The next morning, Tristan met Eila on the first floor. After a quick meal, they left and made their way to the nearby junction.

One teleport later, they arrived at the Novice Ring. This junction was the westernmost and the largest one he’d seen so far, so he took a moment to marvel at the abundance of people around him.

People from all over the Continent were here, shopping, gawking, walking. Figures in colorful sashes and robes, their dark coloring and yellow eyes indicating they were from the Province of Rays. Tall, imperious-looking men and women from the Province of Night with snow-pale skin and black eyes. A gaggle of excited children in school uniforms, herded by a frazzled looking teacher, all of them with the warm tones and green eyes of the Province of Growth.

Beyond them all was the ocean. The Western Embrace, as it was called. It glittered bright and blue in the horizon, and he could just barely make out regular ships bobbing on the waves as well as airships flying back overhead.

“Hmm,” Eila noted beside him, making him jump. “For someone who’s been to Advance before, you seem real awed right now.”

He eyed her drolly. “Not this again.”

She snorted. “I’m gonna get the truth out of you one of these days. But come on, let’s get moving. The Association gets very busy later in the day.”

He followed her through the crowd. It had been on his mind recently, whether or not to tell her the truth. The timing didn’t feel right, however. Soon, he thought. I’ll have to tell her soon.

They were making their way through the Novice Ring when a thought occurred to him.

“Hey,” he said to Eila. “Why don’t people just use their movement cards to get to places faster? We could just use our dashes whenever their casts refresh.”

“You can’t do it inside the actual Rings themselves,” Eila explained. She pointed to the side, where one of the corridors that led between the Rings was. “Only down the side paths can you use your cards like that. Otherwise, you’ll get in trouble with the enforcers. And it’s considered rude to cast when you’re out in public like this, not unless you have good reason to.”

Tristan mulled on that as they continued. The Cardbearer’s Association—and the linked Forger’s Association—loomed up ahead. Both buildings dominated a large swath of the inner portion of the Ring.

The Cardbearer’s Association was a low, flat octagon with each side coded to one of the eight elemental colors, whereas the Forger’s Association was shaped as a large furnace. They were both utterly massive and encased in lines of Earth energy, which Tristan figured was a way to reinforce the structure in lieu of more modern construction techniques.

They started with the Cardbearer’s Association. They entered through the front which was colored green for Earth, and inside was a wide bustling space filled with various workers flitting about. [Minor Earth Sources] were arranged artfully from cages suspended by chains from the ceilings. Statues lined the walls of prominent cardbearers, a few which Tristan even recognized as important NPCs from the game.

Eila led him to the back of this first room, where there was a long counter into seven sections: Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Expert, Master, Grandmaster, and Transcendent. Only the sections for Novice to Master had workers behind them.

Thankfully, there was no line this time around. Tristan walked up to the lady behind the desk, and a short conversation plus an air-chip later, he was the owner of a new Adept cardbearer’s pin, as well as a certificate of identification which he put into his [Binder].

“Feels like kind of a waste to get this when I’m going to advance so soon,” Tristan muttered, putting the pin on his shirt. “Also, does this mean I need to pay a fire-chip when I get my Expert one?”

Eila grunted. “Yup. Expensive, but those little administrative fees are what keep the Association running I guess.”

He sighed.

Afterwards, they went over to the Forger’s Association, which was a cavernous space with multiple floors. Two [Teleport Stones] floated in recessed chambers, and statues lined the walls here as well of important forgers.

As he walked past the statues, he saw one out of the corner of his eye that made him freeze.

It was of a tall, thin bald man wearing spectacles hoisting up a [Blueprint] in one hand and a hammer in the other. In his vest and proper pants, he looked more like a substitute teacher than a figure that deserved a statue.

But he knew this one. It was Kelvin, his NPC forger that he’d unlocked back in the game.

“Kelvin Orterra,” Eila mused, looking up at the statue as Tristan’s brain seemed to short circuit. “One of the greats. You know, he forged the first Transcendent card.”

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Tristan turned to her woodenly, trying to keep the shock from his face. “Is that so? Who… who was the first Transcendent, by the way?”

She did that familiar frown she used when he asked about something a baby would know, but he didn’t care at this moment.

“No one knows,” Eila said with a shrug. “The person’s a mystery, a figure of legend. The only reason we know they ever existed is because Kelvin was verifiably Transcendent, which means he must have forged a Transcendent card for someone. But he never revealed who.”

Tristan swallowed past a lump in his throat. “Is he still alive? Kelvin, the forger.”

“Nah, he died like thirty years ago or something.” She pulled at his arm. “Come on, let’s get going. We got a long day ahead of us.”

Tristan let himself be pulled, his mind awhirl. He barely paid attention as Eila updated her status with the worker and got her new pin. Kelvin was a real person.

Once Eila was done, they stepped outside. She squinted down at him.

“Hey, you all right?” she asked. “You look a little green.”

“I’m fine,” Tristan said. He put Kelvin out of his mind for now, though he wanted to check up on that thread later. “Let’s keep going.”

They teleported to the Adept Ring, where according to Eila they would get the best prices for his cards. They went to a couple different emporiums to liquidate everything, as Eila advised him to not draw unnecessary attention to himself by selling all the cards at one spot.

In the end, he walked away with seventeen more reds and an assortment of the other colors. Pretty solid by Eila’s assessment.

They stopped at a junction to grab some street meat before parting ways. Tristan grabbed a stick of skewered cubes of dalga, which was apparently a type of chicken native to the Province of Rays. Eila got two for herself. They plopped down at a bench and people-watched while they ate. Tristan found the glaze a little too sweet, so he ended up giving the other half to Eila. The girl had a bottomless pit of an appetite.

“So, you’re going to go hunting now?” she asked between cubes of meat.

Tristan nodded. “That’s right. I found a Dominion nearby Advance that I want to clear, so I want to have my Field card for that.”

She did the you’re-talking-stupid frown. “Tristan. You can’t just go and clear a Dominion. Only Guilds have the ability to clear any of the Terrors.”

“Huh? But I just walked into [Withering Roots] with you and the others.”

“That’s because the proper warding measures weren’t implemented yet. Besides, Dungeons on Solossi and the other beginner islands are more lax. On the Continent they take it more seriously. If you want to clear a Terror, you need to be Guild-affiliated.”

Tristan cursed. “Well, that sucks. You’re telling me I have to join a Guild now?”

“Either that, or you sign on as a mercenary. Here, when you go to the Cardbearer’s Association to buy a [Hunting Pass], go look at the board in the Fire section. Guilds will post recruitment flyers there.”

They split ways soon after that, Eila going off to run some errands of her own. She needed to send a message to her family and guildmates back on Sol, which apparently was something that was possible. Tristan had no idea.

He teleported back to the Novice Ring and made his way to the Cardbearer’s Association. Inside, he was navigated to the Air section of the building to buy a [Hunting Pass].

“So, how does this work?” he asked the worker at the counter. “This is my first time.”

“The Association carefully maintains monster populations on the smaller isles off the coast of Advance,” the man explained. “By purchasing a pass, you can get temporary access to one of these isles. It’s a safe way for cardbearers to farm shards and train, as there are more experienced cardbearers around just in case something goes awry.”

A thought occurred to Tristan. “Say, if you guys have these handy, safe hunting zones around, why do people even bother going out into the wilderness to hunt?”

“For a number of reasons, sir. For one, all item loot obtained during your hunt must be returned to the Association. These raw materials will be used to help fund the rather expensive costs of maintaining the hunting zones. Also, they are limited by time or by the amount of monsters killed. This is to keep the monster populations healthy. Then there’s the matter of how much valuable experience one can actually get in a controlled environment like that. Add all of those, plus the rather expensive price, and one gets a training method that is nice in theory but in practice is not so clear-cut.”

After signing a liability waiver and paying a fee of five fire-chips, Tristan was rewarded with one [Hunting Pass]. It was a glossy rectangle of thick paper with his name on it, some information, and a time slot. For either two hours or fifty monsters, whichever came first, he was able to hunt freely on Adept Hunting Zone 3.

It wasn’t a lot of monsters truth be told. Though with [New Game Plus], he had effectively doubled the amount of monsters he could hunt. Which was nice.

Before he made his way to the docks where a ship would ferry him to the hunting zone, Tristan made a quick stop at the Fire section. He found the board Eila was talking about easily enough; it was a large section of wall which had been turned into a messaging board. It seemed like Guilds could pay to rent space on this board to post recruitment flyers and the like.

If there isn’t one for the Dominion, I’ll just have to find a way to sneak in and clear it.

He found one. He wasn’t sure if he was pleased or upset by it.

The flyer depicted the Guild’s logo—a crouched down knight figure hefting a large shield—and its name: Unyielding. The flyer said they were hosting tryouts for two mercenaries for their upcoming raid on the new Dominion off the coast of Advance. Analysts projected a low Expert raid, though it was unconfirmed as this was the first iteration of this Dominion.

The raid was due to start in five days. Tristan grabbed one of the [Item Cards] in a little slot underneath the flyer—it was a copy of the flyer—and put it in his [Binder] before leaving the building.

It was time to hunt some monsters.