Soren had spent almost a year on this journey from Duskfort to Bycrest. Throughout this voyage, he had experienced many things and had survived many dangerous situations; the worst of them was, of course, the ‘Pillar of Paradise’. So, when said that he was truly glad to have finally set foot in this city, it was definitely not a lie. Of course, even this city was only a checkpoint for him; ultimately, he wanted to head to Amburgh and then to the war camp from there.

But as he was in this beautiful city, for now, Soren decided to take it easy and enjoy what this city had to offer him. After all, the invasion from the Atucan Empire was not going to end anytime soon; he had already confirmed that. In fact, not only had he paid extra attention to any new information regarding this in every town that they had visited but he had also asked Smiley for verification. And according to what he had gathered, if the situation didn’t change drastically, then the two kingdoms could still hold their own against the Atucan Empire for about five more years. So, given that he had some time on his hands, he didn’t need to move on immediately.

However, other than relaxing, he also needed to take care of some things in Bycrest; like handing out his current mission in the Hunter’s Association and take any mission regarding the war. Although the Hunter’s Association was a neutral organization that also existed in the Atucan Empire and the Douvell Kingdom, it did not show any hesitation in getting involved in this war; on all three sides. As a matter of fact, the missions regarding the war were already out for anyone who wanted to accept them. Furthermore, the Hunters who joined the war through the Hunter’s Association had the same position as the hired mercenaries and remained relatively free to do what they wanted to; especially the Rank 1s.

Of course, this also meant that they did not have the same access to the resources; even with a huge amount of contribution points. They were either charged more or had no access to some of the rare ones.

This ‘relative freedom’ was absolute for Soren if he was going to join the war. Yet, at the same time, he also didn’t want to let go of those rare resources given out to the ones who were deemed utmost loyal to the kingdom. So, to solve this problem, he had made a plan; though, calling it a ‘plan’ was a bit premature. He was going to give it a try; whether it would work or not, he didn’t know yet.

……..

The first thing that Soren decided to do after entering the city was to go look for a place to rest and stay; like he usually did. The hotel rooms were much more expensive in this city but since Soren had more than enough crystals to cover for it, he rented one without any hesitation. After going up to his room once and taking a long relaxing bath with cold water, Soren went out again and headed towards the Hunter’s Association; he needed to complete his current mission and then accept the one for the war.

As a city was a lot bigger than a town, it usually had taxi services available for people who were willing to pay extra to get somewhere quickly; this was also one of the conditions to be called a city. So, to save some time, Soren also opted for one and got on a fairly comfortable Mana Vehicle. Because of that, the journey that would have taken him about an hour was completed in less than twenty minutes.

Unfortunately, though, it was all wasted as the Hunter’s Association building was closed off for the day; there was a board outside the building saying ‘closed for the day’.

Letting out a sigh and realizing that there was nothing he could do here; Soren took the same taxi that he had just gotten off of and told the driver to go towards the market area.

……….

Waving his hand over the glass table, Soren took out all the potions that he was going to sell to the shop; to ‘Myriad Items’.

“Will this be all, Sir?” A beautiful young lady with long black hair wearing a red off-shoulder dress said in a sweet voice; she was also a Rank 1 Initiator.

Soren, who was sitting comfortably on the sofa opposite her, simply nodded in reply.

“It includes quite a few Top-Grade and High-Grade potions, so we can give you 100 Middle-Grade Crystals for all of it. Will that be okay with you?”

“That’ll be fine.” They were all common Rank 0 potions, after all. Getting this much for all of them was already a good deal for Soren.

Hearing Soren’s confirmation, the young lady signaled the female assistant standing by the side to take all the potions away.

“Do you have any Rank 1 potion recipe available in your shop?” After dealing with the sale of his potions, Soren asked the young lady in the red dress about the potion recipes.

His ‘Potioneering’ skill had already reached the maximum level of Rank 0 a while back. But to have it break through to Rank 1, Soren needed to successfully create a Rank 1 potion. And although he had a Rank 1 potion recipe with him, he hadn’t been able to create the potion; he couldn’t even give it a try. The reason for that was very simple; he wasn’t able to gather the necessary ingredients.

“Of course, please wait a moment.” Going through the crystal panel in her hand, the young lady swiftly filtered the options for Rank 1 potions recipes and handed it to Soren; much to his surprise.

In reality, Soren was only trying his luck on this matter; while fully expecting a negative answer. No matter which town he had visited so far, none of them had anything even closely related to potion recipes or Potioneering in general in their shops; even the Myriad Items in those towns didn’t have it. Because of that, he had pretty much given up on getting a Rank 1 recipe that he could create with the ingredients easily available in the market in this kingdom.

And therefore, it really came as a delightful surprise to him to see not one but a full list of Rank 1 potion recipes in front of him.

[Rank 1 Healing Potion] – 999 Middle-Grade Crystals.

[Rank 1 Soul Recovery] – 999 Middle-Grade Crystals.

[Rank 1 Mana Recovery] – 999 Middle-Grade Crystals.

[Rank 1 Stamina Recovery] – 999 Middle-Grade Crystals.

[Rank 1 Age Restriction Potion] – 999 Middle-Grade Crystals.

[Rank 1 Strength Enhancement] – 999 Middle-Grade Crystals.

[Rank 1 Resistance Enhancement] – 999 Middle-Grade Crystals.

[Rank 1 Spell Imitation] – 999 Middle-Grade Crystals.

Of course, all his delightful surprise was brutally killed off when Soren saw the prices for these recipes. With the number of crystals he had right now, he could possibly buy two of them. But since he also needed to buy ingredients and some other supplies, he couldn’t spend it all. So, even though he wanted to own them all, he could only buy one recipe. As for which one, he now had to make that hard decision.

Going through the list and the details of the potions, Soren first started to remove the ones that he absolutely had no use of; the Enhancement potions were naturally included among them. Apart from the Enhancement potions, he also didn’t need the Age Restricting Potion, so that too went on the removal list. The Spell Imitation potion looked very interesting and seemed like a nice choice but Soren removed it too as he didn’t need it.

The only ones left after this were the recovery potions. Based on his current arsenal of spells, Soren was not in any dire need of healing potions. So, that was removed too. Stamina Recovery was also removed as it was basically useless for Soren.

Finally, it came down to the two potion recipes that Soren needed right now. After mulling over it for some time, Soren ultimately decided to go with the Soul Recovery Potion. This was purely based on his mindset about putting safety above all.

…….

Done with buying the potion recipe, Soren decided to ask the young lady about the method to alter the Soul Merging Contract next. He had already gotten a nice surprise with the recipes, so even though he didn’t expect to get this in the market either, he went ahead and tried his luck. But unfortunately, the answer he got this time didn’t betray his initial expectation. Even so, he didn’t let it affect him as he knew he could probably get it from the kingdom’s rewards list for the war; same with the ingredients for the Sun’s Afterglow potion.

So, with that done, Soren moved on to buying the ingredients he needed for his potions and then went out of the shop to do some clothes shopping; he needed new clothes.

…….

It was late at night when Soren came back to his hotel room. After he was done with his shopping, he had roamed around the city for the day; and had gone into a nice restaurant to have dinner once the street lights came on. He also had thoughts about going to the pub to see what kind of wines and alcohol this city offered but, in the end, decided against it. As for the other important things he had to do in the city, he had decided to postpone it to the next day.

Carefully putting a sleeping Argus on the bed, Soren released a small amount of Mana and covered him with it; it was to manage his temperature as the climate had gotten quite hot recently. In this last year, Soren had not only made good progress in his spells and skills department, but he had also invented new uses for his Mana; one of them was this.

Though, the same could not be said about Argus. In fact, he had not grown at all in this one year; he still looked like a small pup. When Soren had noticed this, he had become quite concerned thinking that maybe, the Snow Foxes needed something specific to grow and he hadn’t given that to Argus. But even after he went through all the information that he had gathered on these Beasts, he found no such thing. So, with that fact as his basis, Soren had pretty much concluded that it was Argus who had some problem. Of course, he didn’t stop his research on this matter there as he was afraid that Argus truly had some problematic issues.

And only after months of studying the details of these Beasts did Soren finally find the reason; it was because of Argus’s accelerated intelligence growth. Because he had matured really early in that field, it had somehow hindered his physical growth; trading one for the other. Although this was an uncommon case, it had happened several times before and thus, had detailed records in the books.

Who told you to become smart so early? Huh!...huh!!...huh!!!…

Thinking about all that he went through those months because of this little brat, Soren finally couldn’t help himself and ended up poking Argus’s peaceful looking face several times.

GRRR!!!

Of course, the result was Argus waking up with a weak sounding growl and biting Soren’s finger with all his strength. But since Soren had an invisible blanket of Mana constantly covering his whole body, no blood came out this time. This was, in fact, another use of Mana that he had invented during this year; it was for basic defense. Even though just his ‘Resistance’ was enough for the attacks from mortals and low-layered Initiators, he still wanted another layer of security; hence, this Mana blanket.

……

Having messed up his sleep, it took Soren quite some time and some food to placate Argus; finally, putting him back to sleep. And with the room falling into silence once more, Soren sat on the bed and finally started his daily meditation routine to end the day.

Spoiler: Spoiler

Status: Healthy

Rank 1: Layer 1 [CP - 0%]

Name: Soren Farrow

Species: Human

Attribute: Darkness & Ice

Health: 100%

Stamina: 100%

Mana: 100%

Strength: 7.93

Agility: 9.70 (+1.90)

Vitality: 17.69

Intelligence: 21.22 (+7.20)

Spirit: 20.24 (+8.45)

Resistance: 9.10 (+2.35)

Spells:

Spell Vessels: 3/10

Innate Spells: 18

Innate Skills/Bloodline Talents: 7

Water Bubbles [7/7] – Level 8/10. Mana Cost – Very Low. [Rank 1]

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Snow Blades [5/5] – Level 9/10. Mana Cost – Very Low. [Rank 1]

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Ice Chakra [6/6] – Level 6/10. Mana Cost – Very Low. [Rank 1]

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Create Undead: Low Tier Ⅱ – Level 7/15. Mana Cost – Average. [Rank 1]

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Dark Raven – Level 8/10. Mana Cost – Very Low. [Rank 1]

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Ice Barrage – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Negligible. [Evolution Available] [Rank 1]

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Dead Rising – Level 7/10. Mana Cost – Very Low. [Rank 1]

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Acid Needles – Level 5/10. Mana Cost – Very Low. [Rank 1]

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Shadow Prison – Level 6/10. Mana Cost – Very Low. [Rank 1]

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Frost Domain – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Negligible. [Evolution Available] [Rank 1]

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Elemental Sense – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Negligible. [Evolution Available] [Rank 1]

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Dark Gravity – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Low. [Evolution Available] [Rank 1]

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Withering Wood – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Very Low. [Evolution Available] [Rank 1]

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Ice Spikes – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Negligible. [Evolution Available] [Rank 1]

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Soul Search – Level 6/10. Mana Cost – Negligible. [Rank 1]

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Ice Wall – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Negligible. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

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Waterball – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Negligible. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

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Rainfall – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Negligible. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

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Spark – Level 10/10. Mana cost – Negligible. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

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Fireball – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Negligible. [Evolution Available] [Rank 0]

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Space Snatcher – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Negligible. [Rank 0]

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Mana Manipulation – Level 7/15

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Potioneering [Rank 0] – Level 15/15.

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Powered Vision – Level --/--

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Vornea: Basic Form – Level --/--

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Devour: First Evolution – Level --/--

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Second Intelligence – Level --/--

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Shadow Steps – Level 10/10. Mana Cost – Very Low. [Evolution Available] [Rank 1]

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Equipment: Common Clothes; Magic Staff – Moonshard; Spirit-Pendant; Snake-Earring; Spirit-Ring; Resistance-Ring; Caster’s Bracelet; Agility-Boots; Dagger; Mana Touch – Gloves.

Storage Pearl: Common Clothes; Hunter I.D; Mask; Multiple Unfocused Cultivation Techniques – Low Grade; Focused Cultivation Technique – Middle Grade; Egg – Crystal Albarose; Various Ingredients; Automatons x3; Beast Cores[Rank 0] – x184; Beast Cores[Rank 1] – x114; Rank 1 Potion Recipe – Sun’s Afterglow; Rank 1 Potion Recipe – Soul Recovery; Cultivation Technique – Turtle’s Life; Cultivation Technique – Flaming Hair; Various Skills – Memory Spheres; Empty Memory Spheres; Books and Compendiums; Various Common Pills and Potions; Fire Element Spell Vessels; Four ‘Strength’ Enhancement Artifacts; Rank 0 Common Potions[Middle-Grade] – x0; Rank 0 Common Potions[High-Grade] – x0; Rank 0 Common Potions[Top-Grade] – x0.

Mana Crystals: 732 [Middle-Grade]; 214 [Low-Grade]; Myriad Items—Card [Value-000]; Six Mana Cards.