As I am about to start with heading down though, a wave of exhaustion hits my body. It's only now that I realize how much adrenaline I was running on just then. Not only that, but now that I've come down I realize that my muscles are incredibly strained and in pain. Looking at my level it seems like all of the fighting brought my level up a little bit. Thinking through what I need and what may be useful right now, I first decide to unlock the life element for some healing. I figured that first it may be useful for whoever I may find, but for now it will also help with healing my injuries. On top of that I created a few skills to go with my new life element affinity. Finally after upgrading the tier of my Elemental Channeling skill I added the rest of my points into my attributes to increase my strength. All in all with the levels I was able to get in the process of this, I was able to get a decent increase in strength.

Winter Jenson

Points: 300

Race: High Human(Lightning-Ice)

Ingenuity: Elemental Channeling 2

Level: 6

Strength: 24(+8)

Agility: 44(+20)

Dexterity: 17(+12)

Vitality: 20(+7)

Intelligence: 32(+15)

Wisdom: 24(+13)

Skills: ^

'Close status screen'

I quickly gather my spoils of war, trying not to look at the dead bodies to much, to see if I can find any useful items. To my surprise I found a large amount of stolen materials in the hideout, lots of metal ores, leathers, and medicinal herbs. With those materials, I also found a stash of mana and healing potions of varying levels of effectiveness. I found 147 gold worth of assorted coins, mostly in a hidden chest. With my luck I didn't find what I was really looking for until I went down the last cavern tunnel, ten cages thankfully not all with people in them. Of the ten cages that I saw, only five of them had people in them. I channeled life mana into my eyes, activating one of my new skills life vision. Surprisingly, their health wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, other than a few STD's that most likely came from the bandits. It made me disgusted and angry at how people could even do such terrible things to others, and made my guilt fade by a bit, but unfortunately still felt a lot. 

Quickly, I go and open the five cages with the girls in them, and after I do I start healing them to tip top shape, or at least as much as possible. Unfortunately the largest damage has been done already over the time they have been here, and no amount of healing can help that. In fact, this world probably doesn't have much of the mental health resources that earth did. Hopefully with time they will be able to heal and live a better life, but they will likely never truly recover.

Giving them a few words of comfort, I try my best to bring them to a slightly stable state of mind with minimal success. We slowly start making our way out of the cave, the girls slowly making their way forward with me.

With the addition of the girls, I am having to move a lot more cautiously through the forest. I constantly keep an attentive ear, and eye, to my surrounding to make sure nothing bad happens. Thankfully, it seems that the Adventurers Guild in this town has been doing a good job keeping the surrounding areas safe. It didn't take long to reach a road, and from there it was about two hour until we finally reached the town of Solaris that Reya told me about.

As we walk up to the gate, with many of the unfortunate girls in clothes that could only be called rags, our group attracted a little attention. With some of the copper that I got from the bandits, I paid the fee to enter the town for the girls and me.

Before going to a hotel or the Adventurers Guild, I ask for some directions to the nearest general store. After getting them and finding my way to it we enter the store and we pick out three sets of clothes for each of the girls. After finding that and getting any daily necessities, I go and pay for a months stay at a nearby inn, and give them enough silver to last a month. After wishing them well, and hoping they will be able to return to their families, I go on my way to the Adventurers Association.

I make my way into the Adventurers Guild, and am welcomed with the sound of adventurers eating and cheering away, as well as the thick smell of food and alcohol in the hall.  I take a quick look around and swiftly find what I assume to be the, as there isn't anyone by it and make my way over. As I stand in front of the counter, I see a beast-kin girl with what looks like cat ears, and while secretly delighted I keep a calm appearance.

"Hi, I'm here to turn in the bounty for Broderick the Nightmare, I'd also like to sign up to be a member of the Adventurers Guild," I say to the cat woman. As I say this I pull the head of Brodick out of my inventory as proof of the bounty being fulfilled.

After taking a moment to process what just happened, a look of shock appears on her face as she realizes I'm stronger than I look, but also that I'm not already an adventurer, she quickly regained her calm and responded though. "Yes, I'll take care of the bounty right away, all of it should be ready in half an hour. Registration is at the counter on the other side of the room." As she said this, she put the head in a seperate room as if it was the most normal thing in the world, before resuming her duties. All of this without even a twitch in her expressions.

With that taken care of, I start to make my way over to the registration counter. "I'd like to officially become an adventurer, how would I go about doing that," I ask the human girl in front of me in a quizical tone.

With a smile she replied to my question, "on, that's actually very simple. There are only two small things that you need to do, the first is to fill out this form and submit it, then you'll take a skills test."

Nodding towards the amicable girl with a slight smile, I suddenly realized that I was able to read the language of this world. Thanful for this hidden blessing I start to fill out the application form.

Adventurer Moniker: Tess Cryo

Weapon of choice: Scythe

Race: High Human

-Ice and Lightning

Any additional affinities?

-Life

After I finish with willing out the form, I passed it back to the young girl, whose expression went from surprise to shock as she finished reading the form. A nigh fanatical look of horror and admiration crossed her face, as she looks at me with a gaze bordering on worship.as she was looking at me I barely hear her say, "double affinity High Human, and an additional affinity as well." Though not able to hear her, the adventurers in the guild were shocked to see such a reaction from the girl, knowing how calm she was even in the most shocking events. slowly people started to whisper, guessing what it might have been that shook her so much.

The girl quickly regained her composure as she started heading into the back, and when she came back she was accompanied by a toned middle aged man with battle scars all over his body trailing behind her. It was easy to tell this man had been in an uncountable amount of life and death situations.

"Hello Tess, I'm going to be testing your combat ability today, just follow me toward the combat arena. You don't have to worry about confidentiality, no one other that the guild master and and people he approved are allowed in during testing." He said this with a calm voice that emanated and incredible amount of confidence and authority. I didn't know who this man was but I was almost certain the he was not only one of those people he mentioned, but was also incredibly powerful from his aura alone. I started to feel my battle intent start to rise from the pressure I was feeling, despite not even being in the test center yet, let alone about to battle.

I look at the man on the other side of the arena, the intensity slowly building between the two of us. The magic timer counts down closer to the start of the match, I start to circulate my Life Vision to see if I can find weak points. I see a lot of weak points from his many injuries in his years as a fighter. Then I start to channel ice and lightning through my body, and lightning and scythe energy into my scythe. I finish up my preparations by activating lightning element Quick Steps. Finally the timer hits zero as both of us dash toward each other.

I'm able to see all his old injuries and that is where I am, while not compromising on my techniques. His experience easily allowed him to block the attack with his broadsword. We both smile as we find someone who we can go all out with. I can tell I would definitely die in a real fight though, as right now he is only using his base strength.

Finally, it looks like I found an opponent, even if you're holding back! I would love to get your name, what is it?" Even though I could easily get his name from inspect, out of curtesy I didn't and ask instead.

"Hahaha, I go by Zashan, I haven't met a new recruit who could match my first strike in a long time. I can't wait to see what else you've got to show me," he says to me, with a wide grin on his face.

After a few testing blows, I figured it would be need to focus on agility not speed. So I switched Quick Steps to the ice element, as well as my scythe attacks. This has less power than lightning, but there is a corrosive effect to it.

"Energy Sever- Ice," I mumble to myself as I activate the skill, sending an arc of ice and scythe energy towards Zashan.

"Interesting, I've never met someone who can externalize weapon energy so young, let alone anyone who can channel elements in the first place!" He said this with a hint of praise in his voice to me.

"What can I say, I guess I'm a little special then," I said with unnoticeable meanings unless he knew my skills.

As he closes in we continue, I put myself on the defensive looking for openings. I know I can't do this for much longer, as I'm almost out of mana. I activate Severing Blade and push ice, lightning and scythe energy in to the max. This was a much more powerful attack than I expected.

Zashan feeling a slight sense of danger quickly utilized a defensive technique, bringing forward his sword to block the attack. Once he blocked the attack, to my surprise he only took a step back, despite my expectations of the power of my attack.

Hiding his shock at the power of the last attack, Zashan announced the end of the assessment. "Okay, I think that's good enough for the assessment. You most certaily passed, Based off of your results in the pass I'll be able to directly assign you as a C rank adventurer. I look forward to the waves you make in the Eazelyn continent." (A.N. Hurrah for name generators!!!)

*Due to user pushing the use of energy and elements far past their limit, said limit has been released. Lightning and Ice Affinities have leveled up twice, and Scythe Energy once.

Basic Lightning Affinity 4

Basic Ice Affinity 4

Basic Scythe Energy 2

As he said this I started getting over my dissapointment in my last attacks power, but was excited that I was abble to push my skills to new heights. Now that my manna is so low I feel a severe migrain pointing in my head. Although terrible I'm still able to stabilize my body and walk toward Zashan.

I start to walk up to Zashan at the end of the test, to thank him for the good match, and a bit curious I ask him a question. "I was a bit curious about something. Just who are you in the guild, I feel someone of your strength should be pretty high up right?"

An awkward expression shows on his face as he gives me an equally awkward laugh, "You got me, I'm actually the guild leader of this branch, Guild Leader Zashan. When I saw your application paper I thought I'd seen wrong, but after looking again I wanted to do your test."

I gave him an awkward smill while I said, "I didn't expect to get so much attention. It's a little embarassing."

"Don't worry I'll keep everything quiet so you don't get any more attention from starting as high as C. You're an official adventurer now though, your bouty should be ready in the next twenty minutes and I'll make sure to rush your ID to be ready at that time as well."

"Thank you for your consideration. I'm glad to be under your leadership." As I said this we left the arena, and I went to the bar to order food while I wait."