Out of all the missions, hunting missions were the easiest for him. Especially among Steel Rank missions where he would just have to bring Beast Cores of Pseudo 1st Circle Magical Beasts. It would take him a couple of seconds to kill Magical Beasts that weren't 2nd Circle yet.
Missions like those just made it easy for him to advance. However, he didn't try to run through the missions as he did the first time. Since they were for stronger people, as a 1st Circle Aura Knight he acted his strength.
Instead of taking 3 missions every day, he only took 1 per person. He took an entire 10 days to finish his missions. He quickly upgraded to the Bronze Rank and kept doing this process.
Quickly a month passed since he became a Mercenary. At this time he had finished upgrading to the Silver Rank as a mercenary.
When he reached the Silver Rank, he decided to stop ranking up his original Mercenary Rank. This was because the missions at the Silver Rank were on the level of a 2nd Circle Aura Knight. So only Orion was accepting missions.
Along with his upgraded rank, he also achieved one major accomplishment. He finally increased his proficiency in Valkyr's Deception and reached Intermediate Proficiency. This meant that people in the 3rd Circle wouldn't be able to see that they were seeing an illusion made out of magic.
The problem was that this didn't include Late-Stage 3rd Circle Mages or 4th Circle Mages yet because he was still only an Early-Stage 3rd Circle Mage. But progress was progress.
After reaching the Silver Rank, he could finally take missions that weren't bland like gathering or hunting Magical Beasts. He could finally go on escort missions or protection missions. There were even some special missions where a particular client hires a person to do tasks.
The one that Leo was most interested in doing was a protection request by a village. There weren't a lot of missions that were task-oriented in the Silver Rank, so he wanted to pick one of them.
The domain of Eldridge had 6 cities and hundreds of small villages. These small villages would need to request the help of mercenaries to take care of Magical Beasts or Bandits.
The mission he was looking at was a request for a mercenary to help them defeat the leader of a bandit group that consistently pillaged their resources. They were specifically requesting a Silver Rank Mercenary, so he guessed that the bandits also had a person who was of similar strength.
The thing that blew him away was that the commission was 90000 Starcoins. This wasn't that high to him, but it was the highest commission he would earn from any of the missions. He decided to take the mission just to check it out.
The problem with the mission was that it would take him an entire 2 days to travel to the village and another 2 to travel back. If he took an entire day to take care of the bandits, he would have to spend 5 days on the mission.
The requirements to become a Gold Rank Mercenary weren't just 10 missions but 20. This would mean he would have to spend 3 months to become a Gold Rank Mercenary. This was too much time.
He decided that after taking that mission, he would stick to normal hunting missions no matter how low they paid. Out of all the missions, hunting missions paid around 6000-7000 Starcoins, the least of them all. Gathering missions gave around 15000-20000 Starcoins. Only special missions paid more than 50000 Starcoins, but they required a lot of commitment.
He realized it was for people who had been stuck in the Silver Rank for a long time and wouldn't be able to complete Gold Rank Missions even if they tried. At that point, it would be better to just complete Silver Rank Missions that paid more money.
He picked up the mission and got it registered. He then asked them how he was supposed to get to his mission. They gave him directions to an area for merchants leaving for different cities. He went there and asked about the village.
One merchant told him that there was a caravan that was leaving for a different city, but the village was on the way. The caravan was apparently leaving the next morning.
He thanked them and went to his apartment to train till the next day. He was planning on leaving the next day for the village with the caravan.
The next morning, he got up and went to the same place and saw that it was still as bustling as the previous day. It was the effect that the city had. Because of the number of people, it was a cash cow for merchants.
He went and asked around for the merchant who was going to the city and finally found him. He went up to him.
"Hello, I heard that you are going to Phoenix Greens?" He asked the merchant.
The merchant turned around. He had a large beard that was red in color. His belly was sticking out a little from his shirt.
"Yes, we are. Are you interested in joining us?" He asked.
Leo smiled. "You read my mind."
"You look like a capable person, so I am assuming you are an Aura Knight. But even then, I cannot offer you a free seat." He said.
Leo shrugged. He was being treated a lot more like an adult because he was currently in the disguise of Orion. Since he was going to perform an actual mission, he would have to show that Orion was the one finishing the mission. Otherwise, if someone knew that it was Orion who was supposed to be there and saw Leo instead, the two identities would be linked together.
"I am okay with that. How much are you thinking?" He asked.
"Only the price of riding the horse. 1000 Starcoins." The merchant said.
Leo nodded. "I am okay with that."
"We leave in 20 minutes. It was good that you came early. Otherwise, you would have missed us. Do you know how to ride a horse?" He asked Leo.
Leo nodded.
"Then you can just take one from the stable there," he said while pointing at a stable. "Get ready to join my group. It is the Marigold Flower Merchant Group."
Leo walked to the stable and picked out a horse. He threw on a saddle he found nearby onto the horse and climbed onto it. He took the horse to where the caravan was. Everyone seemed ready to leave and were only waiting for the sun to rise.
After 10 minutes, Leo saw the sun starting to peek out. He wasn't the only one. A lot of the merchants saw this and started leaving the area. The Marigold Flower Group was one of them.
All these people congregated in a line of caravans leaving the city. It took them almost thirty minutes to actually leave the city because of the amount of traffic the massive numbers caused.
Leo didn't mind it. He was excited to finally start exploring the world outside of Eldridge and Solhaven. He was also going to be doing what he considered an interesting mission, so it was completely fine even if he had to wait an hour doing nothing for that.
