Gaius’ ears twitched madly, but thankfully, there was no one paying attention to him as he tried to eavesdrop on the pair in front of him. He’d managed to overhear some scraps of their conversation, which was pretty much about the mutation of monsters after Liamar’s descent, but what really got his attention was an upcoming auction.

The two in front of them probably wanted to become an adventurer to earn enough money to buy something from said auction. From the looks of it, the aggressive promotion of monster-hunting had yielded some results — the advertisements placed outside the building had simply listed the amount of gold bringing back a monster could earn.

Auctions in Seireiden weren’t going to be small scale ones, like the one he’d inspired in Heritage Basestation. As the financial center, as well as the stomping grounds of the largest corporations of Mi-Zu, there were probably going to be useful things there.

Like a Crystal of True Restoration, for instance.

The queue shortened rapidly, and before long, Gaius was standing right in front of the counter.

“A boy?” The receptionist was somewhat startled when she looked up. “How old are you?”

“Elev— twelve this year,” replied Gaius. He wasn’t too sure of his age now, but given that he’d spent almost a year here, his body was probably twelve years old now.

“You want to be an adventurer at such an age?” The receptionist asked. “You do know you have to be a Soldier at least, right? And do you have your parents or your guardians’ approval?”

“I’m a Squire. I believe I meet the requirements, no?” Gaius cleared his throat. To be frank, he didn’t know whether he still was part of the standard cultivation system, so it was best that he said what he knew…

“Well, we can’t just take your word for it.” She bent down and took out a small, smarthphone-like artefact. “Place your hand on this.”

Gaius did as he was told, but he for some reason, this way of measuring his strength invoked an odd sense of disappointment in him. He had half expected an artefact whose form was steeped in mysticism, like a crystal ball or a mercury thermometer.

He wasn’t sure why the last one came up in his head, but it just did.

“Now, channel your qi through the device, much like how you’d use it to power an artefact,” said the receptionist.

That particular action was something rather foreign to Gaius, seeing as the artefacts he used were always loaded with little purple cubes. Heritage was extremely unconducive towards qi or other energies directly emanated from one’s body, which was why Gaius never really channelled his powers through things like a Straight Shot, for instance.

A dark green glow appeared on the screen, forming the number “3”, which flickered and corrected itself to a dark blue “2”. The number continued to swap between two and three for the next minute or so, before the receptionist shook her head and muttered, “It’s broken again…”

“Alright, we’ve confirmed your rank. As a squire, you’re a rank C adventurer, which you’re not required to create a party when completing requests. We’ll also buy monsters from you at the advertised price plus twenty percent.” Her long hair danced in the wind for a moment as she took out a file. “These are the rules of the Guild, but generally speaking, don’t do things that run against common morality and common sense.”

Gaius wasn’t sure if she’d simplified the rules because he was a child, but if there was nothing he needed to pay special attention to, so much the better.

“Ah.” She blinked. “I forgot to complete the basic registration processes. What’s your name?”

“Gaius.”

“How many Art slots do you have filled up?”

“Art slots?” Gaius asked.

“You know, the number of sigils carved on both your hands, your heart and your soles,” said the receptionist. “Out of five, how many have you used?”

Gaius blinked. Almost instantly, he thought of Nexus’ explanation about abilities — sigils carved on to one’s skin, that would allow one to use an inferior knockoff of what said sigil did. It was inferior to Sigil Manifestation, but drawing sigils in the air without an Engine could only be done by Paragons, or by Lords nearing that rank. The sculpture hadn’t told him that much — it had little knowledge of such an action — which meant that its renaming naturally slipped through Nexus’ net.

“Do I really need to say it?”

“It is almost mandatory if you intend to form a party. No one wants to hire people with no Arts or useless ones,” replied the receptionist.

“I don’t intend to form a party,” Gaius said quietly. “In that case, I wouldn’t need to reveal my Arts, right?”

After all, thought Gaius, it’ll be hard to explain why someone without much of a background has an Engine or an absurd number of abilities, err, Arts. I suppose this receptionist is just worried, however…

“That is correct,” said the receptionist, “but for the sake of the records, you should at least provide something for people to refer to. Something that’s at least related to how you kill monsters, for instance.”

Liberal application of pre-loaded artefacts? Gaius wanted to crack a joke, but the generally quiet first floor of the Guild was too oppressive for him to do so. After looking at the receptionist’s concerned face, he relented and said, “Barrier.”

“A Barrier Art?”

“Correct. You won’t need a demonstration, right?”

“No, but…” She picked up a small ball of paper from somewhere and tossed it lightly at Gaius. It bounced off thin air, and the receptionist nodded in satisfaction. “Well, you aren’t lying.”

“Hey!”

Ignoring Gaius’ protest, the receptionist scribbled on a card and placed it into a black box. After a few seconds, the card, now laminated and shiny, slid out of a slot on the box, and the receptionist handed it over to Gaius.

“Don’t lose it. Replacements for your adventurer’s card is ten silver each.” She held another small paper ball in her hand, her eyes curious, and only placed it back down after the boy looked at her directly.

“Okay.” Gaius nodded, ignoring the fact that she had wanted to toss another ball at his face. He picked up the card, and flicked at it curiously. His adventurer’s card was smooth and warm to the touch, like bread fresh out of the oven.

No matter how he looked at it, that black box was probably something someone from Earth came up with. He glanced back at the counter, which was serving yet another prospective adventurer, and headed towards the middle, where the latest news was posted at.

Gaius glanced at the headlines. “Oh?”