“Collect 28 grimal herbs from the forest. You should be able to find them on the high hills. Do you need me to show you a picture of a grimal herb?”

Jakari nodded his head no. Normally he would give no response and leave right away to finish the quest but he wanted to be a proper adventurer and to ascertain the true meaning of an adventurer. He instant left the guildhall and went towards the high hills near Lyonhall.

Upon reaching the high hills, Jakari instantly collected 28 grimal herbs with his insane speed. At the same time, the copper-ranked ugly girl was standing at the cliff preparing to jump. Her life was had always been filled with fraught and she had enough. She took a huge jump to end her suffering. As she was falling down, tears flowed through her eyes as her suffering would finally end and her life was flashing before her eyes. The only ones in this world who would be saddened at her death were her parents. Suddenly, the ugly girl regretted making the jump as she knew her parents would be deeply disheartened. All of her life problems seemingly vanish into mid-air and she realized the solution to her predicament. She could have worn a mask to hide her ugly face from the others and become a masked adventurer. Perhaps one day, she could take off her mask and have people accept her for who she is.

The ugly girl screamed in heartbreaking agony, seconds before her death. “HELP MEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Jakari was there but he already made the decision to not help any trash in his lifetime. His father warned him over and over to never get involved with trash no matter what. If he were to help 1 trash, countless more trash would come to him for help. There would be so many trash demanding his help that he would no longer have any free time in his life. Jakari wasn’t interested in being a hero saving the lives of others. Thousands of people were dying every day whether from old age, illnesses, war, fighting, pointless squabbles, etc… it would be pointless to try to save them all, death was a part of life after all.

The copper-ranked ugly girl was instantly knocked out from the great fall, her body quickly losing the signs of life as a pool of blood formed underneath her. It would only be a few more minutes before she would be dead.

Jakari once again ignored his father’s warning and went to take a look at the copper-ranked ugly girl. He also ignored her mother’s wise words to never get involved with ugly girls. His parents would be gravely disappointed with him if they knew he went against their words to take a look at this dying ugly girl. His father would lecture him about how he’s is never responsible for the trash wanting to take their own life while his mother would gravely lecture him to never pay any attention to this ugly piece of trash.

“Why are you so extremely ugly,” stated Jakari. “I have never seen anyone as ugly as you before. Why would you kill yourself if you wanted to live?”

Flashback scene to when Jakari was 6 years old playing by with his baby 2 years old sister.

Little Jakari was holding his baby sister before dropping her at the highest mountain for fun. Their parents were currently busy doing something else so Jakari was entertaining her while his older sister was went foraging for food. His 2 years old sister was giggling happily as she fell down at a terrifying speed that could kill a gold-ranked adventurer instantly. Jakari stood on the apex of the mountain watching his little sister enjoying herself while he was also laughing.

Right before his baby sister hit the ground, little Jakari would seemingly teleport to the ground instantly and catch her in his arms safely. The baby sister only giggled loudly as she experienced zero pain due to Jakari removing all of the dangerous effects of momentum on her body.

Flashback scene end.

“If only there was someone at the ground that is able to safely catch you,” sighed Jakari as he remembered his great childhood memories.

He turned around to leave the dying girl as Jakari was done reminiscing about his past. A hungry fox monster dashed towards the dying girl to devour her.

“Perhaps in your next life, you could be one of my sisters.”

The hungry fox monster wanted to take its first bite but was abruptly obliterated. The dying ugly girl woke up and coughed up some blood. She looked at her surroundings and wondered how did she even survive the fall then she saw the mysterious silver-ranked adventurer at a distance walking away from her. She grew teary eyes and mumbled, “thank you.”

Back in the guildhall, Jakari went to hand over the 28 grimal herbs to the loot depository before returning back to the guild lady.

“Wow, that was fast! Did you stockpile those grimal herbs already?” said the guild-lady. “And how did you queue up for me again when there are 9 other guild receptionists. Oh well, I guess it's just a coincidence. Anyways, congratulations on completing your first quest! The reward is 14 copper coins and 1 contribution point!” The guild lady took Jakari’s ID card and rub a small magic crystal on it to change his contribution point amount from 0 to 1. A 10-copper and 4 1-copper coins were given to Jakari. He promptly stored it in his pockets.

Jakari left without a word. He felt extremely prideful and smug that he officially completed his first quest as a proper adventurer. He quickly went to pick out a 2nd quest for the guild-lady to read out loud for him.

“The guild isn’t a charity. I can’t keep reading these out for you so it would be best for you to learn how to read or pay someone else to read it for you,” explained the guild-lady.

Jakari handed over 1 copper coin.

The guild-lady laughed loudly and did not take his 1 copper coin. “Hahahaha it's the first time someone tried to bribe me with 1 copper coin. Normally we charge 10 copper for us to read it out loud for the adventurers but just for you, I can let this slide. This quest wants you to bring 7 dead rabbits for the butcher so he can make some money selling his rabbit meat. The reward is 14 copper coins.”

Jakari instantly left the guildhall and hunted down 7 rabbits and came back to the guildhall in not even a blink of an eye.

The guild-lady seeing Jakari back already astonished her! He took only 1 minute to bring back the herbs which could be explained by Jakari already possessing the required materials but this time it took him less than 1 second to bring back 7 freshly killed rabbits. Jakari proceeded to deposit the 7 killed rabbits to the loot depository but the guild staff there refused as the quest specified adult rabbits. All 7 killed rabbits were babies. But it wasn’t a total waste as they were willing to exchange them for all for 1 copper which Jakari happily accepted. Jakari got scammed by the guild but he didn’t know the true value of baby rabbit meats, to begin with.

In the next instant, Jakari came back with 7 freshly killed adult rabbits and the guild-staff at the loot depository were shocked at his arrival. The guild-lady was still agape the entire time as she saw Jakari instantly lining up again but the people in front of her were shocked as well and let him skip the entire queue. The guild-lady processed Jakari’s quest once again and gave him another +1 contribution point bringing it from 1 to 2 and with his 14 copper coins reward.

Several more wood-ranked quests were instant finished by Jakari as his contribution point grew to 15 and he had amassed a wealth of 250 copper coins. He didn’t even have the pocket space to carry all his money so he left it on the same counter where the guild-lady was. She didn’t even bother telling him to bring it to the bank and nobody else dared touch his money. The news of Jakari’s instant quest finishing exploits spread quickly within the guildhall.

“I have been telling you clowns! This guy is a secret silver-ranked adventurer. He’s showing off by pretending not to be able to read the quests and secretly preparing the required materials before finishing in the quest.”

“Why would a silver-ranked waste his time with wood-ranked quests though? Something doesn’t feel right.”

“Yo dudes, he’s the guild inspector from the main headquarters. He’s probably doing this to examine how the Lyonhall guildhall functions. Wouldn’t surprise me if he was actually a diamond-ranked.”

“Diamond-ranked pretending to be a wood-ranked, you are telling the greatest lie I have ever heard! He’s gold-ranked at best! There is no way they would waste diamond-ranked personnel handling this lowly affair.”

“Ugh, I regret listening to you idiots about not dating him cuz he was faking his rank when he wasn't!”

As Jakari returned from his 16th quest. Everyone in the guildhall was focused on him. He ignored everyone that wanted to talk to him and walked up to the guild girl for the 32nd time to hand over his receipt from the loot depository indicating he had completed his 16th quest.

“Okay before I give you your 16th contribution point and quest rewards. You are eligible to be promoted to the mid-wood ranked,” said the guild girl with one of her eyebrows twitching.

There was 3 subdivision within each adventurer tier. They were known as the low, mid, and high subdivisions. For example, the wood-ranked adventurers were subdivided into low-wood, mid-wood, and high-wood ranks. But since they were the lowliest ranked, the difference between them was negligible. It would matter more the higher tier you were, especially in the highest tier which was diamond-ranked.

She couldn’t believe this young man was wood-ranked and the rumor of him being a guild inspector must be true! She felt intimidated by Jakari and hoped she didn’t lose her job by trying to charge wood-ranked adventurer 10 coppers when the official reading price was supposed to be 2 coppers. Even worse, they are going to find out all the corruption within Lyonhall’s guildhall exploitation of its wood-ranked adventurers. All the guild staff and even the guild-master are going to face severe repercussions. She was hopeful of getting a slap on the wrist as she only participated in the corruption a little bit to make herself richer.

The gold-ranked guild-master suddenly walked inside the main hall and saw Jakari and the flustered guild-lady and walked over. If Jakari was truly a guild-inspector then having the guild-master handle him is the safest way to protect his exploitation ring of the wood-ranked adventurers by extracting as much money from them as possible. Nobody would care if he and Lyonhall guildhall exploited the wood-ranks as they were the weakest people without much impact on the world. Most wood-ranked people will eventually become copper-ranked within the year or so but exploitation of thousands of wood-ranked adventurers over the years can lead to a nice sizeable sum of money.

“That’s right. When you have 15 contribution points, you are eligible to be promoted to the mid-wood-ranked. It will only cost you 5 coppers,” stated the guild-master. “Sorry for the intrusion but I am Lyonhall guild master, Blaze.”

Jakari took out 5 copper coins of varying sizes. 3 ten-copper coins and 2 ones-copper coins for a total value of 32 coppers. Jakari doesn’t even know that the different size coins with different numbers had different values and thought they were all the same.

The guild-master was flustered and tried to take it from his hands but Jakari immediately shoved them back into his pockets. The reason why Jakari didn’t hand over the money was that… everyone refused to take his money when he tried giving it to them. This had led to Jakari developing a misconception about money that it is something to show to other people instead of giving it away.

Unfortunately, the guild-master was starting to sweat as he realized that Jakari must have known of his illegal scheme. Lyonhall guild-master had always charged 25 coppers for people to be promoted to the mid-wood ranked when the real official price set by the guild-headquarters was only 5 coppers. The guild-master thought Jakari was silently approving his exploitation scheme when in reality, the secret guild-inspector Jakari was testing his greed!