After a few minutes inside the elevator, the group reached another lobby. This one was the ground lobby, it was like the one at the top of the facilities building, just, was at the ground level, as the name implied.

Mack left the elevator with the others and saw thousands of people, it was a sea of people, some coming some going, it looked like an airport from Earth, and just like those, there were all kinds of people inside, Mack even saw some golden skinned people that really stood out from the rest.

Struggling to move among the people, Mack made his way until he reached one of the several doors. There, he could see several stalls around the area, and a few higher buildings with two to four floors. It was if Mack was at some big city from Earth again, and behind those buildings, Mack saw a huge wall made of stones, the wall looked like a wall made for giants, as it was monumental bigger than the buildings inside, the only thing bigger was the facilities building where Mack came from, it was so high that Mack could not see the end of it when looking from below, it literally connected the skies to the earth.

Looking around again, Mack felt even more impressed, because he saw a sun on the horizon. ‘It must be an artificial sun, just like in the tower of chaos,’ Thought Mack, but he still could not stop to wonder how impressive the entire tower was.

The immense wall blocked almost everything, but Mack still could see some people flying in birds outside the walls. The rest of the people seemed to be using those Automag that stood a few inches from the ground only.

“Impressive! The wall! It’s so huge!” said Lina by Mack’s side.

“I never saw anything so big, and I came from a very advanced planet.” said the shy man, but once he looked behind him he said, “Nevermind, I think I saw now.”

Lina looked behind her too and saw the facilities building where they came from and could not avoid but being a bit heated “WOW! I’m dizzy from looking at it already!!”

But Mack’s gaze was focused on something else, something far away in the sight. It was a huge mountain that could barely be seen behind the fog of distance; the mountain was extremely far away, but even so, Mack could see its silhouette piercing the sky. Its top was white and small dots circled around it as if vultures stalking its prey. But Mack knew these were no vultures but something much much bigger…

‘I bet the wyvern eggs are there, one hundred percent,’ Thought Mack, already lamenting his bad luck. He hated cold, and he hated to climb mountains.

“Are you okey Oppa?” asked the girl, seeing Mack’s troubled face.

“I’m fine, and stop calling me ‘Oppa’ already. People will think weird things about us.” said Mack, lifting the corner of his lips while looking inside the girl’s eyes.

“I… I….I….” but the girl never finished her sentence, as she ran in front of them “…Sorry”

Mack shook his head and followed behind.

The stunned Lok also did the same. He was clueless to what was happening, but he knew something was off. Still, it was not his matter, so he chose to not meddle in and just followed by the side of Mack.

A few minutes later, the girl seemed to be fine again, and the trio walked together, looking at the stalls from time to time and seeing all the different things that were sold inside the tower. But none of them had the money to actually buy those things.

Mack still had a few essence stones, but that was for an emergency. He also didn’t know where to sleep or where to eat and how much that costed, so he chose to be prudent for the time being.

The stalls sold almost any kind of thing, from fruits, to essence bullets, but Mack noticed that the true good stuff was inside the stores that were like normal grocery stores from Earth. ‘They are more pricey too,’ Thought Mack, looking at the price tag on an Automag displayed on the store. ‘200 Essence Crystals / 2CP’, but with that he knew why almost everyone had those Automags, the price in essence crystals was high, but the price in contribution points was very low, two simple missions and they could buy one.

‘So… the ration here is 100 essence crystals to 1 Contribution Point, thats why people flock to the tower like they do, one mission alone can give you 100 essence crystals, that’s a lot of money.’

Mack finances were not that good, and he had barely 100ish essence crystals, but it was not like he really needed money to start. He had the Horus network to rely on, and the old man, too.

[Don’t think I’m your grandfather. I’m not giving you my money]

‘Tsc, you should help more your poor grand grand grand … nevermind’

[Not Happening]

Mack shook his head and took his black device that looked like a smartphone from Earth, he connected to Horus Network and saw the CP he had on there, it seemed that most organizations used this kind of ‘reward system’ instead of using Essence Crystals, ‘Thats probably because essence crystals are not that common, they must have done this to avoid mining all planets they know just to supply the folks with a currency’

[That’s indeed the case. Most organizations and planets have their own monetary system, and each one has its own conversion to essence crystals.]

Mack looked at CP showing in the Horus Network Interface and saw it was 998 CP, ‘One to each person I killed during the trial, not all killed by me, but it seems that they still gave the points to me.’

Seeing the number, Mack wondered how that converted to Essence Crystals and pressed a few buttons until he saw the option to exchange the points for crystals. ‘Damm! I’m rich! 1CP is equal to 100 EC too.. I have 99.800 Essence Crystals’