Leo finally became a Gold Rank mercenary after finishing ten Silver Rank missions. He realized that ranking up was fairly easy, but no one abused it because the missions became increasingly hard when they ranked up.
When he checked out the missions in the Gold Rank, he finally saw that there was some difficulty associated with them. For the first time, he would have to put real effort into the missions.
This was because the missions now involved dealing with 3rd Circle Magical Beasts. However, with the increase in his strength, it wouldn’t pose any danger to him.
Along with his increase in Mercenary Rank, he had one major breakthrough. He was able to become a Middle-Stage 3rd Star Mage. This itself increased his strength by 40%. He was also incredibly close to increasing his proficiency in Valkyr’s Deception from Intermediate to Advanced Proficiency.
Once he reached Advanced Proficiency, his spell would fool even mages an entire major level above him. This meant that Middle-Stage 4th Circle Mages wouldn’t be able to detect that there was someone tricking them with that spell.
Right now, only people in the 3rd Circle or below would be fooled, but that was working for him till now. As for Aura Knights, most of them would be fooled even if they were 4th Circle with his new breakthrough. Only Middle-Stage 4th Circle Aura Knights or higher would be able to see through him even if he was still at Intermediate Proficiency.
He already had his new card with him and had also taken a new mission to complete. He was ready to keep breezing through the next two months with ease.
On the other hand, Marcus had also made progress. His increase wasn’t as huge as the one Leo had, but it still greatly impacted his strength. He had grown closer to breaking through to the Late Stage of the 1st Circle while his proficiency in his aura technique also grew.
Unlike Leo, Marcus used his own fists as his weapons. It was incredibly rare and Leo had never seen someone other than Marcus do that. Most people tended to use weapons. Marcus used an Aura Technique that imbibed his fist with lightning energy and fist techniques that prioritized speed.
Marcus had also become a Steel Rank Mercenary in this time. It took him a single week to do it, and now that he was a Steel Rank Mercenary, he could quickly move up to the Bronze Rank as long as he sped through the hunting missions.
Now that he was a Gold Rank Mercenary, Leo decided to change how he was hunting monsters. This was because he was now lodged deep into the Eldridge Forest to find any 3rd Circle Magical Beasts.
If he went on a killing spree and accidentally encountered a 4th Circle Magical Beast, he would be in a lot of trouble. So he decided that he would only kill two Magical Beasts every time he went into the Forest.
This was more than enough for his daily consumption. Especially if he went every day. Each 3rd Circle Beast Core would give the plant enough energy to make 15 leaves, and he only used around a dozen of them each night he trained.
The other change that happened when he became a Gold Mercenary was how much money he started to make with each mission. Each mission he took offered at least 200,000 Starcoins. And those were on the lower end.
He could offer Beast Cores of 3rd Circle Magical Beasts for more than 500,000 Starcoins. Magical Herbs on that level went for more than 700,000 Starcoins, but they were a lot harder to find.
As for the special missions he was offered, they paid incredible amounts of money. Escort missions paid at least 1 million Starcoins. Other missions went up to 2-3 million Starcoins.
However, these missions would all last a week at least, so he wasn’t planning to commit to any of them. He was going to continue doing normal missions like the ones he did every day for the rest of the two months he had.
The next two months he would have was mainly for him to grow in power. The more his magic grew, the easier of a time he would have to hide himself in the academy. After all, if he was planning on going into the Magic Library in the academy, he would need the best possible disguise.
He was almost there too. He didn’t expect there to be anyone stronger than a 4th Circle Mage in the academy. So as long as he broke through once or increased his proficiency, he was fine. But that was still hard to do if he spent his time doing missions outside Eldridge.
He didn’t even really need the money. He had around 25 million Starcoins left in his dimensional rings. He had gained almost 10 million from the daughter of the Marquis family, so it went on to say how rich they were.
If even an insignificant child of the family had a dimensional ring and that much money, how much money did the real family have? He was interested in finding out when he was free. For now, he could dedicate his time to training in Magic.
Meanwhile, Marcus had similar plans for the future. He was trying his best to increase his strength but for different reasons. Marcus wanted to grow stronger so that he could start completing Silver missions. Even though he wasn’t a Bronze Rank Mercenary yet, it was only a matter of time before he became one.
He didn’t have to be a 2nd Circle Aura Knight. In his mind, he would be strong enough to deal with an Early-Stage 2nd Circle Magical Beast even as a Late-Stage 1st Circle Aura Knight. But he wasn’t there yet because he needed more resources to reach that stage.
He had earned a total of 28,000 Starcoins even though he used a lot of his time completing the missions. This was because it was hard to earn a lot of money as an Iron Rank and Steel Rank Mercenary.
But once he became a Bronze Rank Mercenary, he would be able to earn almost 50000 Starcoins if he completed a mission every day. Since he was a little stronger than the typical Aura Knight, he was planning on finishing three missions a day before going back to training.
If he went according to that pace, he would be able to have 100000 Starcoins left by the end of the next month, enough for two Aura Gathering Pills. Once took those pills, he was very sure that he would be able to break through to the Late Stage and start completing the Silver Rank missions.
If he earned enough money using that, he could also try to upgrade his aura technique to something better and look like a better candidate for the Aura Knight Academy.