Invon City - Acceptance

Osirus decided to walk around the city for a little bit so that he could get his bearings as well as trying to find a specific establishment, which he soon did, looking at the wooden sign of a bed under a tree with the words 'Willow Inn & Bar' underneath, he entered the small wooden building that exuded a homely feeling.

Directly in front of the entrance was the reception, to the right was the bar and to the right was a staircase that he assumed led to the rooms.

As he arrived in front of the reception desk, an older gentleman greeted him, "Good-evening Sir, how can I help you?"

Thinking for a second, Osirus replied, "I'm looking for a place to sleep for the next couple of days.", "Okay sir, that will be 10 silver coins. Would you like to include breakfast for an extra silver coin or hot baths for an extra 50 copper coins, however you must ask 30 minutes in advance.", Osirus had learnt that 1 gold coin equalled 100 silver coins and 1 silver coin equalled 100 copper coins, which meant with his current wealth he had 5,000 silver coins, or a whopping 500,000 copper coins.

"I'll take both.", Osirus replied as he placed a gold coin on the counter.

It wasn't long before he got his change and a key as well as asking for a bath to be run.

He decided to wait for his bath to be ready before going to his room, so in the meantime he returned back to the Mercenary Association.

Walking to the same attendant as before, he waited in the queue before eventually being served, "Good evening again, how can I help you?"

"Hello, I was looking to sign up as a mercenary."

"Oh, of course, all I need is for you to fill in your details and sign this."

On the sheet of paper were sections to enter his name, age, gender and birth place. He was momentarily stuck as he looked at birthplace, but he eventually entered 'Arkbridge City' and finished by signing it.

Giving back the sheet, the attendant had a surprised look on her face, but she stayed professional as she walked into the back to put his details into the filing system before returning with a black card.

On it were his details as well as a single blue star, showing that he had the lowest rank, fortunately he didn't even need to ask how the star system worked before the attendant started explaining.

"When first joining the Mercenary Association, you are given a 1 Star rank, to rank up, you must complete 10 missions of your rank as well as an assessment, this is the same for every Star rank. To get missions, all you have to do is go over the mission selection area, go to your Star rank section, and bring its mission ID number to me."

With everything sorted, Osirus still had about 20 minutes before the bath was ready, so he decided to get actual armour rather than the cloth tunics he was currently wearing.

It wasn't long before he came by an equipment store, entering he was greeted by 10s of armour sets, weapons and other equipment used to kill.

Searching around, he finally came across a set of armour along with a sword that he thought looked good and was also within his price range.

One of the employees walked over after seeing his interest in a particular set of armour, "Hello sir, do you see anything that fancies your eye.", with impressive professionalism, the middle aged man asked.

"Yes there is."

10 minutes later.

Osirus walked out with 40 gold less but an impressive set of armour that fit his body snuggly, it sported an ebony colour resembling the deep night, its overall shape was more jagged and vicious with smaller segments of armour that allowed for good mobility as well as protection while also staying relatively quiet when moving, along a gladiator style helmet.

It also came with a sword made from the same material, it was about 1m long and had uniform jagged edges along the entirety of its blade as well as a sheath on his waist.

With his mercenary ID card and equipment sorted, he returned to the Willow Inn, walking up the stairs and along the short corridor, he finally came across his room, opening the door, he was greeted by a decent size room with a large comfortable bed along with a nightstand.

There was also a small table surrounded by a couple of chairs, and a wardrobe next to it. In a separate room was a wooden bath full of steaming hot water with a bar of soap and brush next to it.

Taking off his new armour and under garments, he carefully lowered himself into the warm bath, the hot water slowly relaxed his muscles for the first time in days, he hadn't realised but he had smelt pretty bare after not washing himself for days.

After he had sat there for 10 minutes, he remembered something. After a few deep breaths, he spoke, 'Deactivate {Analytic Mind}'.

Instantly a multitude of emotions were released, pushing his mind to the limit as he felt grief, sadness, fear, disgust and even excitement, happiness and joy, his mind slowly slipped into insanity.

'Activated {Analytic Mind}'.

Instantly all the emotions disappeared as his heart returned to sanity, however he didn't just give up, even though it was helpful to not feel fear, disgust and other negative emotions, {Analytic Mind} also blocked all his positive emotions, turning him into a robot, making life feel meaningless.

This was why he was trying to not rely on {Analytic Mind} even if he put him through torture, thus, 'Deactivate {Analytic Mind}'.

Osirus continuously deactivated and activated {Analytic Mind}, using it to temper his mind bit by bit, not many others can force their mind to continually reach its very limit without causing it to collapse, but he could, so he was going to use that to his advantage.

3 hours later.

The bath had long turned cold as Osirus sat inside panting and covered in cold sweat, however even then, his face was in a bright smile, he had succeeded, he no longer needed to keep {Analytic Mind} activated to be able to function.

However it was right then that…

{Users emotional state is detected to be stable}

{Temporary Skill {Analytic Mind} is being removed…successfully removed}

Hurriedly checking his {Status}, {Analytic Mind} had truly disappeared from his Passive Skills, however he wasn't sad, after all, it was temporary from the beginning, furthermore it meant his mind was truly stable, and if he actually wanted to, he could make a similar Skill in the future.

Using the soap and brush, he washed his dirty body with the cold water before standing up and drying himself with the provided towel, leaving the bath room, he slowly walked over to the bed, night had already fallen, leaving the room almost pitch black, however he was still able to crawl under the covers before he fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning.

Wearing his normal clothes, he walked downstairs, "Good-morning Sir, would you like breakfast?"

Answering with a yes, Osirus sat at one of the tables facing next to the window that faced onto the street, taking in the surroundings with a smile.

It wasn't long before breakfast arrived, it consisted of 2 fried eggs, beans, 2 pieces of toast and some bacon, along with fresh orange juice.

As his first proper meal since transmigrating he enjoyed every bite.

As he thought of the transmigration, years of memories were released as {Analytic Mind was know longer blocking them, as he thought of his life in the orphanage, his rough upbringing, finding his joy for vfx, only for him to become a slave for massive corporations, tirelessly working to meet impossible deadlines just to be payed as little as possible.

And his eventual death from exhaustion, unknowingly a tear dropped from his eye, awakening him from his trance.

As he looked onto the bustling street, he realised this was his chance to truly live his life to the fullest, he could design amazing, fantasy skills and see impossibly breath-taking sights.

With a new lease on life, he would use it to its fullest, but to be able to do what he wanted required strength in this dangerous world, and to get strength he would need SP, the quickest way he could think of doing that for now was missions from the Mercenary Association.

Thus, he finished his meal, returned to his room to retrieve his armour, and headed out.

It wasn't long before he arrived before the impressive building, heading inside he walked over to the mission selection area and then the section specifically for 1 Star missions.

On a massive board was hundreds of missions ranging from street cleaning to monster eradication, everything that could be done had a mission and reward.

Looking through them he decided on a mission that required the killing of monsters, which narrowed it down by quite a lot considering 1 Star missions were not that dangerous.

Eventually he settled on one of the more difficult missions, "Mission: Collect 30 Stone Lizard Skins. Reward: 5 Gold Coins.", the mission details also came with extra information, such as the Stone Lizards strength being roughly the 2nd Step of Body Refining and that they were situated in the outer area of the Dry Plains, a place just past the forest that was as its name stated, a large plain that never experienced rain.

The Dry Plains were roughly a day of travelling away, thus he decided to get going straight away, but first he went to a butcher shop that went by the name of 'Gruffs Butcher', run by a single man who went by Gruff.

After procuring some dried meat, and storing it in a backpack he had bought at an equipment store for 1 Gold Coin, due to it being made of a tough tear resistant and waterproof leather, he left Invon City and headed west, towards the Dry Plains.

1 day later.

After sleeping in the forest for a night, he finally arrived at the Dry Plains, an unending expanse of yellow grass and the occasional tree.

On the way he made sure to continuously practise {Quick Slice}, causing his Skills to look like this:

{Active Skills: {Quick Slice Lv.4 (2/40 Proficiency) - Beginner}}

{Passive Skills: {Threat Detection Lv.2 (12% Proficiency) - Beginner}}

{Quick Slice - When activated, for a single bladed attack, the wind resistance is 65% less than normal at the cost of 10% of the Users total stamina}

{Threat Detection : Within a 5.5m circumference, the User is able to detect any immediate, life-threatening danger towards himself.}

Both Skills had improved recently, making him more confident in his ability to survive and experience.

After resting for a while and enjoying some of the dried meat he had purchased, he finally headed into the thick grass that made it near impossible to see anything below waist height, luckily he had {Threat Detection} to warn him of anything.

After walking around for about 10 minutes, withstanding the blistering heat in his set of armour, it finally happened, a weak tingling sensation erupted in his mind, he immediately raised his attention to the limit.

"Rustle."

Behind him an almost imperceptible sound reached his ears.

"Whoosh!"

A metre long lizard-like creature with grey rough skin that resembles stone, shot from the grass with its sharp claws aiming for Osirus's face, however…

'Quick Slice.'

A green flash appeared across the lizard's head, only for it to slowly slide off and hit the grassy floor, crimson blood flowing from its dismembered corpse.

Osirus only felt a slight discomfort after killing the creature which he quickly brushed off as he thought about something else, the stronger and thus faster he got, the more wind resistance he would have to face, which only made {Quick Slice} more and more powerful.

Osirus had a smile on his face as he skinned the lizard, realising he had made the correct decision to create {Quick Slice}.