Q: What does Stargrave hide?

A: The Orb of Colour and the path.

- - -

"Boss," Julies called. "Where are we goin'?"

"Haven't I told you already?" I said. "We are going to make some money." That was one of the reasons, but my initial goal is to get some experience.

The academic year started a couple of days ago, reminding me again how poor I am. I had about 20 dynes left of the money, which is more than enough for a lower-middle-class family to live off easily, but it will not cover a few dregs, considering the ingredients I need to buy to even practise a few spirit arts are tens of times expensive.

Moreover, to build up my physical toughness, I need to eat suitable food as well, which costs a lot of money too. All in all, I need dynes, a lot of them.

The problem could have been solved if I could have shown my worth to daddy Emberheart, but the problem is, I'm still not ready yet. Just entering the magic division did not speak volumes about my accomplishment. At least not to the Highprince of Fire.

In the end, all I could try was to earn myself. Luckily, I have a few ideas to turn my pockets heavy, but that has to wait for at least a month until I finish an important job. For now, some small money to get by would be sufficient. Well, considering the expense of the things, the small amount of money would not even be enough for me to get by. But luckily, my angel left me another couple of hundred dynes.

I had turned Yasmine down when she came to give me the money, and she left, but when I returned to my dorm, I found she left the money with a letter.

I felt shame spending her money. So, I decided to earn from the very next day.

"I got what you said, but where exactly are we goin'?" Julies asked in his usual loud tone. And it wouldn't need to mention that he had the black glasses on even now, while the sunlight was reflecting off his shiny head.

He was dressed in the academy's uniform with leather jerkins underneath, so do I. While I had a sword, the baldy had a machete on his waist. But this shorty was good at hiding his knives all over his body.

"To the mission hall," I said and pointed to the building where all the missions for the students of the academy were posted.

"Boss, you should have said that earlier," Julies said. But considering why I asked him to bring his badge and weapons along with him, he should have guessed already. This baldy was a little slow at getting things. Then again, you can do a lot of other things with the badge as well—Like, borrowing stuff and never returning them for once (General delinquent business). "I would have called Eran and others."

"No, we two are good," I said. Actually, I did not want to call this baldy. Sadly for me, Julies stays next door. Just when I left my dormitory, this guy jumped at me as if waiting for me to leave my room. As for the reason, I did not want to call all my delinquent gang? It was quite simple; they make a mess wherever they appear. Ignoring Eran, all of them are the rotten bunch.

I just wanted to start silently and have an exemplary track record in the mission hall, considering I will be taking missions from this place for a while.

Seeing our uniform and iconic duo, the warders let us in. The bottom floor was quite empty at this hour and, considering the year was just starting, not many students wanted to take any missions yet. But our protagonist was not your typical fresh student.

Elinor was arguing with the elderly man in charge of the mission half. The bald head and the impeccable white dress of the elderly man told he was one of the priests. Let’s just hope he is not one of the zealers.

Unlike in my previous world, priests in this one did not just spend their days worshipping their god or poaching followers from others. Well, at least not all of them.

Moreover, anyone working in the mission hall was likely a retired Spirit practitioner. Then again, the majority of the zealots were spirit practitioners.

I coughed at that thought and walked further towards them to listen to what they were arguing about. It turned out, our protagonist wanted to take a mission at a higher level, but she had not tested her capability yet, so the staff could not give her what she wanted. He asked her to get the testing done first and come back with the badge.

On the other hand, her reasons were valid as well. The testing for the new students has not started yet. That's why she should regret not having an approval letter from Professor Rosalyn or someone else.

I looked at the mission they were arguing about. It was the task of finding some herbs from the mountains, and the rewards were quite handsome, according to the strands of each herb you could find.

It seemed quite an easy quest, but seeing the names of the herbs listed: Red Cudweed, Acalax flower, Stone roots, Vine of Azarth, and many more, I figured it was not. Well, it is easy, but time-consuming.

Only the red cudweed could be found with a little effort, but for the others, you had to search hard, not to mention the wilderness was full of wild animals. But that was of no concern to me.

The mission needs a 2-star badge for acceptance, and fortunately, I have a 3-star badge. Among many things, this was one of the useful things Scar had left me, though I could have taken the test again.

"I would like to take this mission," I said to the old man. If there were no herbs, I can hunt a few spirit beasts as well to earn some dynes. The market for that is always high.

Elinor and the old man looked at me at once. While Elinor glared at me cutely, the old man asked for the badge. I gave him the badge, and he gave me the parchment scroll where the details were mentioned. The old man needed to prepare a few other things, and I needed to sign before I could go.

The old man was writing the papers while Elinor tucked my shirt. I raised an eyebrow at her and heard her say:

"Can I take this mission with you, please?" her eyes were like a cute puppy that one could not say no to. Truth be told, I knew this was her strategy.

Though the Edward I read about was not a scammer, he was good at judging people, and if this girl had all the traits of Edward then, she could possibly know how weak I was against cute things.

More importantly, I needed to get to know her better in order to confirm that she has the same two characteristics as Edward. Unlike me or a few others who only have one cheat trait, our protagonist has two, actually.

I have seen her using the light element, so it could possibly be the Light of Wisdom. Though Light of Wisdom was at the same level as Purgatory, it was her other ability that I and the story needed the most.

But it would be more than just tricky for her to reveal it to me. Given the early Edward, Elinor may not have even awakened it yet, or she may have been the only one who knew about it.

"Is that allowed?" I asked the old man even though I knew it was allowed with some special clause. I have a higher grade badge, so technically I could take another person of lower grade. Moreover, there was Julies. He had a 2-star badge, though he had not taken the test for months.

The elderly priest looked at the pitiful eyes the frail girl was making, and he could say no to that as well. In the end, he agreed.

“The paperwork will take a few minutes,” I told Julies. “Why don’t you take care of the horses at that time?”

Julies compiled like a good underling, while Elinor waited with me to complete the paperwork.

The paperwork took no more than five minutes even with slow old man, but that five minutes were enough for Julies to make some mess on his own, and it appeared it was with someone I knew.

Althan Kimber was sprouting his speech on how he was superior, while Julies had an amused expression on his lips, listening to everything he had to say.

“You don’t have any clue about what you did, do you?” Althan said in his superior tone. “Do you know what this little amount of time causes me? How would it? You and your master have no decency and decorum, after all.”

"Does my face tell you I give a damn?" Julies chuckled and found me and Elinor walking towards the conflict. "And look, the boss is here. You even lost your chance to strike when I was alone."

Althan grunted and transferred his gaze to me. His eyes, which were of anger, bled into hatred and resentment.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Julies, did you--”

"Boss, this time it is not my fault," Julies cut in before I could finish. "You know, young prince Kimber has a low tolerance for anyone he thinks lower than him? He thinks he can take away our horses just by spending some dynes and his mouth.

It turned out there were only four stallions left. Julies got ourselves three of them, but Prince Kimber wanted to go on with his adventure and offered a couple of dynes in exchange for the horses. Ideally, this situation would have been played in the favour of Althan, unfortunately, the other party was Julies.

“That sounds very much like him,” I agreed. “But no need to care. Just treat his words like thin air.”

"You are going overboard, Emberheart," Althan shouted, drawing on spirit force. Wisps of the energy gathered around his arms, twisting around his fingers. Even his two underlings noticed it and looked prepared with their weapons.

I took one step, an amused expression on my lips. "You sure want to fight here?" I said, touching the hilt of the sword. Julies joined me by my side while Elinor looked observant but prepared. She did not have experience in this kind of conflict, but she was as alert as a bird.

For a few seconds, silence flowed in the space for both groups, as we glared at each other, trying to intimidate one another.

"Walk away, Kimber," I said, with confidence in my voice. A two-and-a-half metre flesh-eating monster was enough to intimidate me easily, but not Althan, who obviously didn’t have the spine to fight with me.

And as I thought, he exchanged useless words along the line of ‘I will deal with you later’, before walking away.

“You sure are famous,” Elinor said, sighing in relief.

“You have no idea,” I said as Julies led us to the horses.

Then Elinor tucked in my overcoat from behind, with an uncertain expression. I raised an eyebrow to ask what it was as she answered: “I never rode a horse before.”

I did not know what to say to her, but a curve appeared on my lips. It was a couple of weeks ago, I had the same expression as her, staring at the horses. I had never ridden horses in my life before, but with the superior strength and heightened senses that came with spirit force, it went fine. Elinor would do fine, I'm sure of it.

“Well, first time for everything,” I said, “Try it for a couple of times, or Julies can carry you with his horse.”

Now, all we need is to make our way to the mountain, which will be an hour or two journey if we rush at our top speed and next will be picking up the ingredients which would be time-consuming, but we had quite the time in our hands.