The Mage of Primordial Chaos

"Huh...which one should I pick?" I muttered to myself, staring at a large blue screen.

I had just finished receiving a long explanation from the veiled receptionist regarding quests and how to do them. The long and short of it was this: Hunters usually came to the guild early morning every day to browse and take on quests at one of the Quest Terminals. These were the blue screens engraved into the walls on the left and right side of the lobby. There were about 20 in total (10 on each side), each about the size of a door. The Hunters' Guild lobby was pretty big, so it could fit all of these machines just fine.

However, even so, compared to the sheer number of Hunters there are within this region, 20 terminals was nowhere near enough and every morning, the guild would be crowded with Hunters waitng for their turn. Some form parties and tackle difficult quests together, while others prefer to remain solo and just stick to the ones they are capable of by themselves.

The operation process of these machines was pretty simple. It was just like a smartphone (I knew about that, since I just got one recently) - touchscreen and easy to maneuver. Except....well, it wasn't mobile, that was for sure. The 'home screen' showed different categories of quests, ranging from Monster Extermination to Magic Beast Hunts, as well as some more mundane ones such as cleaning a bathroom (yes, that was a legitimate quest, with a legitimate, albeit low, reward).

After choosing a specific category, you were met with a list of the currently available quests of that particular section. Since you could only do one quest at a time, you would then pick out one quest to do, and swipe your guild card on the scanner implemented beside the large screen. After that, you are tethered to this quest, and you cannot accept a new quest before either completing this one, or forfeiting. Forfeiting a quest came with its punishments, but none of them are too severe. Worst case, you lose some bounty points.

Once you were completed the quest, you would head over to a receptionist, and they will check that you really did finish the quest, before giving you your reward. Then, the Hunters will once again begin their hunt for a new quest at one of the terminals. It was a fairly straight-forward process, but for a newbie like me, I didn't even know where to start.

"Um...a-are you have trouble deciding on which quest to do?" a familiar girl's voice called out to me from behind.

"Hm? Ah, yeah..." I muttered in reply. "But more importantly, what are you doing here? Aren't you working right now?"

"Um...right now is actually my b-break time..."

"Oh...I see."

If it's your break time, shouldn't you be taking a break instead of coming to help me out? I mean, I appreciate it; I do, but this makes me feel like I'm taking up your rest time, you know! It's not a very nice feeling.

"S-So, anyway, what kind of quests do you prefer?" she asked, changing the topic.

"Hmm...well, I don't want to go clean bathrooms, that's for sure," I replied, remembering that one quest I saw. 

The girl gave a light giggle, but quickly recomposed herself and continued. "Then...what about monster extermination? They are the most dangerous, but also pay the best."

I scratched my cheek awkwardly. "Hm...for my first quest, I would like to do something lighter, if you get what I mean..."

"A-Ah, yes! Of course! In that case, g-going on a simple resource excavation quest would be your b-best bet! Yes!"

Resource Excavation, huh...let's see here. I turned back to the screen and found the category the receptionist was talking about, and clicked into it. A large list of quests showed up on the screen, far more than Monster Extermination or Magic Beast Hunts.

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"Hm? Why are there so many quests of this kind?" I asked.

"W-Well, that's because there isn't really an abundancy of Monsters and Magic Beasts in the area, since we're in a developed, relatively safe region and all..."

Oh, I see. That certainly was true. This wasn't like The Wilderness, where you couldn't go 100 meters without seeing at least one Monster or Magic Beast.

"Alright then...I'll take this one." I pointed at the quest I had in mind. The quest synopsis was as follows:

Quest Name: Cave Exploration

Category: Resource Excavation

Excavation Target: Gold (other substances may also be found)

Difficulty: Easy

Rank Requirement: None

Reward: ¥500, 5 Bounty Points

"Cave Exploration, huh...indeed, this is a good quest for beginners," the receptionist remarked, nodding to herself.

Seeing her approval, I continued with the process, scanned my guild card on the scanner beside the screen, and placed the card back in my pocket.

"Alright...let's do this-"

"Ah, wait!" Just as I was about to leave the building, I was called back by the same veiled receptionist.

"What is it?"

"Um...h-have you installed the Hunters' Guild app on your phone?" she asked hesitantly.

"Uh, no? Why?" I've never even heard of that before, so I had no idea what it was.

The girl sighed and handed me a brochure of some kind. "Read this, it's the Hunters' Handbook. There's lots of important tips and guidelines in there to follow, some of which were gotten directly from the best Hunters out there."

As expected, you didn't stutter there when you were explaining something. Actually, wait, wasn't what she was doing earlier at the Quest Terminal technically explaining stuff to me as well? If memory serves, she stuttered quite a bit back there...ah, well, whatever.

"Hm, I'll keep that in mind...but what about the app?"

"J-Just follow the instructions in that manual!" she exclaimed. "B-But be sure to install the app before doing that quest, okay? Otherwise you won't have any idea where to go!"

Oh shit, she's right. The quest didn't say anything about where exactly the cave I was supposed to go in was located. I'm assuming this app is going to tell me where to go, then. Why didn't she give me this handbook or whatever sooner? Don't tell me...she just forgot? No way. She's not that big of a klutz, right? Right?! Goddamn...thankfully, I didn't head out yet. I didn't want to come running back here half an hour later realizing I was never told the location of the quest...that would be very embarrassing.

Well then...Cave Exploration, here I come.

*****

- An Hour Later, Avast Mountains, Shenzhen -

Hmm...this should be the place.

Right after I received the handbook from that veiled receptionist (come to think of it, I still don't know her name...I'll ask the next time I meet her, she's helped me out quite a bit), I had skimmed through it quickly, searching for the app or whatever it was. Soon enough, I had found it, and followed the instructions on the handbook to install it on my phone. All I had to do was scan something using the Camera app, and the download started immediately. Pretty convenient.

After a minute or so, the download finished, and I fire up the application. It asked me for permission to access my camera, and I clicked yes. Then, I was instructed to scan my guild card using that very same camera, and so I did. The link was finished immediately, and after a couple seconds of waiting, a map showed up on the screen, displaying my current location as well as my destination for my current quest. I had followed that all the way here, to the foot of the Avast Mountains.

I arrived fairly on time, since the phone said it would take about an hour, and I indeed arrived here in an hour. By the way, I didn't fly either this time, since I was strictly following the map on my phone...but once I arrived, I discovered there was a 'flight mode' for those that possessed Sky Magic. Tragic? Yeah. Especially since that could've saved me like 40 minutes of travel time. Whatever though.

Anyway, the Avast Mountains, huh? From what I know, in later years at the Shenzhen Magic High School, we would have multiple expeditions to these wild mountains to practice hunting Monsters and Magic Beasts. I've never been here before, but I've heard plenty about it. Apparently, it was the ideal training grounds, since it had just the adequate amount of Monsters and Magic Beasts, and none of them were too strong. At the same time, they weren't so weak that they couldn't provide a challenge at all, either. For this reason, I guessed that many of the future quests I take at this branch of the Hunters' Guild will all be located in these mountains.

The foot of the mountain had a teleportation circle that brought people directly to the top, which was quite convenient. People could choose to walk or fly up themselves as well, but since my cave was coincidentally located at the very top of one of the mountains, I decided to just take the teleportation circle this time around.

I stepped on top of the platform, and a brilliant cyan light enveloped my entire body...not.

"Error: Please Enter Payment."

What the hell?! You need to pay to use this thing?! Are you kidding me...what?! It costs ¥250 just for an one-way trip?! That means if I go up and come back down using this thing...that's equivalent to my reward for this entire quest!

"What a rip-off..." I muttered to myself in frustration. Stepping off the platform with the weird mechanical female voice, I tilted my head upwards and looked at the distant mountaintops.

"Haiz...no choice but to do this the hard way, I guess."