Chapter 430: The First Capital Adventurers

The gates opened at sunrise.

The guards had barely pulled them wide enough for two wagons to pass before the waiting crowd began pouring into the Grand Complex, filling the broad avenue leading toward the Grand Guild Hall with Knights carrying swords, spears and axes.

Mages in robes of every quality, monster hunters dressed in hardened leather, mercenaries wearing the colors of their companies and curious people who had come simply because half the western Capital had spent the previous evening talking about the strange new Guild and its hundred-floor tower.

Sage watched from the entrance rather than the upper windows this time. Yesterday, these avenues had been occupied almost entirely by Guild workers.

Now thousands of strangers were crossing them, looking toward the towering buildings, reading signs and arguing about where they should go. Most weren’t here to register. Sage knew that immediately.

They wanted to see whether the Guild’s promises were real before placing their names beneath anything. That was fine. Curiosity had brought them through the gates. The Guild would have to do the rest.

The registration counters inside the Grand Guild Hall opened moments later, and despite the enormous crowd, only a fraction immediately approached them.

Others spread through the public halls, inspected the mission boards or asked Guild clerks what registration actually meant. That last question came constantly because there was no established understanding of what an Adventurer was.

Sage’s Guild had created the term in Greyvale, but the Capital was hearing it properly for the first time. Guild workers therefore explained the same thing repeatedly: an Adventurer was a registered Guild member who could accept Guild missions, build a recognized Guild Rank, earn contribution points and use the services connected to membership.

They were not sworn soldiers of Sage Alistair. They weren’t mercenaries bound to a company. A Knight or Mage could belong to an existing group and still register, provided their other obligations allowed it.

For nearly a minute after the counters opened, nobody wanted to be first.

Then a young man walked forward.

Sage noticed him because it was difficult not to. He appeared perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three, with striking golden hair swept back from a handsome face and a white traveling coat embroidered with gold thread that probably cost more than some Greyvale families earned in a year.

Rings decorated three fingers. A polished sword hung at his waist beneath a belt clasp set with a blue gemstone, and even his boots looked expensive enough that Boren stared at them longer than was necessary.

The young man placed both hands on the registration counter and smiled at the clerk.

"I’d like to become an Adventurer."

The clerk hesitated for half a heartbeat before remembering her training. "Your name?"

"Lucan Auremont."

Boren, standing several steps away, glanced at Sage. "Auremont?"

Lucan heard him. "Yes, those Auremonts."

He said it without arrogance, almost cheerfully.

The clerk continued recording his details. Lucan answered every question easily, paid the registration fee without attempting to bargain and listened carefully while the Guild rules were explained. When asked whether he understood that registration granted no noble privilege inside Guild examinations, he laughed.

"Excellent. It would be terribly embarrassing if my family name defeated a monster before I did."

Sage liked him immediately.

The System recorded the completed registration.

[Adventurer Registered.]

[Kingdom Headquarters Adventurer Registry: 1]

Lucan looked at the identification plate handed to him, turned it between his fingers and smiled broadly.

"So I’m the first?"

"In the Royal Capital," Sage said.

Lucan looked almost disappointed. "Only the Capital?"

Mina had wandered closer during the registration. "Gregor was first."

"Gregor?"

"The first Adventurer."

Lucan turned toward her.

"In the world," Mina added.

His eyes widened. "There’s already someone who stole that title?"

"You can’t steal something when he got it before you."

"Who is he?"

"Gregor."

"You already said that."

"Then why did you ask?"

Boren covered his mouth.

Lucan crouched slightly so he wasn’t looking down at Mina. "Tell me about him."

Mina considered him for several seconds before shaking her head. "You and Gregor aren’t going to like each other."

"Why?"

"Because he’s the first Adventurer in the world, and you’re going to keep telling everyone you’re the first Adventurer in the Capital."

Lucan straightened slowly.

Then he grinned. "Now I definitely want to meet him."

The conversation drew enough attention that the hesitation around the counters finally broke. A Knight stepped forward to another desk. Then two Mages. A group of three mercenaries approached a fourth counter, asking whether registration would interfere with their existing contracts. Within minutes, every open registration station had someone standing before it.

The first wave had begun.

Sage didn’t expect thousands to sign immediately, and they didn’t. Many still watched. Some asked questions and left. Others toured the facilities before deciding. Several disliked the Guild rules, particularly the requirement that mission completion and misconduct could affect their Guild standing.

One mercenary openly laughed at the idea of having another organization record his failures and walked away.

But registrations continued.

One of the people waiting was a broad-shouldered man in his late thirties wearing an old mercenary coat whose insignia had been cut away. A scar crossed his jaw, and the sword at his hip showed years of use.

"Name?" the clerk asked.

"Darian Stoneheart."

"Former affiliation?"

"Black Pike Company."

"Former?"

Darian placed a folded contract on the counter. "Former."

Garran happened to be nearby and recognized the company’s seal. He opened the contract, read several lines and frowned.

"They took four parts from every ten?"

"Five after equipment charges."

"They supplied your equipment?"

"No."

Garran looked up.

Darian shrugged. "That’s why it says former."

He had eighteen years of recorded mercenary work, including caravan defense, monster hunts and two large extermination campaigns. Rather than forcing him through the lowest Guild assessments simply because he was newly registered, the Guild examined his records, tested his combat ability and placed him according to demonstrated strength and experience.

That became important as more seasoned Warriors registered. Sage had no intention of telling a Knight who had killed monsters for twenty years that he was equal to someone who had picked up a sword last month. Guild Rank had standards. Existing achievements could be examined, verified and recognized.

The same process benefited a young Mage named Neris who arrived wearing a repaired grey robe and carrying a staff whose lower half had been wrapped twice where the wood had cracked. She couldn’t have been older than nineteen. Her registration record was unimpressive because she had no wealthy teacher, famous family or years of mercenary service.

Her assessment was not. The testing Mage asked her to strike three targets at increasing distances.

She destroyed the first. Split the second. Then curved her third spell around a stone barrier before striking the final target from behind.

Boren stared at the shattered target. "How much did you say that cost?"

Sage ignored him.

Neris looked worried. "Was I not supposed to break it?"

"You were."

"Oh."

She visibly relaxed.

Her raw strength wasn’t extraordinary compared with the Capital’s established Mages, but her control earned her a higher assessment than her lack of reputation would have suggested. When she received her Guild plate, she held it carefully with both hands before asking where the Mana Cultivation Tower was.

A Guild clerk pointed through the doors.

Neris looked at the tower. Then she immediately joined the growing queue.

Not everyone trusted the Guild so easily.

Rovan Grell , an independent monster hunter, spent nearly two hours inspecting the Headquarters before registering. He visited the Exchange first and challenged three appraisal values. He questioned the monster processors about preservation fees.

He inspected the Smithing Complex, asked what happened if a Guild smith damaged a weapon during repair and demanded to know whether the Guild could prevent him from selling his kills elsewhere.

"No," Sage answered when Rovan eventually found him.

He glanced back toward the Exchange before asking, "Then why build an Exchange?"

Sage told him it simply gave him another buyer, which only earned another question from the hunter. "And if another merchant offers me more?"

"Then sell to them," Sage replied without hesitation.

Rovan narrowed his eyes, clearly dissatisfied with how simple the answer sounded. "What’s the trick? Every organization has one."

Sage merely shrugged. "Then keep looking."

There was little point trying to convince a man who had already decided there had to be something hidden. If Rovan wanted to spend the next hour searching for chains that weren’t there, Sage was perfectly willing to let him.

Sage shrugged. "Then keep looking."

Rovan did.

An hour later, he registered.

The largest single registration came from someone who had originally insisted he wasn’t joining at all. Edric, a veteran Knight with greying hair and a battered round shield strapped across his back, entered with seven companions. They had hunted monsters together for nearly twelve years and came only because two younger members wanted to see the Mana Cultivation Tower.

Edric inspected everything.

He questioned Garran about mission evaluation. He made one of the appraisers explain how disputed prices were handled. He inspected the Medical Hall, asked Bramdir how long ordinary repairs would take and spent nearly half an hour reading Guild rules.

Finally, he approached registration.

The clerk looked at the seven people behind him. "Only you?"

Edric sighed.

"No. All of us."

Eight registrations entered the records together.

By midday, the Grand Complex had changed.

New Adventurers crowded around the mission boards even though only a modest number of Capital missions had been posted. Warriors carried monster materials into the Exchange to test its prices.

Knights visited the Smithing Complex with damaged weapons and armor. Mages formed a queue outside the Mana Cultivation Tower long enough that Oren Thales had to limit first-day cultivation periods.

Lucan Auremont emerged from the tower after reaching considerably higher than most first-time visitors and immediately began telling Boren that he’d deliberately stopped because climbing farther on the first day would have been "inelegant."

"You were thrown out by the safety formation," Mina said.

"An unimportant detail."

"I watched it happen."

"Then you witnessed an elegant defeat."

Mina stared at him before turning toward Sage. "Gregor really isn’t going to like him."

Even Sage laughed.

The restaurants began filling next. Maura had opened only four, yet tables disappeared quickly beneath Warriors who had spent the morning walking the enormous grounds.

The hotel received its first Adventurer parties, including travelers who decided that member rates were better than returning to their inns across the Capital.

The Medical Hall received three injured monster hunters before afternoon, one carrying a poorly treated wound that Elowen immediately reopened and cleaned properly.

Merchants noticed too.

Several entered the Exchange merely to watch prices. Others approached Guild workers asking when merchant spaces would become available. Food suppliers arrived at the Dining Quarter. Smithing merchants began asking Bramdir whether the Guild purchased metal in bulk.

The Headquarters fed itself exactly as Sage had imagined.

Registration created Adventurers.

Adventurers created demand.

Demand awakened the facilities.

By afternoon, the Grand Complex was loud.

Mina stood beside Sage on the steps overlooking the central plaza, watching hundreds of people cross between buildings. Only days earlier, she’d been able to run across that same plaza without avoiding another person.

Now Knights argued about tower floors near one fountain. Mages compared Guild plates. A party carried monster parts toward the Exchange. Restaurant workers hurried between buildings. A wagon loaded with supplies rolled toward the warehouses while guards cleared the road.

Sage looked across it all.

The Kingdom Headquarters was finally functioning.

Pax approached from behind them.

Unlike everyone else, he wasn’t watching the crowd.

He was watching the edges.

"What?" Sage asked.

Pax nodded toward a man standing near the outer avenue.

Then another beside the gates.

Then a third pretending to study one of the public notices.

"Mercenary companies," Pax said quietly. "At least three."

Sage followed his gaze.

"They’ve been watching the registration lines since morning."

Below them, another group of Warriors entered the Grand Guild Hall.

Pax’s eyes remained on the observers.

"They’re counting."