Unreasonable Requirements

Marriott obviously pressed [Accept], after which the quest had shown all of it's details. Marriott shook his head in disbelief, he knew that whatever affected him and caused him to awaken his energy core was powerful. But for this. System. To be able to grant him multiple skills was completely unthinkable, but, the requirements were insane! He decided to re-read the quest screen. Just to fully make sure he wasn't interpreting it wrong.

[Title: A Latent Talent]

[Rewards: (Skill: Ice manipulation)(Skill: Frost resistance)]

[Time Limit: 30 days]

[Description: Your hidden talent has been revealed by the system! Your current energy core has an affinity towards ice based skills! Use the system to explore your affinity.]

[Requirements: Eat 10 ice cubes! 0/10 eaten

Meditate in cold water for 5 minutes! 0/5 minutes achieved .

Spend 24 hours in total shirtless in a snowy region! 0/24 hours achieved.

Kill 5 monsters with fur! 0/5 monsters killed.]

[Conditions: If requirements are achieved in the required amount of time, your core will be strengthened.

If requirements are not achieved within a month quest progress will be reset and ice affinity will be reduced by 10%.]

Skills were hard to come by, mostly because it was nearly impossible to learn them by yourself. They typically required skill book which was the technique to simply create and enhance the skill. Marriott's family wasn't rich enough to get skill books, or lucky enough to have a powerful bloodline skill. Which meant they relied on the government to supply them and their kids with the ability to learn skills.

Marriott knew that having an elemental based core meant that certain skills would be easier to unlock and train. But it was still hard to learn skills on his own, and with the chance to gain them right infront of him. He was absolutely thrilled, but one problem arose. Spending a day's worth of time shirtless in a snowy region was pretty much impossible! He wouldn't be able to regularly visit snowy areas as his hometown didn't have any nearby mountains and rarely snowed. It'd also be impossible for him to visit snowy worlds as he needed either government or the hunter's guild permission to go into portals.

Marriott shook his head once again, it was hard to do the snowy region requirement on its own but to have a time limit was worse enough. He sighed as he opened his eyes.

'My only option is to pray it snows in town. Oh woe is me.' Marriott thought to himself solemnly.

"Hey Mar," Rose's voice yelled out from outside the Infirmary. "You've been signed out, now hurry up, there's already a group heading out to hunt. If we're late then everyone is gonna leave us behind!"

As Marriott got up from the bed, he realized he wasn't wearing his usual clothes. The nurses had changed them to make it easier for the doctor to use his healing palms on Marriott's chest.

Looking around the room Marriott saw his clothes piled on a chair. As he went to pick them up a small note dropped onto the floor. Leaning down to pick it up, Marriott read what it said.

|Hey Marriot,

So uh. I know that it might not mean much if you don't get saved but uh. I'm sorry about the whole. Killing you thing. I was used to fighting against more durable people. So I didn't think it would be that bad. Sorry man.

My apologies

Lenovo Navistar|

Marriott sighed and crumpled the note up, putting it back on the chair. "He misspelled my name, and why is it so formal?" He said disappointed at the attempted apology.

Marriott proceeded to quickly change, Rose barged into the room to yell at him to hurry up midway through his changing.

After the ordeal Marriott and Rose left the Infirmary, as they passed the doctor Marriott gave his thanks for saving his life.

"Oh hey. Rose, do you know where the gauntlets I had been using went? Or did they end up getting destroyed by Lenovo's lighting wave skill thing?" Marriott questioned Rose, having been hoping that the gauntlets weren't destroyed.

"Oh uh. Right. Your gauntlets. They were taken off in the arena by a teacher before you got teleported away. I kinda ran to the Infirmary before following the teacher so I've got no clue. You're gonna need to get another weapon Mar. Sorry." Rose sighed, annoyed at the fact his weapon was taken away.

Marriott sighed, "Ah, alright. I'll probably get a spear then. Hopefully people don't think using spears are as weird as using gauntlets."

"I'll wait for you outside, we'll probably have to run to catch up to the main group as I'm pretty sure they ended up going a few minutes ago." Rose was anxious, although it was a relatively safe world. Being separated was still somewhat dangerous.

Marriott had gone inside, the person inside looked at him. "Uh, are you here to return your gauntlets? If you're trying to get a weapon you. Kinda can't without returning your old weapon."

"Oh uh, I. I didn't know that. It kinda got taken from me." Marriott didn't know what to do, as he had no clue which teacher took it and just saying 'a teacher' took it would be a bit suspicious.

"Okay, uh. If you can tell me who took it I could probably get a teacher to make them return it. Otherwise there's not much I can do to help you bud," They said indifferently, shrugging their shoulders. "I mean. I could probably let you take something from the lost and found but. They are. Low quality."

Marriott had no choice, "Lost and found works."

The person behind the glass smiled, they unlocked the door which led into the area they were in. They led Marriott to far in the back, passing rows of weapons and eventually coming across opened boxes filled with what looked like diy weapons.

"Oh. Wow okay. Low quality is an understatement," Marriot pointed to what was essentially a sharpened stick. "That's literally a stick. Like a genuine stick. Where were they even found?"

"They were just brought to me by other students. No clue." They shrugged as they said it.

Marriott had very few options infront of him as most of the so called weapons were either sticks and rocks duck taped together or modifed sticks.

Marriott ended up picking an extra thick and long piece of sharpened wood. One that, hopefully, wouldn't break immediately.

As he was leaving he could hear laughter. Clearly the person who had given him the option to choose from lost and found didn't expect him to take anything.

Exiting the weapon storage, Rose immediately had a look of confusion. "I thought. You were getting an actual spear? What's with th-"

Marriott held a single finger up, shutting Rose up. "Do not ask. Let's just get going."

Quickly leaving the field, and heading towards a gated area. Rose and Marriott encountered troubles in the form of a teacher asking where they were going.

"We were told by the hunters in the main group to uh. Get a really basic weapon to show the difference between monster material and wood. Although we were a bit slow in getting it and seem to have lost the group. Could you maybe give us directions to the hunting area?" Despite it being an on the spot lie, Rose had been very confident. That confidence led the teacher to believe what Rose said.

"Ah alright, there's gonna be a large path that heads East. After that, there should be a sign pointing INTO the woods, go that way and keep going until you reach a large clearing. But, wait if they told you to get stuff shouldn't you already kn-"

Rose grabbed Marriott's hand and started running towards the path pointed out by the teacher. Trees grew much more abundant as they got further away from the fenced-in field area. Rose was following the foot steps left by the big group as they traveled along the path.

Eventually coming across an old arrow sign pointing into the forest, Rose stopped. "Okay, so we should be a bit careful as we get closer to the hunting area. The large party would scare away beasts but since there's only two of us, we need to stay quiet until we get close."

Marriott gave a thumbs up and gave a zipping his mouth motion. Rose started cautiously crouching once they got into the woods. Marriott doing the same. Eventually sounds of students fighting could be heard somewhat in the distance.

Rose smiled after hearing the signs of being close to the group. "Okay Marriott, not too much farther." They continued on, not being as cautious. The sounds of fighting got closer as they moved forward. However there was another sound. Very close.

A low growl. The sound of a wolf. One of the few monsters on this planet.