UNLIMITED SPEED

“You’re here to submit the flowers,” the lady blurted out, astonished. Noah furrowed his brows but nodded. He failed to understand why the lady felt surprised by that feat. He had spent six hours doing it, surely that couldn’t be the quickest someone had completed it.

“You should be given an award for your accomplishment,” she suddenly said, requesting for the paper. “No one has ever completed this quest this fast, and most times they were asked to gather fifty,” she continued.

“I spent almost seven hours,” Noah arched an eyebrow while she led him behind the bar, where surprisingly a staircase that led below the guild hall’s surface existed.

“You think seven hours is that much. Many spend days gathering the required amount,” she countered.

Noah could only fall silent at that point, opting to watch how they descended into a bright room. The staircase spiraled down for a bit more than ten meters, before directly arriving inside a black-painted room filled with all sorts of things.

Noah could spot mana stones, plants, beast cores, coins, and things he had never laid eyes on before in different heaps.

The lady saw Noah’s curiosity and immediately explained to him.

“This is where the recoveries from missions stay before they are sent out to their respective owners. Anyone can place a job request, but it’s our duty to gauge where it stands. As even with the different ranks there are more dangerous missions,” she explained gesturing at a small space on the inscribed black floor.

Noah understood what that gesture meant, and didn’t hesitate to wave his hand to remove the plants from his inventory. In truth he wasn’t required to perform that gesture to get anything out of his inventory, all he needed was to stretch forth his hand, or even do nothing and the items he wished for would land on the ground or appear in his grip.

No sooner than he completed his gesture, did the space around them light up with an orange radiance.

The lady held her breath at the sight. He had truly gathered the required amount.

“I almost can’t believe it,” she muttered crouching to grab one of the roses. “I have to tell you to keep up the pace and you’ll be amongst the bests in the guild,” she encouraged.

Although she had only recently stepped into the middle-stage, Noah felt certain that she was older, so he didn’t mind the advice. Besides, the three stars on her right chest signified that she held a higher rank than he.

“That’s all. We can go,” she announced walking out of the chamber to arrive directly on the stairs. The only place that featured a door was the door that shut the passageway, other than that everything was open. After all the Oath wouldn’t allow anyone steal from the guild unless they desired death.

Noah quickly found himself in front of the bar.

“Since you’ve succeeded in your first mission you are now a full rank F member. You are allowed to take jobs from the board. You also get your first star,” she explained after placing a green stamp depicting his name on the quest paper.

“Is it necessary to carry the star around?” Noah asked.

“If by carrying you mean keeping it on; then no. But it’s essential that you have it with you at all times, so your rank can be identified. The ranking system is the same as all other guilds, and missions featuring other guilds happen. You need to always be prepared,” she explained, making a star no bigger than one inch inscribed with a really small version of the guild’s crest to give it its authenticity.

Nodding his head while receiving the golden star, Noah calmly waited for his pay. She had gone inside the door behind the bar, but he only had to wait for about a minute before she reappeared.

A wrapped bundle of seven silver coins stacked on each other floated towards Noah who quickly stored it in his inventory. Performing a bow to each other, after speaking with her for a bit, Noah before departed from the bar to walk towards the board.

Standing before the brown board, large in size, Noah slid his palms on the board’s metallic four-corner edges which were golden brown, however, he didn’t care about its appearance only the papers that riddled its figure.

The lowest bunch belonged to F-ranked individuals, but he couldn’t stop himself from gazing at the upper ranks.

Each row had a written tag, so when he gazed at the ones belonging to B rank which were at the peak of the board, he felt his knees tremble. Just like the lady; who’s name was Leah, had said, even amongst the various ranks there were dangerous missions, and one could figure them out by the color of the quest paper.

Brown meant the mission wouldn’t be anything too dangerous, blue meant the mission would require battles, and finally red. Death was a potential outcome of such missions. These were quests that caused shivers to run down Noah’s spine when he read what they entailed.

In that instant, he recalled how weak he actually was, since, from the warnings that were written on the quests, he understood that he would have no chance of really doing much.

Eventually returning to the realm of rank F, Noah browsed through the brown ones since they were easy, and were missions that the average tier 1 could complete. According to Leah, Rank F missions only last seven days on their region’s board before returning to the outer region where proper tier 1’s could complete it. However, there were exceptions, like the one the guild gave them.

So if no one picked the missions in seven days then they would be shipped out.

Reading the description of the quest, Noah settled for it before returning to the counter to get it stamped. Immediately after the process was done he departed from the guild to fulfill it.

The mission was almost like the first only that it would require him to travel to the outer region to collect plants mainly used to soothe physical pain.

With this, Noah properly began his rise to importance in that guild. But there were already other more important things planned for him. Things and events that would make him even better amongst his mates; whoever they were.