Chapter 20: Choosing Missions
After scanning Ain’s identity, the device displayed all the missions he was eligible for.
After a quick glance, he noted the different categories and sub-categories. The missions would first be classified by the spirit tamer’s rank. The device in Ain’s hands only displayed rank-1 missions. These were missions suitable for Rank-1 Spirit Tamers.
As his rank increased, he would be able to accept higher-ranked missions.
Going further, the missions were then categorized by their difficulty. It went from easy, medium, hard, and then extreme.
He opened the easy missions first and looked through a few of them.
…
[Mission: Gather Threadleaf Grass]
[Description: Gather Threadleaf Grass outside the city. Permanent mission by the Spirit Tamer Association.]
[Reward: 30 star coins per stalk]
…
[Mission: Gather Misty Herbs]
[Description: Gather Misty Herbs outside the city. Permanent missions by the Spirit Tamer Association.]
[Reward: 100 star coins per stalk]
…
[Mission: Search for the Two Flower Fawn]
[Description: Search the periphery of the Duskfield Forest for a recently sighted Two Flower Fawn and report its area of activity.]
[Reward: 6,000 star coins]
…
After reading through the descriptions, Ain was able to understand why these missions were considered easy.
There were no missions that required combat, and the range of activity was limited as well. Most of these missions could be completed in a few hours at most.
These missions were also targeting new spirit tamers and individuals without a team.
The rewards were eye-catching to Ain, whose total savings were less than 2000 star coins at this moment. But he still moved on to investigate the higher difficulties. Their rewards could only be greater.
Medium difficulty required more combat, but the missions were still focused on gathering resources, scouting, or hunting some weak spirit beasts.
The resources might be closer to habitats of some spirit beasts or even guarded by spirit beasts. Similarly, the scouting missions were further away from the city, increasing the risk of encountering danger.
The hunting missions offered higher rewards on average. The so-called “weak spirit beasts” were only relatively weak. Most of them were Beginner Rank-1 Spirit Beasts. They were often targeted for materials such as fangs, claws, leather, fur, and meat.
Rank-1 Spirit Beasts were rarely domesticated. Only Rank-0 Spirit Beasts like Green Pigs and Daylight Rabbits, which had no hope of evolving to Noble quality, were raised as livestock in the city.
Therefore, all the Rank-1 or above meat on the market was obtained through hunting outside. In this regard, the Spirit Tamer Association was just one of the suppliers in the city.
Many private organizations specialized in hunting to provide spirit beast materials and meat.
After reading through some of the medium difficulty missions, Ain arrived at the next difficulty, which was hard.
These missions primarily consisted of hunting missions, targeting Intermediate Rank-1 Spirit Beasts and above.
Although there were still gathering, scouting, and other miscellaneous missions available, they were fraught with danger. Combat was almost inevitable.
Many missions recommended teams and parties for their completion.
As he read through, a mission suddenly caught his eye.
…
[Mission: Search for Dark Iron Bamboo]
[Description: Head into the Duskfield Forest to search for the Dark Iron Bamboo and bring back as many stalks as you can.]
[Reward: 15,000 star coins per stalk]
…
Dark Iron Bamboo was a rare Rank-1 metal resource. This mission’s difficulty lay in searching for the Dark Iron Bamboo due to its rarity.
Some of the hunting missions offered a higher reward due to the various materials that could be harvested from them, but from what Ain had learned in Spirit Ecology, Dark Iron Bamboo was often found in groups.
If one was lucky enough to stumble upon a bunch of Dark Iron Bamboo, the reward would definitely exceed other hard missions.
Ain only stopped for a moment before moving on. He was curious about what the extreme missions would entail if the hard missions were already so difficult.
He briefly looked through the extreme missions before turning back.
The missions were mostly hunting missions, and the targets were either exceptionally strong or in large groups. Every mission was recommended to be attempted in a team.
There were even culling missions to reduce populations of certain spirit beasts around the city.
Some missions required venturing deep into the Duskfield forest, which was currently beyond Ain’s abilities.
Although the rewards were equally tantalizing, Ain didn’t spare them a second glance. The rewards could only be enjoyed if he was alive, and that wouldn’t be the case if he were to accept these missions.
Time passed as he browsed through the missions before he finally settled on two:
…
[Mission: Gather Misty Herbs]
[Description: Gather Misty Herbs outside the city. Permanent missions by the Spirit Tamer Association.]
[Reward: 100 star coins per stalk]
…
[Mission: Hunt Horned Wind Rabbits]
[Description: Hunt and bring back Horned Wind Rabbits. Permanent missions by the Spirit Tamer Association.]
[Rewards: 6,000 star coins per body]
…
Their difficulties were easy and medium, respectively.
Ain took into consideration that this was his first trip. These missions could be completed within a few hours. Moreover, these missions didn’t specify the number of targets.
This gave Ain the freedom to choose how many stalks of Misty Herbs he wanted to gather and how many Horned Wind Rabbits he wanted to hunt.
After deciding, Ain glanced at the service desks before turning to leave the missions hall.
Both missions were permanent missions; Ain didn’t need to register the mission. He could just bring in the loot and redeem it for the appropriate reward. He didn’t even need to turn in the mission here.
There were branches of the Spirit Tamer Association near the city entrances. Spirit tamers could accept and submit their missions at those locations as well.
After leaving the Spirit Tamer Association, Ain didn’t head home immediately. He still needed to purchase some gear and supplies for this trip.
Therefore, he decided to stop by a shopping center nearby. Because Ain didn’t bring anything to school, he arrived there empty-handed. But on the way back, Ain was supporting a large backpack, and multiple smaller bags were tied around his waist.
Ain stared at his balance, which had decreased by 500 star coins, and renewed his determination.
Along with some survival gear and supplies, Ain also decided to invest in a dagger. Although it was just a normal weapon, it would be useful at appropriate times.
…
It was already evening by the time Ain returned home.
Ain had the foresight to leave out extra food for the cat this time.
He quickly prepared some food for himself as well before hurrying towards the park. He still planned to continue with his daily training.
Ain summoned Nox and assigned it to use Phantom Claws to slash at the air while he himself started his body tempering training.
At some point, the cat arrived nearby and quietly stared at the two of them.
“Wooo…” Noticing its arrival, Nox glanced at it a couple of times before focusing on its training.
It could sense its spirit tamer’s determination, so it suppressed the urge to play with the cat and continued training.
Ain glanced at Nox and the cat briefly and continued with his training as well.
After only a few days, Ain could already endure fifteen minutes in the Prowling Tiger stance. He sensed an obvious improvement in his physique.
‘It won't be long before I can last the entire thirty minutes. I’ll have to search for a better technique soon,’ Ain thought.
This wasn’t the case for the body tempering technique alone. His meditation technique was still the Basic Meditation Technique he received on the first day of the spirit academy.
It had been two weeks since then, and Ain had seen some students training with other techniques.
Although the Basic Meditation Technique didn’t possess any shortcomings in terms of foundation, it similarly lacked any advantages as well. It could get the job done at most.
Ain’s innate talent, Wisdom Root, was not aligned with any specific attribute, thus he had more freedom in choosing his techniques compared to some students who did have certain alignments.
But this had also become a source of contemplation for Ain. Should he continue with non-attribute techniques? Since Nox was a ghost-attribute spirit pet, should he focus more on the ghost attribute? What about his future pets?
Therefore, Ain was still undecided at this point. However, this needed to be resolved soon.
As the night approached, Ain continued his training while incorporating Spirit Impact into the martial arts. This way, he could hit two birds with one stone.
It was also more conducive to actual combat since Spirit Impact had to be used with physical strikes.
After completing his training routine, Ain returned home.
With a quick shower and some meditation, he decided to end the day a little early.
It would take him nearly two hours to reach the edge of the city. It would be beneficial to start the day early tomorrow.
Read extra chapters!
Support me on Patreon and read up to 15 chapters ahead! There are Illustrations available, and a side story will be available soon as well!
patreon.com/ForsakenHaven
