The three of us were on our way back to our room. The conversation with the glasses guy kept rewinding in my mind. That type of guy was a typical example of a sly guy, who knows what schemes he had under his sleeves. But still, one of the two golden collar was really an awesome thing. Iud had told me that the privileges a gold collar had were truly great and was answerable only to the principal of the academy. Unlike the other two academy, were power determined your place in the system, here the number of years spent in the academy had precedence and this made that guy a person hard to deny. While I was thinking such things, a question was put forward to me by Davy.

“Hey, Zeph, are you going to register the skills?”

“Hm! I am still not sure”

“Why not? You can register the skill as a private skill.” Davy urged me.

“Private skill?” naturally I looked towards Iud who had face which said, ’I knew you would ask me’.

“Sigh! Private skill, a skill useable only by the person who registered it. That means the adventure guild cannot teach the skill to others who wish to or cannot make any money. Oh and by the way registering is free if you are ok with others learning the skill but for registering a private skill requires a sum of 3AG. ”

“3AG, just for registering? No way. Then is it not better not to register”

“True, but if you register a skill as your own private skill, nobody can use that skill.”

“I do not understand”

“Sigh! Suppose you have not registered your air burst wave as a private skill. I who am with you, also know how to create it, as you told me the parent skill as well as I also know how to use the parent skill. Now, what do you think would happen if I try to create air burst wave?”

“Er! You will be able to use it?”

“Right, but once you register it as a private skill, it would become impossible for me to recreate the skill as it belongs only to you.”

“Eh? Why go through such lengths?”

“What a naïve boy? Recreating a beginner or intermediate skill might not be a big deal, but what about higher ranked skills or spells? Take your Poseidon’s Trident. Do you wish every opponent you face in future to use the same skill created by you, against you?”

I imagined myself being struck by the trident and being wrapped by it just like Aoki was causing me to shudder. I shook my head sideways to show him I did not want to, cold sweat forming on my face.

“Good. Then it is decided, let us go to the adventure guild and register your skills. Have you decided whether to make the two a private skill or not?”

“Yes. But do we have an adventure guild here?”

“Unfortunately no. For that we have to go to the adventure guild in Malstorm city”

“Where is that?”

“We are in Malstorm city Zeph” Iud and Davy looked at me with a face that said, ‘Are you stupid?’

---***---

Getting permission to leave the academy premises was really a hard thing for first years. First thing needed was a letter written by us mentioning the purpose of the going out. This letter was to be signed by the one in charge of the dormitory, followed by the one in charge of the first years, then by any one of the teachers for the first year. So the three of us had to wander a lot in search of the respective teachers. Though we were questioned about the incident with Aoki, since we were not yet branded as guilty, the permission to leave the academy was granted. The maximum time limit was the evening of ‘HOLIDAY’, by then one had to return. At this stage you might be thinking what academy would let their students wander outside the academy for more than two days, don’t worry, I did wonder too. It seem the entire city was under the influence of the academy and so the students were always under the watch of people from the academy, you know those in disguise and all. This was the reason that students could stay outside of the academy for long periods of time. Another interesting things is that, the students cannot leave the city without proper permission. The city being surrounded by huge walls, the city gat s are the only way to enter as well as exit. Each exit is guarded thoroughly and students who wish to travel further has to produce necessary documents, this is a privilege for students above third year.

Once the permission was acquired the three of us packed a small luggage which included couple of clothes and then our weapons too. And thus began our very first journey. The gates to the outside opened before us on its own when we showed the letter to the gate, weird right? I thought too. But as soon as the letters were shown the gates began to open up and the letter began to burn from the bottom. By the time the gate was fully opened, the papers had burned to crisp. We walked towards it, excited and energetic and we walked and walked. The gates began to close once we stepped outside the school boundary.

When I looked into a local map, I found out that we had to walk twenty minutes to reach the city area. The academy was away from the city to provide a peaceful environment to the students and also to have natural beat surround it rather than a concrete forest, well I am not sure if the buildings are of concrete though. Enough with those concrete and forest things, as I was saying, the three of us walked twenty minutes to reach a city as prosperous the Ironforge city ,, the city I had first visited, my hometown as Calmor house had its roots in that city.

With plenty of tall and small buildings around us, the alley ways were covered with people laughing and shouting. It seemed that this city was a city with a whole lot enjoyment or so. Everywhere I turned to I could see only happy faces. The stalls sold different items which ranged from weapons to accessories. While was looking around here and then, Davy hit me on my head and asked me to keep walking. Reluctantly I followed them, my curios mind urged me to stop and observe but my logical mind warned me of Davy’s wrath. A few minutes later we arrived at a pretty large building which looked like some kind of old museum. On an arch was written the words, “Adventure Guild: For Tomorrow’s Heroes”

The three of us entered the guild which was crowded like hell. There were quest boards that covered the walls of the room we entered. To the other side there was another door through which we got into a much larger room. The room was ‘sectionized’ into four, and the one we wanted was third from our left. A board which called out, ‘Registration Affairs’ was hung down in front of the section and was under the control of a young beauty, in fact all other sections were governed by beautiful girls.

“How my help you?” came a beautiful voice, her lips then stretched in to a cute smile, with dimples at either side of her rosy cheeks. Brushing backwards her brown hair, she looked into our eyes. The three of us startled for a moment but regained our composure quickly. Stepping forward, I introduced ourselves,

“Hello! My name is Zephard , these are my friends Iudis and Dyward. The thing is I want to register couple of my skills, so I was wondering if you could help me with the procedures”

“Ah! Registering skills. Wonderful. Which category do you prefer, public registering or private registering?”

“”Er! I wish to register one as private and the other as public.”

“I understand. A private registering will cost you 3AG, but the public registering is free. Shall we start with the public registering first?” the woman asked with a smile.

I nodded and the woman took out some sort of form and handed it over to me. The form was titled as ‘Beginner and Intermediate Skill Form’ causing me to be dumbfounded for a moment. Iud and Davy, wondering why I was startled took a look at the form and then began laughing out loud. The woman was worried for a moment, not knowing the reason for the sudden outburst and asked us politely.

“What might the problem be?”

“Well, the skill I want to register is a king ranked spell”

“EH?” the woman gazed at me with wonder in her eyes. Well, I can’t blame her, it is not always that a boy comes to the guild and wants to register a king ranked skill. The woman then suddenly got up from her chair and asked us to wait for a short time. A few minutes passed and the woman came back, accompanied by a male with a large stature. He looked like he was a little above fifty, grey hair covered his hair. The guy had a rugged face, clean shaved with eyes that were black and cold. He walked towards us glaring at the three of us, as if we were some sort of criminals.

“Are you the brat that wanted to register a skill that too king ranked?” the man’s tone was arrogant.

“Yes” I answered indifferently.

“We don’t have time to spend with brats that wants to do meaningless pranks. Now get out” he shouted at us. A short tempered Davy was about to shout back when Iud stopped him and then nodded at me. Opening the skill panel, I showed it to the two that were glaring at us like demons. But once their eyes scanned through the details of the skill, their face paled. With puppy eyes the two looked at me, and for some reason a laughter broke out from me.

“It’s ok, I don’t mind. So shall we continue?”

“Ah yes. Please let me fill the form for you Sir. Ah and also, since the skill is a high ranked on, we would like to test its efficiency with a practical test. Would that be ok?”

“Very well. Just one thing, can you make the skill free for my house?”

“House?”

“Yes, I am from the house of Calmor, so if it is possible then please do make it so that they do not have to spend money for the skill. The house is financially broke right now. And if possible to these two too.”

“Of course Sir. Once we finish your practical test, we will inform you about the fees.”

“Very well” I replied back smiling.

The writing part finished pretty soon, as the only thing it needed was my name, house name, school name, and then details about the skill. Once the written part was done with, the woman asked me to follow her. I was led into another room. The room had magic circles inscribed all over and at the opposite side was a small box suspended in air.

“Sir, please use your skill once and the box over there will display its efficiency. 0 to 30% is considered as low level, 31% to 60% is considered normal, 60% to 90% is good and 91% to 100% is excellent. Depending up on the efficiency the fee for the skill changes. Now please begin. Call me once you are done”

I nodded and then the woman left, closing the door leaving me all alone in the room. I took a deep breath and then sat down on the ground. I closed my eyes and began to meditate as I had to free the mana in me so that I could get the best results. A couple of minutes later my eyes opened and I helped myself up. With my hands relaxed, I once again took a deep breath, for some reason I was a little tensed. I closed my eyes once again and then began gathering mana in my hand and feet. Once I gathered as much mana as I could, I rushed forward activating the skill,

“Air Burst Wave” and my speed almost doubled. With the space in front of me as target, the air sword in my hand slashed horizontally. The transparent sword let out a gush of wind and then was immediately followed by white thick wave of air which traversed forward at thrice my speed. The attack was so fast that even I could not properly follow its trajectory and then it hit the surrounding wall causing the magic circles to glow. The white wave began to disperse as the magic circles slowly began to absorb the spell.

The suspended black box at the end of the room lit up, showing a 90%. For some reason I felt a little disappointed but still felt happy about having a good skill. I called the woman and she came rushing and congratulated me on having a good skill. I was taken back to the registration section were Iud and Davy was waiting for me.

“Ah, shall we now speak about the rate at which the skill will be taught and the amount you will be getting?”

Once again I nodded at the woman with a light smile which was returned to me with a really long and bright one.

“Since your skill has an efficiency of 90%, the skill if taught to others have low chances of failure. Also the skill is based on a single affinity and is easy to learn. Being a king ranked skill, the damage dealt is high too. Can be fired in any direction. Does not require any sort of weapon. Hard to dodge since the wave generated is large. Impossible to block since the attack is magic based. Usable as a mid-ranged as well as close combat attack. Syncro level of 7. These are the plus points and if one plus point is equal to 10AG, then currently the skill would cost 100AG. But the skill has it downs too. Easy to dodge when used as a long ranged attack. 120mana per use might make it hard for some people. Skill might fail if dash is obstructed. With three downs, the cost goes down by 30AG. Since the skill is from an Itiferth student, the cost goes down by another 10AG. So the final price is 60AG. We will give you 20AG each time a person learns the skill. Would that be enough?”

“Ah, that is more than enough. Is it possible to transfer half the amount to my house vault?”

“Of course Sir. Then as per your wish 10AG will be transferred to the house vault. Now shall we move to the other skill? Is it a king level skill again?” the woman asked, not in sarcasm but with good intentions.

“Nope. Emperor Rank spell: Poseidon’s trident”

The woman once again gapped at with wide opened jaws. Standing up from her chair she bowed at me and the once again walked away into another room and was soon back with the same guy who had glared at me earlier.

But unlike the previous time, he did not glare at me smiled at me and then asked me to show him the notification panel.

“Please come with us Sir”

Not knowing what was going on, I followed them. I was taken to another room which seemed to be some sort of office.

“This is the guild master’s office and I am the guild master, Abdron. Now to the main point, please let us sponsor you.” The man said grasping my hands tightly.

“Eh? Why do you want to sponsor me and I already have my house to sponsor me? What is in it for you and don’t bother lying”

“Sigh! The adventure guilds are like other shops, we too face heavy competition.”

“Competition? Are not adventure guilds under the control of the main guild?”

“No. Even though we have a main guild to monitor us, it does not have any special control over us. The adventure guilds are private institutions just like the shops that sells items and other stuffs. The adventure guilds in different cities compete with each other and the best guilds are given big rewards by the head guild or king of the kingdom. When the adventure guild is backed by the kingdom, then the benefits for the adventures increases too. For example take your own skill. Because we are not a high end guild, the king ranked skill only goes 20AG, had it been one of those top guild, the price might go above 500AG and you might have got a commission of 160AG or so. And so more people go to such guilds while low level guilds like mine do not get any.”

“What is my role in this?”

“Ah! I want you to register any new skill you create in our guild. In exchange we will sponsor your academy fee and also make you VIP of this guild, along with the two friends you have with you”

“What is in it for you if I agree to your terms?”

“If we can get high ranked skill like the one you gave then the number of people who come here as well as the level of our guild will go up. If the guild acquires good profit then you earn can earn more too and there are other benefits too. So please!”

“Fine, fine. And as for the sponsoring, do it from the next year after you earn something from me. Also I want you to advertise about the emperor rank skill. Do not involve me directly. When advertising the skill, just say that it came from the Calmor house and the boy is a student from Itiferth. That is my only condition.”

“Agreed. But things might get a little hard for you if news gets to the other academies about this.”

“Do not worry, I have everything figured out. So is there anything else for me to do? Shall we continue with the registering?”

“Before that please let us check the ranking of your spell”

“What is it now?” I was getting a little annoyed.

“I am sorry, but please bear with u” for a few more minutes. For spells above king rank, that is for emperor, saints and god level spells, the spells are assigned a rank. The first seven rank goes to the seven god level spells. Currently there are 467 saint ranked spells and 1389 emperor rank spells. And so the ranking system starts at 1 and ends at 1863. The highest saint level ranking is without a doubt 8 while the highest emperor level ranking is 131. In short there are emperor level spells which are more powerful that saint level skills. As to why it is so, no specific theory has been put forth but some say this might be because the saint level spells are mainly large area spells while emperor spells are single point or target based spells. So the destruction power for emperor spells are considered higher. Enough with the theory and hypothesis. All you have to do is check into the database.”

“Database?”

“Ah, the gardisto on your hand has one.”

“The watch? He! I did not know that. How can I open the database?”

“Just call out the database just like you do for the status bar, along with name of your skill.”

Nodding my head, I called out “Database: Poseidon’s trident”

‘Ding’

DATABASE: POSEIDEN’S TRIDENTWorld Ranking: 303

Emperor Ranking: 59

The guild master stared at the window in disbelief, so was I. We then looked at each other and then back at the window and again and each other.

“Sir, thank you. Such a strong spell. Please register it as fast as possible. And do be careful once news gets out about such a spell things will get really hectic. I wish you the best”

“As long as you don’t tell others everything will be ok”

Once I finished with the registering process, we exited the room and decided to check the quest boards for anything suitable. Little did I know that the emperor rank spell would forge my destiny.

---***---

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