With his breakfast done, Rex was well on his way the adventurers guild, the early morning streets of the city pleasantly empty of people, and thus, no annoying nobles were anywhere in sight. Untill, that is he noticed am approaching carriage, that stopped rather close to him, its door opening and a recognizable face, called to him from inside. "We could bring you wherever it is you are going. Save some time for both of us?"

  "Fine, might as well." Rex sighed "At least you are the one I am least annoyed of seeing. Small mercies." A small, uncomfortable smile crept on her face, still awaiting Rex in the carriage, and so, he got in, taking the opposite seat of her, one of her knights having exited the carriage just moments before, the other actually serving as the coachman. "The nearest adventurer's guild building." Rex added, with Evelysandra forwarding Rex's destination to her guards, who started to move towards his desired direction.

  "So, I am all ears." Rex added, his gaze locked on the woman in front of him.

  "As you might have guessed, my family would like to establish quite close ties with you. We would provide financial aid, help you acquire anything that you desire, equipment wise and anything else. In return,..."

  "You see. Before you continue, let me save us both time, and you breath. I found you interesting, purely because you deemed it correct to not annoy me with some cheap courtesans and the normal nobility bullshit. Don't make the same mistake any of them would here. Do you truly think that whatever material things you can offer to acquire or provide, matters to me at all? Or that I cannot acquire them in a timely manner?." Rex stuck his hand in a pocket, withdrawing a simple ring from it, put it on and then, as if using a space storage artifact, withdrew one of the bags he had loaded with A rank creature cores he had acquired during his last delve. "Every single core inside is A rank. How much do you think this would fetch me? And that, is only a part of the cores I acquired during my last, three day delve. What is money to me with such wealth generating power? And besides, do you truly think the adventurers guild would not offer the same for me to show their expeditions and the like some preferences?" The realization dawned on Eve's face more and more, now properly understanding just how extraordinary Rex truly was.

  "Then, how about right to delve in dungeons that only the royal family of Sol has knowledge and access to?" she asked, deciding on another approach, something only they could offer.

  "See, that is more like it, though I am not all that interested in diving the dungeons non stop. The outside world is vast, and just begging to be explored. It would be a shame if I were to hole myself inside a dungeon or two, even if I quite enjoy the process as is."

  Eve bit her lip, considering the next possible offer, and while not entirely willing, she felt it was needed to go there. "We have some Empowerment crystals to offer as well. While they would have less of an effect on you, they would still help you reach ever higher state."

  "Someone's pulling all the stops." Rex chuckled. "But no, they hold no interest for me." His words caused Eve to stare at him incredulously, not believing his words. They were talking about Empowerment crystals here. Everyone wanted those. "The one just auctioned. You no doubt heard of it?" Rex asked, and receiving her nod, he added "I was the one who put it up for auction. Why would I do it if I wanted to consume it myself?" and sensing that they were almost at the destination, he sighed.

  "I will keep that offer to access those special dungeons of yours in mind. If a particularly nasty quest or something of the like pops up, contact me through the adventurers guild. I will at least listen, if I am close enough. That is the best I can offer right now." He stashed back the satchel with the monster cores and slowly left the carriage, leaving behind a thoughtful young lady.

  "Your highness?" one of the knights asked, watching her thoughtful expression.

  "Let's return. I guess we can call this at least half a success." she lightly smiled, having considered the price they had paid, or the lack of it, then what they received in return, and that, seemed like quite the advantageous trade in the long run. To have as much as an ear of an A ranker, even if nothing else was guaranteed, was already quite the win.

  Somewhat aware of the young princess thoughts, if only in the general gist of things, for now he knew the girl was an actual royalty, though still not caring all too much, he entered the guild building and instantly sensed quite a few sets of eyes locked on him. He did not even need to check for line that would be shorter than others, a single guild attendant beelining towards him near instantly. Once in front of Rex, the young, beautiful lady bowed, a slightly more loose uniform offering an eyeful of her chest as she did so.

  "Sir, the guildmaster would like to have a word with you. If you would be so kind as to follow me." The girl was obviously nervous. Whether it was just because she was asking an A ranker to do something, or she was uncomfortable with displaying her assets more than usual, Rex did not know, not that it mattered much, he himself was somewhat interested to use the guildmaster to get his task over with as soon as possible. No doubt those annoying nobles will have gathered by the time Rex's returns. A nuisance for later, and so, he spoke few words, his decision clear.

  "Lead the way." and with that, the girl quickly straightened her back and with flushed face moved ahead, heading straight towards the guildmaster office, Rex following closely by. There was no way he would fall behind, their stats were undeniably worlds apart. Soon enough, the two stood in front of a relatively large, oaken like door, some animalistic patterns covering said door.

  The attendant knocked on the door once and after an old, tired voice called for them to enter, he gestured Rex to do so, remaining outside herself, clearly not meant to be a part of the conversation about to commence. She was, just a simple attendant after all. As Rex entered, his gaze locked on the two people in the center of the room for just a moment, and having recognized at least one of them, inferring the other was the supposed guildmaster, his eyes moved around, exploring everything about the office around him.

  A hardwood floor, of a similar material as the large oaken door he had just passed through, encapsulated in walls covered light tones, adorned with paintings of all manner of creatures, be it birds in the colours of the rainbow, fierce looking, fiery tigers, pouncing on their prey, preparing to sink their fangs in the unfortunate beasts, and many others, depicting yet other sights of nature.

  The two, elder men were calmly sitting at the table, waiting for Rex to join, both relaxedly sipping on their tea, hot steam rising from their cups, light, calming aroma permeating the room. The two were sitting on a shared sofa, one of four such pieces of furniture surrounding relatively small, yet elegant and clearly well made table. The actual work desk of the guildmaster, if this was indeed his office, stood further back in the room, covered with all manner of paper sheets, no doubt requests, reports and other documents of similar nature. Rex heavily doubted that a guildmaster, even if only one of several branch halls here in the capital, was quite busy indeed, so it was quite the tell that he had gone so far as to create the current scenario, most likely all to receive him.

  "Quite the spectacle you have been called to take part in, mister Riley." Rex spoke, light chuckle escaping his lips. He was at least familiar with the man, so deemed it fine enough to make such light mannered joke.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  "He he." Riley chuckled as well, replying with a sigh, clearly overplayed for a similar reason. "What can I say young man. The things I do for the guild. Even in my advanced age, I am being run ragged." He had learned quite a bit about Rex, his own information gathering teams, some of them no doubt were the women residing in Beth's Hearth, had provided plenty of reports, speaking of Rex's general character and mostly easy going nature, at least as far as they could infer from his interactions with Beth.

  And as Rex snickered at the old man's take, clearly amused, Riley relaxed even more. It was important not to turn A ranker's off, and unfortunately, each and every one of them was a rather odd personality, as if the world itself refused to provide tallent to those that conformed to the general norms. No, like a bored kid, the world seemed to always choose particularly eccentric or damaged people as the vessels of her true potential.

  "So?" Rex's gaze landed on the other older man who dressed in relatively simple clothing, though at a closer look he could tell it was well made. not the kind of clothes one could acquire at the local tailor's place. Rex's gaze turned notably sharper, his much more calm and relaxed demeanor vanishing entirely, creating silent, yet almost palpable tension in the room. A cold drop of sweat suddenly rolled down the guildmasters face, he was getting notably more nervous. He himself was no A ranker, a simple B class adventurer with a knack for management and eye for tallents, as such, it was always daunting to be in the presence of monsters such as Rex, and if his senses did not lie to him at the moment, one of the more powerful, if not the strongest adventurer entirely, he had ever encountered.

  "Ahem, yes. M-my apologies. I am guildmaster Aridun Zeth." he coughed in his left fist, as if clearing his throat, then spoke up. "It has come to my attention, you have discovered, and even slain some new type of monster within the dungeon, Path of the skitterer, to be precise, and, not only is the creature of A rank itself, your guild ID still has you marked as D ranked adventurer. And that, will simply not do. As such, I hoped to catch you at an appropriate time to discuss the promotion, only to then learn of your departure for the dungeon once again. And so, here we are. What say you, young Rex? Would you like to try and take a test to once again raise your rank?"

  "Is there anyone actually capable of testing my fit for an A ranked adventurer ID around? And is it not a precedent to rise three ranks in one go? I seem to remember something similar when I took my first advancement test."

  "Ahemm. While, yes, no such cases had been documented in any recent history, does not mean it cannot be done. It is one's ability that speaks louder than words after all."

  "By the way, I need to exchange some monster cores. Since we are here, can you arrange it to happen behind closed doors? I simply can't be bothered to deal with another loud attendant, incapable of containing their shock." Rex asked, more than willing to get it done here and now.

  "Well, yes. That can be arranged. Should we do it here and now? It would take a few minutes for the relevant equipment to arrive." Replied Aridun.

  "Perfect, lets do that first then, and then, we will finish our previous conversation."

  After the guild master called forth the girl standing just outside, holding a small device, powered by a monster core, she was off just as fast as she entered, soon after appearing with a trolley of sorts, mounted with one of the devices for appraising and counting monster cores, no doubt Rex's request being rather common practice, especially for the upper echelon of adventurers. That would also explain why the generic attendants were so easily surprised with high quality stuff, like the A rank monster cores he had presented. And while Riley was aware of Rex being a space mage with access to his own space storage, Rex still put on an act, making it look as if he was withdrawing the monster core bags from a spatial storage ring on his finger.

  Soon enough, two satchels were emptied into the bowl of the evaluator, the light glow of the apparatus indicating it was on and doing it's thing. Of course, once the process was started, the girl was once again sent outside, not privy of the results of this particular haul. And while there were no exclamations of surprise or the like, teh eyes on both elder men bulged as they saw what the machine was showing.

  "Good lord! What have you been up to? Did you save up monster cores over the duration of your stay in the capital?" The guildmaster asked, quite shaken by the sheer amount presented. He was well aware of the time Rex had spent here, making the amounts of cores of such high class monsters in his possession staggering. He was not aware of full on A rank parties, who would bring in such hauls, not in such short time frames at least.

  "And why would I have done that? This, minus a couple cores I actually did not hand in last time, were acquired in my last delve. The biome of those buss tarantulas is quite large, and there is plenty of them to slaughter. The hardest thing is to get them to lunge out of their burrows without getting tapped or flung and plastered against a wall. I imagine that would hurt like hell."

  "Wait, those new A rank monsters are ambush hunters?" Riley asked the important question, having caught the off handed remark of Rex's.

  "Hmm? Yes, did I not mentioned that? Huh, must have skipped my mind. Happens. So? You still think there is anyone fit to test me you can find in a reasonable amount of time? Do understand that I am, for all intent and purposes a destroyer. I don't protect or whatever. My skill set is honed with single point of focus- utter and absolute demise. You would need monsters I can freely unleash carnage upon, and I doubt you have anything like that at hand."

  After a moment of consideration, Aridun Zeth spoke up "We might have the perfect way to test your skills."

  "Hoooh?" Rex drawled his voice, rising en eyebrow at the old man's statement, his intrigue piqued "Do tell me more."

  "There is a gondola rarely used, leading to the deepest parts a fortress has ever been established. From what I know, A rank monsters aplenty roam there. We would only have to see you actually take on a few of them and successfully end them to be able to convey the A rank upon you. What do you say?"

  "Lets get it over with then. I have some nobles to send packing and a gang of bandits to catch outside the capital. So we doing it or not?"

  "Yes, yes. Allow me to summon a few aides necessary for the task." Aridun Zeth quickly responded and as he did so, Riley started his own questioning.

  "Say Rex, anything the guild could assist you with?"

  "Don't bother. I dont plan on taking any long term jobs or the like from anyone at the moment. I have my own plans to follow. Nor am I good, or willing to follow some weaklings orders. And nobody would want a personality clash. You will understand why shortly."

  "Do give it some more thought? Maybe another time?" Riley added, though his voice tone indicated a request, a plea more than anything. Rex just shrugged his shoulders, letting a comfortable silence overtake the room. Rex had no desire to sit down, even after the guildmaster invited him to do so repeatedly, letting his mind wander to other things, namely the coming headache. While he was powerful enough, and half willing to blow off all those nobles, he was well aware that such crude and arrogant, as far as the nobles would see it, blow off would leave many offended, possibly resulting in some rather stupid decisions by them. Namely assassins or the like, sent to regain their lost, nonexistent honor, resulting in an annihilation of said assassination group, tortured until Rex had the name of the ones ordering the hit, that would then result in a small carnage at the properties of said noble house, that in turn could spiral further and further, leaving a possible ocean of blood in his wake. And, as Rex had assured himself multiple times over this particular existence, he was not all that interested in such a result.

  'Should I use either the royal family, or the guild as a scapegoat? Nah, that would give them a reasonable leverage to call in an IOU, saddling me with something bothersome and not interesting whatsoever.' He mused, until an interesting idea came to his mind. 'Yes, that might just work.' With the immediate problem somewhat resolved, Rex relaxed, his mind delving into the secrets of blood, attempting to unravel the concept even further than he already had.

  A short while later, much to his joy and annoyance, there was a knock on the door, the summoned aid having arrived. In came four people, one of which Rex recognized as the attendant girl that lead him to Riley, when he wanted to auction off his Empowerment crystal. She was present at his advancement test as well, he remembered.

  "Thank you, for responding to my call so suddenly." guildmaster spoke gently "I believe this will be an opportunity to you as well. We need your assistance to witness something truly extraordinary." he continued, then explaining the cause of their summoning, earning a rather surprised looks from the four new arrivals, their eyes glancing in Rex's direction cautiously.