“Why did you say you have to go check the bounties?” Asked Eldrian, turning back to the NPC, having almost left. He had completely forgotten about it since the guy had been so quick about it.

“Ah that, I guess you don’t know about it then. We have bounties for all monster kills.”

“Really, why?”

“From what I was told, it is to encourage adventurers to hunt down monsters. But the pay isn’t all that much.”

Seeing Eldrian’s confusion the guy decided to explain some more, “You see, you get a reward for every monster you kill and can prove. Either via the pledge, you just took, or by providing parts of the monster.”

“Why would anyone even take the parts choice?” Eldrian asked, feeling that it would be better to keep everything for oneself.

“That is normally due to religious reasons, but it is up to the person to decide when they want to claim bounty prizes.”

“Alright, how do the bounties work?”

“As I said, you get paid for killing monsters.”

“Yeah, but how does it work? How much do you get paid?”

“That isn’t easy to say. I can give you a basic example. Normal monsters, so say Evolved Beasts, would be paid out according to the Tier they were at. For Tier 1 you get one silver, Tier 2 – 2, Tier 3 – 4, and so forth.”

“Oh, so then how did my payment get calculated.”

“You had 7 Evolved Beast kills of Tier 1 right?”

“Yes?” Eldrian replied, questioning about the Tier part. He hadn’t been able to observe each beast so he just assumed they had all been Tier 1. ‘Should I add that next time?’ He asked himself, wondering if the system would add that to the info when relevant.

“Well, that came out as 7 silver, for the Direwolves you got 16. The Beta and Alpha are classified as variants, adding 5 and 20 silvers respectively.”

‘So this is more a thank you for helping get rid of monsters than an actual reward.’

“Then how do missions differ from this?”

“Missions are given out to take care of a danger, while the bounties are to prevent it to get to a danger. Thus normally missions reward much more, but only for participating. If you want to claim more than the stated reward, then you need to make a case.”

“But beware that your case has to show how you actually made a difference, not just that you did your job. Which the mission reward is for.”

‘I can maybe, nah. Sounds like a hassle to do that.’ The guy’s warning putting Eldrian off from asking for more. He didn’t feel like he really had a need to take the time for it.

“Well, thanks for everything then,” Eldrian said as he turned around and left the guild. Finding himself in a new part of the city Eldrian decided to explore a bit.

An hour later he decided to just go to the magic tower, not having found much during the hour of walking. Simply because most of the places were residences, making him believe that he was in the residential part of the city.

He had come across a different temple, standing tall and in an open area between all the other houses. Yet other than its size and decorations it didn’t differ too much from the one he came from. This one seemingly being dedicated to a god/goddess of wine. At least that was the feeling one got from looking at the art inside the temple.

Just under an hour of walking, Eldrian arrived at the magic tower. Having taken his time to enjoy the walk here, often taking a detour if he found himself interested in a bar, inn, or blacksmithing shop he had passed.

He had even found a brothel on his way, making his mind wander. Even when he had made sure to speed past it. His mind wandered since he thought it might be a nice way to experience his first time. But then he also felt that it would be really bad, causing him to have missed 5 minutes of the walk while arguing with himself.

In the end, he decided to wait since the brothel would always be there. He would first see how things go IRL.

‘Should I go ask Dave to try and cast a spell in the dungeon now, or tomorrow?’ Eldrian asked himself, stalling in front of the tower. Glancing at the time he saw that he had only around an hour left during which he could stay online.

‘I can probably do one. But then what about the class which starts in two hours?’ He asked himself, thinking about how he had to go to class, which started at 9.

[Time: IRL-07:08 ; IG-19:08]

‘Let’s just go!’ He told himself, heading into the tower and immediately up the stairs.

Tired, he arrived at the top. ‘Why the hell aren’t their magical elevators?’ He questioned, finding it weird seeing as he knew teleportation was a thing.

After resting he knocked on the single room door, waited a few seconds before knocking again. A short while later the door was opened, a stranger looking at Eldrian in vexation.

“Ah, sorry to disturb you. I am looking for Dave.” Eldrian said quickly, trying to inform the person why he was here.

“So you are that guy Dave has been talking about. He is in his room.” The guy replied, starting to close the door.

“Wait! Where is his room?”

“The floor right below this one.” The guy said, closing the door in front of a confused Eldrian.

“Which room?” He asked softly, thinking about how there are 12 rooms on each floor. ‘Guess I’ll just knock on each one. Hope there aren’t other people.’

Plan sorted Eldrian headed down to the top floor, considering the tower top to rather be the roof. Not a ‘floor’.

On this floor, he entered the circular communal area and started knocking on each door. Having started on his right. Only to find Dave at the seventh door he tried, the others having luckily given no reply.

“Haru, why are you here?” Dave asked in confusion.

“I want to try it again.”

“Really?” Dave’s eyes lit up hearing Eldrian’s reply.

“Yes.”

“Great, let’s go!” Dave said, leaving the room immediately.

“Wait, shouldn’t you change?” Eldrian asked, seeing Dave wanting to rush out in just baggy pants.

“We aren’t going outside right?”

“Yeah, but I still think you should at least wear a shirt.”

“Fine…” Dave said with a sigh, returning to his room. A few seconds later he came out again and headed down the stairs, just having glanced at Eldrian and waved at him to follow once.

Sighing Eldrian followed, still not happy with what Dave was wearing. He was clearly in a rush, having grabbed a waistcoat instead of a shirt. ‘How the hell did he even get a waistcoat easier than a shirt?’ Eldrian wondered, believing that it should be much scarcer inside Dave’s room.

Just as Eldrian caught up Dave asked him, “Did you memorize the other spell models I gave you?”

“I did, yes.”

“Good, I think other spells will cause a different effect on you. Also once you get the feeling I will be able to help you more actively, so you just need to hold out until then.”

Hearing this Eldrian flinched as he remembered the pain the fire spell had caused him to enter. Making him want to back out almost right there and then. Yet he told himself to push on, since he wanted to be able to help in the coming war. He also wanted to learn magic, not just cast it, yet this was more just something he used to comfort himself at this stage.

A flight of stairs later Eldrian asked, “What spells do you think would be best to use?”

“I think the nature spell would be your best bet. Next being ice or wind.”

“Why?” Eldrian asked, wondering why Dave was bringing this up only now, instead of before the first time he had tried using the magic crystal as a catalyst.

“After thinking a bit I realized that it might be easier on you if you use the magic you are more talented in. I especially think it about nature spells since they are generally not destructive, rather they normally heal or rejuvenate.”

‘Was the first time’s pain than for naught?’ Eldrian asked himself, hoping that he wouldn’t need to go through it again.

The rest of the way down was silent as Eldrian recalled how the model for the nature spell looked, needing a few minutes to recall it.

Arriving at the ground floor Eldrian was again instructed to stand inside one of the circles on the floor. Soon after finding himself in the dungeon again. Instead of looking around Eldrian simply wondered if that was considered teleportation

“I covered it, you can look now,” Dave said.

“Huh?” Eldrian let out in bewilderment, looking up he saw that there was an ice wall in the middle of the room. ‘Oh right, I lost consciousness when looking at that crystal.’

“You can cast the spell anytime now.”

“Wait, Dave did we just teleport. Last time I was too amazed by the arrays, then after not in the mood to talk. But what just happened, it was teleportation right?”

“Yeah it was, I thought you knew about it.”

“I do, or suspected. But I want to ask how it works, why can’t you just teleport an army to defend a place when needed?” Eldrian asked this because he was wondering why the Inglas kingdom didn’t just teleport troops to their border city and kill the invading monsters. Why did it seem like they had to travel on foot?

“Ah, I see where you got confused. What we just did was really short-range teleportation, the only type which a mage can support with their own mana. Even so, it takes far too much to be really useful.”

“How much does it use?”

“Teleporting you and me took half my mana, normally it would take just a quarter of mine if I come here alone.”

“Half?” Eldrian asked, stupefied.

“Yes, half.”

“How much mana is that?”

“Around 400 Mana Points”

Eldrian stood in stupefaction, trying to process just how expensive that spell was then. Before he could, Dave added on even more.

“It is only so little due to having used the array engraved on the ground floor as a boost. Else I doubt I would have been able to even bring myself here.”

‘Well, I guess blinking isn’t going to be a thing for mages.’ Eldrian thought when hearing the addition. The mana cost was simply staggering.

A good while later Eldrian finally managed to put it aside, still in shock by the cost.

“Then how is long-distance teleportation even a thing?” Eldrian asked, not even sure if he had ever heard about it. But he felt certain there would be such a feature.

“That is with the help of both Mana Crystals and Magic Crystals. But I won’t go into details as even I don’t have all the information.”

“Now let’s see if a nature spell works better,” Dave added.

“Alright,” Eldrian said, preparing himself while being curious about how even someone as high up as Dave couldn’t be informed on it.

He felt it was likely a state secret then, or that Dave just said that to not have to talk about it anymore.