Extra's Path: The Eternal Frost Monarch-Chapter 67: Adventurer’s Guild (1)
The lobby was cool and quiet compared to the busy street outside.
Noah stepped in and looked around. The floor was polished concrete. The ceiling was high. To the left were some leather sofas. Straight ahead was the reception counter, long and dark, with a few staff members standing behind it.
He walked toward the counter.
One of the staff members stepped forward. She was a woman in her late twenties, wearing the guild’s grey uniform with the Crimson Vale emblem stitched in red at the collar. Her posture was straight and professional.
Her brown hair tied in neat bun.
"Welcome to Crimson Vale," she said with a polite smile. "How can I help you?"
Noah looked at her for a moment. She was pretty in a neat. The kind of person who had probably answered that same question a thousand times and still made it sound genuine. Professional and patience.
"Hello my name is Noah, I want to join the guild," he said.
"Of course." She picked up a tablet. "May I ask your current status? Student, independent, or referred?"
"Student," Noah said. He reached into his storage ring and pulled out a small card. "Novaris Academy. First year."
He placed the ID on the counter and slid it toward her.
She picked it up and looked it over carefully, tapping the details into her tablet.
She paused for a moment after reading his surname. After all there was only one Eldritch family in whole empire. One of the dukedom.
But she didn’t react. Years of work experience has made her act perfectly.
"Novaris Academy," she said, nodding slightly. "Good. That will speed things up." She set the ID down and reached under the counter, placing a smooth crystal sphere on the surface between them. It was about the size of a fist, perfectly clear.
"Before registration, we need to do a quick assessment," she said. "Standard procedure. Could you tell me your core level first?"
"Dormant core," Noah said. "High rank."
She made a note. "I’ll need to confirm that. Please place your hand on the sphere and channel your mana into it. Just a steady flow, nothing forced."
Noah looked at the sphere for a second, then placed his hand on it.
He pushed his mana in slowly.
The sphere began to glow.
The color that bled through was black, deep and dark, like ink spreading through water. But at the edges, where the light was thinnest, there was something else. A faint trace of bronze. Subtle, but there. It curled at the rim of the glow like the last breath of a flame.
The woman watched it closely. Her expression stayed professional but her eyes lingered on it for just a moment longer than usual.
She made another note on her tablet.
"Dormant core, peak level," she said. "Confirmed."
She set the tablet down and looked at him. "Because you’re a registered Academy student, your application gets processed under the fast track. You won’t need to wait for a panel review." She gave him a small nod. "Please take a seat over there. It won’t be long."
Noah glanced toward the left side of the lobby. There was a row of dark leather sofas in the corner, a low table between them with some guild brochures fanned out on top. He walked over and dropped into one of the seats, leaning back and resting his arm along the side.
He looked up at the ceiling for a while.
A few other people were sitting nearby. A pair of adventurers in light gear talking quietly between themselves. An older man filling out a form with a pen, old-fashioned about it.
At one wall a huge screean was attached to it. Many adventures stand near it.
Various mission presented on it. For adventurers to choose them.
Most normal quest or say missions were bringing specific monster’s dead bodies.
Few mission about monster cores.
Noah closed his eyes for a moment, letting the guild’s unspoken rules settle in his mind.
The Adventurer’s Guild wasn’t just a place to find work. It was a system. Monsters roamed the wilds and nested deep within forests.
And it was adventurers who kept that threat in check. In return, whatever they killed was theirs. The body, the core, everything.
They could sell the carcass to the guild for quick Zela, keep the mana core for their own cultivation, or take their loot elsewhere entirely. The guild had no claim over a free hunt.
But dungeons were different.
Every dungeon,forest area and labyrinth operating under guild jurisdiction was guild territory.
Any adventurer who raided those depths did so under guilds permission. A fixed percentage of all loot collected inside had to be handed over to the guild, no exceptions. It wasn’t negotiable and it wasn’t optional. That was the cost of raiding under their banner.
Outside of hunting, the guild board handled everything else. Nobles, merchants, wealthy people, anyone with Zela and a problem could register a mission at the guild. Even villages and commuinities with some problems also register mission.
Monster exterminations, material collection, escort requests, dungeon clearances. The guild verified the reward, held it in escrow, and matched the job to an adventurer of appropriate rank. Clean and simple. While taking commision from it.
Noah opened his eyes.
It didn’t take long. Maybe ten minutes.
"Mr. Noah?"
He opened his eyes. The woman from the counter was standing a few feet away, holding a small card.
He got up and followed her back to the counter.
"Your registration is complete," she said, placing the card on the surface and turning it to face him.
He picked it up.
It was slim and firm, with a dark grey background. His photo was printed cleanly in the top left corner. Beside it, his name, his age, and his core level. Dormant Core, high. At the bottom right, his rank was printed in clear lettering.
F+
Below the rank was the Crimson Vale emblem, small but sharp.
"This is your official adventurer’s guild card," she said. "Keep it on you whenever you’re taking on contracts or entering guild facilities. It’s your identification within the system."
"Got it." Noah slipped the card into his jacket pocket. "Thanks."
"Is there anything else I can help you with?"
He thought for a second.
"Yeah, actually." He leaned slightly against the counter. "Can I buy monsters mana cores here? Do you sell those?"
She nodded. "Yes, we do. The trading window is just down that corridor on the right. They handle core purchases, sales, and exchanges."
"Perfect." Noah straightened up and gave her a small smile. "Appreciate it."
She returned the smile, brief and polite.
Noah picked up his bag from the floor, glanced once more at the guild card in his pocket, and turned toward the corridor.
F+ rank.
He looked at it again for just a second before pocketing it.
It was a start.
