it still takes time. There’s also flying monsters like that supersized hawk from earlier.

Plus I still have a ton of useless junk to get rid of, which’ll cost me a few more trips to Pavise. As expected, taking a trip every time is too inconvenient and time consuming. Since I don’t have much to do, I guess it’s time to research better methods of travel. More precisely, teleportation.

I’m able to create an entirely new space with mana, but instantly moving through space to arrive at a designated location is an entirely different beast. Anything that involves space magic is dangerous due to its proclivity for isolation and separation. If I mess up even a little I may end up with body parts that are no longer of speaking terms.

The last thing I want is to end up as a head in someone’s back yard so I have to be extremely careful when I practice space magic. That being said, a superior being such as myself won’t be dissuaded by potential consequences.

Still, there’s the issue of where to begin. When I was learning how to make separate spaces I had an example to go off of and play with in the item bags. For teleportation I’ll be winging it from the start.

To be safe I’ll come up with some theories first. The next step will be testing on small items before moving on to more substantial ones. If I can get through those safely it’s on to live tests with small monsters. Horned rabbits should work perfectly for the first round of testing thanks to their size. From there I can move on to larger monsters like goblins. Since goblins have many similarities to me they’re perfect to use for the tests before I step in myself.

Of course there’s always the issue of my physiology. It could have unforeseen effects, both positive and negative. For that I can only rely on luck which is unfortunate.

Since I’ll be catching monsters for my experiments I should remember to look into separating mana and miasma while I’m at it. If things go well I’ll be able to ensure I won’t be affected by the miasma in the future. Worst case scenario, I practice teleporting dead bodies instead of live ones.’

While rushing ahead toward the forest Jellal’s inner mad scientist runs wild. The gears in his head only stop running wild once he reaches the edge of the forest.

Taking to the skies, he rides the wind. Staying a few meters above the forest he doesn’t fly high enough to be an obvious target for flying monsters. He’s also low enough to the trees to be hard to spot from below, allowing him to travel undisturbed.

Every once in a while he increases his altitude to get a better look around. The treetops are died in an orange hue as the sun gradually descends, offering up a feast for the eyes. The view is enough to make him almost forget the forest is filled with mindlessly raging hordes of monsters seeking to kill anything they come across.

He continues soaring through the sky until he comes across a section of frozen trees. As he descends he scouts around for the ribbon signifying the tree he’s looking for. Locating the ribbon he drops to the base of the tree, finding the cube of earth mostly intact.

Although there are scratch marks and gouges all over the cube, none of them are deep enough to penetrate the protective layer he placed around the monster. Using earth magic he opens up the cube to reveal the frozen remains of the hawk he killed.

Not wasting any time he unfreezes it by pulling away the ice mana encapsulating it. Doing this allows it to stay extremely cold and preserved while getting rid of the actual ice protecting it. He thought about leaving the ice on it for the captives to deal with as a final cruel joke, but decided against it since he wants them to actually be able to process it. Even if it would be entertaining it isn’t worth making extra work for himself.

Jamming it into his item bag he soars back into the air to continue his journey home. As he progresses he comes across an increasing number of trees that look ill, their once lush green foliage now scattered on the ground withering.

Without the cover of the canopy the hordes of monsters become keen to his presence, chasing after him along the ground while glaring into the sky. At first he disregards them, but as their numbers increase beyond triple digits he rethinks things.

Seeing as they want to come at him in such numbers he decides to use them to test some of his ideas. He’s already tested combining types of mana, but never on a large scale or to attack an enemy. The horde beneath him just so happens to fit the criteria to do both, making them perfect subjects to experiment on.

Since he’s planning on using space magic a lot in the near future he uses it as one of the types of mana. To increase the chances of success he uses wind mana as the second type, since he’s most experienced with it.

To start things off he creates hundreds of tiny patches of separated space mana in an attempt to create small tears in space. Following those patches is mana specifically there to mend the space that’s been torn apart. When the two are together they don’t seem like much, but this is only the beginning.

Mixing in wind mana across a wide area his preparations move along. The two types of mana don’t combine perfectly but work together. The space mana moves freely through the wind causing invisible tears in space wherever they travel.

Cementing everything with his own mana he activates his magic. Tiny space tears constantly form in the middle of the horde. Any part of a monster that comes into contact with the tear is immediately cut to ribbons, leaving small holes and gashes all over them.

Although the magic is deadly it’s lacking practicality. To prevent space from becoming unstable and causing a major incident he’s forced to repair the tears immediately after they form, drastically reducing the damage they cause.

Considering the magic a failure he moves on to attempt number two. Instead of an offensive magic he tries his hand at a defensive one. Sticking with wind as an auxiliary he attempts to solidify space surrounding a group of monsters.

His invisible shield forms slowly but turns out to be extremely effective. The main issue is the time needed to construct the magic. Solidifying space is extremely dangerous just the same as any other magic involving space. To safely create a barrier the time needed makes it unfeasible to be used as a reactionary measure, constituting another failure.

Giving up on using space magic for combat he switches tactics and tests one idea for teleportation. Gathering together space mana he selects his test subject, a goblin that’s slightly taller than average. With his target selected he begins attempting to use the properties of the space mana to shift them instantaneously to another location a few meters away.

The mana shifting is a resounding success, but that’s only the mana. The unfortunate test subject appeared along with the mana … in an innumerable number of tiny, almost microscopic, pieces. Rather than a corpse a puff of blood is basically all that remains of the poor goblin.

His first test in teleporting a living being results in what can only be described as essentially atomizing the test subject.