Chapter 22

After signing the contract, Aaron returned home to share the good news but he forgot that there would be no one at this time.

His parents have work to do. As chefs, their work should start much later but they were only recently promoted, just yesterday. So, they are needed in the restaurant before the usual time.

Though the manager of the restaurant promoted them to gain some points with Aaron, he is not someone who would want the standards of the restaurant to fall.

For now, they are in training period as chefs. There is not much difference between chefs and their assistants but this is not some local cheap restaurant. This establishment is famous for its quality of food.

No matter what, the manager can't let damage that.

So, even though they are chefs on paper, they won't be actual chefs until they prove themselves.

Though they are yet to be chefs, because of Aaron, the path to being chefs has opened to them. As long as they prove that they are good, they can actually become chefs and that means, their levelling speed will increase.

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Seeing that no one was around, Aaron decided to make the best use of the day.

He went to the school by 8 in the morning. The discussions and signing of the contract were completed by 9:30 and now it's almost 10.

His parents won't be home before at least 10 in the night. Sometimes they would arrive even later than that.

Until then, there was nothing else to do for him.

"Might as well go to the dungeon to level up. I am still very far away from ranking up. It would be best if I could rank up before I reach the academy", Aaron thought.

After a moment, it was decided that he would use the remaining time here in Rock City to level up as fast as possible. Before the two-week deadline, he has to leave the city for the academy.

Dusk Academy was located near Dusk City, which is a Tier-5 city.

Though Tier-5 cities have a lot of dungeons and their rankings were even higher than the ones here in Rock City, the number of hunters is also higher.

If you see clearly, there would be a lot of hunters visiting the lower-ranking dungeons. This was because many hunters couldn't reach higher ranks and had to settle for lesser dungeons for their livelihood.

Visiting the lower-rank dungeons for loot and selling would be their daily activity. It was common in Rock City.

It is something that should also happen in Dusk City and that means lower-ranking dungeons have longer queues. It is quite a waste of time for someone who would not stay in the dungeon for days.

If Aaron was someone who stayed the nights in there, then facing such time eating queues would not be of much problem but to alleviate his parents' worries, he returned home at night.

Even after he leaves for the academy, he is sure that they will be worried about him and he will have to speak to them every night to alleviate their fears.

Communicators don't work in dungeons. One has to be outside for them to work. So he has to leave the dungeon every day. It is the only way.

With so many skeletons, if he places them as his guards, there would be nothing that can harm him now, but would his parents worry less even with such assurances? No, he actually tried that before and there was no change.

Though they might not speak about that, he could clearly see the tension in their faces when he left to hunt in the morning and the relief when they saw him return without any accidents.

So, even after he left for the academy, he would have no other choice but to enter and leave dungeons on a daily basis.

"Wait, speaking of Mom and Dad, if they come back before I return, they would be worried. They usually won't be before 10 in the night and most of the time much later than that. So as long as he was home by 8, everything would be good".

"Hmm, By chance if they are back before I arrive...It's better if I leave a note", Aaron thought out loud.

Since he was in his own home, no one is there to judge him as some nutcase.

Deciding that it's best to leave a note, Aaron wrote a stick page and attached that to the fridge, so that it can be easily spotted.

After that, Aaron went out to hunt once again. To make sure he wouldn't waste much time in the future, he had to level up and maybe even rank up before he started at the academy.

One might be wondering why Aaron is worrying about the city dungeons, while the academy itself has dungeons of their own. They would have fewer queues than the ones in the city.

The people in the city are old and settled. They are not someone who would take risks but the students are young and they are someone that would take risks a lot.

He shouldn't waste much time there as the queues wouldn't be long but there is something that made Aaron seek out the dungeons in the city.

It was his Super Growth talent.

With its help, his experience gains are 10 times faster. So, he would level up faster than anyone else.

On one hand that appears to be fantastic but that is not the entire case. Until now, as he was still on the lower end of the spectrum, no one cared much about him.

Now, he is the star of the alliance.

He is the top-ranked in the academy exams, even with his Death Mage profession. If one says that no one is watching him, then they would be wrong.

While in the academy, he was sure that the academy higher-ups would keep an eye on him and thereby his growth.

Outside though, that would be tough and he can mix up the reasons for his growth, making his talent less visible to others. There is a chance that someone might see that there is something wrong but he has a certain shield that covers him.

Death Mage.

In the eyes of society, death professionals are not good. There are no high-ranking ones to date. So, even if he was attractive at this stage, they wouldn't pay too much attention to him as they would think that his growth would stop quickly.

Aaron was banking on that to not let anyone think that he was someone special. It is kind of a gamble but that is something he is forced to play.