Rebirth of the Phoenix God

"This fucker…"

Only with his greatest efforts did Fen manage to stop Nadia from rushing off from the party in order to punish the mercenary for his schemes. Maybe it was the alcohol that everyone in the room already consumed or her natural attitude, but as soon as she learned about the details of what Fen came through, Nadia seemed to take it personally.

"It's okay. I already dealt with all the problems related to this matter, so there is no point in getting excited about it. More importantly…"

Putting aside the glass that contained a delicious yet weak liquor, Fen stared directly at his senior.

"I recall that you made a claim that I need to not only finish my first quest but also properly form my catalyst in order for you to introduce me to some worthy mercenary groups. Am I right?"

Instead of lingering on the topic that was already dealt with, Fen was much keener to push forward with his life. While he still had to deal with the problem of introducing Cleo to the academy and finding out the way to fix her constitution without putting her in danger of some crazy and ambitious teacher using her situation for his own purposes, the best way to do was by becoming someone commonly respected in the arcanist community.

And the simplest and fastest way of doing so was through the mercenary groups!

"Well, I can't say that it's a lie… But I never heard of you conquering the step of forming catalyst. Don't tell me…"

With the implications of where their talk was heading, Nadia suddenly looked at her junior with a sharp gaze, before turning her sight back to the table in front of her. Taking a moment to think about it, she grabbed her cup and chugged its content down before slamming it right down. Ignoring the small ovation that this action of her resulted with, the girl once again looked at her junior.

"Are you sure you want to do this now? Right away?"

Even though Fen never mentioned that he was in such a hurry to leave the party in order to deal with this business, given how his senior proposed it herself, the young arcanist only shrugged his arms before nodding. This was what he was aiming for as soon as he learned how did the social structure of this entire place look, so there wasn't any point in allowing the hesitation to take over now.

"Good. Victor, do you have a moment?"

Instead of standing up from the wide table across which a huge group from the academy was celebrating, Nadia simply turned to one of the men that sat several seats away from her.

"What's up?"

How this particular senior of Fen managed to hear his name despite all the commotion caused by the entire party was a secret that Fen would love to one day understand, yet for now, the only important thing was that he actually managed to respond to the call.

Yet, rather than keeping the discussion in terms of simple words shouted across the noise of the party, the young man actually stood up from his place - his hand still holding the cup of a see-through liquid - only to sat down directly beside Fen and his senior.

"I know that this might surprise you, but I promised our today's celebrity that once he finishes his first serious quests and manages to form his catalyst, I would write him with some of the worthy mercenary groups. From what he told me, the quest that he returned from wasn't something even remotely close to what most of the people take for their first time. In fact, it was already suspiciously profitable when I first heard about it, but it turned out to be even more dangerous than it was supposed to be."

In an instant, Victor's face changed form curious and happy to one full of wrath. Even though Fen wasn't really someone whose fate this young mercenary would ever care about, the fact that someone faked the content of the quests was one of the worst things that one could do to the arcanist. After all, each quest was graded not for the reasons of scamming the poor folks out of their money, but because it allowed those with skills required to fulfil it to receive a satisfactory recompensation for their efforts and risk they had to take. 

In the end, if people simply dropped the idea of following the general rules of quest making, then a majority of the upcoming arcanist would die on the missions way over their level before they could actually become strong enough to pay back the costs of their education and training!

Initially worried that bringing this topic up would cause yet another delay and potential problems for Cleo and her father, seeing that just a single gesture of Nadia was enough to put this topic aside, Fen could at least breathe out a sigh of relief. 

"So, what do you want me to do?"

Cutting to the chase, Victor directed his eyes to the young arcanist whose return from the quest was the very reason for the ongoing celebration. 

"Would you like to take a short break from the party to test him out? While I know you are not looking for new members, I think you will be able to do me this favour. After all, he doesn't need to be paid much."

Clearly dissatisfied with how strongly Fen was pushing for the greater heights without stopping even for a moment to enjoy what he already achieved, Nadia smiled as she added the last part of her sentence. Yet, there was no denying it. As long as Fen could find a way to start his career as arcanist mercenary, then even a long period of time with his pay being below of what he could easily get anywhere else was something that he was willing to compromise on.

After all, while money was always important, the deal that he had with Cleo's father basically made him capable of not worrying about the money for any foreseeable future. Yet, it would be really hard to come up with any other opportunity that would potentially allow the young man to train his skills in a practical way!

"Okay then, let's go."

Not willing to waste any time, Victor stood up from the pillow that he was seating on before leading the group fo two outside. After marching through the dark yet open space of the inner roads of academy campus, Fen could recognise that they moved back to the place that he was already quite familiar with - the training hall of the academy.

Yet, instead of actually entering the building, the young mercenary stopped right outside of the doors.

"Okay then, come at me."

Instead of asking Fen to present his catalyst or how much power he could output, Victor simply spread out his arms after pulling out a small knife from behind his belt. From the way that he looked at the potential recruit, it was clear that he didn't believe that Fen would pass whatever the heck this test was supposed to be.

"Okay…"

Shaking his head once to get rid of the pleasant fuzz from the alcohol, Fen invoked his catalyst… And jumped forward even before it could manifest itself in the open. Given how his wings and semi-corporeal armour were made fully out of flames, if he just stood in place and waited for it to properly form-up, he would be nothing more but a shiny target cutting itself apart from the dark area of the open field.

Only once half of the distance between his initial position and where Victor stood was covered, did Fen's wings finally manage to form… Only for the young man to instantly swing them to the back, adding even more speed to his sudden lunge.

"Not ba…"

Clearly underestimating his opponent, Victor was about to comment on the decisive way in which Fen attacked, before his words were cut and his face turned actually serious. This alone proved that he was a proper veteran with how quickly he managed to realise that he grossly underestimated the person he was about to fight with.

'Now…'

A strange heat spread through Fen's body as he got closer and closer to his senior. Just a moment before he would break into the close distance fight, the young arcanist infused his wings with even more energy, resulting in what could only be described as a small explosion.

All for the sake of blinding the squinted eyes of Victor!

Yet, what Fen didn't expect was his own sudden explosion to actually add up to his speed, throwing him off balance and making him slam against the body of his opponent!

"Hen!"

Shouting some strange word, Fen's senior didn't lose his mind. Shifting his weight to the other leg, he simply allowed Fen's momentum to turn him around. With the young arcanist passing by his senior, Fen could feel several painful spots instantly appearing on his hand, torso and leg.

Crash!

With his senior's body moving away from his way, Fen was unable to stop himself from crashing against the wall of the building. Thankfully, it was made out of some kind of sturdy materials that easily survived the sudden and unprovoked attack of Fen's body… Something that couldn't be said about the young man himself.

"Ugh…"

Clearly dissatisfied with how the short showdown went, Fen slowly gathered himself from the ground where he fell, announcing his pain with the moans that escaped his mouth whenever he moved. Unwilling to raise his head to look at his seniors, Fen was already depressing over how he just lost his best chance to grow.

"That was pretty impressive. Tell me, did your catalyst take the form of wings, or was that just my imagination?"