Chapter 106: Heading off to a Rift

The next morning came with a lot of excitement for Julius. He was supposed to meet Declan right outside of town where one of the rifts was. Declan had specifically chosen this rift for Julius. It was only Tier 2, which was slightly disappointing to Julius, he had tried to argue with Declan that he could handle more.

However, Declan didn’t budge and insisted that Julius take it easy at first and that there wasn’t any rush. Julius eventually agreed, he had to remind himself that Declan knew more than him and had to remind himself that as long as he proved that he could handle himself, he would be allowed more leeway.

The rift itself was quite simple. It was a generic goblin one where one had to survive a small horde of them alongside their chief. It was actually very similar to the one he had done with the trolls, except it wasn’t as dangerous and the goblins didn’t have any ridiculous regeneration skills.

This particular rift’s main value was that it was a relatively straightforward rift with many monsters with cores. Goblins didn’t have any extraordinary abilities or intelligence, which made them usually a C-rating or lower on the difficulty side of things.

The rift was used as a place for Lord Lagos and the others with rights to the rift to send in their less experienced fighters. It was good practice and there were enough Tier 2s in the rift to make the effort worthwhile. While Tier 2 cores were not very valuable by themselves, when you add hundreds of them it can be quite profitable, especially for alchemists or other crafting professions. It was also important to note that many of the goblin cores had no affinity which made them great for almost every general usage.

Thankfully, the streets today weren’t that busy. They were actually quite empty, even compared to normal standards. If he hadn’t seen the massive crowds of people the day before, he would have never believed that there were thousands of people waiting outside of the school’s gates.

The thing that most impressed him though was how clean the streets were. He had seen the states of places after festivals in his old world. There was always trash and other random items that got left behind after the wave of people left. However, this wasn’t the case for Heston.

It shocked Julius how spotless the paved stones were. Even the alleys were squeaky clean. If he was being honest, it was more clean after the parade than it was before. He thought he could lick the street with his own tongue and it would still be cleaner than the table at a random restaurant. The roads were literally sparkling as he walked down the street.

The rift was located on the other side of the city from where Julius had first entered. It was actually closer than the guardhouse was to Goldencrest. This meant Julius got there with plenty of time to spare.

When he had exited the city gates the guards on duty had given him a weird look. Perhaps they were wondering why a boy like him was leaving the city so early in the morning. He wasn’t wearing his uniform. He had changed into a regular pair of black pants and a black shirt. He was also wearing a scarf that was covering his face. It didn’t look that out of place either, some might have assumed that covering one’s face was suspicious but that was not the case in Heston.

The morning air by the ocean meant that it was always quite chilly in the early hours of the day. Many people chose to wear some sort of face covering when they went out at this time, so seeing someone wearing a scarf like him didn’t warrant any extra attention. They were most likely more curious about where he was going.

The reason why he was taking the time to hide his features was that he didn’t want anyone to know that he was a student and would rather that his face remain mostly unseen. He didn’t know if it really mattered if he took these kinds of precautions. But he thought that it wouldn’t hurt if he did.

He remembered that Declan had told him that Lord Lagos promised that he and his retainers would keep a tight lip about their comings and goings, but Julius didn’t know the man at all. For all he knew, the man was lying.

It did come across Julius’s mind that Lord Lagos was lying about the whole thing and was trying to get rid of Julius quietly. However, Declan assured him that the man had signed a pretty restrictive contract. Also, Declan had personally used his aura skills on Lord Lagos and promised Julius that it was safe.

That was the only reason why Julius felt comfortable enough to come all the way out here alone. Declan had wanted Julius to wait for him to arrive so that the two of them could head off together, but Julius decided otherwise.

Declan obviously didn’t like that, but Julius wanted to check out the area by himself beforehand. He didn’t think anything would happen to him, but he still made sure to activate [Spatial Perception] to cover his surroundings.

It was worth mentioning that he had tried to use [Empowerment of Will] on [Spatial Perception] in the past. He had hoped that the skill would see an increase in potency if he were to empower it, but unfortunately, it hadn’t worked. He didn’t know what made it different than his other skills that he was able to use [Empowerment of Will] with, but he wanted to find out.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

For the moment, he was stuck with his usual skill. Which was more than enough to make Julius feel more secure. The distance he could reach out already was too wide as is and he didn’t even see how [Empowerment of Will] would affect the perception skill beyond how far and how detailed he could sense.

Perhaps that was a reason why his aura skill didn’t work on [Spatial Perception], he might need to do some brainstorming later and test some of them out. He made a mental note to test out different ideas after he was done with the rift.

He had almost arrived at the location the map had described. It was still well within walking distance of Heston and unlike the route he had taken entering the city for the first time a month ago, there were many buildings and infrastructure around.

While it wasn’t technically within the city, Julius could see plenty of establishments along the well-kept path. It was a little town on its own. There were a lot of places for travelers on the main road. He spotted a shop where you could buy general traveling supplies and goods. It was a quaint little store with a number of people shopping in there even though it was early.