Nothing is Impossible

Atlas glanced at the three men chuckling darkly wondering what exactly they were doing here. He didn't know what they wanted, but he was sure it wasn't going to be fun for him. The two thugs were almost identical, and it seemed like they were twins or brothers at the very least judging by their facial features. They both looked to be in their late 20s just a little bit older than Atlas himself. The third man was different. Not only was he lower levelled than the two other men it seemed like he was quite a bit younger too, looking to be late teens to early twenties, at best looking the same age as Atlas.

Atlas folded his arms, trying to make himself seem more imposing and confident. "Look here." He said to the still grinning men. "I have no money, so why don't you just leave me alone and just find some other person to attack?" After he said it he realized that sending these people to rob someone else wasn't very smart, he would need to report them to the local police force. Whatever that force looked like in this world.

The men snickered, pulling out long knives from their belts with a rasp of leather that sent dread down Atlas's spine. "You're the one that needs to look here." The highest level man said, pointing his knife at Atlas menacingly. "We aren't here to steal from you, but that would have been a nice bonus. No, we hate you summoned lot, you think you're all so special, and you carry yourselves like royalty. Well bub, I hate to break it to you, but you're not as influential as you think you are. Tons of summoned appear every day, and it's more than likely that most of them are stronger than you." He looked over Atlas's head and frowned a bit. "Although, I guess that's not completely true, you're probably in the top 10% of summoned, if not a little higher. He paused for a second before shrugging. "More experience for us then."

The men lunged forward suddenly and the youngest man threw a small dart at Atlas hitting him in the shoulder before he could react.

Icy cold started to creep through his body, and his magic channels started to freeze up, causing him immense pain and significantly slowing the movement of his mana. He attempted to cast Elemental Union, but all it did was cause him more pain and churn up his mana pitifully. He narrowed his eyes, summoning his scythe and swinging forward, holding the weapon by the bottom of the shaft to cover the most amount of area.

The thugs were experienced however, and they ducked under the blow, getting up close to him to prevent him from swinging his weapon another time. They were very much surprised when Atlas's armored leg swept out their legs from under them and stared at them with burning red eyes that were in the black void that was his helmet's visor. He summoned his scythe and reached down, lifting the men above his head and planting his boot on the third man, restraining them all.

He spoke softly to them, his helmet muffling his voice and making him sound like an angel of death. "Will you yield now?" There was silence for a brief moment, the only sound being the beating of Atlas's own heart and the heavy breathing of the men.

The youngest man, who had Atla's boot planted squarely on his chest, spoke first. "We will never yield to such an obviously evil man!" The other men nodded their heads vehemently and spat on his face, failing to penetrate his black helmet. As one the men all vanished from his hands and appeared behind him in an explosion of smoke, and they all stabbed at him, aiming for the weak points in his armor.

Atlas ducked, rushing at them, but found himself landing face first on the pavement as a vine shot out of the ground and lashed itself around his leg. Atlas growled angrily, kicking away the plant and standing up. The youngest man's hands were glowing a light green, obviously the one who had created the vine. Atlas jumped upwards, summoning his scythe in the air and throwing it blade first at the wannabe mage.

Atlas's landing at the same time as the man's head.

One foe dealt with Atlas turned around-

And was sent flying backwards as the highest level thug hit him straight in the face with a glowing red fist, utterly destroying his helmet.

Atlas hit the wall and slid down it, nose broken and freely bleeding until it was healed up with a chunk of his life force.

He wiped away the blood and stood on shaky feet, taking a step towards the man who had just sent him flying.

He realized that the man didn't even notice him, focused on his now dead friend. "Jonas…" he wept brokenly, grief and loss evident on his face.

Atlas blinked in surprise. He had just killed a man. He took a second to let that way in, but he didn't feel scared, he didn't feel grief, nor a sense of evil, he just felt like he had killed another monster.

He looked down at his hands. Shouldn't I feel something? He thought to himself, wondering if he had been lied to through media and books and killing a person didn't actually make someone disgusted with themselves. But no matter how much he thought, it just felt like he had killed another of the many creatures that he had killed. If anything, killing the first boar had been more traumatizing. Am I broken? He wondered, looking back up at the two men and the corpse.

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They stayed the same, unable to get over the sudden loss of their close friend. Atlas clutched his head. What is wrong with me! Of course they can't get over it, they probably know him very well! And for him to just die… Atlas shook his head. No matter how much he tried, no emotions stirred, except for annoyance. He knew logically that it was wrong to kill another human being, but his emotions didn't care.

He glanced up again, and now the men were glaring at him with an undeniable bloodthirst. They're friend was dead, and they wanted revenge, clear as day. Atlas resummoned his scythe standing up straight and pointing it at them. "Back off, or you'll end up like your friend." Inwardly Atlas smacked himself, that was probably not the greatest thing to say to them with their friend lying just a couple feet away without a head attached.

The men paused, clearly wondering if they should really go on or not before glaring at him and picking up their friend's limp body and vanishing into thin air. Atlas exhaled, honestly, he didn't know if he could have taken them on or not, with his mana it would have been easy, but without it… it was an entirely different ball game.

"I need more physical skills…" he muttered to himself. He used to have quite a bit of physical skills, but almost all of them had been combined into Avatar of Slow Profitable Death, which meant they were all now mostly passive and slightly harder to use, which meant Atlas would forget about them. If only he had a skill that would let me remember to use all my skills, then I would be set for life. He thought dryly to himself.

He checked his notifications, surprised to find he actually gained something from that battle.

You have gained the skill: Intimidation (A)

***

Atlas finally reached the Adventurer Guild, standing in front of a massive building at least 10 stories tall and packed to the brim with people of all sorts. He even saw a few other races, such as elves and dwarves inside.

Stepping inside he glanced around. The first floor looked to be a sort of tavern, with tables and chairs scattered all over with advertisements everywhere. They were drinking, eating, laughing, planning, and all sorts of other random things. It looked like a place for adventurers to hang out and chat.

Atlas walked over and slumped down on the stool in front of the bar waving at the bartender and propping his elbows on the table. After serving two shots of a purple liquid to a man, he walked over, looking Atlas over and smirking softly. "Ne'er seen 'ou round 'ere, what'cha need?" He said in a heavily accented voice.

The bartender was a burly man who looked to be almost 7 feet, with a thick mustache and an even thicker beard that hung down to the middle of his brawny chest. He wore no shirt but had a leather vest on, showing off his extremely hairy armpits and his brown chest hair. Atlas scanned him and was surprised at what he saw.

Barbarian

Tier: 9 Level: 683

"How can I join the guild? Is there something I need to do or can I just join?" Atlas didn't know if he would have to do some paperwork or if he could just join. He hoped it wouldn't cost him money because he was flat broke.

The bartender (or barbarian?) shook his head and folded his arms. "You ain't gettin in for free, that's for sure. 'Fore I go on, what tier are ya?" He asked Atlas with a tilt of his head.

Atlas blinked. "Can't you just scan me?" He was confused as to why the man didn't just affirm it for himself.

The man smirked a little. "You think I was summoned? Only summoned get full benefits of the system, so the rest of us make do without all the more fancy stuff. It don't matter too much anyways, as there are skills to substitute some of the more abnormal parts of the system that not everyone gets. But as a simple warrior, I haven't the need for such skills." The large man looked at him again. "So back to the original question, what's your tier?"

Atlas nodded in gratitude, now understanding. "I am tier 3." He said, deciding just saying what the man wanted would get him into the guild fastest.

The big man reached under the table and pulled out reading glasses and a piece of paper. Putting on the glasses, which looked ridiculous on his imposing form, he traced his finger on the paper, stopping about halfway down the page. "Here we are, hunt 5 tier 3 fire elementals within the same amount of hours." He looked at Atlas over the glasses. "You up for that?" He asked him, giving him another once over and frowning slightly. "It might be a little too much for a newly summoned, so you might want to train out back for a little first. We even have an enchantment that makes you gain skill exp 1.2 times as fast!" He said, clearly not believing in Atlas.

Atlas waved him off."I'll be fine, I have a couple trump cards if it gets really bad." The man looked hesitant but sighing, and decided to believe in him.

He pulled out a stopwatch and started it. "There, you have 5 hours to bring me five tier 3 fire crystals. Their spawning ground is just past the summoning platform. Maybe 10 or so miles?" He then set the stopwatch on the counter behind him and went over to help some other customers.

Atlas felt a little lost, but then finding his purpose, he strode confidently out of the room, stepping outside and covering his eyes at the suddenly bright sunlight that blared violently at him, he started to teleport back the way he had come. Once he reached the entrance once more, he got a notification.

You have leveled up your skill Misty Step (SS) to level 4!

With that nice little upgrade, Atlas donned his armor- minus the helmet, and ran full tilt at the summoning platform, reaching and passing it in mere seconds, only growing faster with each step.