Abyssal Awakening

With so many young Hunters looking to register for the guild, Alice and Ria had to queue up for quite a while before they reached the front. Their receptionist is a dignified old man with carefully styled grey hair that was swept back, a pair of glasses and a thick moustache. He wore a grey suit and tie adorned with silver buttons.

"Good day to you ladies, how may I help you today?" He asked with a smile while setting aside some documents that he had just handled.

"We're looking to sign her up for a Hunting License." Ria smiled while gesturing to Alice.

"Hm… I see, very well. Do you have a form of ID on hand?"

Nodding her head, Alice pulled out the ID that Allura had created for her and hoped that it'll work. She didn't know the consequences of walking around with a fake ID but she wasn't too keen on finding out.

"Let's see… Alice Agnelia, age 20…" The man muttered while comparing Alice's picture to the ID.

Pulling out a form, he started to fill in the empty boxes before stamping it with a red stamp he brought out from his inner pocket.

"Take this to the next floor and bring it to the receptionist, it'll prove that you are allowed to take the exam to determine your rank and have your picture taken for the Hunter's Guild ID. I also want you to fill in some information about yourself on the back before you hand it to the receptionist." The man smiled before gesturing for the duo to make their way up the stairs.

"Thank you."

As they were walking away, he called another group over.

With how many Hunters the man needed to talk to, Alice couldn't help but admire his patience for being able to keep a smile on his face at all times.

Setting her mind to the document, she turned it to the back and noticed that it was asking her what kind of jobs she would like to take along with what Sigils she had.

Finding a seat, Alice started to fill in the details.

'With my understanding of Abyss Blood, I should be able to take some jobs to do with being an Apothecary. Though I'm not too sure what it entails so it might be better to keep this empty for now and register for an apothecary license later. Hunting jobs are obviously the main one's I'm looking for.' Alice thought to herself.

In the end, she signed herself up for hunting quests, gathering and delivery quests. There was also the options of escorting and rescuing but Alice didn't think she was ready for them yet. With her abilities right now, it was going to be difficult to properly escort or save someone.

As for her Sigil ability, she marked it down as Undead Fiend just like Allura mentioned.

"Gods, I can't wait for us to take hunt quests together. With you joining, we'll be able to tackle harder targets." Ria grinned excitedly while kicking her legs back and forth.

"Did you… Also go solo before?"

"Yep. I joined some hunting groups but the way they split loot and rewards kind of annoyed me. Picture this for me Alice, here I am busting my ass to cover for the group, jumping in to take aggro and killing several beasts with lightning. Then I get paid the same as the f*cker that accidently miss fired an arrow that dragged all the beasts towards us in the first place!

So naturally I quit that group." Ria shrugged with annoyance all over her face.

"Then I joined some groups that do performance based pay. At first I thought this was a great idea until they couldn't figure out who did more for the life of them. 'Oh I did more because my skill trapped the beast.' 'Oh I did more because I'm the one who actually killed it.' And so on. You can imagine how much they argued for pay."

Hearing this, Alice felt sorry that Ria had to go through all of this.

"Then I just ran solo. The pay isn't as high as running with a group and the danger is higher but less of a headache when it comes to the post hunt stuff." Ria smiled while sticking out her tongue.

"But that's gonna change when you register. We'll take hunts together and we can just split the pay 50/50. If you need to buy anything and don't have enough money, don't hesitate to ask me for some help too. We're both staying with Allura so it's only natural that we help one another."

Nodding her head, Alice agreed with Ria's sentiment as she had the same plan. Though she wasn't in any position to offer help with her being the weaker of the duo and not having any money to boot.

Once she was done with filling up all of the information, she didn't even have time to stand up before Ria jumped onto her feet and dragged Alice towards the second floor.

Seeing how excited Ria was, Alice's gaze softened and allowed herself to get swept up by her excitement.

It allowed her to take her mind off Lilia's death and enjoy this new freedom of her's.

Running up to the second floor, Ria showed Alice to the second receptionist who was currently free with no queue.

Handing over the documents with her ID momentarily, they were told to take a seat so that they could see if there were any instructors available to finalise the last part of the procedure.

"This is going to be a fight. Since you only have one Sigil, you don't really need to much and they won't test your Sigil too much since they think it's only physical reinforcement. In the future when you get more Sigils, you'll need to redo these tests so they can update your license to match your power. Makes accepting hunts easier." Ria whispered over.

"Okay." Alice nodded.

She wasn't planning on showing the instructor too much anyways, just enough to get her license.

"Miss Agnelia, the instructor is ready. Please go to training room number 3 to proceed with the final part of your registration process." The receptionist said as Ria showed Alice to where the training rooms were.

There was a path next to the receptionist that allowed them to access the outer circle of the tower on this floor and it was filled with different training rooms. Most of them seemed occupied as the sound of combat would leak out from the behind the doors.

From the roaring flames to harsh cracking of ice, a myriad of different abilities could be heard.

Finding training room 3, the two entered and saw a large figure standing in the middle of the room with a smile on his face.

He had spiky short blond hair that was pulled back with the exception of a few strands, a pair of golden eyes and a large muscular stature that looked lean as he was wearing a suit. Deep scars could be seen on the right side of his face with smaller scars on the left cheek.

He looked to be in his 30's to 40's as there were wrinkles visible on his skin.

"Oh? For just one Sigil, you seemed to have suffered quite the side effects. Did you drink too much Abyss Blood during your bounty hunt?" He asked, surprised by Alice's hair and eye. While he saw her document, seeing it with his own eyes was different to seeing the picture.

"Mnm I did." Alice nodded her head as it was the most convenient explanation.

"Well try to reduce how much you drink in the future or else you'll return to the dark mother before you can get more Sigils. I'll be your instructor for today, the name is Neal. On your document you wrote that your Sigil is Undead Fiend right?

I expect to see good usage of the Sigil along with your own personal combat experience in order to give you the green light for your license." Neal smiled as Ria froze up at his name.

Gesturing for Alice to come over, Ria whispered into her ear.

"That's head instructor Neal. I heard rumours about him but they're not bad. He's the most fair instructor you can get within these walls, he won't let you become a hunter if you show half assed results because then you'll just be sending yourself to die. He's the 'final boss' if you want to be properly registered as a four Sigil user.

I haven't fought him yet since I'm still three Sigils but I didn't think he would be your instructor. You'll need to show a little more or else you won't be allowed to get the license." She warned.

Hearing this, Alice nodded her head.

She wasn't planning on taking it easy either, not after they made eye contact. Similar to the feeling with Gin, he felt like a sheathed blade, ready to unleash slaughter at a moment's notice. It was a kind of feeling that could only be felt from veterans, ones that have survived hell.

"I'm glad to see that you're on guard. Most would take it easy seeing how I am." Neal chuckled.

Taking off his suit jacket, he placed it on the side and rolled up his shirt sleeves.

"The metric of passing this test is up to me. I will see if you are worthy enough to be a hunter and that you're not just sending yourself to death's jaws. Alice Agnelia, approach and prove that you can hunt." Neal smiled as an aura of intimidation erupted from him, a beast's killing intent and the threat of death.

But despite this, it wasn't anything that Alice couldn't deal with. She's seen death face to face plenty of times already, danced with her upon the precipice of life and death itself. Fear is for the weak that run from death. She was someone who had danced with her so what was there for her to fear?

Walking towards Neal unaffected, Alice's lack of fear surprised Neal as this glare was something he would only seen on the face of those that have almost died in hunts many times before.

'Interesting.' He smiled, feeling a little hopeful for the potential this seedling was going to demonstrate.

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