Chapter 3 The Way Of Fire

Today was my free day, and I was spending it in bed relaxing. It was weird to see my room so empty, as during the past two weeks there were at least a few books in my room at all times. Concentrating so much on this project helped me deal with missing my family. While I still miss them, it's starting to get a little bit better.

I've also started to get used to not knowing the weather, which is good news as it was messing with my mind, making me a bit more sluggish. Tomorrow I will go into the Ash Field training map once again, this time with the goal of killing at least two, perhaps three, monsters.

My time in the library was enlightening and really took some pressure off my shoulders. There were so many ways to get free tickets to training maps and leverage all kinds of advantages so I could basically have a worry-free life for a really long time.

That being said, I don’t think I will be using most of what I learned. While it might be possible to get a lot of support from the Guild, I’m pretty sure it would not be looked upon favourably. That being said, I was certainly going to use some, especially the ones that gave free training for general survival and world knowledge.

There was also another opportunity available to me. Since I was told that sticking with the blade long term was a bad idea for me, I could actually get a lot of training for free if I figured out which weapon or fighting style I wanted to switch to. It was a part of one of the programmes to help adventurers who have hit a wall change their speciality so they could continue to advance.

Now technically this was meant for adventurers around level 50, but there wasn't actually a required level, only a recommendation to be at that level. The problem was you would need a solid plan. You needed to have a plan on everything with positive and negatives of the change and work with Guild officials who could verify that the new path was viable.

There were also a lot of rules about how an adventurer should conduct himself or herself. There are rules for official duels, even rivalries. One of the more crucial pieces of information was how to deal with money. I would need to make myself a bank account and then tie it to my adventurer identity. I also needed to make a bank account separate from it.

Now, what's a bank? I wasn’t entirely sure, but it seemed like an entity that just holds your money with guarantees that it couldn't be stolen. That sounded incredibly useful, as there were a lot of thieves and plenty of skills to make them truly dangerous. I would also need an account in a law office which would help me deal with all the legal stuff.

While I could learn all of it myself, I think it’s better to just get an overall understanding of how things worked and then let the people who dedicate their lives to it take over. This meant I needed funds, which meant more map clearing, which would take some time.

I could try to rush things, but there were so many warnings about never rushing and taking things slowly that I felt I shouldn’t ignore that piece of advice, no matter how important the bank and law office things seemed to be. I should also consider if I should take up the opportunity to go to therapy.

It was another thing that wasn’t mentioned openly, mostly I think because of the bad implication that going there meant that you had a mental problem, but it seems like it might be mandatory if you lose team members or have survived a gruesome wound.

It was completely free, and technically anyone could go there for any reason, which was nice, but it was only nice because they have found that going to therapy increases the survival rate by a significant percentage, which is why it's free.

In the end, the Adventurers Guild, while being a huge and influential entity, only exists to train up as many adventurers as possible to fight in the more dangerous worlds, conquer new ones, and of course bring back resources from the artificial maps that can be created. If something increased the survival rate of adventurers by a significant degree, it was certainly going to be well funded.

While I had suspected that all along, it was another thing to know this for a fact. For the Adventurers Guild that was present in hundreds of worlds, I would just be a statistic no matter if I survived or not. Perhaps if I get strong enough, I will someday matter enough not to be just a number. I felt that that was a good enough goal.

I continued to just lay in my bed thinking things through, fantasising about the future, sometimes worrying about problems that I might encounter, or just remembering the easy days of just farming with my family. Eventually, I drifted off and woke up a few hours before I needed to leave.

"Well, took you long enough," the same receptionist said who had taken my ticket the first time. We talked a little bit, and I explained that I needed to do some training before I went in again. "Good idea. You seem like you have a good head on your shoulders. Keep it up," I heard him say as I already started to go to the inner courtyard where the portal was.

This time when my time came to step in, I didn’t hear anyone wanting to bet if I survived or not. I took a deep breath in, but I didn’t feel the hot air as it was described; it just felt pleasant to me. It didn't take me long to find an imp, and things progressed the same way as they did before, but this time I did miss my mark a little bit as I didn’t hit the dead centre of the imp's body like I did the first time.

This one, however, didn't try to claw its way towards me even while pierced by the sword, but instead it immediately died. That made me narrow my eyes. "Did I hit your heart?" Unfortunately, I couldn’t examine the wound I made as the creature almost immediately started to disappear.

I hadn’t considered that. I always thought of them as just entities that you needed to damage enough to kill, but perhaps even if they did simply disappear, they still had all their normal bodily functions, which meant that they would have weak points. It was stupid of me to overlook this fact, as I would have tried to hit those weak spots on animal-type monsters.

While I still had some reading to do on the laws of the Adventurers Guild, I should really start studying up on everything else as well. The library was so huge, and it was still hard for me to accept the fact that every city where the Adventurers Guild had a large enough presence had such a library, and they were all supposed to be basically identical in the information that they had in them.

No, focus, I should not let my guard down here. This time I got 10 horn pieces, which was a good amount. One imp dropped from between 5 to 12 horn pieces. The more I got, the more money I would be making, so getting 10 was good news. Currently, all the money I would be making would go into extending my stay in the dormitory so I could continue studying in the library.

Finding a second imp took too short a time, as it was basically around the next boulder. If something had gone wrong and I would have hidden behind this one and not the one I had, I would have had to fight two at the same time.

Everything once again went according to plan, but this time I purposely hit a little to the left of centre mass and found that the imp died immediately.

My magic was quite low, but I had only spent a bit of the four hours I could be in here. So what I did was wait a bit over an hour for my magic to be fully back, then went and killed another one.

I watched as it died this time taking a bit longer as I missed the spot, I presume their heart is by just a bit. They seemed to act intelligently even if they were incredibly violent but as I looked into its eyes, I didn’t see anything intelligent looking back at me.

I could have gone and hunted another one, but I think leaving enough magic in me to activate Lunging Strike was a good idea to keep myself alive.

Fortunately, I didn’t run into any other imps. I took my backpack from the ground and went through the portal. This time I did have to pay tax; it was fortunately a flat rate. So, for anything above 20 up to 50, I needed to pay five. I had 23 pieces, so I needed to pay all three as tax.

It was a favorable rate that was given to any new adventurer even if it didn’t help me this time. It only lasted until my tenth level. Then I would be taxed on anything I looted by a percentage that fluctuated quite a bit because of multiple variables.

They need to get the money from somewhere to keep all of this operational, and while the government funded the Adventurers Guild, that wasn’t nearly enough to keep everything so cheap and available to new adventurers.

As soon as I went to the city, I converted my loot into money, but I hesitated to deposit it all into the Guild. My equipment was pathetic, and I only had the one sword without any other proper weapons to my name. While this wasn't enough to get any equipment that had a socket, having a backup weapon was necessary.

While there was a Guild shop, it sold mostly consumables. I would have liked a healing potion, but the simple salve I already had in a small tin can was the best I could currently afford. It wouldn't save me from a large wound, but it would make a smaller wound stop bleeding and help it heal faster.

In the city, there were many shops and even markets, but I just went into one of the general shops and purchased myself a grey knife with a thigh holster. It looked kinda cool, and I liked the easy access I would have to this backup weapon. I still had my utility knife and my brothers hatchet but they weren’t even grey items and would be close to useless for anything besides survival tools.

Now it was time to fill in the paperwork to get my free survival and world knowledge lessons. It took three days to get the confirmation, and now my Mondays and Wednesdays were filled with classes for the next few months. I also had enough money to stay in the dormitory for another two weeks.

Time flew by, and it was time to use my third ticket. It didn’t take long after I entered the map to kill the first imp. After that kill I waited so I would be able to process the experience to reach Level 3. It was my fault for not figuring out how close I was to actually leveling up before I left the map last time. I need to remember to keep an I on that.

The level up felt nice but even better my recovery was now faster. I should be able to kill at least six or seven imps in the time remaining. Everything had gone to plan until I watched the sixth imp disappear in front of me.

From the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of light, and when I turned to see what it was, a fireball was just a few metres away from me. I tried to dodge, but I was too slow, and the fireball that was the size of my torso hit me almost straight on.

I was pushed back a little bit from the force, but it didn't hurt more than a weak punch. The imp looked at me in shock, questioning why I wasn’t dead or on fire. I was also in shock; while I had expected to survive a fireball if I was ever hit by one, what I didn’t expect was that my clothes weren’t burning. Why didn’t they?

I refocused on the imp and saw it starting to cast again. I just waited there, slowly walking closer, still trying to understand why my clothes weren’t burning. My heart crystal shouldn’t affect my clothing. They were singed, but it seems like I could just brush off the dark spots revealing unburnt clothing behind it.

I had gotten pretty close when the next fireball hit. I simply tanked it and then rushed the imp who wasn't surprised but was scared of me. It died fast enough, making it my seventh kill this time around. I collected both of the monster's loot and then fixed my shirt as best as possible, but it wasn't 100% like it used to be.

I could wear my other clothing, but there was a simpler solution. I belly-flopped into the ash and then flipped myself over. I was now covered in ash and cleaned myself as best as possible, but it did hide the marks on my shirt. The guards outside laughed a bit when they saw my clothing ruined by ash. After paying my taxes, I went back to the city and sold what I had.

I bought a few more clothing sets; the rest of the money I deposited in the Guild. After a proper wash, I was back in my room stretched out on my bed trying to figure out what had happened. Well, one thing: I was level 5 now and had a bit of experience towards level 6. Also, I should keep my guard up even if I think I’m safe; that imp really did sneak up on me.

Those were easy things to accept and to improve in the future, but the question of why my clothing didn’t burn off required some thinking. It took me quite a while to remember this, but eventually, I remembered something from when I was really young. My older brother showed me and my siblings something he had learned.

He took a piece of thick paper, folded it up, and put water in it. Then he showed us that it wouldn't light even if he held the fire right underneath it. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but something about the water cooling the paper down enough so that it didn't start to burn. But then I remembered the soot marks as well. Almost exactly the same as what had happened to my clothing.

It kind of made sense, I guess. My heart crystal eliminated the heat as soon as it hit me, meaning that anything I was wearing would also be cooled down. I'm guessing if I were wearing a loose shirt, parts of it would have burned off, but I wasn’t, as it wasn’t recommended for combat. This also probably meant that if I had multiple layers that weren't really that well connected, the outer layer would still burn.

I so wanted to do experiments, but who knows what kind of surveillance they have here, and I didn’t want to start messing around with fire in a wooden dormitory. That just sounded like a disaster waiting to happen.

Eventually, I would need to test it out better, but currently I have used up my three free tickets. Now I should be able to claim my wild ticket and enter the same map once again, this time hopefully killing enough and collecting enough loot to be able to purchase a new ticket to enter it again.

Normally I wouldn’t waste a wild ticket, especially since I learned their value, but this would be only for training maps, so it wasn't that valuable of a ticket. Still, I had time and would stretch out my next map clearing as long as possible so I could get as much benefit as possible of being a new adventurer without going too far.

Another two weeks passed, and I finally used my wild ticket to enter Ash Fields once again. This time I didn’t start with my skill; instead, I let the fireball hit me and then surprised the imp afterwards. This meant that I wasn’t consuming my magic to activate the skill, which means that I should be able to hunt more than normally possible.

That being said, I couldn’t hunt too much. First, I didn’t want to go too deep in and accidentally find the boss as I wasn’t confident in beating it. Second, bringing out too many resources would raise suspicions.

My tax was now 21% of everything I looted. I decided to stop killing at 18 kills, and I was a bit disappointed in myself that it took me five kills to figure out that I should extend my left hand and let that impact the fireball first; that way I wouldn’t be ruining my shirt and I wouldn't have to swim in ash to hide the marks left on my clothing.

When I left, all of the guards were surprised when I had to pay 30 horn pieces, rounded down as tax. "Impressive haul, keep it up," one of the guards mentioned. Did I go a bit overboard? I had enough left over to easily buy two tickets, but I only purchased one; the rest I used to continue to stay in the dormitory.

This time I didn’t go to clear the training map in two weeks; instead, I waited a whole month. I wanted to continue to advance, but level ten would change a lot, and I wanted to learn as much as possible when I had plenty of time and cheap living costs. When I reached level ten, I would need to move to another world that would be more dangerous, and I wanted to be as prepared as possible.

Of course, I could stay here and continue to run training maps, but the taxes would be a lot heavier. The Adventurers Guild didn’t really want people just clearing training maps, as the resources you could get from them weren't really worth that much, and their real goal was to make stronger adventurers, so why make it easy for people to make easy money by clearing simple maps?

There was another benefit of moving on relatively quickly. If you got to level ten and moved to a more dangerous world, you could get five wild tickets for more dangerous maps. Now those tickets were worth a lot, with even the Adventurers Guild recommending you sell them off and purchase tickets for a specific easy map that you know you can clear.

The reason why those wild tickets were so prized was that you could also use them to enter the early green maps, which was a step up from the grey maps, which was another step up from training maps.

Green map tickets cost a lot more, especially profitable ones, so if you could get your hands on wild tickets, you could leverage yourself quite a good profit if you knew what you were doing; if you didn't, you could lose quite a lot of money.

I was so glad that I was taking extra classes. While thisinformation could be learned from the library, nothing beat the experience the teachers had. Their simple comments about how they did things or showed others to do them helped fill in the gaps in the book knowledge we were learning, helping us get an even better overview. And of course, there were the unwritten rules which, while couldn't get you in trouble with the Guild, certainly could get you in trouble with the adventurers.

They were simple things but could easily lead to fights and even official duels if you messed up too badly. One of the simple ones was map sign-up etiquette. There were people who ran the same map constantly, and taking their time slots when there were others available was really bad etiquette. Now, if there weren't any free time slots, that wasn’t a problem—first come, first serve, so to say.

Basically, none of that mattered here. An average adventurer only stayed two to three months clearing training maps before they moved onwards. After that, the timeframes for advancing varied a lot from a couple of years to decades.

During my next clear, I was able to get even more kills, getting myself to level 9. I took another month to finish up the courses and read a large portion of the information I wanted to learn from the library.

Now, there was a lot more to read, but in higher-difficulty worlds, there would be more information in libraries, especially about monsters. Learning about them would be crucial to survival because after I leave this place I might run into real monsters, and without knowledge, I could easily end up dead.

On the next map run, I purposely stopped myself from pushing too hard. I had already been here for three hours, and there was still a quarter of a way to go to reach level 10. It seems that this time I finally found the boss as well. It was a larger imp; this one casts smaller fireballs and a lot quicker, but it also had wicked claws, and if anyone got too close, it preferred to use them instead of fireballs.

I simply turned around and left the map. It was not worth it to challenge the boss even if it could give me better loot. This time after I left the map I immediately signed up and purchased a new ticket giving myself a bit of time to fully be ready for another long fighting session to make it to level ten.

I was back in three days. Fights had been going quite well, but I now sat on a rock, as for the first time in a fight I had been hit in the back. Once again, I had gotten too comfortable. Another one of those imps had sneaked up on me, but I was ready. What I hadn’t expected was the third one to show up when I was finishing the second one off.

This would have been my second death by ambush in this map if I wasn’t immune to fire. Fortunately, this was enough to get me to level ten. I watched as the ten rings around my heart crystal started to compress, getting closer and closer to my heart crystal. It will take some time to finish levelling up; after that, I should be able to get a huge power boost.

I was excited that I would soon be level ten and felt like I wanted to go and fight the boss, but I held myself back. No need to be stupid.

What I did was continue to kill a few more imps as I headed back towards the portal. I said goodbye to the guards like I always did, but I wouldn’t be returning anymore. This training map had been perfect for me, but it was time to leave after I finished levelling up to ten.