Lariel woke up to the noise of notifications in the middle of the night.

After he cleared the fuzziness over his mind, and while wondering about the strange dream he had had, he looked over the notifications only to be surprised by what he saw.

*Ding* Perfect Timing has reached level 5!

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*Ding* Perfect Timing has reached level 32!

He gained 27 levels in the skill from just one moment to another and started processing how this could have happened.

After a couple of minutes, a daunting realization came over him, and he checked the Perfect Timing skill.

Perfect Timing: Passively allows you to know how much time has passed since a determined point. Has a slightly infinitely small chance of giving you a glimpse of the future.

He focused on the last part.

A glimpse of the future... he thought. That was it? That dream was no just a fucking glimpse, I was hours inside of that shit.

He calmed himself down and started thinking of the possibilities. He remembered almost everything about the dream, but there was one important thing missing. Or two in this case. He did not remember the face of the mage, nor the one from the mysterious man.

After a couple of seconds, he came to another daunting realization. He had seen Salazar and Selena in the dungeon, and Rock for the matter, except he didn't know the name in the dream. The beast-kind woman was not with them, nor the mage, and they had two other people he had never seen before.

So... I can only see the faces of those I have already met? was Lariel's train of thought.

This was a new exciting discovery. His skill allowed him to see the future, and now he knew that those adventurers he had seen would eventually reach the Diamond rank and would also be powerful enough to reach Emerald.

I wish I could know how much time difference there is between these so-called glimpses and the present. Knowing how his skill functioned was a priority for Lariel now. This skill could even save lives if it showed him something catastrophic happening.

After considering a whole lot of possibilities, Lariel checked his skill to see if it was worth going back to sleep.

After doing soo, he got up and dressed. It was not worth it to go back to sleep when the sun would be rising in a couple of hours. He needed to do some digging. What better way to figure out how much time difference there was between his dream and the present than discovering this adventurer's rank and then checking to see how much time people usually took to go from that rank to Emerald.

After he dressed up, he left the orphanage, confirming with the guard that he was not up to no good.

A quick walk to the library and he found that it would only open at mid-day. As such, he walked down the street towards the adventuring guild.

The guild was an important building, and the adventurers didn't have fixed hours to... well... go adventuring, as such, it was opened all day and all night long.

But that was not his goal. His goal was the smithy where he had made a deal with Holder the dwarf. His spear had broken upon contact with the ground after that final attack, and he needed to replace it before he went back into the dungeon. Another one of his goals was to see if the dwarf had any knowledge in Enchanting. The book that he had received was not the Beginner version after all, and since he did not know Enchanting, he could not yet learn anything from the book.

Upon arriving at the now mostly familiar form of the 'Fiery Anvils' smithy, Lariel found it surprisingly closed, with a sign at the front claiming that the owner would not come back for two days.

Guess that means no dungeon dwelling for me... Lariel thought. No way I am going to spend a shit ton of gold in a new spear in another smithy.

With his dreams of getting a new gleaming spear crushed, Lariel decided to change his plans. If he could not go to the Dungeon to level up, he would put to good use the 73 gold coins he had in his possession.

That amount of money was not that impressive, since the decently good stuff was at least costing platinum coins, but he wasn't planning on buying things. He was planning on investing that money. He wanted to be earning passively so that he did not need to worry much about funds.

Truth be told that I can't invest much with this... Houses are out of the question, as are shops... so what do I do with this...

Then it struck him. Why not breed animals. There were a variety of breedable species out there, and some adventurers paid well for a tamed beast that could have their back or carry their things.

With that in mind, he decided to buy a beast infant. Of what species was still to be determined. After he got enough money, he would buy another one so that he could then sell the children resulting from the combination of both.

After a while, he would be able to hire someone through the quest board to do the dirty work of treating them. Of course, the income would be minimal at first, but eventually, it would pay off big time.

Already planning years ahead, Lariel continued to dwell around the city, looking for a place to buy such beast. Little did he know a storm was brewing far north.

✺---✺

"Are we there yet?" the blue-haired noble lady asked.

Oler was already getting sick of her asking the same question for two hours straight, but he could nothing but answer with extreme politeness and reverence.

"No, my Lady. We should be arriving in the next half hour, my Lady."

After all, he was not eager to lose his head by insulting the daughter of Velar Viscount, a man who was both deep into the economical side of the kingdom and deep into the brothels on the lower part of the city.

Oler was a servant. Not one that inspired respect by being highly placed into the servant hierarchy, but one that inspired disgust by being nothing more than the 12-year-old cargo boy that was accompanying the three noble ladies to a newly raised city in the south.

The Viscount was adamant about his daughter going there and starting to build her own economical empire. Lord Velar did not want his daughter married to some dumb son of a noble that could do nothing but fight. He wanted his daughter to become a monopoly owner that would dominate in any merchant meeting.

At first glance, Kilen seemed to be a dumb girl with nothing inside of her brain, and that was Oler's impression of her until he witnesses that faithful moment.

She was a beast. Her brainpower far surpassed the one of most commoners, and she played perfectly the part of being a dumb noble girl that could in no way be independent.

She was only nineteen years old, but her money-hungry father had taught her everything he knew, and then, she had surpassed him. She improved the overall income of her dad's business by 50% in less than one week.

Oler had witnessed the moment in which her father had his jaw dropped after reading the report from his butler, and now, two months after, they were moving to this new city so that Kilen could become rich without having anyone competing with her.

The Velar family was making a bet. Sending them to this new city where a dungeon had just appeared and was yet to be confirmed being endless. But the family had made many bets throughout its existence, and that was why they were now Viscounts. Because they had won those bets.

Unfortunately for Oler, Kilen was not the only one making the trip. Lord Velar had also sent his other two daughters to learn from their elder sister. They were Veronica and Catherine, fifteen and twelve years old, respectively.

One he could handle, but three was a mouthful.

He had been chosen to accompany them because besides being a cargo boy, he was also a decent cook, and was to learn the art to the point he could be a chef on his restaurant, owned by the Velar family of course.

He had no problems with that. Being a chef at his own restaurant would give him lots of leeway compared to his current self where he needed to be by the Viscount daughters side at all times in case they needed him to carry something.

"Very well boy, warn me when we are able to see the city," Kilen commanded. Oler had no doubts that she would ask him if they were there yet at least four other times before they could finally see the city.

Sighing in his place on top of the noble caravan, the boy glanced around, confirming that their 20 men strong escort was still present, along with the three hired adventurers.

He could wait no longer to reach Alca, where his new life could finally begin.