The woman at the front desk had a stern attitude as she handled all the mercenaries coming in and out. I went forward and laid out a pile of rank B cores to start it off so I could gauge the level of wealth I held

Fifty rank B cores rolled on the table, the woman taking her time to count them all carefully. Her cold voice rang out

"50 decontructed rank B cores, amounting to ten full cores. They can be exchanged for 100 gold coins."

I listened to this conversion from cores to the common currency of gold coins and nodded my agreement towards the front desk. 100 glistening gold coins appeared on the table the next instant and I took them into one of my storage rings

Before I turned and left, the woman spoke again in the same cold tone

"Will you be joining the extermination task force heading to the Skypeak Nest tomorrow? Your power matches the requirements."

A task force that was heading towards one of the nests? My eyes gleamed as I heard about this and I asked for more information

"The task force is made up of mostly rank A and a few rank S Mercenaries that are leaving at 9 am sharp. If you plan to join, here is an identification medal that will keep track of all the mercenaries on this mission. Don’t be late."

I grabbed the outstretched medal from the woman and thanked her for the information as I turned away. The medal was very light on the hands and had the symbol of two crossing swords. I placed some energy into it and felt thin lines of connection to a few points in [Mercenary’s Hideout] as well as points that extended all over the town

I got used to all of these new things as I became glad at being able to visit a Nest where monsters congregated so soon. There were terrifying presences on just the one floating landmass that I saw on the way here, and I didn’t want to risk my life by going there alone while I still haven’t acc.u.mulated all that many rank S and rank A skills.

Aside from the collection of rank A or lower mercenaries, a sparse amount of rank S could be seen as I exited the hideout and walked outside. My next destination was a beautifully designed inn that had various women standing outside of it. The few that I passed by called out to me

"Hey handsome, do you need any company tonight?"

"Big boy, are you up for some fun?"

Women of varying ages and sizes were spread out and talking to many of the people that were going in and out of this large lodging. It seemed completely normal as some could be seen heading inside with someone they just began talking to while others left the lodging with exhausted faces

I ignored the calls and comments from the many people around me as I went inside the building, and went in even faster after I saw a guy with a face full of makeup heading my way

The inside of the building was much quiter, with the noise stopping the moment you passed through the double doors. I went towards the counter where a red haired girl was acting as the receptionist and asked for a single room

"A single room for the night will be 2 gold coins sir. We also have the special offer of reserving a room for an entire week, all for the small price of 10 gold coins!"

I nodded towards the girl throwing out the sales pitch as I picked up a sheet that wrote down the different options and their rates. The sheet also had a section below that described the foods they offered in their dining area

"Just the single room works, and let me have the Fiery Soup and Rhino’s Special for now"

"Yes sir! It all comes out to a total of 3 gold coins."

The girl cheerfully gave me a bronze key and led to a table in the dining area where I didn’t wait too long for the food to be brought out. The dish that was called Fiery Soup was an extremely spicy broth that came in large wooden bowl which had bountiful diced up meats that tasted better than anything I’ve had before

The spice lingered in your mouth and got hotter the more that you ate, with meat being extremely soft. The Rhino’s special was a platter of what seemed like prime ribs, but much larger and much more appetizing

I spent the next 30 minutes enjoying what was arguably the best of the many meals I would be having from now on before I went towards room number 34 that the key took the shape of.

I climbed the sturdy wooden stairs of the hotel and walked through a narrow hallway before finding the room and entering. A simple bed filled with feathers was in the middle of the room, with a door leading to a wide bathtub looking structure and a toilet off to the side. There was a ladle that was likely used for bathing attached to a large bucket that had steaming water in it

I curiously went to check out the bathroom and found the water in the bucket to continue replenishing to a specific level after I scooped some out. It remained the same temperature of warmth at the same time too. The bucket holding the water was attached to the ground with a pipe at the bottom of it

I got used to all these new things I was seeing for the first time as I reflected on every wondrous sight I saw today and then moved on to combine more of my skills. Tomorrow would be the first beginning of my rise from this place, and I wanted to be at my peak.

The only way for my strength to jump crazily was to gain a skill of higher rank, and there were two ways of doing this for me. I could combine multiple compatible S rank skills until they broke through to the next rank, or start off even lower with rank B skills to rank A, and then rank A to S.

The other way was to simply hunt and kill multiple beasts and collect the skills the old fashioned way. I would proactively use both ways, as using multiple skills and keeping them active was not a problem for me.

There were multiple rank B skills that I learned more than a week ago as I was leaving the United Federation that had long since reached 100 proficiency. There were also two rank A skills that were compatible that I would be combining. The rest of the rank A skills would also be ready for combination soon, giving me even more things to look forward to

None of the rank S skills were anywhere near a 100 though, as it became progressively harder to raise the proficiency of higher ranked skills.

I used the

[Skill Combination]

function and was able to produce a few rank B+ skills, as well as a new rank A+ skill by combing the rank A [Frigid Impermanence] and [Permafrost] to bring out [A+ Arctic Zone- Freeze and destabilize an entire area of 10 meters, shattering everything in it].

I learned [Permafrost] as I was leaving the United Federation, so I made the goal to spam this skill a whole lot while I was doing cleanup around the Empire before I left so I could raise the proficiency the fastest. It was a skill that had obvious compatability with the [Frigid Impermanance]

The new [Arctic Zone] skill made me excited to combine another rank A+ compatible skill and put them together to watch for what rank S skill would come out of it.

The rank B+ skills I was able to synthesize were: [Hardened Body Armor], [Strengthened Strikes], [Mirror of Repulsion], and [Emerald Skin].

The moment they appeared on the attribute panel, I activated them and waited for their proficiency to rise once more before I combined them too. It would be a long process, but my power would continue to spike the more skills I combined. I laid down on the feathered mattress as I waited for the next day to arrive, where my adventure would fully begin𝒃𝒆𝙙𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝙡．𝙤𝒓𝙜