Approaching Army

"An army of monsters is coming!" the panicked man screamed, stumbling as he ran to the counter.

Bursting into the guild the man had a panicked look and was covered in sweat and dirt. His clothing stuck to his body and bags were under his eyes.

"Please try to calm down." the receptionist said trying to get the man to calm down.

From the steps beside the counter the Guildmaster walked down looking over at the panicked man, a bead of sweat dripped down his brow.

************************************************

Looking around his room Cylas gazed at everyone in his house. The disgust he had previously felt from looking at their eyeless faces was gone, and even without their eyes he could easily tell who was currently in his house.

After a minute of silence Cylas began to explain what had happened and why he had been in the condition he used to be in. After finishing explaining what had happened Lucius walked towards Cylas and hugged him.

"I'm sorry you had to go through something like that man. If something like that happened to any of you guys, I don't know what I'd do." he said moving Cylas side to side.

Behind the two of them Akara stood looking at Cylas with an odd expression.

"Are you sure you're ok?" she asked.

Looking over at her Cylas couldn't see why she asked that.

"I'm fine, thank you for what you did." he said giving her a smile.

Releasing Cylas from the hug Lucius switched to grabbing him by the shoulders.

"Now that you're an adventurer we can finally complete the team." Lucius said, a smile taking over his face.

"What if he doesn't want to?" Vasuki asked.

Looking back a confused look appeared on Lucius's face, like he hadn't thought about it.

"Of course, I still need to, I can't let what happened get in the way of what I need to do." Cylas responded looking over at Vasuki.

"That's good, if you want to, we can go get you some new gear then, or if you want to wait until you're ready I don't mind." Lucius asked looking at the pile of gear in the corner.

Walking over to the gear Cylas looked through everything, it was probably for the best that he didn't keep any of it... Reaching down Cylas picked up the gloves putting them in his pocket.

"There's no point in waiting, but I don't have any money for gear right now." Cylas mentioned, he had previously spent all his money buying the gear sitting in the corner right now.

"That's fine, I have more than enough to buy you gear." Lucius replied.

"Are you sure?" Cylas asked, he didn't want Lucius to go out of his way.

"You can't go on a quest without gear, can you?" Lucius asked.

Smiling Cylas responded,

"No I guess not."

"Alright let's get going then!" Lucius exclaimed opening the door.

"Now?" Cylas asked.

"There's no better time than the present." Lucius said going through the door.

"I thought we were going to the guild?" Vasuki asked, slightly annoyed.

"There's no rush, we have all day." Lucius replied with a grin.

"I wish I could join you guys, but I have to go now, it took a bit longer than I thought it would." Akara said moving past Lucius.

"I'll see you guys later." she said beginning to walk away.

Cylas turned towards the two who were left, Vasuki was staring in the direction Akara had gone while Lucius was still waiting for him to get out of the house. It seemed like Akara had whispered something to Lucius, but it might have been his imagination.

Getting up Cylas walked out of the room and looked up at the bright sky. Not a cloud was in sight and a small breeze blew through the air. On the streets a few people walked back and forth.

"This isn't going to take long is it?" Vasuki asked.

"Haha, only a minute. Don't you like looking at equipment anyways?" Lucius replied questioning Vasuki.

"Only gear that is decent, the gear they're selling generally is pretty low quality." Vasuki replied.

Once they started moving Cylas followed, immediately Vasuki lagged behind them putting his hands in his pockets. Walking with the two Cylas headed towards the market area, on the way a few people had called out the two of them, the platinum plaques on their necks reflected the suns beams, giving away their status. Even without the plaques they would still easily be found, their party was the strongest in the city. Looking at the two Cylas decided to use the ring.

[Lucius Alvein]

[Level: 33]

[Race: Human]

[Talent: Weapon Master- Learning one weapon gives some experience with others as well.]

Looking at his full name Cylas was a bit surprised, he realized Lucius had never mentioned his last name in the years he had known him. He always said his parents were dead, so he never took the conversation farther. Cylas already knew about his talent, the weapon at his waist matched the incredible talent Lucius was given. Lucius was also the highest level Cylas had seen before, he expected it would be as much.

Behind Cylas, Vasuki was looking around at the buildings as they passed by from what Cylas remembered he was good-looking, but it was hard to tell now.

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Trying to analyze Vasuki brought up an odd distorted screen. Cylas had never seen anything like that before and didn't know what to think of it.

Unknown to Cylas, as soon as he had scanned Vasuki his eye had started to twitch. From what Cylas could see a scowl was forming slowly on Vasuki's face. Walking over to beside Cylas, Vasuki put a hand on his shoulder and leaned in.

"Whatever you're doing stop, it's giving me a headache." he whispered, letting go of Cylas's shoulder.

Hearing that Cylas immediately closed the screen, prompting Vasuki to fall back behind the two once again.

After he casted away the screen Cylas was shocked, he didn't know the ring's screen could be blocked like that. Even then how did Vasuki know that Cylas was the one doing it? If the ring could be detected he would have to be careful using it.

'Was it because Vasuki's a mage?' Cylas thought to himself.

Countless questions echoed through Cylas's head, for now it didn't seem like Vasuki was upset but it was hard to tell. In the future he'd have to be more careful with using the ring on people. More importantly, Cylas was able to find out Lucius's level, with that he could start forming an idea of the level's he had seen.

Level 1: Starting Level

Level 5: Obtainable through some effort

Level 10: Obtainable through a lot of effort, strong but not noteworthy.

Level 20: Extremely Hard, but still is barely possible with hard work, it seems most people struggled to get past this level. Individuals at this level were considered powerful but their power wasn't life changing.

Level 30: Impossible for those without Talent and Hard work to reach, likely when people reached the Realm of Heroes glorified in stories. Anyone who reached this point were considered some of the strongest in the world. Only the truly strong broke past this point.

Level 40+: ???

Lucius was considered the strongest adventurer in the city, if not the whole alliance, his strength was well-known and often nobles would attempt to recruit him. The level of Stormthorn's leader helped confirm this. Now all he needed to know was if the levels had a limit, and if they did, what was it. The enemy in the future would be easily able to deal with anyone Cylas had seen, he would need to investigate what tier magic would allow someone to summon a meteor the size of half the city.

"Hey Lucius, does the risk level the guild uses have a limit?" Cylas asked.

Glancing over Lucius gave a confused look.

"A limit, what do you mean?" he asked.

"Like a max threat that the guild has seen or reported." Cylas tried to explain.

"Hmm, they haven't mentioned a limit, I heard that they consider anything over 100 as a calamity level threat, there hasn't been one in ages though."

'100!' Cylas thought to himself.

'So at the very minimum I need to get to level 50, which is more than double my current level...'

Behind the two Vasuki chuckled,

"The guild lumps everything they can't understand into one group, I wouldn't rely on them for classification."

"Do you have a way to measure strength?" Cylas asked, curious to see if he had a better way.

"...No." Vasuki responded after thinking for a bit.

"..."

"Okay we're here!" Lucius spoke out loudly, gesturing towards the marketplace.

Various shops were clustered together into buildings of various sizes. In between the buildings hordes of people moved from shop to shop all looking for different goods.

"Haha, busy as usual." Lucius said smiling at the scene.

"Why'd they have to put all the shops together?" Vasuki grumbled.

"At least they're easier to get to." Lucius responded.

"Anyways let's start out with the type of gear you're looking for; do you know what type of gear you want?" Lucius asked.

Thinking about the fights he had been in speed had been extremely important, but defense was still a necessity.

"Armor that is flexible and doesn't slow me down." he answered.

"Hmm let's look around, thankfully Vasuki's summons are stronger than normal, and they have variety, so we don't have to be too worried about filling you into a certain spot." Lucius explained.

"Alright." Cylas responded.

Walking into one of the shops Cylas was surprised, he had never been in this store before. Across the aisle's various equipment lay on display in intricate fashion. There was a clear distinction between the high- and low-quality gear in the store and it was clear to see.

"There's no price limit, get what you think will suit you." Lucius said giving him a thumbs up.

Glancing around the room Cylas began using the ring on everything to see if there was anything special about equipment. Unsurprised most of the equipment was overpriced, but a few items were decent. Walking over Cylas picked up a cape, the inside was gold while the outside was black, two silver buttons on each side would secure it.

[Streak Cloak]

[Slightly enhances users speed and movement.]

Grabbing the cloak Cylas was happy, the cloak was decently priced for the effect it gave. Thankfully the ring he had been given from the angel made it easy to see which items were enchanted. Most item dealers had trouble identifying enchanted gear due to needing a tier 3 mage to identify it. Even then the mages had trouble identifying the specific effects the items had.

Behind Cylas Vasuki was rumbling through pieces of equipment stuffed into a corner. Meanwhile Lucius was looking at what Cylas was picking out from a distance.

Continuing analyzing the items Cylas got through most of the high-priced gear, the only other item he managed to find that was decent for a reasonable price was a brown leather belt with broken white stripes running in a straight line along the middle, it was the first time Cylas had saw "minimally" when it described the effect of gear. The belt was well-made, but the enchantment was a very low-level strength boost. Finishing by grabbing a brown pouch Cylas brought the equipment to the counter and Lucius gave the owner 8 gold for the equipment.

Behind them Vasuki brought up a ring to the counter that costed 35 silver. Looking at it Cylas was surprised to see it had a slight magical enchantment on it that slightly increased mana.

"Off to the next shop then." Lucius said leading the way to the exit.

In the next store all the equipment was obviously cheaper, while some higher quality items sat on display a majority was lower priced items. Lucius and Vasuki didn't bother looking through any of the stuff in the shop and followed Cylas around. Moving through the store Cylas began to see how hard it was to find gear with decent enchantments on them. The only equipment he had seen so far had minimal enhancements, the bracelet on his wrist was far superior to everything he had seen.

Moving through the store he grabbed pants and boots that had minimal defense enhancements and moved to the back. Looking through the dust covered garbage gear he noticed a shirt behind a crate that was completely free of dust. Lifting it up it was completely black except for white diamonds covering the cuffs of the sleeves and neck.

Analyzing it Cylas's eyes couldn't believe what he was reading.

[Imitation Voidstar Negator]

[Negates 20% of physical damage directed at the wearer.]

Immediately after reading the description the door behind them opened making a large noise, a sweating steel adventurer was looking at Lucius and Vasuki with clear urgency in his eyes.

"The Guild needs you guys to come immediately!" he shouted breathing in between words.

"What for?" Lucius asked, clearly confused.

"There's an army of monsters heading towards the city, we have less than a day before they arrive."