After all of them handed in the registration’s paper, they finally entered the hall.

The first thing they saw was a big board. On the top was written „The top 10 students”, but it was empty. They turned to Zotmund.

„It’s still empty because the semester will start tomorrow. In every year’s end, the students with the most points will get some special rewards. In this contest, the students between the 6th and 10th classes can take place. The 1st to 5th classes have contests between the same year’s students. There’s just the first 3 who can get rewards. Those rewards not that precious, but your cultivation level still low, so it’s okay.”

„Hey, aren’t there almost 400 new students? I don’t think there are that many tasks…” Gregori said.

„You are right. There aren’t that many and don’t give too many points. Most of the students don’t like to teach beginners, so in the first year, it’s better to give up to get here any tasks. As compensation, mentors can give tasks to their students. The points you get will depend on your performance. Or if you are lucky and one of the teachers favors you, you can become their helper and get better benefits.”

„Didn’t the teachers already have older students to help?”

„Yes. They too prefer students with the knowledge, and some works need higher level cultivation to have lesser mistakes.”

„So what kind of tasks can you give to us?” Dárius asked.

„Me?” Zotmund started to think. „Some errands. Buying, or sending things here or there… Oh, I can give you tasks to learn, like martial arts’ skills, herbs’, beasts’ and pills’ name and appearance, and so on.”

„How will we get the points?”

„It depends on how much time you send on learning. The higher the martial arts skills’ level, the more points you can get. Ah, I remember, my first task was to learn to tell apart 20 types of herbs. Their appearance was too similar, even now I can’t say the difference. I lost a lot of points because of it.”

„Losing points?” Naómi frightened, she was never good with memorizing.

„Let’s see, when you get a task with a 2 weeks deadline, yet you fulfill it after 3 weeks, you’ll still get points, but much lesser than what was promised. But if you don’t do it after 4 weeks, you need to pay half of the points. So you can’t exceed the double of the deadline’s time.”

Belinda had a bad feeling about it and watched Bertold.

She imagined as he went into her room without knocking and threw a book to her. Then he left without a word.

  No! He can’t be that mean! At least he will tell me what’s my task… right?

„How long can you give out those tasks?” Belinda asked.

„The helping tasks only available in the 1st year. From the 2nd year, it will be easier to get some at the Mission Hall. The learning tasks I can give until your graduation, but the points my own, I need to earn it doing other jobs.”

„Your own? Then the points we can get will depend on you, or there’s a guide you follow?” Naómi asked. She hoped to get more points than the others.

„It completely depends on me.”

„Then it’s possible to lend to me some points to buy a pet, and later I will work hard to give it back?” her eyes shined.

„… let’s speak about it later.” he turned around. „Now let’s see the other things in the hall.”

They walked closer and read the boards on top of the windows. There were garden, stable, kitchen, library, collecting, hunting, and the last window was the students’ tasks.

„What’s this?” Dárius asked.

„You can give out a task, when you need something, but can’t find.”

„But these are tasks asking for help to kill beasts…” Gregori disagreed.

„… Some students only watching the big reward and disregard their own strength. They can ask for helpers, but most of the time, they offer too little and end up failing the task. After that, they can’t take on another one in the next 3 months. You can form a team to accept the hunting task. The points will be equally divided, but better safe than sorry.”

„So if I ask for a pet’s egg, I can get it for lesser points?” Naómi was excited.

„No. You need to pay more because you are asking them to find it.”

„So there’s a fixed price for things? What if the item I get damaged, can I pay less?” Gregori asked.

„Yes, the price here higher than in the market, so only come here when you really don’t have a better option. The officers can check the item’s state, and they count out how many you need to pay. When you give out the task you need to pay the full amount. You will get it back if the price is different at the end.”

After asking some more questions the others went to look around. They wanted to try their luck to find a good task. Even if they couldn’t, at least they had some knowledge related to the points.

Belinda stood next to the entrance and played with the butterfly. She only saw them in books. They died out after humanity left the Earth and only some pictures were left behind. If it followed her back to her room, she needed to do some research.

Not to mention if it’s a normal one or some kind of beast. She saw some at the stable, but maybe they just flew in. Even after seeing so much low-level beast she couldn’t see the difference.

She looked at Bertold but gave up the idea to ask him. He didn’t seem to be the type, who was interested in pets or any beasts.

  My room on the 2nd floor. I just leave the window open and it can go out to find food. Now I need to find out if the library has books related to bugs…

Belinda sighed. Her wish to stay in her room was completely destroyed.