Chapter 12: New Encounter

"Excuse me, can I help you?" maria asked the lanky man in that is clad in light leather armor, with two daggers on his back that are about a foot long. One dagger is green and has a snake coiled around the sheath of the dagger while the other is black as night and has a spider with a skull on its back on the sheath. The man had short black hair, and when he turned around he a pale face with red eyes. He also had a spider web tattoo on his write hand. He also had a smile plastered on his face when he saw who we were.

"You must be the Maria that has been causing an uproar with your grade level of a contract you managed to make with a soul knight no less. I am the guild leader Loki, of the Leviathon guild and would like to know if you would be interested in joining our guild."

Ah yes, another request to join a guild cause of her potential, but didn't this guy see the insignia she is wearing of the Dragon Cry guild.

Apparently, Maria is of the same train of thought because she furrowed her eyebrows at the question. I don't know too much about the way guilds work in this world but wouldn't this be trying to poach from another guild. Also, it seems Maria is less surprised about the appearance of a guild master than last time, but I suppose that is to be expected after we have already been recruited that way.

"I'm sorry, but as you can see we.. I mean I have already accepted to join the Dragon Cry guild."

Loki didn't seem to be fazed by here response like it didn't matter. Now that I think about it, this guy's name reminds me of a god from the mythology of my world. I am sure it doesn't mean anything but after being reincarnated I would rather be caution in a world full of magic.

"I did see, but I am sure we can come to an agreement for you to recant your previous agreement. If you didn't know, our city of Alynthi has the unique access to the Sister Towers. Unlike most cities, we have two towers, and because of this we also have access to more funds and items and have more variety of monsters you can face to gain experience. I am willing to pay double of whatever Karth used to bring you to his side."

After laying out his point, Loki seemed to have a triumphant look in his eyes thinking that it is an offer Maria can't refuse. I do agree that it seems like a good offer, but I am getting bad vibes from this guy and honestly I couldn't really figure out why. Personally, I think that it would be better to not break the trust in the previous guild master and great a powerful enemy, plus after my previous world I am not really keen on breaking peoples trust, at least for people who seem to not be trying to cause harm.

"No thank you. We already agreed to join them, and I would like to keep my word to them." It seems that Maria is of the same mind as me, I could understand since she was betrayed as well.

After hearing her response I could swear I saw his smile faulty and a murderous look in his eyes but it was gone before I could really discern if I was seeing things or not.

"I see, an honorable response. Well if you ever change your mind, come visit Alynthi."

After his response he disappeared from his spot as if he was never there in first place. Yeah, creepy dude.

"Well that was interesting." I said when we got inside.

"Yeah, it isn't uncommon to get other guilds trying to poach new promising recruits from each other. Also, from what I heard, the Leviathon guild and the Dragon Cry guild are basically arch enemies and compete for everything. These cities are roughly the same size as each other and are relatively close to."

"Hmm, I guess it makes sense that he would come her too, he probably figured Karth would have come as well."

"Alright enough of that, let us see what we can do with the collected souls we have."

Maria nodded her agreement and I checked my stat window to see how many we collected and the total came out to a whopping 46. I think we should avoid spending her essence to gather new runes for enchantments as we should be looking to leveling up. So I guess it would be best to use it on my current gear. We do have an elite dog and 2 shadow goblin souls so apparently from it's description, I should get better rewards from it and a possible skill that would be useful. Although it doesn't truly tell me how it makes the gear stronger so I guess that is somewhat of a risk that we take as even hovering the skill doesn't tell what will happen, all it says it how many souls I want to use and on what item.

"So, I think we should the souls on my armor, to make me able to front line better as if we are going to be coming across elite versions of the monsters we need to be prepared, and right now you don't really have that many items that we could really upgrade."

"That works for me, you are the one that has to take the brunt of the damage in fights anyways. If you go down we both do."

Alright, it sounds like I should upgrade my armor.

*How many souls would you like to invest?*

Hmm, lets try 30, including the elite and boss souls.

As soon as I accepted my skill, blue orbs flew out of my body and rotated at increasing speeds around me, and while they were spinning, my armor started to glow, and I felt a warm sensation and eventually they stopped and flew back towards my armor being absorbed into, and there was a blinding flash of light and after it went away my changed from black into greyish with black streaks running down me that were so black it was hard for my eyes to discern the color.

*Armor Evolution achieved: Acquired the skill shadow manipulation (novice), +4 base armor*

*Shadow Manipulation: increasing skill level grants more abilities and increasing intelligence increases how powerful they are. Currently can create shadows that reach 5 feet and can manipulate objects up to 5 lbs, and have a 5% increase to stealth.*

Fuck, I should have invested more into intelligence. That is a really cool scaling skill.

"Woah, Kai, you look a lot cooler than before."

........

"I mean, you always looked cool, but you just look better now... hehe."

Sigh, I suppose she is right. I do look better now.

"Besides looking better, I got a cool new skill, you should check it out."

"Really? let met see.... wtf?! Shadow manipulation! That is a skill that is really hard to obtain and even stealthy classes only have a 5% of getting it."

"Honestly, I just thought it was cool, but now I am really excited that I have this now, though it is pretty weak right now as I have put barely anything in intelligence. Honestly, it might have been better for you to have it."

"Eh, you forget that you gain stats from killing things so that shouldn't be a problem."

Oof, I did forget that... I should really invest in Intelligence.