16 CHAPTER 15: MYSTERIOUS POISON MAGE

There were a few reasons why the first thing Gideon did was go to the the guild building apart from becoming an adventurer. The biggest reason was because he lacked money, so he hoped that he could make some by turning in the corpses of some monsters.

The guild building was 70 meters in height with over a hundred floors. There was a large gate with two statues by the side, one wielding a sword and the other a shield, a symbol of both weapons was seen above the entrance as well.

Gideon looked briefly at the symbol before entering inside. In reality, no one actually paid him much mind as it was normal to see people wearing masks in this place as there were many who wanted to keep their identities hidden, besides, monster hunting wasn't the only thing that one could do. And as for Lisk, he figured out from the system that he could put anything connected to his soul in his inventory.

Gideon walked straight to the counter were a fairly pretty woman sat behind. Upon seeing Gideon, she immediately sat up and smiled.

"Hello, how may I help you?" She said politely.

"I was hoping if I could sell some beast corpses in exchange for some money." Gideon said and the woman immediately replied.

"Yes you can, but you need to have an adventurer card for you to do so." Hearing this, Gideon frowned under his mask, obviously he didn't have one. The woman however seemed to notice this.

"If you want to acquire one, then you obviously need to become an adventurer, to do that, you need to take an assessment to see if you can become one and what your rank would be." When she finished, Gideon thought about it and didn't see why not, and do he nodded.

"Follow me." The woman stepped away from the counter before walking towards an elevator in long strides, Gideon following closely behind her.

They entered the elevator and the woman pressed a button and the doors closed, immediately, Gideon felt them descending.

Fortunately, his clothes were actually his armour that he had upgraded numerous times, so it was able to change its appearance.

"My name is Betty by the way." The woman suddenly revealed her name and Gideon nodded.

*DING*

A crisp noise was heard as the elevator doors opened and what Gideon saw caused his eyes to widen slightly.

It looked like a massive underground training facility that was one square kilometer in size with a very high ceiling.

The were Ten different platforms with a short 5 meter drop and all these platforms were hexagonal and we're connected with bridges wide enough for 2 people.

"Hey Betty, is this guy here to take the assessment?" A silver haired man who looked to be in his twenties quite literally appeared right in front of them. Gideon narrowed his eyes while Betty smiled, clearly she was used to this.

"Hey Ren, yeah he wanted to sell some beast corpses but isn't an adventurer do he decided to take the assessment." Betty replied causing Ren to focus his gaze on Gideon who was secretly sizing him up.

"Hm, alright, I'm free right now so why don't I test him?" Ren offered with a smile while he actually became vigilant of Gideon. This was because he would actually abruptly teleport in front of newcomers as a sort of mini test to see their reactions. As a result, he was a very observant person. And so he noticed that the moment that he appeared, there was a small amount of astral energy converging around Gideon's hands.

'Did he already know that I was coming?' He thought to himself. Little did he know that since Gideon was in the wilderness for so long, he had fought his fair share of monsters capable of using spatial magic, so he had become very sensitive to teleporting and could feel the movement of astral energy when one teleported.

"Sure." Betty replied without hesitation, this made her job faster anyway.

The three of them went to a vacant platform that was a hundred meters in size. Gideon and Ren entered the barrier while Betty went to a control panel on the edge of the platform and a blue astral barrier was erected around the platform.

"I'm a silver rank adventurer, well spar and I'll decide what rank you'll be placed in." Ren explained. Although one usually raised their rank by completing missions, they could also challenge high ranking adventurers with authority, and if they beat the adventurer or impressed, they could have their ranks increased. Ren was one of such adventurers.

Gideon nodded and got into a fighting stance while summoning Frey and Hades, he concealed their auras so they appeared as cool looking weapons, but nothing more. The strange thing however was that he held Hades, who was in his left hand in a reverse grip and had in near his back.

Ren didn't think too much about this and with a flash of silver light, a saber appeared in his hands.

"Here I come." Ren said faintly as there was a flash of silver light before he disappeared.

The moment he did, Gideon stabbed Hades who was near his back all the way backwards. And to Betty's surprise, Ren appeared at Gideon's back, right in the path of his dagger.

Ren was shocked when the first thing he saw when he teleported was a black dagger going straight for his chest.

Without hesitation, Ren teleported to Gideon's front. But to his terror, Gideon's other dagger, Frey was already slashing towards him, causing him to raise his saber to meet the attack.

*CLANG*

A shockwave blasted outwards in all directions and Ren retreated ten steps while Gideon stayed rooted in his spot.

Ren's hands trembled as he felt a terrifying amount of force enter his hands from the attack causing them to go numb.

Ren felt that he had to reassess his opponent. He shook of the numb feeling in his hands and looked at the green haired masked fellow in front of him.

'He doesn't look to be much older than me, yet he already possesses such a level of strength. But his build and weapon choice suggests that he's an assassin, and apart from that, he's able to tell where I'm going to teleport and give an unexpected attack. Just who is this guy.' Ren wracked his brain trying to figure out how he would beat the guy in front of him. He can't sneak attack him so a head on confrontation was his only choice, but that proved to be a challenge since there was a high chance that this guy was skilled in hand to hand combat. He really was in a pinch.

But it was at this moment that Gideon moved. Hid foot tapped the ground lightly and in an instant, he covered the distance between him and Ren and slashed both of his daggers ant the same time.

Ren reacted in instinct and teleported away, only for him see a dozen green crescent like slashes flying towards him.

He reacted fast and slashed numerous times in the air, and the poison slashes seemed to be hit his attacks and scattered. However, as he was focusing on the slashes, Gideon had already closed in on him.

As for Gideon didn't just release poison fog and wait for the poison to get to his opponent, he wanted experience fighting other humans.

Seeing as Gideon wouldn't let him off easy, Ren bit the bullet and decided to engage in close quarters combat.

A silver radiance covered his saber and it slashed multiple times, and all these slashes were aimed all over Gideon's body. But what happened next caused him to break out in cold sweat.

He only saw Gideon's hands get covered in a green light and vibrate briefly before suddenly all the slashes got cancelled.

Even though most of Gideon's fights and movements could be followed until now, the truth was that his speed was genuinely scary. And the action of swinging his daggers had easily slipped into the realm of mach speeds.

Gideon's logic was simple, slash faster than the opponent could teleport. It was a simple concept but unbelievably hard to actually carry out. Well, for ordinary people anyway.

Gideon's leg moved like a whip and swept towards Ren's ribs causing him to teleport backwards. But poison sprayed out of Gideon's foot as Ren teleported, so when he reappeared, it was too late for him to dodge and he was doused in paralytic poison.

He wanted to teleport it off, but he immediately lost control of his body and collapsed.

"Word of advice, don't be so predictable. And stop trying to sneak attack all the time. It just makes it worse." And with that, Gideon retracted his poison and walked towards a stunned Betty who only regained her senses when she saw him tapping on the barrier from the inside.

Ren regained his ability to move and looked at Gideon's back with complicated feelings.

'Just who is this mysterious poison mage?'