2026-04-24 15:19:14Sky Court City was a sight to behold.
Although it wasn't as beautiful as the large floating island above them, it still had its pros.
The air was fresh and the road was clean.
“This world is very flashy.” Flint said to himself.
After a few moments of admiration, he went back to business.
“Excuse me Sir, I'm looking for a job, one where I can make quick money.” Flint asked an elderly man, selling some street snacks at the side of the road.
“Eh? Oh yer! Quick bucks right? See that big buck building over there? That's the Iron Golem Mercenary. It's the highest ranking guild in the city. I'm very sure a young man like you could find exactly what you need.” The elderly man directed him.
Flint gave him a small bow, “Thank you Sir.” He said, moving towards the direction of the building.
It was truly a large building up close.
Flint pushed open the door and moved in.
A thick wave of beer, ale, and a musky scent filled the room.
There was a noise of laughter and music blasted heavily.
On the outside, the Iron Golem Mercenary looked like something pristine but inside, it was a very crazy show.
Flint wasn't bothered. In his last life, he had seen even worse.
He walked forward, passing the tables that men celebrated by downing flagons of beer.
Stopping at the front of what looked like a register, Flint rang the bell in the middle.
The woman there turned to face him, a large scar was passing from her eyes to her nose.
She looked at Flint and gave him a snort. This guy had no weapons and looked very pale and skinny.
“The day care center isn't in this building, kid. What's a skinny person doing in a place like this.” The woman scoffed.
Flint ignored her remarks, “I'd like to get a job. Is there any one of high tier.”
Seeing that she was ignored, the woman pointed to a large board, where some papers were attached.
“Over there, you can pick any bounty you are interested in.” The woman said, turning back to resume her duty.
Flint nodded and walked to the board.
He browsed through the available bounty, nothing was to his likeness.
There were all things he could clear quickly.
“Fight away a hoard of Beast wolves.”
“Destroy a gathering of Tiger boars.”
Flint shook his head, this wasn't what he wanted.
Then his eyes landed on a bounty.
“Escort a Merchant's Daughter to fight through a dungeon.”
Flint tore it off the board, “This looks harder, and it looks like I might get enough resources.” He smiled.
With the limited time he had, he was looking for a lot of high bucks and quick earn
He brought the paper to the woman.
“I'd like this.” He said.
The woman took the paper from his hand, and adjusted her monocles.
“This is a S-Rank Bounty.”
“I know,” Flint nodded, “I'd like to go for the prize. I should be done with it quickly, would there be another S-Rank Bounty available.”
The entire guild went silent for a second, then it erupted into the heavy laughter of grown men.
“S-Rank? With those skinny arms? Would you be able to swing a weapon, Kid?”
“Can you imagine? His arms look like toothpicks.” Someone burst out laughing.
“You don't even know what you are dealing with. Bolos has been saving that S-Rank mission for himself.”
A massive man, at least seven feet tall, stood up from a nearby table.
A large mug of ale was in his hand as he walked forward.
“That's my bounty kid, I was saving it for the right time.” Bolos snarled.
“I picked it first. So I don't think there's anything I can do, since I'm very interested in it.” Flint said with a small smile, before turning to face the woman.
“Please can I get this ready? I'd like to set out soon.” Flint said to the woman.
Seeing that he was ignored, Bolos gritted his teeth and tipped the large mug in his hand.
This man was far larger than Flint and this mug was the exact size of Flint's head.
The thick pungent liquid was splashed on Flint, soaking his boot.
“The lady told you to scream,” Bolos’ voice sounded like stones gritting over each other, then he let out a deep chuckle, “Go back to your mama and ask her to wash those boots for you. You don't belong here.”
Flint looked down at his ruined boots, “You shouldn't have done that.” He said with a dark gaze.
His killing intent instantly shot up. This was something he had sharpened over a hundred lives.
Bolos felt like his head had instantly been severed.
Then realising he was afraid of a mere beginner, he was furious.
The man suddenly released his man, the air instantly turned thick and heavy.
A dark red mist floated into the air, seeping from Bolos’ body.
This aura was directed at Flint.
Unknown to Bolos, Flint was a mage with an infinite level of mana, there was nothing that would affect him.
[Skill Acquired: Blood Pressure Aura.]
“Kneel and kiss my boots and maybe I'd let you go without a scratch.” Bolos commanded with a narrowed gaze.
The onlookers were watching with laughter on their face
This youngster had already gotten on Bolos' bad side.
However in an instant, the scene in front of them instantly switched.
Flint stepped forward, and a terrifying aura spread through the room.
It didn't just focus on Bolos, it focused on those who were at a closer distance.
Dozens of fighters and mercenaries were slammed face first into the ground, the aura suffocating them fully.
“My turn. Kneel.” Flint ordered and before Bolos could think, his full body was pressed down.
He didn't even kneel.
His entire body was face down on the ground
There was no strength left in him to even turn, with the sense of suffocation, rising in his chest.
Flint frowned, placing his foot on Bolos' head.
“This is only a warning. You are no longer in charge here but I am.” He said.
Walking over Bolos' body, Flint stood in front of the register, and snatched the S-Rank paper.
“I'm sure you are done.” He said to the woman.
“Y–Yes, I'm done. You can have it now. The locations and the S-Rank would be attached to your mercenary profile on your communicator.” She quickly said, adjusting her monocles.
Flint nodded, and then he walked through the exit of the building..
As soon as he left, the pressure instantly vanished and the face-down mercenaries finally took in a deep breath, standing up to their feet.
“Who was that?”
“I have never heard of someone like him.”
Flint stood outside the mercenary guild, taking a look at his communicator.
He had about thirty minutes to arrive at the place of departure.
“Too bad, I didn't take in a travelling spell, that would be really needed right now.”
He checked his pocket. He had some silver loins in his pocket.
“Would this be enough for transport?”
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
FULLY SELF SUSTAINING.
Jolene returned for good on the hundred and seventy-first day.Not for five days this time, not for a report and a departure. She arrived at the upper platform with her full pack, the specific quality of someone who had made a decision rather than a visit, and Flint met her there before she had fully crossed the stone."The maritime network is stable." She said, without preamble, the way she delivered everything. "Fully reconstructed. Twelve governance councils running their own audits with my framework, and now training their own people to extend it rather than needing me to run it for them." She set her pack down. "I am not needed there anymore. Not in the daily sense.""So you came back." Flint said."I came back because the thing that needs documenting now is here." She said. "The network with no boundary. The Collective's observation post. What the module is becoming as it spreads.
FIRST TIME IN WEEKS
The fifth external settlement's practitioners arrived that afternoon, and Flint spent most of it in the practitioner hall alongside Dylan, watching the framework do what it had now done four times before — meet people where their training had left a gap and let the gap fill itself in with a question rather than an answer.It was routine now, in the way that significant things became routine when they were repeated enough times to lose their edge of novelty without losing their weight.He was tired in a way that had nothing to do with the day's work.He recognized it that evening, sitting alone at the eastern window after the fifth settlement's group had settled into the guest quarters and Dylan had gone to review the day's session notes and Terra had gone to read the substrate one more time before dark.It was not fatigue in the channel. The channel ran clean, the same as it had f
MISSING SOMEONE AND FUNCTIONING
Dylan found him there an hour later, still at the window, and read the quality of his stillness the way he read most things now — precisely, without needing it explained in full."Caravan." He said."Yes." Flint said.He told him. All of it. The other final regressions. The entity's long attendance. The specific quality of this one — the one that would hold.Dylan was quiet for a long time after."Every other final regression the practitioner has ever faced." He said slowly. "They went home, and it went back to needing to start over.""That is what Caravan understood, yes." Flint said.Dylan looked at the field through the window."That means all of this—" He gestured, not just at the field but at everything beyond it, the vein, the module, the network with no boundary but time. "This has never happened before. In any of the ninety-nine, or however many other worlds the entity has watched across however long it has existed.""I don't think so." Flint said. "Not the way it's happened h
THE GEOLOGICAL NETWORK
Caravan's next communication came on the hundred and sixty-third day, and it was longer than any he had sent since leaving.Flint listened to it standing at the eastern window with the morning connection already run and the field quiet below him, the thing at the far edge unmoving in the specific stillness it held most mornings now, less a presence requiring attention than a fixture of the landscape the way a mountain was a fixture."I have been at the Ascent for two months." Caravan said. His voice carried something different than it had in the six-sentence and two-sentence transmissions before. Fuller. The specific quality of someone who had been changed by what he encountered and had needed the time to find words for it. "I told you the Ascent is the entity. I did not tell you the rest because I did not understand the rest until three weeks ago."Flint waited."The entity has been attending final regressions for longer than I can express to you in a duration you would recognize as
ONLY BAD WORK FEARS BEING WATCHED.
The Collective's review took nine days.Reyes and her two colleagues spent the first three with Terra, going through five months of substrate documentation with the specific thoroughness of people whose professional reputation depended on getting the assessment right. Terra answered every question without defensiveness, showing her raw data alongside her interpretations, making clear which was which.The next three days were spent with the twelve, individually and in small groups, and then with representatives from the southwest settlements who happened to still be at the academy finishing their framework adoption.The final three days Reyes spent, unannounced, simply present. Sitting at the field's edge for hours at a time. Attending a session six run for the fourth external settlement's arriving practitioners. Standing in the practitioner hall listening to Dylan teach.On the ninth ev
THE COLLECTIVE'S ACQUISITION
The Collective's formal inquiry arrived on the hundred and fifty-first day.Not a communication. A delegation. Three senior representatives from the Collective's independent oversight channel — the same body that had been documenting the governance review, the maritime network reconstruction, the army recovery — arrived at the academy's ground gate with the specific formality of an institution that had decided a conversation needed to happen in person rather than through relay.Dylan met them first, because Dylan had become, without anyone officially assigning it, the person the academy's various threads ran through.He brought them to the practitioner hall, where Flint was reviewing the fourth settlement's framework request with two of the twelve.The lead representative was a woman perhaps sixty years old, grey at the temples, the specific composure of someone who had spent decades adju
You may also like
Ethereal Adventure System
Dark Crafter43.2K viewsSystem for you Darling!
CrazeNovel22.8K viewsThe Successor System
Khay Phynom 63.8K viewsSystem Activation: Becoming a Super Rich
Enigma Stone78.4K viewsThe Origin Warden
Alpha285 viewsReborn into a Cursed Fate: The Sealed God’s Return
Emymo99 views$100 Million Before Doomsday: My Doomsday Shelter System
Elma writes66 viewsBloody Harem System
Quilled364 views