Chapter 196: Grinding

We arrived at the sky island. It seems that we're pretty lucky with this one. Lam managed to fix the compass that Zieglind and Zeta broke when they were trying to get the Flower of Zeratria to Greta. It nearly cost Lam around 3,000 gold which caused him to be incredibly angry how expensive it was. This sky island move everytime so tracking this down was near impossible. So that's why Lam told us to never rely on maps since it's just useless. We just have to follow the compass and once it spins, we break the compass there. But since we're already here, that means that we can't go back for a while until we finish the task assigned to us here.

We found this island by just flying around for the second week we got assigned by the task given to us by Zieglind. This place is peaceful. It felt like they were all disconnected from anything that was going on below them. It's really amazing.

"Helga!" Rize called out to me.

"Hey!" I ran up to her, "What's up?"

"Let's go first to the inn and talk about what we're going to do next."

"Alright."

The four of us went in the inn and grabbed ourselves some food from the innkeeper. We don't have to worry about money since Lam gave us a plentiful amount. Around 5000 gold.

We all agreed about Rize having to lead all of us here since she's the most experienced on all of us here. "Uhm... ehem." It seems that she isn't used to leading someone. I heard she has disciples? I wonder how she keeps those two in line. "So for now, we have to think about how to get the people here to join our cause. Zieglind didn't tell me anything. So we have to figure this ourselves... I guess?"

"So we basically have no leads on trying to get the people here to help us..?" Neco added. "It'll just be weird or suspicious if we outright asked them to just join our kingdom."

"How about..." Everyone was looking at me. "Guilds? If we make ourselves famous for our feats then we'll get the people's support."

"But... wouldn't that take a long time?" Feran then stated. "I'm not saying I disagree with you sis!"

"I know, I know. But that's the only thing we can do right now. If we just enlist ourselves into their ranks, we'll be the ones joining them."

"And if we don't start anytime soon we'll just be losing time... We already lost a lot of time just finding this island." Neco joined in.

Everyone was silent for a minute but Rize broke the silence by her clap. "So that's that then? Let's take some rest for now and continue this tomorrow. I'm sure everyone is exhausted from the trip that we had to do."

We all went to our rooms and slept like logs. We tried to locate the location on the compass but it was too difficult. This island moves every now and then so that's the reason why we wasted two weeks finding it. And in that two weeks, we didn't sleep nor eat. It was a difficult time.

The day is today and we all got up and wore our normal clothes that we bought here from the sky island. It was a frilly dress for the women and a heavy leather suit for the men. Seems like men here and treated more as soldiers rather than citizens. Well they have a small population so I can understand why they'd do that.

To play the part of adventurers more, we didn't bring out our weapons and simply just bought some weapons from a nearby blacksmith. To act as our spares. Using the weapons from our Gazer form means that we have to wear that armor which will definitely catch the attention of everyone and the looks of the weapon we have are a bit unique and out of this world.

We then all went into the adventurer's guild and we saw countless people filling up the seats and table and the merry music in the background.

We then headed to the front desk and talked to the one in front.

Rize was our leader so we just waited for her to speak, "Hello, we'd like to register as adventurers."

"I see! Welcome to the sky island!" An uplifting energy and a great smile from the front desk. "May I ask where you came from?"

"We're from the overworld. We just came here to find more opportunities."

"Well then, I hope you do find it." The woman then brought out a paper and a pen. "Will you all be registering here as a party too?"

"Yes, include that if you can."

"Each and everyone of you has to sign here, here and here. And the starting fee will be 100 gold."

100 gold? That's a bit much isn't it... Well, this is the sky island so I guess prices are different.

"That's done." Rize gave the clerk all the paperwork we all signed.

"Thank you." She then pulled out another piece of paper. "For the party creation, I'd like to ask what's the name of your party?"

"Just put... the Crimson Knights."

We all registered. The process was just signing and a blood stamp of our thumb. It wasn't anything special.

"I mean... I expected this but..." Feran was looking intently at the badge he was given. "Bronze rank huh..."

Rize sighed along with him, "I know... But we don't have a choice. And to think our first quest was gathering materials... This is dumb! ARGHHHH!!!"

"We do have a way to speed this up." Neco brought out a piece of paper. It was a quest paper. "Everyone grabbed a piece of their own quest paper right?"

"Yeah." Everyone answered.

"Since we're just gathering materials, this won't really be difficult. So we don't need everyone's company. That's why we'll be taking on four quests at a time, one for each and everyone of us. We can work our way up in this ranking system."

The four of us grinded our way to rank up for the next month.

I was doing gathering quests, Feran just followed me around. Even though that slowed our progress down, I couldn't do anything but sigh.

Rize and Neco was focusing more on hunting quests since that's the fastest way they can contribute. They're the two combat type in our group so they're hunting incredibly fast.

Neco is doing amazing work as usual. His hunts for the day is far greater than Rize. That's why he gets extra rewards for all his work.

After a month, we all gathered up at the inn and went to our usual spot and gathered around.

We all sat down and got comfortable and ordered our food. Silence was filled everywhere. But Feran broke it by slamming the table. "A MONTH! And we only ranked up once!? ONCE!!!" Everyone looked at Feran and the whole inn went silent. We all awkwardly looked at Feran, "Uhh... Sorry everyone." He then bowed and sat down. The noise of everyone chatting came back.

But I do have to agree with him. "To think that our month's work promoted us from Bronze to Silver rank..."

"This is a lot different than when I was with Zieglind." Rize added. "We got promoted straight to gold? Or was it a higher rank? I forgot what it was but we jumped a lot of ranks. We accidentally overdid a quest on hunting. It was fun times when it was just the two of us."

"But this is taking way too long that we have imagined..."

Silence was spreading through our table again but the sudden shouts of the people behind us gave us a fright. A projection skill was applied on the wall of the inn.

"OHHHH!!! NICE!!! It's another day of the trials!"

"Man trials got boring when those two people won huh?"

"I know! But it's still enjoyable. No one has gotten past through the third stage after that happened right?"

Everyone was shouting and cheering on the projection they were seeing on the screen. But something came in mind the moment that I saw the reward. "Isn't that..."

Everyone looked at it and Rize's face lit up. "That's the Flower of Zeratria!" Rize had a giant grin on his face, "Guys, I just had an idea."

"Hold up, isn't that place incredibly dangerous!?" Neco stopped Rize before she said anything to initiate the quest she was putting on all of us. "Also, getting to the end isn't exactly easy. All that's uncovered in the trials are the first three stages. The stages after that are completely unknown to us!"

"Yeah I have to agree with Neco here." I voiced my opinion too. "This is pretty dangerous."

"There's a safety net involved. Once you're knocked out or is completely defeated, they'll stop the event and let you out immediately. And the tries in that are infinite. So we don't have to worry about anything. Most we'll get our bruises or cuts. And aren't you all bored with just gathering and hunting!?" Rize counteracted. "And this is the fastest way we have right now. Once we get the people's attention of us defeating the final stage... Then we basically won everyone here."