Chapter 2: Scarlet and Adventurer’s Guild

{Analyze} one of my three original skills it have the ability to analyze anything I sense with my five senses or imagine in my head, for the things that I sense with my five senses the analyzing finish in an instant and don't take time at all, just by seeing someone with my eye I know what his abilities are and how much mana he has and what are his skills if had any and if he is stronger than me or weaker than me and by how much and more.

But for the things that I imagine it takes so much time to build the image and analyze it to understand if the image is good enough or if it needs more details to work on, and I have to have the proper idea about the materials needed to construct the image, for example, if I wanted to create new magic I need to understand the magic structure and to come up with a new magic formation and magic circle, the formation is needed to execute the magic phenomena inside the caster mind and the magic circle is needed to guide the spell to be invoked with the conditions specified by the caster.

{Create} my second original skill it gives me the ability to create an object or magic phenomena if I have the suitable materials, for example, if I wanted to make a strong sword I have to use {Analyze} to get the suitable image and use a material that is considered as "strong" by {Analyze} so I can't use wood as a material and the skill will not work at all and I'll need something as strong as iron for the skill to work and create the strong sword.

{Control} my third original skill and it gives me the ability to control anything that is not intelligent creature like the humans and elfs and beastmen…etc, for example, I can use it to tame monsters and animals and communicate with the tamed creatures using vocal commands or telepathy and order them however I want, but if I wanted to use it on dragons I have to beat them first, and I can use it on weapons to master them immediately especially intelligent weapons, intelligent weapons are weapons that chose there master and have the ability to use magic and can talk and some of them can transform and use soul magic and live inside there users soul and materialize when needed, but soul weapons are relics of the ancient time and are so rare to find nowadays.

Lyara Armonis the lord of this territory and the founder of Armonis village have a soul weapon named Valc in the shape of staff with magic crystals all over its body and have the ability to cast magic without chanting the spell and grant the user near-infinite mana, so by using the {Analyze} skill on it I understood how to create soul weapons.

To create a soul weapon you need a strong soul for the intelligent personality of the weapon, you need the soul of an intelligent creature like a human or a strong monster like a dragon or titan class monster, and you also need to make the weapon from strong materials so it can handle the soul of that monster and are often made from that monster body after killing it and then summoning the soul inside the weapon.

So after I told Urak and Ann and Lyara about my goal and they agreed to help me I asked Lyara to show me her soul weapon.

"Auntie Lya, can you show me your soul weapon?"

"How did you know that I have a soul weapon??"

"{Analyze} showed me that you have a soul weapon"

"Then why do you want to see it?"

"I want to use {Analyze} to figure out how to make one for myself"

"Hay Ryo-Kun is that possible?.....if you can figure out how to make soul weapons that will be a huge achievement and that will give this village an edge over the human's countries that may cause problems down the line, here look ….{Valc}"

"{Analyze}"

After confirming the information on how to make a soul weapon I told her the result.

"That's hard to believe… but it is difficult to make as expected"

"yeah but it's possible to do it…..do you have an idea about a strong monster that I can use for the weapon?"

"Are you sure?!... it's dangerous you know!!"

"Yeah I'm"

"Then how about an elder dragon, there is one living in the middle of the desert and it's the one that made the desert in the first place"

"Made the desert?"

"Yeah, in the past that place used to be a mountain but that dragon made its nest and turned it into a desert to suite its taste using magic"

And so I decided to go and hunt that dragon to make it into a soul weapon.

The elder dragon that Lyara talked about lives in the middle of the death desert and is said to be sleeping most of the time and wake up only to eat or to fight any challenger that came after it, but for the past 170 years, no one was brave enough to challenge the dragon, the last time the dragon was challenged was when the Kazar kingdom that the desert located in collected most of its power to try and tame the dragon but they lost all of the collected power and almost the country was lost if not for the holy theocracy help to protect the kingdom and rebuild what was lost of its power in exchange the kingdom adopted the holy light religion as its state religion which caused the kingdom's people to kill people from the other races and enslave them under the worst living conditions, and also prohibiting all other religions and any other ways of thinking.

After telling Urak and Ann about me going to hunt the elder dragon they wanted to come with me but I refused because if I failed I'll be the only sacrifice.

The trip to the center of the desert will take 5 days and the closer I am to the center the stronger the monsters became so that will be the perfect chance to train myself.

I departed from the village early in the morning and Urak and Ann and Lyara came to wish me good luck.

"Ryo be careful and make sure to came back alive"

"Urak is right you have to come back alive or I'll not forgive you if you die and you left us alone …and if you came back alive I'll let you marry my daughter Lira!!"

"don't decide that by your self Lya-chan….anyway Rou-kun here take this elixir with you and use it if you became severely injured in the middle of the fight….since your skills need time to heal this will heal you instantly"

"thank you … and don't worry about me if I see that I can't win I'll use {Teleport} and came back to the village"

After that I started running using body reinforcement by circling my mana throughout my body while using {Mana Manipulation} and {Efficiency} to train myself and to increase my stamina, I tried to create a skill or magic to make my stamina infinite or make it more but I failed, so I tried to do some experiments on my stamina to increase my knowledge on the topic so I can use {Analyze}, since stamina can't be seen or directly felt I can't use {Analyze} on it but I can use it on my knowledge on it, so after some experiments, I was able to use it and concluded that creating a skill or a magic that can increase the stamina is impossible but I can create magic to replenish it and by using body reinforcement with {Mana Manipulation} and {Efficiency} will naturally increase my stamina very quickly.

On my way, I found a lot of monsters but I was able to fend them off, at noon I stopped to rest and eat lunch so I took a barrier orb from my storage and activated it and a barrier shaped like a sphere with a diameter of 5 m was formed, this barrier orb was made using Ann's magic and my skills using steel armadillo magical core as a material because it has the ability to increase the defense as the original magic of the monster, and we also made a barrier pillar which can generate a huge barrier that can protect the whole village.

After I set the barrier in place I took my lunch out from my storage and started eating, a fire ant monster tried to attack me but was stopped by the barrier, after I finished eating I killed the monster and started running again.

In the fourth day I encountered an (SS) class monster called flare owl that attack in groups with two leaders that have double the size, this monster can use advanced fire magic and have an absolute immunity to fire but that was not the troublesome part about this monster and that is it can use camouflage magic on its body and attacks to make them invisible and will attack from your blind spots, but it's meaningless in front of me since I have the {Presence Detection} skill I can detect all of them and their attacks, from what I can see there are 10 normal flare owls flying in the sky while surrounding me and the two king flare owls sitting on top of some rocks, so I used {Shadow Manipulation} to hold the two king flare owls but the normal ones noticed that and launched their attacks at me but I used {Flash Step} to avoid the attacks.

"I'll deal with all of you at the same time!! …{Thousand Rain}!!"

{Thousand Rain} is an advanced magic that launch a thousand bullets from all the Attributes you have an affinity for, and I used it with {All Attributes Affinity} and {Outer Mana Use} which killed all the normal ones, after that, I walked towards the two king flare owls which were held in place by their shadows while sealing their mana.

I placed my hands on the owl's heads and evoked {Control} on them to tame them, and so both the king flare owls became my eyes in the sky so I sent them both the dragon nest as a scout.

As for me I went to collect the cores of the normal ones and used {Intake} on all of the cores and obtained their abilities and the ability to use {Transform} and grow wings made from mana from my back and use them to fly but since it uses a lot of my mana to keep them out and a lot of stamina to control them I will use them when I really need them, even if I can regen my mana very quickly because of {Absorb} my stamina will not.

When the two owls were above the dragon nest I linked my sight with one of them and I was able to see the dragon sleeping but I noticed something strange about the dragon and started running.

When I reached the nest the dragon raised its head and looked at me and started talking.

{Did you come to challenge, human}

"yes I did, but it seems that you can't fight… what happened to you?"

{It's a poison, it seems this is my limit}

"Poison?!!,….did someone poison you??"

{Hahahahah…..it's from 500 years ago when I fought with the poison dragon… I won but the poison that bastard used damaged my body so much so I came to this place to rest but it seems that the poison won in the end so if you are you here to kill me that would be better than dying that bastard poison}

"I come to this place to kill you and use your soul to make soul weapon…. So how about that? If I did that you will be able to live more and fight more and see more of the world"

{That's a good offer but can you really make a soul weapon…..the last time I was able to see someone who can was1000 years ago}

"Yes, I can…and you will have nothing to lose….if I did it you will live longer and if I failed you'll not die from the poison"

{Okay then but if you are able to cut my head off….consider this my challenge for you…if you can cut my scales you win}

"Okay I accept your challenge"

I put my hand on the katana on my waist and lower my center of gravity and take the posture for using iai and activate the skill {Kenjutsu Arts} and start circulating mana through the katana using {Mana Manipulation} and overload the katana with my mana and slashed.

"{Batto: Iai Isen}"

And my sword broke…

{Splendid…}

And the dragon's head falls down with a thud.

After that, I activated {Soul Techniques} to attach the dragon soul to my soul and started supplying it with mana to evolve it to a stronger soul that I can use {Gift} on it so I can give the soul weapon skills that it can control by itself.

"You two come over here!!"

I called the two king flare owls to name them and to send them toward the village.

I named the male Fu(wind) and the female Hi(fire) and ordered them to go to the village and I used {Storage} to store the body of the dragon then I used {Teleport} and moved instantly to the village but I was attacked by three people at the same time.

"Ryo(-kun)!!?....are you alright??!"

"Stop it!! you three are suffocating meee!!"

"Is there any injuries show us"

"I'm alright I was not injured or anything"

I told them what happened between me and the dragon and showed them the dragon body that was inside storage, and told them about Fu and Hi that I tamed and give the bodies of the dead flare owls to Nash and Celeca to harvest the feathers, claws, and meat and distribute it between the villagers, after finishing that the two owls arrived at the village.

"you two patrol the village surroundings and kill the monsters that come near the village and you can eat them but if you see people report back to me"

After that, I went to sleep early for the day in preparation for tomorrow.

..

.

In the next day, we collected the materials needed to make the weapon Hihi'irokane from Urak and Mithril from Lyara and leather from a black dragon from Ann and started to develop the katana and armor but that was so difficult to do since we needed to make an alloy but I have no knowledge about the fantasy metals we had so I needed to do some experimentations to make the perfect alloys.

It took three years to finish creating the katana and the armor and I'm 15 years old now.

The final product was a katana with scarlet blade edge and jet black ridge and black and greenish silver guard and black and red handle with a jet black scabbard with scarlet inscriptions.

The scarlet edge was made from an alloy that consists of 80% Hihi'irokane and 15% bones from the red dragon and 5% Mithril melted together using a magical furnace and {Create}, the jet black ridge was made from an alloy that consists of 40% Hihi'irokane and 40% Mithril and 10% Adamantite and 10% bones from the red dragon.

And the armor was black and scarlet leather armor with shoulder and knee and elbow pads made from black dragon scales with scarlet inscriptions and black hood and metal lined boots.

The armor is made from leather and scales from the black dragon that Ann had and from the red dragon that I killed and the lining on the boots was made from the alloy used to make the ridge of the katana.

It took us so much time to get the perfect ratios to create the soul weapon and finally the inscriptions on the katana and the armor are needed to attach the evolved dragon soul to the katana and the armor thus making them a soul gear.

I used {Enchant} on the gear and enchanted it with {Fear}, {Status Infliction}, {Aura} and multiple magical effects and then I used {Soul Techniques} to attach the soul to the gear.

"{Soul Techniques: Scarlet}"

"Good morning Scarlet did you have a good sleep for the past 3 years?"

{So you did it human but 3 years was a short time for a dragon to sleep…..but now you think you can control me?}

"no problem {Control} …..see no problem and you can call me Ryo and I'll call you Scarlet"

{Umu good working with you partner}

After that I used {Gift} to give Scarlet some of my skills, the skills I gave him were {Hide Skills}, {Absorb], {Efficiency}, {Outer Mana Use}, {Auto Heal}, {Mana Manipulation}, {Regeneration}, {Telekinesis}, {Intake}, {Transform}, {Presence Detection}, {Hide Presence}, and had him use {Intake} on the rest of his body and core so he can use {Transform} and {Aura} to transform his aura into his red dragon form but since this consume a lot of mana we'll use it when needed only.

The advantage of this soul gear other than its power is that I don't need to wear it and take it off since you can transform the gear from armor to normal clothes and armor again through {Storage} and store the katana in my soul when I need to sleep.

…

...

.

.

After one month of training and preparing the day of my departure came.

"Auntie Lyara uncle and auntie Ann take good care of yourselves…and I'll leave Hi here with you and also take these telepathy orbs and contact me from time to time"

"don't worry about us and take good care about yourself and come back as an (SS) rank adventurer hahahahaha"

"just be safe and come back using {Teleport} if you feel like eating my cooking again I'll make the best feast for you"

"Absolutely don't get yourself a girl you hear!!..... I want you for my daughter after all"

"worry about me first then me getting a girlfriend or not!!"

"Worrying about you is pointless after all"

With that I departed from the village toward the town of Donatis the town hated by the elfs because this town kidnaps the elfs that live in the forest and put slave collars on them and sell them to the capital city Kazakar, the slave collars they use are a magical items that get smaller to suffocate the slave if the owner gave the order and it also seals the mana of the slave to prevent them from using magic and skills.

The town is 10 days away by foot so I used my rest time to create new skills that I will need in my work as an adventurer and to free enslaved elfs if I need to.

In the 8th day, I finally finished creating new skills, and the skills are:

{Strength Enhancement: enables you to use mana to increase your physical strength}

{Overload: enables you to destroy the magical items and artifacts you target}

{Scan: enables you to send mana waves to scan a 1 km circle}

{Memory Enhancement: enhance your memory}

{Pursue: enables you to attach a little of your mana to a target and you'll know where the target is no matter what the distance is}

I then reached the main road that leads to Donatis and started walking toward the town but….

"Oi, ya, the prat over there stop we have some business to discuss with ya!!... geheheheheeh"

"ya seem to be loaded seeing your armor let us have some money will ya"

"I will take the armor and the sword will be for the leader…..leader do ya think this prat will sell for a high price"

"Oi you prat ya heard the boys surrender and we will treat you gently ….. if ya don't want to lose a limb or two don't resist"

I was attacked by a group of four bandits, two had knives and one had a short sword and the leader had a battle ax and all of them were wearing leather armor with iron breastplates since I didn't want to waste my time on a trash like them I used {Shadow Manipulation} to hold them in place and then I used {Flash Step} to move to in front of the leader and..

"wha?!!.... how did ya get this close??"

"I was in need of some money, good thing that I meet you guys"

"ya think we'll let ya!!...wha?!... I can't move!! Why?"

"{Batto: Iai Isen} and here the first one down"

After beheading the leader the three bandits started begging for their lives…

"Please let us go if its money we'll give it to ya so please don't kill us!!"

"I can make more money if I kill all of you guys, right?"

"{Batto: Iai Nesen}"

"Hiii!!"x3

After beheading all of them with one slash I stashed their heads in a leather bag they had with them I stripped them of their armor and weapons, I can take the heads to the town guards and I'll receive the prize money for killing them and I can sell the armor and weapons to merchants or blacksmiths inside the town.

After walking for three hours I arrived at the town gates and saw a line of people in front the gate and the guards will ask some questions and sometimes will take the money and will check the carriages that have stuff in them, and when my turn came the guard asked me…

"are you an adventure? If so show me your adventure card if not pay the entry tax of one silver coin"

"do you have a poster of the criminals around here?"

"yes, we have do you want to report something?"

"yes I fought with some bandits on my way here"

"good thing you was able to survive here are the posters"

I took the posters from the guard and found the guys I killed and the prize money for the four was 5 gold coins and 90 silver coins, I was surprised when I saw the amount so I asked the guard…

"Those four have been causing trouble for us for years now they are known to attack merchants and steal the goods and sometimes they will attack adventures and steal their weapons and armor and use them themselves … by any chance did you encounter these guys? good thing you survived"

"actually I killed them here their heads"

"-?!!"

When I told the guard that I killed them and give him the heads he was so surprised that he stopped moving for a couple seconds but he started moving very fast and went running toward the guardhouse.

"I'll bring your money and be back!!"

After five minutes the guard came back and gave me a pouch with 6 gold coins and 300 silver coins, that was more the original amount so I asked him.

"A merchant gave us more money as an additional prize for whoever kill those four because he lost one of his carriages to them"

"got it and here one silver coin for the tax"

"thank you for your hard work"

I entered the town from the gate and started surveying the buildings and the people, the town was built to surround a big castle made out of a stone made using earth magic to make it strong, the castle was surrounded by the nobles houses and the commoners houses after that and the shops and the open market and the slums in the outer layer near the walls.

I started asking about the directions to the adventurers guild from the people and arrived at a big building made of stone bricks and redwood with a big sign that has a sword drawn on it.

I entered the guild and headed towards the receptionist, the receptionist was a woman in her thirties with red hair and brown eyes and wore a black dress.

"welcome the adventurers guild, are you here to take a quest or to report something"

"I came to register with the guild"

"The registration will be one silver coin"

"here"

"thank you very much, here please fill this form"

I took the form from the receptionist and stated reading and filling the needed information.

Name: Ryo.

Preferred Weapon: Soul weapon Scarlet the Katana.

Magical Ability: Can use magic up to advanced levels from multiple attributes.

Skills: {No Chant}, {Shadow Manipulation}, {Presence Detection}.

Since I needed to make my name known I wrote about Scarlet and reveled that I only have three skills and gave the form back to the receptionist she looked at the form and froze in her tracks.

"e.excuse me can you come with me for a little bit?"

"no problem"

"okay please follow me"

She took me to a room in the back with a big door, she knocked on the door three times and asked for permission to enter.

"excuse me"

"come in"

A man's voice came from inside the room, she opened the door and entered, inside the room there was a middle-aged man with a body full of muscles with silver hair and red eyes, and there was a woman with blond hair and a business suit and long trousers who seemed to be a secretary.

"Did something happen?"

The receptionist stood in front of him and gave him the form and he took it and started reading it he became surprised when he finished reading the form and gave it to the woman next to him and stood up.

"my name Mark I'm the guild master in this town and this is my secretary Ani,…. So now is what you wrote in the form real or is it just a lie"

"I only wrote the truth"

"Can you prove it?"

"{Scarlet}"

{did you call me Ryo?}

"Yeah, these people wanted to meet you"

"it can talk?!"

"so it's the truth then, okay then what about the skills?"

"you can check them yourself, right?"

"understood ….{Check Skill}"

After checking my skills he looked at me and started laughing.

"hahahahahahahahaha…..this good, so good…..finally a real monster appeared!!"

"master stop laughing and get to business"

"I'm just happy to meet someone like you….. but you are a strange one"

"strange?"

"with this weapon and skills you can work for the nobles or even the royal family and you will be covered with gold, but instead you came to the guild, don't you think that it's strange?"

"I don't really think so, and besides I hate the nobles so I don't want to work for them"

"will, that makes it two of us hahaha"

The guild master started laughing again and kept laughing till his secretary hit him in the head.

"that hurt Ani!!"

"get to business and don't go on laughing you idiot"

"I got so stop hitting me!!"

Those two get along well.

"back to business, why did you give us your information? Isn't it natural to hide your powers if you don't want the nobles to mess with you?"

"since I'll use my powers when fighting they will come after me sooner or later, so it's better to deal with them before things get complicated"

"will, that is one way to look at it, okay you two go and finish his registration procedures and I'll take over the explanation to him"

"yes!"

"yes, sir!"

After the two left the room the guild master started explaining about the guild.

"The adventurers guild is an organization that exists all over the world, in the human countries and in the beastmen countries and in the elfs forests and in the demonkin country and in the dwarfs country, we don't discriminate between races and we prohibit all discrimination in the guild, the job of the guild is to take requests from the people and countries and the reward and give them to the adventurers based on their rank, the ranks from the highest are (SS), (S), (A), (B), ©, (D), (E), you'll start at the lowest rank (E) and you can raise your rank by completing quests assigned to your rank and earn points till you have enough to rank up, as for the quests there are two types of quests the normal quests you get from the guild and the sudden quests that are activated when you encounter bandits or people in danger, you'll get more points from the sudden quests but no money from the guild, do you have any questions?"

"you said the guild don't discriminate between races, does that mean I can take quests from the guild branch is in the elfs forest for example?"

"yes you can, that is if you are allowed into the forest"

"does the adventurers take part in kidnapping the elfs, and in rescuing them?"

"no they don't take part in the kidnapping but they do take part in rescuing them but the rescue request comes from the elfs guild master to specific adventurers only, actually I'm the representative of all the human guilds and I'm stationed in this town to prevent the adventurers from taking part in kidnapping or harming the elfs"

"since the guild is like that I'm surprised that the nobles and royals don't mess with you guys"

"There is some harassment here and there but they can't do anything drastic against us since they need us, it's the adventurer's job to kill dangerous monsters after all, so if you face any harassment don't be afraid to retaliate"

"Okay that's enough for me, thank you"

"Don't worry about it, it's my job after all"

After that we continued to chat for some time waiting for my guild card, I was interested in the harassment thing so I asked him about more details and he told me about an adventurer who had one skill and was asked by the lord of this town to become one of his guards but he refused and the lord who wasn't expecting to be refused was so angry and enslaved the adventurer's family when he was away on a quest and when he returned found out about it and was forced to join the lords guards but the lord placed a slave collar on the man and killed his family in front of him after toying with them then killed the man as a statement to the people of the town that for anyone who opposes him the same fate await them, and after some time the secretary came back and gave me my card and a small needle.

"you just have to drop one drop of your blood on the card and it'll be attuned to you"

The card was white and nothing was written on it but when my blood touched the card my name and rank appeared on the card but it stayed white.

"the white color indicates that you are (E) rank and by the way (D) is Brown and © is Green and (B) is Blue and (A) is Red and (S) is Silver and (SS) is Gold, and when you accept a quest it'll appear on the card and you will be able to see if the quest is complete or not and it's also applied to sudden quests, and once you have enough points to rank up the card will change color to the next rank and we'll be notified by a special artifact"

"Okay thank you"

After that, I went to the receptionist again to take a quest since it was still in the morning.

"Hello again Ryo-sama, is there anything I can help you with?"

"yeah, I want to take on a quest, can you give me the hardest quest I can accept at my rank"

"There is a quest you can accept it's a quest to kill goblins and you can kill as many as you want because they multiply very quickly there is no end to them, but you have to take stuff like their fangs and weapons even if they are low quality since you can make money from them, and you have to kill at least ten goblins, is that alright with you?"

"yes I'll take it"

"alright give me your guild card"

"here"

..

"alright done you can hunt them in the forest to the west, please take care"

After I went out to the town to search for a weapons shop to sell the weapons and armor I took from the bandits but I decided to wear my hood when I'm in the town to hide my identity since the hood is enchanted with a magic that makes it hard to remember what my face and armor looks like, all they can remember after seeing me is that I was a hooded man with a strange looking sword on his waist.

After walking for some time in the shopping area I found a weapons store so I entered the store and a bell rang as soon as I opened the door and a muscular man greeted me.

"Welcome to my store, how may I help ya!"

"I want to sell some weapons and armor I got after killing a group of bandits"

"Please let me see them …can you put them on the counter"

After that, he started inspecting the weapons and I decided to activate the mind magic {Alarm} using {No Chant}, this magic is used to alarm the caster if the target is lying to me and it's useful to prevent people from cheating me.

"those weapons are in bad condition so 10 silver and 1 gold for the armor"

-ding-

"{Fear}"

"-hiiii!!"

"do you think I'll let you try to cheat me and get away with it"

"p.pleasee don't kill me I'll give you more than there price, just don't kill me!!"

After that, I deactivated the skill and used the mind magic again.

"i.it will be 12 gold for the weapons and 3 gold for the armor!"

- -

"no reaction, ….okay good"

After that, I took the gold coins and went toward the town gate and exited the town without any problems and started toward the forest and once I was in the outer part of the forest I used {Presence Detection} to search for goblins and found hundreds upon hundreds of them.

"that's a lot!!"

I was seriously surprised by the number, so I headed towards the nearest group of them and found 20 of them, 15 had knives and short swords and 5 had bows and arrows, so I used {Flash Step} and moved to the front of the 5 goblins in the back and attacked them.

"{Batto: Iai Isen}"

I killed all 5 of them with one attack since I was used to killing goblins since when I was in the village this was nothing to me, after the goblins in the back died the goblins that had knives and short swords attacked me at once from all sides so I started killing them one after the other, after killing all of them I called Fu down to help me collect the valuable materials and the weapons the goblins had, after I was done with that I started walking toward the next group since I had a lot of time till sunset, I repeated the same thing over and over again, by the time the sky became yellow and the sunset was about to start I had already killed at least 100 goblins so I took my guild card out to check the exact number I was surprised to see that the card had changed color to green.