Chapter 35: An Offer (1/2)
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Tutorial Mission Completed
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Assessment: You have completed the side objective, Overtaking, with a 48% contribution. You have killed the clone of Aquila with a 78% contribution. You have collected 62 Souls and defeated a total of 235 foes, both indirectly and directly.
Mission Time: 8:35:55.
Rewards: 2240 Talys, Access to the First Plateau.
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You are now going to be transported to the First Plateau. Brace yourself.
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”Brace myself?” Rakna muttered to himself as he stood in a place plunged in darkness. There was nothing in sight except the System window.
And soon enough, the warning explained itself as he felt something a lot similar to what he went through when the System first took him away from Earth. A splitting headache attacked him and in the blink of an eye, quite literally, his surroundings changed to something completely different.
At first, his blurry vision made it impossible to make out anything but it faded away in under ten seconds and what was presented to him then was pretty shocking, even for him.
First of all, he seemed to be standing in the middle of a very wide and futuristic-looking circular platform with blue neon lines across its surface. He then looked around and almost dropped his jaw at the sight of a city with a dark blue color-scheme extending as far as the eye could see.
Each building was worthy of being called lighthouses with the countless electronics they sported such as holographic billboards and neon letters. There were a few skyscrapers that reached nearly unimaginable heights and as crazy as it sounded, there even seemed to be one building that had a direct connection to outer space.
Other than that, Rakna couldn't ignore the many flying vehicles as well as the thousands of people he could see flying around with jetpacks or with what seemed to be magic for the most part.
In this landscape, the only places he could see a bit of verdure was on top of certain towers that seemed to have greenhouses on their roof. He could also see smoke on the horizon, or maybe was it mist?
But, what surprised Rakna the most was that it was the same story for every cardinal direction. Everywhere he looked, the city stretched beyond what he could see and, unconsciously, he almost felt lost and a bit intimidated.
Pronos seemed to share his sentiments as he looked around with a silly expression.
”Ah, I see you finally arrived,” piercing through the noise of the city composed of sounds of both machinery and airborne vehicles, one voice spoke to Rakna from behind.
His eyes widened a bit and he managed to kill his surprise in an instant before turning around. As one might have been able to predict with a bit of thinking, it was Gray who stood there twirling his cane with a grin flashing on his face.
”You…” Rakna scowled.
”Yes, me,” Gray quipped. ”Missed me?”
”I don't think I would miss someone whose only interaction with me was a joke about me hiding in fear from a bunch of dogs walking on two legs.”
”Uh,” Gray blinked in a daze. ”That was a good come back, wolf boy.”
”I aim to please,” Rakna uttered with a dry tone and the clown cackled darkly.
”You're terribly emotionless for a kid,” he said and tilted his head. ”Well, I guess I should not be surprised to see a bit of uniqueness in an S+ candidate,” he commented offhandedly and smirked when he saw the young werewolf's scowl.
”And yes, I know about your potential value. It's a very rare rating by the way; be proud. Also, do not worry, batch overseers like me have rules to follow and we are not allowed to use an analysis skill on newcomers. I only know about your basic information such as your name and potential. I can't even check your race in fact,” he said with a shrug.
”I see…” Rakna muttered and Gray rubbed his chin.
”On a side note, I can see that you're using an illusion to hide your appearance. You're not really the first one to do so but, friendly advice, none of the stronger Hosts will fall for such a low-level trick. You can hide from the weak guys but do not expect the higher-ups to not notice it.”
”You're awfully chatty for someone who borderline insulted me when he first saw me. Why are you even telling me all of this?” Rakna spoke with an accusatory voice and Gray laughed.
”In my defense, kiddo, you made me, and the whole batch as well, wait for half a day before we could start the tutorial. Well, we got the report from your shopkeeper telling us that you had been gravely injured and needed rest but still,” he sighed and looked at Rakna in the eyes.
”As for your little question, let's say that… you're bound to attract a lot of attention if you're not careful,” he said with a serious tone. He pointed at Rakna's back with his cane. ”Not only do you have S+ potential, but those tails… you have two of them now.”