The First Legendary Beast Master

"Well, Jin here promised that he would show us around the Clan Compound today, so we will let you get back to work." Karl informed Min, who was already back to whatever inventory task she had been doing when they arrived.

"Alright, have fun. Don't forget to take them to the ice cream shop."

Jin waved goodbye, and rushed out of the warehouse.

"Alright, there is no need to go to the residential areas, but we can go check the shopping and restaurant district. The New Home Merchant Clan is basically a small town, and you can find nearly anything that you need here.

As Min said, there is an ice cream shop that is very popular among those with a sweet tooth.

But before we get there, we will be passing by the park. That is the entrance to the Trial Grounds. They are the Clan's prized training area, and a major source of its resources.

There is also an instance outside the Clan, about fifty kilometres away. That one opens once a week, and there are often contests about who gets the limited number of spots.

As it's contested between multiple groups, don't go unless you've got an Ascended Immortal with you for safety.

After you get inside, the group can usually split up into weaker and stronger groups, but the fights outside often go on for an entire day and night before it opens."

The park was a carefully manicured garden, with trimmed hedges, flowerbeds, stone benches where many people were either eating lunch or sharing sweets on an afternoon date.

"As you can see, most people find a regular job to fund their journey toward power. When you literally have forever, many decide to stop risking their lives for power and rely on the Clan to keep them safe as they grow.

Not that they can't fight, just that they don't often go out unless they've got a lead on something really good.

The usual payment for workers is in resources that their System needs to grow.

That is one of the advantages of being such a diverse group. We're not all competing for the same thing. Some of the groups that specialize all end up needing the same things, so the infighting causes them as many casualties as anything else."

Karl shook his head in dismay. "You would think that things would be better organized. Even the Mortal Worlds manage to mostly avoid that level of instability and arrange some sort of organization.

Even the Chaos affiliated regions don't have that kind of organized violence to obtain resources."

Jin looked disbelieving, and Dana laughed. "Oh, they have violence, just not predictable levels or locations for it. Sometimes it's first come, first served, whoever can find it gets it. Other times a chance will appear in the middle of a populated area and everyone will fight over it.

It's the level of acceptance for dysfunction that is the most shocking to us, as new arrivals."

The Divine Fire Dragon just shrugged. "It is what it is. There aren't enough Supreme Ranked beings to stop the Ascendant Immortals from doing what they please."

Karl paused before responding. Was that Misty he just saw walking by with ice cream? No, the aura felt wrong. It must just be a dragon that looked like her.

"Well, once we get our Immortal Spirits stabilized, we can join the fun. Your group is all fairly experienced, and I'm told that it is custom to bring a few newbies along as a meat shield." Karl joked.

Nyan giggled. "Yes, unleash a badger on them and see what happens."

Karl laughed as Dana petted the catgirl's head.

"Wait until we send the Blood Destruction Demonic Spider to play with them. She's got the most amazing necromantic magic. They won't know what hit them." She whispered.

"Someone taught a spider necromancy? What is going on in your mortal world?" Nyan asked.

"Karl thought it would be funny." Cara announced, having snuck up on them after wandering away from the school during her break.

She had three of the other children with her, and they were headed for the ice cream shop, but she didn't have any local currency, and she didn't know what a Spirit Stone or a Mana Coin was.

"Karl, I need money. We only have thirty minutes to get ice cream and get back."

Karl, naturally, also didn't have money. But when he looked at his inventory, he saw that there was a column for {Clan Credits} showing, and a list of exchange rates.

One credit was worth a thousand mana coins, so Karl exchanged one, and passed a hundred of them to Cara.

"I don't know what ice cream costs. Just keep the rest in your space, if it's enough."

The kids looked at the bag of coins in awe, while Cara gave Karl a cheerful thumbs up and dragged them away.

"An ice cream cone, with all the trimmings, is a quarter of a coin." Nyan whispered.

"Perfect. Then Cara will have spending money for a few days. I will have to make some stuff to exchange later."

The catgirl winced. "Exchanging clan credits for coins is... not usually done. When did you do that, anyhow?

But I suppose you just got here, so you haven't had a chance to exchange currencies yet.

No, wait. You're from a mortal world, aren't you? Mortal Realm metal coins aren't worth much here. Only the gold and silver ones have any real value, as the metals are used as decoration."

Karl shrugged. "The Clan Credits show in my System Interface, so I exchanged them there. I assumed it was a function of the warehouse to bind my balance to my System Interface, the way that Guild currencies and items are available for exchange."

"As long as the rate isn't too low. Don't take lower than two hundred per credit. That's what the money broker trades them for. Private trades are always at that rate or higher." Nyan assured him.

"In that case, I'm fine. Thank you, Nyan."