Finishing his coffee, or more accurately, emptying his cup. Bones stood up and went back to the shopping district. He was in no rush and already decided to stay the night. Hotel was too expensive for his taste and all he had on him was what he looted before, minus the cost of drinks he paid for the group.

Prices ranged according to the size, type and rarity of goods. Novice weapons and armors were mostly of common rarity which meant iron made, with occasional uncommon rarity pieces made of steel and similar type of metal. One handed melee weapons prices ranged anywhere from a gold for a dagger to 3 gold for a sword, axe and a mace. Two-handed weapons cost twice as much as expected. Armor prices were a surprise, however. He expected the full body armor to cost the most, but that wasn't the case. Due to the lack of defensive classes, to attract more users choosing them over the others, governing bodies passed temporary measures to fix the prices of certain goods and exempt them from taxes. And so, defensive classes at this moment had the cheapest gear available to them. Including a shield and weapon of their choice.

Seeing the equipment on display, Bones thought about what he should do about his own gear. What he was wearing now didn't fit. Hood and gloves were fine, boots however, were a bit big on sides and did slightly impair his movement. Upper and lower body parts did their job covering as they fit loosely, but it was obvious they weren't a good fit. Everyone was just being too polite to say anything about it.

He entered one of the shops selling normal looking clothes and asked if he could browse their wares. They were normal, plain looking clothes, but they looked comfortable. Once he tried them on he still felt them being too loose, restricting even. They were the smallest pieces they had, too. At the suggestion of the shopkeeper he searched for the clothing store that sold enchanted clothing.

A few minutes later, Bones was standing in front of the lavishly decorated building with the sign "Enchanted me for enchanted you" hanging above the entrance to the shop. He wasn't quite sure what that meant exactly, but he entered anyway. Marble tiles on the floor with marble tiles on the wall. Shiny everywhere. A lot of investment went into the shop, he could tell.

“Greetings sir. Any way I can help with whatever you're searching for?”

“Greetings. Could you show me clothes with a…self-fit enchantment?”

“Dear sir, all our clothes have both self-fit AND self-repair enchantments on them!” replied the pretentious clerk as a matter-of-factly.

“Oh well, excuse moa ignorance! Can thy show, ignorant moa, your cheapest clothes?”

The shopkeeper wasn't amused at the mocking, sarcastic tone Bones displayed, but in all honesty, the shopkeeper did sound like a self-centered, pompous ass. Even more so than himself! Regardless, the shopkeeper was a professional. Even as annoyance was showing on his face, he led Bones to a variety of enchanted clothing they had on discount. They were still out of his price range at 5 gold each for simple lower and upper garments. He thanked the man and said his goodbyes, to the shopkeeper's displeasure at wasting his time. He needed money, as always.

Night fell upon the town and streets were even livelier than during the day. Long posts, standing high above everyone, were lighting the streets in a pleasant and warm white light. They were called manaposts and were one of the many new and never before seen ingenuities, Bones haven't had a chance to experience yet. Each post was at a distance of around 30 meters away from each other and interlinked with a thin silver wire that served as a conduit, through which mana was supplied to the lesser mana crystals hanging from the top of the posts. Nica was nice enough to explain that those were cheapest rechargeable mana crystals when he asked earlier today, with low output, so they were used to illuminate the streets during the night. Not just the streets, but most of the household as well! Overcharging them with mana would crack the crystals and deem them unusable, which would then need to be replaced..

Bones was moving west, away from the pleasant atmosphere of the shopping district, to a more subtle and quiet atmosphere outside the central area of the town. Difference between them was plain to see. Cobblestone narrow pavement followed in between the buildings made of rammed earth, following an intersection down every few streets. Bones found himself changing direction often and at every intersection. Housing, or more accurately apartment districts, weren't dirty or poor, but the difference between inner and outer districts was obvious. All the buildings had wooden doors and windows with wooden frames and the streets just weren’t as clean.

Going further west he reached the "shady" part of the town. He could tell by the attire people wore, hushed voices heard and stern looks they were giving him. Lack of lighting just added to the shady atmosphere of a district. He found the place he was looking for. Not the place to stay the night, no. But the place most likely he would get…

“Hands up and don't make any sudden movements!” Words were spoken in a hushed voice by a thug approaching Bones from behind.

“Oh? And why not?” Bones apun around and asked naively.

“Can't you tell stoopid?” Said the other thug standing next to the first one.

*gasps* “Do I have something on my back?? Is it a spider? Get it off! GET IT OFF!!” Panically shouted Bones, moving his arms widely while moving towards thugs.

“What a…stop! Don't come any, wait! STOP!” Shouted a thug in annoyance, but Bones was acting like he was panicking and continued moving towards him.

“Tsk, alright. It looks like it's gonna be the hard way, just the way we like it kek kek kek.”grinned the first thug.

As Bones reached the thug, a knife was struck in his guts. Thug leaned towards Bones and whispered, “your money and your life…” next to his ears.

“What? Wasn't it supposed to be "Your money OR your life?” Bones asked in a serious tone with a look of bewilderment.

Thugs on the other hand, were surprised at their target's lack of reaction to stabbing and then shocked when their target pulled the knife out and stabbed the thug back in the neck. Thug clutched his hands around his neck and fell to his knees. A second later, he died sprawled on the cold stone of the pavement. Bones turned to the other thug, who was still shocked at what he witnessed, and pierced his throat with the bone spear.

“Your money and your life?' *pffft* “aHaHaHa”

I like it…

Searching the bodies he found a bit over 3 gold on them.

“Looks like I wasn't the only victim tonight.” He stashed the money, ignoring the dirty rags they wore. He'd rather be naked than wear what they were wearing. Looking around the lone alley he spotted a few windows shutting close and continued down the alley.

Noisy neighbors, no doubt used to the scene.

He turned the corner, up the alley, turned left, down the alley and repeated like that a few times and eventually got lost. He was lucky that every few alleyways some thugs would approach him and politely gave him directions and their valuables. Bones spent the rest of the night “asking for directions” and eventually, by dawn, he was back at the square at the coffee shop, emptying another cup of coffee onto his lap and overlooking an adventurers guild. Like the guild, hotel and coffee shop were open 24/7 which he found to be incredulous. In his hand he was holding a brochure containing information on how to join an adventurers guild and what’s expected of every adventurer. Watching adventurers going in and out of the guild, he got up, paid for a coffee and started walking toward the entrance to the guild.

As he entered, he was greeted by a large crowd of people. Some were chatting with each other, some were in a group, discussing something with serious expressions and some were forming a line at the reception desk.

He figured reception was the place to get more information so he joined the queue and patiently waited as the line moved forward ever so slowly. After 20 minutes of waiting in line, he finally approached the desk where a receptionist neatly dressed in a suit with glasses on, greeted him.

“Greetings adventurer, how may I be of help today?” Very polite but he sensed a tone of indifference as the person was saying it for a thousandth time today.

“Greetings, I would like to register as a security contractor to the guild.”

The receptionist raised an eyebrow but didn’t raise any questions. “Ah I see, please forgive me for a moment while I fetch someone to get you a standard application form.”

A moment later, a woman, in her early twenties, came up to the reception desk and handed him an application form and started explaining which questions were required and which were optional.

“Is that all I have to do?”

“Hm? Oh no, this is just an application. After you hand in your application, it is then sent to the upper floor where someone will go through the information you provided and forward it to one of the instructors to set you up with a test.”

“There will be a test?” asked Bones.

Yes sir, the test is necessary so we could grade your capabilities and award you an appropriate rank. After the test, if you have passed, you will be required to pay a fee of 1 gold for the application and administration fees.

“I see...and what can I expect from the test?”

“Depends on the instructor sir, but usually it’s a standard combat test on the first floor of a Tower of Trials.”

“A Tower?” asked Bones, remembering a towering building behind the adventure guild.

“All will be explained to sir in your meeting with an instructor. You can take a seat over there, the receptionist pointed in the direction of a hallway by the side, where lounge chairs were set up. Someone will be with you shortly.”

“Alright, thank you miss and have a good day.”

With that done, he sat in a lounge chair and waited. True to her words, twenty minutes later, a tall and muscular man with clean shave and short hair approached him.

“You must be here for the merc contract, yes?”

“Merc? Ah, yes.”

“I'll get straight to the point. Test will be the standard combat test on the first floor of the Tower of Trials. You will be fighting undeads lvl 5 up to lvl 10. That going to be a problem?”

“No, none at all. Lead the way.”

“Great, come with me.”

He led Bones through the long corridor, turned right, through the corridor, then left and through another corridor all the way to the stairs, up and across the bridge to the entrance of the tower.

“Left door and down the stairs, take your time and if the situation turns for the worse, I'll be close by so don’t worry and good luck.” having said that the instructor left.

I couldn’t identify his level. What do “??” marks mean?

Bones shook his head, focusing back on the door in front of him and entered the tower.

*sigh* Skeletons...is it a coincidence? Or it might have something to do with a certain skeleton army? No matter, let’s get this over with quickly.

Soon enough, however, he found out he needed a different approach in destroying the skeletons, because bone spears were showing to be inefficient.

Is that how the archer felt shooting at me?

He expanded his senses as much as he could and once he felt no one nearby was spying on him, he took out the mace from his inventory and charged skeletons who, unlike him, didn’t move nearly as fast and kept moving in a pre-existing pattern. He saw through their movements quickly and it became more of a choir than a challenge to destroy them because there were just too many of them. It was taking a while but it’s not like he could get tired, so he took it up a notch and started bashing their heads left and right.

He hit a bit of a snag when he reached near the end of a floor. Skeletons appearing from the formation on the ground in front of him, looked different than the rest. These were lvl 9 skeleton warriors, equipped in armor with proper weapons.

Hm...are these sentient or summoned? Their manner seems natural and they are waiting for me ready and in a defensive stance. Mused bones.

He dashed in front of the first of the four skeletons, and went with an overhead strike with his mace, aiming to break the wooden shield and leaving the skeleton open to further attacks, but failed before his mace reached the shield. The skeleton bashed his attack away, following an overhead strike of its own, with a sword. He sidestepped the strike but had to dodge another incoming attack from the side. Other skeletons weren't staying idle and seized the moment to strike at the first opportunity.

They still weren't moving as fast as him but their movements and attacks felt much smoother. The shield move the first skeleton used was a skill called Shield Bash. It was the only warrior with a weapon and a shield. The other two had two-handed swords and the last one was dual wielding axes. Quite the offensive focused combination.

Changing his tactic, he decided to deal with damage dealers first and save the shield bearer for last. He danced between their hits, going in and out and deflecting those he couldn't by redirecting weapons trajectory. Some hits penetrated his armor and nicked his bones but it wasn't anything bone mending couldn't patch up. He dealt with the last remaining warrior, shield bearer, by extending his arm and gripping the shield away from the warrior. Backhand hit to the head sent the skull flying off its neck and cracking when hitting a nearest wall.

Bones thought it a shame he didn't get any experience from all the skeletons he destroyed in the trial. All the undead skeletons were summoned minions from the formations in certain areas on the floor. Moving forward, he reached the end of the floor and steps leading to the second floor. As he was about to start climbing to the next floor, he heard footsteps from someone going down the steps. He looked up and saw the instructor.