NOVEL NEXT Chapter 213 – Choices
After chatting with Commander Forlani for a little while longer, Damion moved on to the next booth. There were no longer any booths that held his interest, but he did not want to just head out. At this point, since he had stopped by every other booth, if he left, the remaining guilds and Orders would likely take it as him dismissing them out of hand and not that he was simply tired of listening to the same spiel over and over.
When Damion finally finished visiting every booth, he quickly left the hall and headed to his dormitory. There he found Elicia and Phil waiting for his return. Elicia was eager to hear if he had made up his mind, while Phil simply wanted to know if Damion had brought any food back with him.
"Have you made your decision?" Elicia probed as she made Damion a sandwich.
"No. But I have a better idea of how the world looks outside of the few places I've been."
"The few places you've been?" Elicia laughed.
"What? I grew up in Saung, and aside from traveling to Bufort a few times and missions in the Benault Forest and now here to Argentum and the academy, I really haven't been to many places."
"Most people live their whole lives in the city or town where they are born. Mages get to go to an academy, but the majority return to their hometowns after school. They join local guilds and Order branches."
"Really? After school they don't go in search of an adventure?"
"Not when they can make better money more safely clearing dungeons in their hometown. You've been in the wilds, sure, it was only the border area of a Green and Yellow Zone, but you know how dangerous it can be."
"True," Damion agreed. His first few missions had been more dangerous than most because of bandits and a local guild that got greedy. "What about you? What did you want to do before you graduated?"
Elicia looked at Damion with a sad look in her eyes. When she was younger, first entering school, she wanted to be a mage and win glory for her house. As she grew and learned more about magic, especially when she discovered her own magic talent was only average, she started believing that dream was not going to happen. Then in school, Thomas began to tease her because of her mediocre talent, and her confidence fell even further.
About the time she graduated her hopes of maybe finding honorable work in a guild or Order fell through when the family elders and her grandfather approached her about being an attendant for a new prodigy that was just discovered. After being strong-armed into the job of Damion's attendant, she felt she had hit rock bottom.
Thankfully, Damion was not like most young men. He actually made an effort to get to know her and even sympathized with her on the position she was put in. Now, here she was, more confident and feeling she could actually do anything she wanted. Not just because Damion was nice to her, but also because Dean Teft had encouraged her and shown that even someone with C Rank magic talent can still rise to S Rank.
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"I wanted to be an S Rank mage and lead my family to new heights. But I guess my dream has changed a bit. Now, I'm going to be an S Rank mage and prove my family wrong."
"You didn't want to do anything other than become an S Rank mage? What about joining a guild or an Order? Or forming a guild of your own?"
"How I reached S Rank was never important. As a kid I simply always believed I would. Now, I know I can, so I will just keep working hard and climb to the top."
Damion understood her desire to reach the peak. Though, he felt it would probably be easier if she had a plan of how she was going to do that. Hard work and determination were key for sure. But what about opportunities? What about finances?
Working as an adventurer was hardly a well-paying job. Taking whatever missions the Association had. Joining a guild was better, more opportunities and a community to help you grow, but they could also become a hinderance if you outgrew them. Orders offered unlimited potential, but depending on your position and the Order, you could be facing constant life-threatening situations or be worked so hard in a desk job you never had time to train.
There had to be a balance. He needed opportunities, but also time to train. If he was too busy when the chance of a lifetime came by he would regret it, just as he would regret it if he was too weak to pursue the opportunity.
The Crimson Order would offer Damion opportunities to grow and unless a dire situation arose, he would never be assigned somewhere beyond his capabilities. The Order had the mandate to keep the number of Ferocious and Demonic Beasts down in the Yellow Zones and Red Zones, but that did not mean they simply threw their people away. With them, Damion could be assured of challenges, and since he could join for a set amount of time, if he did not like the life or felt he could grow better by doing something else, then he could just not reenlist.
However, the Explorer Guild offered something Damion truly desired. Their mission was the same as his dream, to see the whole of Nerotath. The guild had a lot of work to do if they ever wanted their goal to be reached, but Damion suspected they knew that. Their main problems were manpower and funding.
The idea of him just flying through the sky mapping out new regions greatly appealed to Damion. He could do what he wanted, go where he wanted. The issue of course was how to finance his dream. With the freedom, he had no doubt he would be able to maintain his training and continue to grow without an organization, but the problem was, how was he to pay for equipment upgrades, food, even new spells. The Magic System could help him in some regards, but the credits he earned were not unlimited.
Since Damion had already visited every booth for the career day and he did not have any other classes for the day, he, Elicia and Phil, spent the rest of the day outside practicing their magic. If they wanted to reach the peak, then it was important that they put in the effort and Damion really wanted to increase his spells in Rank so he could complete more missions.
Throughout the afternoon and into the evening Damion practiced. Elicia and Phil had to rest a few times to recover, but as usual, Damion pressed on with his training until the sun began to go down.
Unfortunately, Damion did not receive any notifications from the Magic System that his spells had Ranked up, but he expected that. It was not easy to increase spell Rank outside of combat and as more of his spells reached C Rank, he was finding it was not easy to push them higher. Of course, Damion had an answer to that problem, more training and hard work.