As the star took shape, Hitomu noticed slight differences between the first visitor and this one, while the star was expanding and taking form, he could see a tail and that it had a feminine silhouette, and when the star ended the process of turning into a person his suspicions were affirmed but along it came some questions because she indeed was a woman but had a reddish skin with patterns like black scales, a tail of the same color, and a pair of horns like the ones from a ram, outside the not so common traits she also had normal ones like her long dark hair and average facial features that put together made her look beautiful as a whole, and she was wearing casual male clothes.
As Hitomu analyzed the woman in instants, the woman noticed the mysterious entity sitting at the start of the long table close to her, before she could ask who it was or why she was here, the entity spoke in a language that was unknown to her but transmitted direct meaning:
"(Before we start, take a seat, no need to worry)"
As the woman was trying to discover anything hidden behind those warm words, a chair to the entity's right moved backwards to allow her to seat, and as to not offend the entity she sat down and the chair moved forward closer to the table. The entity continued to speak warmly to her:
"(First of all, greetings, you can call me Shadow, the why you are here, is because of fate, yes, fate, i choose a random person and the one who came was you, but the reason for me to 'bring' you here is to give a invitation, no need to worry, it won't bring harm to you, unless you purposely bring it upon yourself. I am inviting you to a gathering that will happen here in which you can exchange, sell or buy items, knowledge and make deals like commissions. What is your answer?)"
"I would like to participate in those gatherings, ma'am Shadow" She responded.
'Ma'am?' Hitomu through in surprise, then he asked out of curiosity:
"(You used the term ma'am, how do i look to you?)" Hitomu said.
The woman spoke: "Ma'am, to me you look normal just like me, but with a gray skin, the same long black hair, horns just like mine, the only big difference is the fact that you are wearing a black suit and have that black blob covers your face. If i may ask, you should have a different appearance?"
Hitomu thought 'it appears that my desire to appear friendly manifested as me having the appearance of something close or familiar to the perceiver, i bet even my voice is of somebody close to them, why change it now? Things might be more interesting this way, so let's play along' And Hitomu continued speaking without letting his amusement be shown:
"(It's nothing, it's just that each person might see me in a different form, but you can use the term you're more comfortable with , you are the second person to receive this invitation, the first one perceived me as a young human male, just something trivial.)"
"(And now returning to the gathering matters, there are three things to take note, first, do not spread information about this gathering or me without my permission, second, during the gathering you will have a mask just like mine to hide you identity, third, to further preserve your privacy, we will be using codenames/aliases, the first visitor's is Professor, and what will be yours?)"
"I would like 'Baroness', but when will these gatherings occur?" Baroness asked Shadow.
He said in response: "(A good alias, they will happen on Sundays at 15:00 at Tathem time. Do you have any question or you want to go back?)"
"Before you send me back, if it's not much for me to ask, can i know why you are hosting these gatherings, ma'am Shadow?" She said trying to appear as humble as possible.
Baroness could feel that Shadow was smiling behind the black blob as it said: "(Half of the reason is for entertainment and the other half is to learn about interesting things of the 'outside' world. Now that everything that needed to be done was done, i will send you back)" So Hitomu ended the connection with baroness retaining a small connection with her star, and went "outside" to sleep with anticipation for the new lessons and the new library level.
...
Friday, 08:25.
After taking his new ID card with the chief, as the chief instructed him, after marking his shift start, he went to the specialist room on the first basement with the plaque Arcana to receive some basic lessons from said specialist and inquire about related matters.
After knocking on the door lightly he heard a "Come in" he opened the door and entered. It was a spacious room with a blackboard, bookshelves, and shelves with tools with unknown uses, a classic office desk at the corner, 2 sofas facing each other with a coffee table in between them, with books and documents scattered around the room. There was a man with short reddish brown hair and a bulky build in a lab coat sitting behind the classic office desk, he said to Hitomu:
"I believe you are the newcomer Steve Holmes, i will be the one giving lessons to you about the subjects the chief mentioned, but before we start the lessons, let's talk about the choice, the big choice that will pave your future path, sit here, you might need to because it is rather surprising the first time you hear something like this" The man spoke and pointed to the chair in front of his desk that was facing him.
When Hitomu settled down on the chair, the man continued: "To give some context for your choice, i need to start with the introduction of the subjects mentioned by the chief, have you heard some strange legends about monsters, demons, ghosts and similar beings? the stories you heard as a child? Some rumors you hear from time to time? They are real, some exaggerated, some slightly altered, but still real, with sometimes them being the ramblings of the mad and insane or a lie told for a reason or another, the latter two being quite rare, in the Tathem empire such cases are often considered evil or heresy, so they are not known widely and often hidden from the public, but your new job will be directly connected with such supernatural cases, and your choice will make you dive head first in this world, do you still want to make this choice? If you refuse, you will still work on said cases, but with a superficial role"
"yes i want to know more, be capable of more" Hitomu knows that whatever brought him here must be something extraordinary, so one day he would need to delve into matters at least related to space or deal with some related entity, so he already had his response ready from the day he arrived here.
The man with reddish brown was somewhat satisfied: "That's good, we are in need of talents and manpower, so continuing the topic, you know that those monsters are extraordinary and powerful, at least more powerful than a average human, so how we deal with them? The answer is simple, we have to become as powerful as them, if not more powerful, and it's here that your choice is taken, you have three main paths to take on your journey through the supernatural world..."
After the small pause he spoke: "the first is the Arcany path, you will learn the art of magic and become a mage that will explore the mysteries of the universe and how to control it, the second, the path of the Blessed or the path of blessings, every one has a blessing from some origem, but only those with a high affinity with the blessing awaken them naturally, others have to do a ritual to strengthen their connection with their blessing origem, such as a god or other entity, becoming a paladin or a priest, and third the last one available, the path of mutants or monsters, to gain power they basically turn into monsters to fight other monsters, they accomplish this by drinking special elixirs that give them incredible power, each have their pros and cons but all of them you start weak then slowly grow in strength, the mutant path is the one that grows the fastest but also brings risks, but before you choose you need to know that you can choose more than one path and that is the recommended choice, but if you choose the blessed path the power you serve may reject the powers from the mutant path, making you lose one of them or even killing you, so is best that you choose a main path to focus and a auxiliar to help the primary one, the most popular combination being one of the latter two with the first as the auxiliar. What will be the path you take?"
Hitomu at first wanted to choose the Blessed path to ask a entity to return him home but he could not pay the price for such a wish, and this path mostly consist of following a path set by said entity which means less freedom, then his second choice was the Arcanum path that had a huge chance of bearing fruits based on the knowledge he would gain, but that was limited to who could teach him and he knew that to achieve more, he would need direct power to grab more opportunities, so his final choice would be the Mutant as primary and Arcany as the auxiliar:
"I choose the Mutant path as the primary and Arcanum as the secondary"
"Because of your scholar background i was thinking you would choose Arcany as the primary, but that is your choice, and is quite common in this line if work. So, as i said, those of the Mutant path drink elixirs to gain powers, to be more specific, they drink a elixir from a sub path which they will generally follow till the end of their journey, for example, some sub path may be able to control flames, another one might be good at magic tricks, while others would have seemingly random powers but them still being powerful, and we currently have three Mutant paths available, the Mechayne from the wisdom church, they are good with tools and machines with a averaging high intellect, the Sun path that we got from the Sun church, they are good at purification and healing, often becoming blessed of the sun god, and lastly the Shadow path, the have a above average intellect, are rarely seen in combat, they can control shadows and even make things out of shadows, and make good scouts, with multitasking abilities, but something to take note is that they don't turn into blessed of the god of the Shadow church for a unknown reason, in our department we have those three, i recommend to choose the one you find more affinity with"
After some thought Hitomu, he did not want to become bound by his blessing, and Mechaynes obviously are at best a support role, very dependent of their machines and tools, so he again was left with the last option, the one that aligned with his goals so he responded:
"I am certain that the Shadow path is perfect to me, so how will i be taking this elixir?"
The man was prepared and pulled a vial out of a drawer in his desk, and showed it to Hitomu, it was a type of gray water that was darker on it's center, he said to Hitomu: "Just drink it, the have basically no risk at this level", so Hitomu gave a approving nod and drinked it while still seated.
He drank it in one go, he was expecting a bitter or burning sensation, but what came was a warm sensation that felt like his body was welcoming this elixir, but with this feeling also came a sudden dizziness, so he closed his eyes to help with the world spinning and waited for it to pass.
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