ca-book Chapter 359: First Entry into Falim
Chapter 359: First Entry into Falim
At the dinner table, Gauss asked Sherry in detail about the procedures for establishing an adventuring party.Sherry clearly knew the ins and outs better than most, and she had no reason to keep secrets.
In short, forming an adventuring guild was not something anyone could do without meeting certain conditions; several requirements had to be satisfied.
First, one had to go to the Adventurers Guild headquarters that handled such qualifications and submit an application.
Then the staff would review the applicant.
Usually this involved background checks on the applicant’s core team and a multi-dimensional assessment of their strength.
The evaluation covered the core team’s overall capability, adventurer ranks, financial situation, record of completing high-difficulty commissions, and so on. The better the records, the higher the chance of approval.
Of course, there wasn’t a single hard cutoff that guaranteed acceptance; sometimes luck played a part.
After they had eaten and drunk their fill, Gauss thanked Sherry again, and they parted ways at the restaurant entrance.
“Shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
Gauss felt his own resume was strong.
The only downside was that he had been an adventurer for a relatively short time, so the number of commissions he had completed might lag behind veteran adventurers.
So over the next few days Gauss took several commissions around Grayrock Town.
During that time, Serlandul and Albenia gradually rejoined the group.
Their recent level-ups had gone very smoothly.
Although professional level-ups carried risks, many failures actually came from people forcing a breakthrough too hastily without enough preparation. If the level-up progressed naturally and no external mishaps occurred, it was generally safe.
“Welcome back.”
Gauss greeted Albenia, who had returned last.
“You look a lot stronger.”
He sized up the warrior in his party.
Although she wasn’t nearly as large as he was after his body doubling, Albenia still had an imposing physique.
“Is that so…”
Albenia sighed subtly, showing some exasperation about having grown even taller.
If she could choose, she would prefer to be slim and petite, like Aria or Shadow.
On one hand, being that tall caused many inconveniences in daily life. For example, when Gauss’s party went to a new town to rest, they often had to check several inns before finding rooms and beds suitable for her.
On the other hand, she had a little private worry: being so tall made it hard to find a husband she liked.
Although her hometown could easily supply men as tall or taller than her, those burly types did not fit her aesthetic.
That was one reason she left home.
Gauss knew nothing of Albenia’s complicated feelings.
He gathered the party together.
Since the two of them had returned, Gauss informed everyone of his plan to form an adventuring party.
He had mentioned the idea during a previous team meeting, but back then there was no concrete timeline.
Now he felt the group was capable enough to take the next step.
This did not mean the party would undergo major changes; he only intended to recruit some auxiliary members to handle mundane tasks.
In fact, many powerful Master-level professionals chose to establish their own adventuring parties.
At first the scale was small; to truly expand, the leader usually needed to reach the Transcendent tier and have sufficient funds and influence to grow their power.
Serlandul and Albenia had no objections.
After discussing it further, the team decided their destination: Falim, the provincial capital.
Besides planning the adventuring party, Gauss also needed to settle his family. Was there anywhere in Coldjade Province safer than Falim?
More importantly, since he was operating within Coldjade Province, going to the provincial capital felt like a necessary step.
There was a bit of a “you’re not a real man until you reach the Great Wall” kind of feeling to it.
He still needed to make some preparations before leaving.
...
“Goodbye, Sophia.”
“Safe travels.”
After saying farewell to the innkeeper Sophia, Gauss left Grayrock Town.
He had asked Sophia if she wanted to travel with Gauss’s family to Falim, but she declined.
She had grown up in Grayrock Town and her father was buried in the town cemetery. Even knowing Falim was safer, this place was what she knew.
Gauss didn’t press the matter; he simply told her that if she encountered trouble she should go to the Adventurers Guild for help.
He had already mentioned this to Eberhard; Gauss did not have many contacts in town, so he would help where he could.
Outside the town, Gauss mounted his dragon.
Several teammates rode on the dragon with him; his family took a separate convoy north along the safer route.
The journey was not short, and flying on the dragon was tiring.
“Let’s go!”
Just thinking that they were heading to the most prosperous city in Coldjade Province filled him with a faint, inexplicable excitement.
As Hephaestus beat his wings slowly, the scenery beneath them rapidly shrank.
He turned his body and flew north.
...
The snow in the outer plains had already melted, revealing dark soil beneath, and fresh green shoots had pushed up through cracks in the stones.
Thud!
A green, muddy foot crushed a tender sprout, mercilessly pressing that fragile life into the mud.
“Waaah!”
A hunched figure with deep green skin — a goblin — ran in terror, clutching a crudely made short spear.
Companions behind it cried out repeatedly, as if something terrifying were chasing them.
Boom!
A few fire arrows flew precisely through their hearts the next instant.
A trace of unwillingness flickered in the goblins’ cloudy eyes, but they fell, resentful, onto the primordial ground.
The scarlet wings that had passed across the sky then streaked off into the distance, never landing.
From his mount, Gauss glanced down at the wiped-out goblin group and showed no intention of stopping.
He had used Locate Creature to confirm there were no surviving goblins nearby.
As for their handful of rusty scrap — broken spears and wooden clubs — Gauss’s party had no interest.
There wasn’t much value there; collecting it would only waste time.
“There are more goblins than I thought.”
Since mastering Locate Creature, Gauss realized goblins populated these wildlands more densely than he had assumed.
Especially in uninhabited stretches with no villages or shops nearby, you might dig in the ground and find a goblin skeleton.
In forests, caves, or the ruins of abandoned manors...
Under Gauss’s “radar” like Locate Creature scans, goblins blinked like glaring red dots.
“But it’s probably related to that war from a while back.”
Gauss recalled the recent war. In the early stages of war, monster armies would drive wild, unorganized monsters out of forests and into human territory.
After the war, the routed monster armies might also flee into the interior.
People commonly believed monsters only lived in the monster nation to the south, and not in human kingdoms, especially the inland regions. That notion was seriously mistaken.
In reality, monsters were everywhere.
Human villages, towns, and cities could only govern a limited surrounding area. Between villages and cities lay vast blank zones where power and order rarely reached — fertile ground for monsters.
Monsters living within human territory were usually scattered and small in scale, and rarely produced extremely powerful individuals, so they seldom formed large armies.
Almost a week later, Gauss and his group continued clearing monsters as they marched toward Falim.
Gauss consulted the map in his mind against the parchment map in his hand, and just when he was wondering how far it still was, the horizon ahead revealed a massive white silhouette like a great beast lying low.
“What’s that?”
Aria also spotted the formation on the horizon.
“Falim’s coming up.”
“Prepare to land.”
Although the grand city was still some distance away, Gauss already felt a strong anti-air force.
He had briefly sensed a similar aura above the monster army’s command tent outside Grayrock Town, but the power over Falim was thousands of times stronger.
He squinted slightly.
At the edge of the city’s sky, he noticed several tiny black dots like sesame seeds flying about. Clearly this city-scale anti-air formation allowed certain whitelisted targets to fly over and around the city.
As a newcomer, Gauss did not have that permission. He ordered a somewhat disgruntled Hephaestus to land, then switched mounts.
“Let’s go.”
After changing to Ostriches, Gauss checked direction and led them toward Falim.
The powerful anti-air aura over Falim felt like an invisible dome; the closer they got, the more they could sense the weighty order and majesty beneath it.
On the road to Falim, the crowds gradually thickened.
Besides the usual carriages and pedestrians, there were more large freight beast-carts.
On the nearby river, boats slowly sailed toward Falim.
After traveling a long while, Gauss first saw the white city walls as they approached.
These were no ordinary walls; huge blocks of stone, cut unnaturally smooth and stacked, formed the ramparts. Between the seams, golden mana filigree flowed slowly.
The endless walls radiated a sacred, dignified presence.
Anyone seeing this city for the first time would be struck with awe.
“This is Falim?”
Even after visiting three cities — Barry, Senna, and Longdi Fort — Gauss couldn’t help but marvel at the city’s grandeur.
This was the first metropolis that gave him a real sense of civilization.
Coming closer, Gauss realized what the tiny black dots in the distant sky had been.
They were squadrons of griffin riders on patrol, the riders clad in silver light armor with coordinated flight paths.
Visitors lined up to enter the city all looked up at them and uttered exclamations.
“Please come this way.”
Just as Gauss prepared to follow the long queue of traffic into the city, several guards approached and guided them into a small side-room near the gate.
Inside sat several lawkeepers in neat gray uniforms.
“You’re adventurers, right? Please show your identity plaques,” one of them said.
Creatures that reached a certain level were identified before entry into Falim.
“All right.”
Gauss flipped out his identity plaque.
They had just updated their information in Grayrock Town.
Seeing Gauss and the others’ plaques, the lawkeepers straightened from a casual posture.
Level 6 and 7 professionals were not common in Falim.
At least that was how the lawkeeper saw it.
He himself had once been only a level 1 Ranger before he took this post, so he respected high-level professionals a great deal.
He knew such ranks were beyond what he could ever achieve.
“What’s your name?”
“Gauss.”
......
After a few simple questions the lawkeeper stood and personally escorted them through the side gate into Falim.
“Have a pleasant visit.”
“Goodbye, Lawkeeper.”
Gauss noticed the man looked respectful but didn’t seem to recognize his name, and he couldn’t help but think that his fame hadn’t reached here yet.
Compared to Falim, other cities looked rural.
When the lawkeeper learned they had come from Grayrock Town, Gauss detected a faint superiority on the man’s face.
People from the center always had this curious psychological edge over those from the frontier.
Gauss was amused rather than offended and felt more clearly the differences between regions.
In Grayrock Town he had been the town’s savior, a famed Guardian of Grayrock, the celebrated “Crimson Dragon Knight.”
But in Falim he was merely one of the visiting “out-of-town Master-level adventurers” undergoing routine inspection.
He looked around the city.
Falim’s streets struck him as orderly.
Wide roads were paved with seamlessly fitted gray-and-white slabs.
The street trees were not planted at random but stood in tidy rows; their branches were carefully pruned silver-leaved planes.
Architectural styles were uniform: mostly four to six-story brick or stone buildings painted soft cream or other pale colors.
The entire city looked meticulously planned.
The transport on the streets was more varied; besides traditional conveyances, there were track coaches parked by the roadside. No beasts were visible to pull them, so Gauss guessed they were some kind of large magical device.
There weren’t many passengers, and those waiting seemed well-dressed and financially comfortable.
“First stop, the Adventurers Guild.”
After a brief look around, Gauss said.
The lawkeeper had given him a city map marked with main buildings: the town hall, various Adventurers Guild branches, the library, and so on.
Curious, Gauss went to the ticket booth near the platform to buy a ticket just for the experience.
Its appearance reminded him of trams from his previous life, and he felt a bit nostalgic.
While buying the ticket he used his Charisma advantage to ask the ticket clerk some questions about the coach.
“You mean this.”
“They call it a mana-driven track coach, a novelty from the capital.”
“It’s powered by a magic core and runs along laid tracks. No beasts needed; it’s fast and stable,” the young woman explained crisply, with a hint of pride.
“Currently only a few lines operate, mainly connecting major districts and key facilities.”
After thanking her, Gauss waited on the platform.
He felt a subtle flow of mana beneath the tracks.
After a while, a long, dark metallic coach glided in along the twin rails.
Passengers boarded in order. After the inspector checked tickets, the coach began to move.
Once underway, the scenery outside streamed by at a steady pace. The coach ran on its own right-of-way, quickly leaving carriages and beast-carts behind.
Gauss remained relatively calm; after all, in a previous life he had ridden high-speed trains, subways, and trams. But his teammates had clearly never experienced this kind of transport. Each of them looked around in wonder, especially Aria, who pressed her face to the window and stared wide-eyed at the view.
Her pale blue hair whipped in the wind and scattered across Gauss’s face as she sat beside him.
Albenia looked nervous, sitting stiffly in the widened seat with both hands gripping the handles, clearly uneasy about this “iron box” that moved by itself.
Gauss watched his teammates’ reactions and smiled inwardly.
Noticing Aria looking at him, he quickly hid his grin and began studying the coach itself.
He suspected a powerful mage of magical engineering had designed it.
He could sense mana flowing beneath them but not the exact mechanism. That the mana was used so efficiently and stably made it far more sophisticated than any combat spell he knew.
Although his Fireball could blast this coach to pieces in one cast, from a technical perspective this vehicle was more intricate and delicately engineered than any battle magic he had mastered.
Still, he suspected it was an experimental, trial-run operation.
They had each paid three silver coins for their tickets — not cheap — and he doubted it would recoup costs easily.
About half an hour and several stops later, the coach arrived at Gauss’s destination.
South District Adventurers Guild — Gate of Order.
The square before them bustled with adventurers.
Compared to other districts, this place seemed more chaotic.
Many vendors hawked goods.
“Sir, would you like to take a look at this fine dragon-tooth dagger?”
“This is made from a genuine dragon fang, only ten gold coins. It will cut through iron.”
“Let me show you!”
No matter how florid the salesman’s pitch, Gauss ignored him and strode toward the guild entrance. The disappointed vendor went to find another buyer.
Gauss shook his head.
A pure hustler, trying to con even someone like him.
Couldn’t he tell whether it was dragon tooth or not?
He thought his own knocked-out tooth might be more authentic than that trinket.