The first thought that went through Dallion’s mind upon seeing Jiroh standing there was that he’d finally not have to serve people during lunch and dinner. The second thought was mild curiosity at the tattered state of her clothes; it was as if she’d been on a three-month journey through swamps and forests without access to modern conveniences. Interestingly enough, her face and hair were perfect, as if she’d come out of a magazine cover photoshoot.

“You’re early,” Hannah grunted—a subtle admission she was glad to see her.

“It happens from time to time. Nice to see the old crowd getting together,” the fury entered, oblivious to the recent conversation. Or maybe it was the exact opposite? “Nice rags,” Jiroh said, looking at Dallion. “Hope Eury didn’t charge you too much for them.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll get the tab.” The gorgon raised her pitcher of lemonade in greeting. “Come join me. Things were getting slow anyway.”

“We’ll be closing soon,” Hannah said with a sharp edge. “Staff and patrons only.”

“Then I’ll rent a room.” A cluster of snakes focused on the innkeeper. “Or are all your rooms full.”

With a disapproving snort, Hannah went into the kitchen. Jiroh waited for her to go, then joined the gorgon. Dallion hesitated. On the one hand, he was curious what Jiroh was up to, on the other he could tell they had private things to discuss.

“I’ll leave you two to catch up,” he said, giving them ample opportunity to invite him to join them. The silent nods suggested that they preferred he didn’t.

Finishing a glass of water, Dallion then went upstairs to his room. Considering the time, he hesitated whether to go directly to bed. Still feeling enthusiastic from the training earlier on, he chose to enter the library instead. After all, it was only going to take a moment. Boots still on, Dallion went to the place he had stashed the harpsisword and took hold. Moments later, he was in the library ring.

“At least you’re not wasting time,” the echo said with a note of disapproval. “When I suggested you make some useful friends, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

Dallion didn’t respond, too busy looking at his shirt. To his disappointments, it had turned out to be nothing but a fancy shirt. There were no armor elements, no special insignias, nothing but “normal” threads of gold along the silk.

“I would advise that you read up on gorgon culture as quickly as possible.” Nil said, placing another large tome in Dallion’s reading area. “That said, the advice she gave you was adequate, although it skipped a few steps along the way.”

“Can you see everything I do?” Dallion snapped at the echo.

“As long as you carry me, yes.”

Just great. The Earth part of Dallion felt compelled to take off the key and put it in a solid wooden box. The local part of him wasn’t as concerned—knowing that everything around had a guardian in it lessened the notion of privacy to a large extent.

“Does that mean that I can spy on people by talking to their guardians?” Dallion asked.

“Of course… if you can get a guardian to talk. Now stop talking nonsense and let’s get to something serious. You’ve got a lot of books set aside, but have only skimmed through a few. If you’re serious about learning the basics, you’ll have to do a lot better.”

“Nil, what level are you?”

The question made the echo freeze, then frown. From what Dallion had seen so far, Nil wasn’t one to stop talking no matter the circumstances. In effect he was pretty much an internet search engine with an opinion of his own. Having him react in such a way was atypical.

“Nil?”

“I’m a double digit, let’s leave it at that,” the echo replied. “One thing you’re better to learn—every awakened has a story. Not all wish to share it. If a time comes and someone does, be grateful that they have.”

Things had suddenly gotten serious, but Dallion understood what the old echo had in mind. Dallion himself had changed his name so as not to be associated with his grandfather. Why would other awakened coming to Nerosal be any different? What he had considered to be normal, was pretty much prying. Apparently, it was different for the lower levels, but everyone of significant strength Dallion had seen so far was very tight-lipped about it, starting from the soldiers in the chainling hunt. Dallion knew they were double digits, but beyond that…

“Do you think I’m ready to become a double digit?” Dallion asked.

“At present?” Nil shook his head. “Highly unlikely.”

“What about reaching level ten?”

“On your own, that would be difficult. You’ll need an awakening shrine of help from the Order. Otherwise, with your rate of development it will probably take years.”

Years for a natural leveling up. That was definitely too long.

“What about the daggers?”

“The “dagger” was an ancient form of awakening shrine. As it should have been explained to you in depth, the daggers were made so that an awakened could reach their level of proficiency. Didn’t it seem like an odd coincidence that the dagger has five levels as well?”

In hindsight it was possible to say that; the theory definitely seemed more likely than Dallion’s although he had been correct so far—each of the four levels were linked to an attribute. The question was whether the ones in the awakening shrine were? Thinking back, they had a theme as well, although it was different… or was it? Lacking the first two levels made it difficult to be certain.

“Without a dagger you’ll have to rely on a ten-level shrine,” Nil said. “Not impossible, provided you have the funds, which at the moment you definitely don’t.”

Ouch.

“Finding a temple won’t be difficult. If you’d bothered to go about the city, you’d know that by now. Due to city law, awakening temples must assist all registered awakened to improve. For that reason, the Order has imposed a trial tax, otherwise there will never be the end of it.”

“Wow.”

“It’s not as bad as that. Just consider the alternative. Since there are no consequences, the temples would be swarmed with people making attempt after attempt in the hopes of getting lucky. Add a monetary element and only people certain of their abilities would try to give their best, not quit halfway through a trial.”

An interesting point. Dallion still didn’t see why the Order couldn’t just allow people to go for free. There were other ways of making sure the system wasn’t abused.

“How much are we talking about?”

“Ten gold coins.”

“What?!”

“One for every level you could potentially reach.”

I just need it for one lousy level, Dallion thought. Maybe it would be better for him to ask permission from the guild to have another go in the dagger, although would that do any good? He found himself in a sort of vicious circle. On the one hand, he needed to level up to get stronger, and on the other he needed to be stronger to level up.

If Nil was more than an echo, Dallion would have challenged him to a fight, just to test his strength. As it stood, that was a terrible idea. A single hit and the echo would vanish, no matter how skilled.

“Anything else you needed help with?”

“No, Nil, thanks.” Dallion looked at his reading space, then away. “I think I’ll skip the reading for the moment. I need to think over some things.”

In the blink of the eye, Dallion was back in his room. In the past he would take every opportunity to mend and improve items, grumbling about how the daily limitation constrained him. Now, when could improve nine items per day, he had a more strategic look on things. It wasn’t so much to thoughtlessly go and beat up as many guardians as he could. Rather, he had to find a plan on how to move forward, if not he’ll never breach his next wall and remain one step from double digits… and that wasn’t something Dallion intended to allow.

“Goodnight,” Dallion said out loud, knowing that dozens of guardians had heard him.

The morning came before he knew it. Unlike before Dallion felt actually relaxed for once. The lingering feeling of sleepiness and fatigue wasn’t there.

The start of a perfect day, Dallion thought and went to the bowl to get washed. He then went down to use the toilet. Five minutes later, he was all set up and ready. After another quick wash, he went up to get his harpsisword, put on the new pair of boots, and left the inn without even having breakfast. For once Hannah didn’t say a word—most likely still slightly angry with Euryale’s visit last night. Strangely enough, Dallion didn’t see Jiroh either. The fury usually was up and about this early. No matter, the inn had survived years before Dallion had shown up, it would survive years more without him. Right now, he had to find a secondary source of income, and that meant guild jobs.

This early it was a quick run to the guild house. The streets were mostly empty, with only a few people setting up shop and the occasional person walking about.

While running, Dallion briefly switched to the realm of the library ring to ask whether anyone was at the guild. According to the echo, several people were, including Estezol, whose duties also included assigning guild jobs. Nil added a few other comments about guild personnel, most of them highly critical—that was the one of the benefits of having the echo of a guild captain. Despite his gambling habit, Adzorg liked to keep an eye on everything going on.

Pausing to catch his breath for a moment, Dallion charged in—every second in the real world was valuable.

“Morning, Dal,” the short bearded man greeted him, as if he was expecting him. “Glad that you’re doing okay. After what happened at the trial, I thought it would be a week until you got back to your feet.”

A week? That sounded a bit extreme. Then again, Dallion had friends who considered going into the college of their choice the goal of their lives. Just waiting for the results had rendered some of them into nervous wrecks.

“Feeling much better.” Dallion decided to play along. “I thought I’d get my mind off things, so I came to see what’s going on here.”

“That’s the spirit! Always good to be positive. As you can see, things are a bit slow here. A lot of the regular members are off on missions. We must prepare for the upcoming event.”

“Talking about missions, that’s why I’m here.” Dallion smiled. “I heard that I can take on jobs even without having a mentor? Easy ones, at least?”

“Oh, definitely.” Estezol took out a scroll and a quill. “Any preference?”

“Err, something that pays well?”

“Don’t we all want that?” The bearded man laughed. “No, I meant what type of job do you want? Generally, we have three basic types: improvement, sanitation, and exploration.”

“Err, okay…” Dallion nodded. He had no idea what sanitation was, but it sounded like something he would definitely not want to do.

“Improvement jobs improving an item to a certain level. In most cases, people use the local shops to do that, but if they want to get something improved fast and to a high level, they hire a guild.”

“Tempting, but I don’t think I can improve things that much.” Even now Dallion had improved items up to level six at most.

“Oh, don’t worry, you’ll only do the lower levels. Since improvements are limited per day, the guild separates the job into categories. Low rank members improve the easy levels and the rest take it from there. It’s not that much fun, but it’s good money, and it’s quick. You don’t have to rest a lot after a few improvements.”

That much was true. Dallion could handle five improvements per day without issue, even if he felt starving afterwards.

“Sanitation, I wouldn’t recommend. While March encourages members getting their hands dirty, it’s a pretty thankless job, and doesn’t pay that much. Think of it as a service to the city.”

“If you say so… And the last?”

“The last is a bit different.” Estezol stroked his beard. “It pays better, but can be difficult. It’s sort of like the trial you had. Every guild constantly gets ancient items. In order to find out what the items do, we must fulfill their destiny. For that, a party enters the item’s realm and clears all the levels. The difference from your exam is that there’s no telling how long this might last, or what you might find.”

“Nice.” Definitely my thing, Dallion thought. It was just like dungeon crawling. Well, minus the loot and the experience. Even so, it was a lot more interesting than any of the alternatives offered, not to mention he’d be able to learn by working together in a party. There simply was no downside. “Are any of those available?”

“This is the Icepicker guild,” Estezol laughed. “Of course, there are available. Are you sure you want to go on one, though? You’ll just be a packrat, so things might be a lot different from what you expect.”

“Don’t worry, I can handle it.” Not to mention when the group gets a hold of my tactical genius, they’ll be certain to think of me in a positive light. “When can I start?”

“There are a few groups who were missing a packrat.” Estezol looked through the scroll, then jotted something down with his quill. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll let the group know. Just try not to overdo it on your first mission, okay?”

“No worries.” I’ll definitely impress them. Dallion grinned. There was no way this could go wrong.