Leo went back to training. He took a pill and started training his aura while Marcus rested for the night. The next morning, Marcus left directly for the forest.
Leo quickly ran through three more pills before reaching a bottleneck. He could no longer gather any more aura, which meant that he was now very close to making his 2nd Circle.
Instead of immediately trying to do that, he started consolidating his aura. He didn’t take any pills and only circulated the aura in his body for 2 hours. After that, he got very accustomed to the new aura that had gotten into his body.
He stretched a little and thought about what he was going to do. Was he supposed to start breaking through, or was he supposed to wait and get more pills or elixirs that could increase his success?
Just one pill was enough the last time he broke through, but he wasn’t sure it would be the same this time. Last time he had a very tame amount of aura, but now it was different.
He had more than 5 times as much aura as a normal 1st Circle Aura Knight would have. He wasn’t sure why his body demanded this much aura. This made his breakthroughs a more complicated process.
With this much aura, the safer decision would be to wait and buy another pill that would supplement his breakthrough.
As he was thinking this, the door to the apartment opened. Marcus walked in looking extremely frustrated.
“They were there again! I don’t know what to do!” He said with an exasperated voice.
“Fine, tell me the name of the group,” Leo said.
“The Crown Band,” Marcus said. “I seriously don’t know how they get away with this. Aren’t there any laws about this?”
Marcus nodded. Leo left the apartment.
The minute he left the apartment, he went to the Mercenary Guild. On the way, he put on a disguise. He changed his face to the face of the leader of the Blacktooth Gang since it was a familiar face. He put on a cloak and entered the guild.
When he got into the building, he went to the courtyard where people could be seen forming parties to finish missions. He went to one of the people and asked them a question.
“Hi, do you know where I can find Mercenary Groups here?” He asked.
The man he asked looked at him and said, “Yeah sure. What group are you looking for?”
“The Crown Band,” Leo said.
The man’s expression changed. “Are you sure? Do you really want to associate with them? They have a reputation for being very sketchy. I heard they pick newbies and steal their magical beasts until he agrees to join their group. They also do everything that happens to be inside the lines of laws that are immoral.”
Leo nodded. “Those are exactly who I am looking for.”
The man frowned. “Fine. They are probably in the corner of the recruiting office for Mercenary Groups.”
Leo thanked the man and headed to the recruiting office. It was one of the rooms that was beyond the courtyard. He found it quickly and looked for the Crown Band. He found it in a shady corner like the man had said.
The recruiting office was a bunch of groups setting up tables to showcase their groups to other mercenaries. He even saw the Iron Roses have a table there. But while everyone else had at least three people at their tables, Crown Band only had one. And even he was half-asleep. He clearly showed no interest in any of the people coming into the office.
Leo walked up to the table.
“Hi, I’d like to join the Crown Band,” he said.
The man slowly woke up and said, “What?” He yawned while waiting for Leo to repeat himself.
“I would like to join the Crown Band,” Leo repeated.
“Wait, what? Really?” The man asked. “Sure. What’s your name?” He asked.
“My name is Sirius,” Leo said.
“Sounds good. So you just need to officially register with us with your mercenary card. Can you give it?” He asked.
Leo shook his head. “I don’t have it on me for now. But I have the money for the monthly fee. Here it is,” he said.
He handed 10000 Starcoins to the man.
“You are very fast. I like it. So you can just take this and go to the group’s manor. It is in the same lane as all the prominent Mercenary Groups. Just tell them that Zack sent you.” The man said and handed him a small pin. It was a crown.
“So you are Zack?” Leo asked.
Zack nodded.
“Fine. Thanks a lot,” he said and left the room.
The minute he left, Zack broke into a chuckle and went back to being half asleep on his chair. He had somehow made 10000 Starcoins doing absolutely nothing.
Leo left the guild and walked to the group’s manor. He was very surprised that the place even had a manor, but he hoped that it was what he expected.
He knew that the 10000 Starcoins he had spent were gone. The reason he spent it was that he would have easy access to the manor and also needed to know where the manor was going to be.
Leo wasn’t that nice. He wasn’t dropping by to say hi and then requesting them to stop harassing newbies. He was planning on teaching them a lesson.
He was going to rob the Crown Band of all their money. He expected that the group would have a single 3rd Circle Aura Knight at best, but he wanted to go in and make sure that was the case. Even if they had more, what would they be able to do about him?
He had the ultimate disguising spell that would fool any 3rd Circle Aura Knight. With that, and his shadow steps, he could go in and out without getting into any fights.
Leo walked down the road and walked to the Iron Roses’ manor. Since the manor he was supposed to go to was on the same road, he just crossed their manor and went along the road.
After walking for 10 minutes, he realized that the manors were getting a lot smaller and dirtier. By the time he finally reached his destination, he found himself in a very sketchy area. The manor was barely a mansion that could house 40 people. It was even smaller than the Blacktooth Gang’s base in Solhaven.
There wasn’t any courtyard or any space apart from the wooden mansion. The walls had peeling paint and the windows were cracked. He would have thought that the place was abandoned if he didn’t sense the people inside the building.
He took a deep breath and knocked on the gate. He waited for a minute but nothing happened so he knocked again. Someone finally answered.
“What do you want?” He asked Leo.
“Zack sent me. I’m a new member. My name is Sirius,” he said.