Chapter 54: rank-up quest
"like this?" Reyhan asked as she extended her hand and tried her best to imitate Asue, but instead of pure mana, only water came out.
"your posture is right, but you are not concentrating mana in one place; you are just releasing a spell," said Asue.
They had been practicing for almost three hours now, and the only thing that came out of it was just a little water after so long.
On the other side of the field, Max was teaching some basic martial arts to the others while using practice dummy as a training partner.
Reyhan put out her hands and started concentrating again, but what came out was only water, "augh, I don't know what I'm doing wrong," she shouted in irritation.
She was a really talented alchemist, but when it came to magic, she could only be considered average at best.
"don't be mad; just do it until you are left with no mana in your body; then, as soon as your mana stats replenished to five, try again. That way, you won't have enough mana to release a spell, and your body automatically tries to release mana in its pure form. It won't work for a while, but you will get there eventually." Said Asue and went back to her own training.
She summoned the green fire and ordered it to take the shape of a ball; then, she tried changing the shape as fast as possible.
She also started injecting mana into the fire to control its size and power, but since the fire was still a baby, it only burned the mana in an explosion.
"sigh, I guess you still need time, little guy," said Asue and put the fire back, "that's enough for the day; if you exhaust your body in the SR too much, your mind in the real world can get damaged."
"What, are you Alex all of a sudden? How do you know this stuff?" Reyhan asked jokingly.
Asue got scared for a second but then regained her calm and said, "it happened to me, so I know."
"ok, let's go eat something. I'm sure Aunt Leyla and granny Sicilia made a fantastic dinner again."
Both Aunt Leyla and Sicilia, Reyhan and Ryan's grandmother, had chosen cooking as their job and have been practicing it ever since by cooking for the whole team and their families.
For the past few days, they have been eating together around the same table, and little by little, they started to form a bond together.
At first, It was strange for Alex to experience such a warm environment and see his friends happy with their families, but then he started to get used to it, and by the time he realized it, it was too late.
He never planned to get attached to them to this extent; although they were the families of the people that he cared about, he didn't want to add to the people he needed to protect.
_ _ _ _ _ _
Ten days later
They had been hunting and practicing nonstop for the past ten days, and they finally reached level 50.
"whoosh, that was intense," Ryan said loudly and dropped backward to the floor.
"congratulation on defeating a basic practice dummy; you are officially a basic martial artist," said Max and looked at all of them who were panting on the ground.
"don't make fun of us, dude; not everybody can fight like you; basic dummy is our limit. You're a monster," said Leo while trying to sit but failed.
"hehe, I'm sure you could defeat an intermediate one if you practice for one more year," Max said, trying to lift their spirit, failing.
"There is no way I continue with this shit; I just want to go back to my workshop," said Sid and left the training ground.
As everybody was leaving to rest a little bit, Alex approached Max and asked, "what do you want to do now? I think they are ready; what do you think?"
Max thought a bit and said, "they still have a lot of room for improvement, but I think they can complete the quest easily. As for the kids, I will continue training them for now,"
"ok then, I will be the first one to challenge the rank quest," said Alex and then added, "I will take it tomorrow; just make sure the others, especially Sid, don't rush into it before I'm back."
"Alright, you focus on your quest, and I will take care of everyone here."
Alex teleported to the paradise city and went straight for the tallest building in the city. Town hall.
It was a hundred-floor white building with big windows and beautiful Greek architecture.
The main doors of the building opened to a wide reception room which was only decorated with a simple white desk.
A beautiful NPC with long golden hair and lovely golden eyes was sitting behind the desk, looking at some papers.
At this stage of the game, with only Alex and his companions in the SR, there wasn't any other player, so the town hall's reception room was completely empty.
As for NPCs, their programming was still too basic to be able to use this building.
The system didn't even bother putting a few NPCs to fill the room.
Alex walked to the reception desk, cleared his throat, and said, "Hello, I'm here to take on my first rank upgrade quest."
The beautiful receptionist raised her head from the paper in her hand to look at Alex and said, "welcome; can I see your ID please?"
Alex showed her his status window and after confirming that he was above level 50, the NPC looked at him and said, "you have met the requirements to enter the second floor, I will be teleporting you directly to the second floor now."
The receptionist didn't even wait for Alex to reply and forcefully teleported him to the second floor, where he would be taking on his rank upgrade quest.
The second floor was a totally empty white space that everybody who wanted to challenge their first rank-up quest, had to come to.
In front of Alex, an old man with white hair and beard stood still with his eyes closed.
If Alex didn't know any better, he might have thought that the old man was dead.
Alex just stood there politely and didn't say anything until the man slowly opened his eyes and looked at Alex.
A strange feeling like someone was watching him butt naked enveloped Alex, but he stood still.
"How can I help you, young man?" the old man said with a calm voice.
"I am here to take on the rank-up quest,"
"oh, I see," said the old man and observed Alex a little more, "I see that you have a mythic job. Are you sure that you want to take on the quest at your current level? it would be better if you waited a little longer."
"I'm sure, elder, I am prepared to take on the quest," said Alex with a determined look on his face.
Truth be told, Alex was a little bit scared. In his previous life, he only had an uncommon job, and he didn't challenge the quest until he was level 65 and still failed to complete the quest on his first try.
'that was different; I was a loser then. Now I have more power; I can do it.' He thought to himself.
"ok then, let me explain the quest and its rules," as soon as the old man said that, the scenery changed, and now they were standing in a valley, surrounded by mountains.
"on the highest point of the tallest mountain here, there is a flower called mystic blade flower. If you want to move to the next rank, you need to bring me that flower so that I can extract its essence for you to drink.
But be careful, the mountain is dangerous and full of beasts that you have to take on if you want to get the flower.
You have one day to bring me that flower. If it takes even a second longer than that, the quest will be deemed incomplete.
You can't log off during the duration of the quest.
You can't contact anyone outside this space.
You only have one life and if you die the quest will be deemed a failure and you can't take it for a month.
Do you have any questions?"
"yes, can I use my equipment and items?" said Alex.
"yes, you can use whatever equipment and item you want but they will all be set at epic grade or lower," the old man explained, "any other question?"
"no,"
"then you may begin," said the old man suddenly disappeared from sight.
As soon as the man vanished, a clock started counting down on the upper left corner of Alex's eye from 23:59:59.
Alex looked at the tallest mountain in the distance and took a deep breath, "here I come."
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone