Chapter 5 The Way Of Fire

I was a bit sad to know that this would probably be one of the last trains I will ever ride, unless I come back to rank zero worlds. It a classification meant for places like my home and the place I am currently traveling to, including the world where I leveled. Rank zero worlds were classified as places where there was nothing more dangerous than regular animals, although they could still get pretty dangerous in some worlds.

Rank one worlds were where monsters started appearing. There were multiple ranks after that, depending on the danger level of the monsters that could appear there. The reason why I couldn’t use trains in those worlds was because it wasn’t cost-effective to build them there.

I came to learn that the thing trains ride upon are called rails. They are just made of metal that monsters can easily destroy and making them from stronger materials just isn’t worth the cost.

Currently, I was sitting alone, but basically the entire train was filled with people like me who had reached level ten or a bit above it and were now making their way to a more dangerous world where we could continue to advance at a reasonable pace. Almost all were members of groups, as normally up to eight people could enter a portal at the same time, although that number fluctuated quite a bit depending on the map.

This journey took two months, and basically, most of the time we were on trains covering fast distances. Sometimes it was just too costly to take a portal to the other side of the world, and we had a lot of worlds to travel through to get out of the rank-zero cluster I was born in. Up ahead, in that mega-city, was our last portal.

In this world, I had seen all kinds of advanced technologies, even magic tech, but nothing was quite so magical as seeing skyscrapers, as they called them, going well into the clouds above. I wonder what it would be like to be in one of those rooms, looking out.

This was a massive world, and if the information is to be believed, even their sun was real. Even though I’ve been in this world for nearly a week, I still couldn’t tell the difference between a fake sun and a real one.

It was daytime, but I could still see one of the moons. The reason was because there were actually people living there. Apparently, in this world, you could go into space, which was a crazy idea.

I never imagined that there was a difference between the void and space, but apparently there is. One is something that will crush you into nothingness, while the other is nothingness, and you could just be there without any problems. Well, I did hear that if you didn’t have a source of air or pressure, things could go bad, but apparently not if you were about level 20 or so.

It was quite interesting to hear others talk. I even joined in on some conversations, but I still mainly stayed by myself. There was simply no way I could reveal my secrets so early, and going with a group was simply too risky.

It will soon be the time for the orientation, with probably hundreds and hundreds of people in the same classrooms, and then it's time to get my tickets and find out which world I should go to that would have plenty of available maps especially good to take advantage of my heart crystal.

***

I looked out upon the city and watched as hundreds of trains constantly moved into and out of it. Currently, a lot of new adventurers were coming to the bi-monthly courses. All of them still completely fresh, yet all of them have reached level ten. Of course, there were a lot of legacies down there as well, who will hopefully get strong enough to keep the torch of civilization lit.

“These are the folders you asked for. There are quite a lot of legacies this cycle. The next folder is Talents that have been confirmed, and the last one is suspected talents,” my assistant said while placing each folder on my table. The first was the thickest, the second almost the same thickness, while the third one was quite a lot smaller, but still substantial.

“Do we need more spy training? That folder should be way thinner than the rest,” I said. My assistant looked at me like I had just asked a stupid question.

“Our spies are excellent. Every member of the Adventurer Guild gets training, and I have made sure that training is excellent. That’s why that folder is so small—it’s because they’re in the second one.”

“Mhm, very well then. Let’s see.” I opened up the small folder to see it filled with a lot of names.

“Carless Maringa, suspected of having a heart crystal that lets him go intangible. That has promise,” I said as I continued to read until I reached the last page, where almost at the very bottom there was a name.

“Mark Farron, maybe something to do with fire—solo killed 18 fire imps with his third ticket. Well, that isn’t a lot of information, but I guess that’s good enough to make the list. Still, keep it a low priority. I will get you the full list of who you should prioritize and not. Unfortunately, we don’t have infinite resources to focus on everyone, but we will catch them eventually. Everyone slips up.”

***

I was kinda regretting my destination, not because of what it offered me, but how I chose to get there. No, I didn’t have any other choice since I didn’t have enough money not to use the Guild for transport, but it was kinda annoying that I needed to be a guard anytime I traveled from one city to the next.

Turns out, in rank one worlds, you need to be strong enough to travel, and the easiest way to get enough strength was to be in a caravan. The problem was, it cost quite a lot, so the Guild, in its infinite wisdom, found a brilliant way to still get passage for its members. A journey would be a lot cheaper if every time there was a need for a guard, you were one of those guards.

It was damn dangerous work, especially for me, as up to this point I have only been fighting easy fights. Fortunately, the roads I had been on were the main ones, so even though I've had to fight a few times, it wasn't anything serious. The positive thing was I was now level 11, although I have yet to pick a node to put my level in.

The experience was kind of just another ring around the cage. The orientation lasted three weeks, I didn’t learn much, as I already had learned those things from reading in the library. There were some important things I’ve learned, especially about the passive skill tree.

One thing was that there were truly hundreds, perhaps thousands, of viable builds depending on what skills you use, and that absolutely every build recommends you get at least some resistance, as it could save your life, which unfortunately means every build guide is basically useless to me and I could only use them as reference.

My thinking was interrupted when we all heard a bird cry over our heads. Immediately I looked upward to see a massive bird.

"Aerial monster up above!" I heard someone yell. That was bad, really bad. I had been in many convoys, so fortunately I had learned from experienced guards what to do and immediately got close to one of the wagons so if needed I could dive under it.

There were a few civilians around me. "Get underneath the wagon now!" I yelled at them. It took them a moment to understand my words, but they somewhat gratefully watched me while climbing underneath. The snap of bows sounded when it was clear that the bird wasn’t going to just fly past us. Its diving speed was impressive, and the arrows simply missed or bounced off.

It swooped down on the other side, but I saw when it started to climb up once again that it had a human in its talons. It didn’t come back; it just continued to fly away. Everyone was still on high guard, but the threat had passed, at least for now. No one spoke of the empty spot around the fire that night.