The city was bustling with people.
But it was fully civilized, and there was no chaos.
People in full body armor, like space marines,s roamed around the city, and they oozed quite a powerful aura.
'The guards here seem very strong. We can't beat them even if we go full power.' Aelira judged as she carefully observed a few on the way to the Adventurer's Guild.
'True. Their armor feels very strong. Maybe they are made from higher than 3-star materials.' Rudrean nodded. 'But this is good. They are a good deterrent to those who want to make trouble.'
'We are standing out a bit due to our looks and new getup, so it's good for us.' Aelira grinned at Rudrean.
Aelira had worn the 2-star Phoenix Empress Dress. It was majestic with embroidery of orange, red, and gold woven into a fabulously designed long-sleeved, layered dress.
Rudrean had worn the 1-star Blazing Descent Vest of crimson pattern and gold-plated design. He had a silver-black normal jacket over it and normal black trousers.
But he also had the fancy 1-star Fiery Hell Boots matching the vest in design.
Both of them were young and good-looking enough for people to turn their heads to look at them twice.
Soon, they arrived at the Adventurer's Guild, which was two miles away from where they had landed.
It took a bit of time, but they walked there since they wanted to look at the city.
"Let's earn something quickly. Seeing those cafes and food stalls on the way, but not having money to buy anything is annoying." Aelira pouted, and a second later, her stomach rumbled.
"Yep."
Entering the bustling Adventurer's Guild, they had to pause to look around and see where they were supposed to go in this big building first.
Fortunately, there were signboards and magitech digital screens to help them.
To the right was the Adventurer's Lounge and Evaluation Center.
To the left was the Mission Hall and Training Center.
Upstairs was a 3-clover hotel as well, but its price was steep, not something they could afford.
And in this ground center hall, there were several reception tables for inquiries and any help.
The registration process was surprisingly quick and easy.
The staff just scanned their bodies with a magitech device, and that device popped out a card similar to their status cards. The staff then destroyed their old cards.
The Adventure Cards replaced their status cards. This card had a live connection with their bodies, as in, it would reflect their parameters in real time instead of having to scan their body.
But that wasn't all. The Adventure Cards also had another function: a long-distance communication service. They could add the signal of other Adventure Cards, like contacts in a mobile phone, and call them.
After getting the Adventure Card, they went to the Mission Hall and readily acquired the information for their four missions.
On top of that, they picked one more mission from the Adventurer's Guild to earn money for food and a stay, as per the guide from the academy.
Because they wouldn't get rewards from those four missions here, but once they returned to the Academy.
So they needed money to stay and eat on this 1-star planet.
The mission they chose would reward them with one hundred 1-star Mana Stones, but the target was also five 1-star monsters, equivalent to S-rank monsters on Earth.
After the duo exited the Adventurer's Guild, three people followed them while making it look like they were going in the same direction.
Two men and one woman, all three in their twenties.
Some people who were familiar with those three shook their heads and continued their business.
The trio was known as the Blunder Plunder Party by those who knew them, but their official party name was the Divine Might Party.
They targeted newbies weaker than them and those who were from other planets for easy money.
Their modus operandi was to follow their targets until their missions were completed, and then threaten them to empty their pockets and whatever mission objectives they had collected.
They would then submit the missions themselves and acquire the reward freely without doing much work.
…
After an hour, Rudrean and Aelira arrived roughly 300 kilometers away, into a heated wilderness with volcanic mountains, by flying using their newly learned SS-rank, 2-star spell, Super Pyrodrive Wings.
They could move faster, but they wanted to see the scenery as well, so they moved at 50% of the Super Pyrodrive Wings' capability.
The crazy thing about Love-Bound Arcane was that after buying the compendium of 2-star spells, both of them acquired full knowledge and mastered those spells instantly.
Super Pyrodrive Wings consumed less mana for long-distance fast travel, unlike Flare Chain Acceleration, which seemed like it was supposed to be used during intense combat for quick strategic speed bursts and maneuvering.
"Eh? Is that the nest?"
"Seems like it. But the real network is below that. I can feel waves of magic in a large area under the ground." Rudrean blinked. "There are likely thousands of ants under this ground…"
Aelira's skin crawled as she got goosebumps looking at those armored ants moving around. "Good thing they can't fly, but we can."
Rudrean and Aelira floated above a thin forest patch where ten-meter-tall complex structures with big holes were constructed by the giant ants.
The ants were 3 meters long with a height of 2 meters.
This was the first mission they decided to do: hunting the A-rank Giant Rockvein Ants and acquiring 100 tons of their exoskeleton parts.
The Giant Rockvein Ants on this 1-star planet were a great alternative for the Asterisk Arcane Academy to craft armor, weapons, and tough structures by melting their bodies' exoskeletons, which were made entirely of tough metal.
"Let's see how they react first." Rudrean pointed his palm below and used a spell.
Absolute Plasma Spear, a 2-star spell.
A sleek, neon-orange spear with a red hue formed before his palm and shot towards a Giant Rockvein Ant.
It pierced through it and continued to pierce through the ground for several meters before losing its energy and vanishing.
The ants became alarmed, and many ants suddenly burst out of the ground. All of them looked straight at Rudrean and Aelira above, their big glassy eyes gleaming red.
In the next moment, Rudrean and Aelira's pupils widened in panic as thousands of shining metallic shards shot at them like bullets.
Fortunately, they were floating with the Super Pyrodrive Wings and quickly escaped far high into the sky.
At this time, the three people following them arrived and saw them going up as shards pierced through the trees like arrows and rained down elsewhere.
"Jeez, what spell are they using to make those wings? We had to fly with almost full power of this flying board to catch up to them."
The trio stood on a big board as they watched Aelira and Rudrean from a few hundred meters away.
"But I didn't know they were taking on these mad ants. They are easy to deal with individually, but not when they are in groups."
"Do they even have a strategy for this?"
"Let's wait and watch. Once they are tired and have collected enough of those ants, we can jump on them."
"They might get killed before that, heh."