Masters

Chapter 17

"I spy something... green." "Your hand?" "Nope." "Well darn me for not going for the obvious answer. The grass?" "Bingo. Your turn." "I spy something big... big, bright, and white." "Your eyes?" "I tried looking into my own eyes when I was a kid, the shock from the sensory feedback reduced me to a puddle for a month. Try again." "The sun?" "That's a new record, two wrong guesses in a row. Want to try for three?" "The clouds?" "Ding, ding! The prize, to keep standing on my slowly melting shoulders."

After three days of incredibly cautious travel, Yohan and Alzolami passed the halfway point on their journey to the northern half of Ualiqula. Their path is currently taking them through an uninhabited plain of wild grain so tall that Alzolami had to stretch a few extra feet to see the way ahead with Yohan standing on her shoulders.

The jar of illusion was the name of the monster they had killed on their first stop, a B rank artificial fairy beast that brought many towns to their knees in the distant past and did in hundreds of guardians. The list of monsters specified that it hadn't appeared in over a hundred years and that they shouldn't worry about encountering it. Yohan wanted to collect the shards so they could turn them in for HCs back at Helgram, but Alzolami astutely pointed out that they shouldn't weigh themselves down any more than they need to.

Yohan looked at the horizon ahead of them with anticipation. "Nick's really missing out! If he would've had the decency to accompany us and kill that jar, he would've become seriously overpowered!" "Yeah! Who needs him? I want to be next to a guy I can depend on. Like you!" Yohan laughed. "Oh, has our relationship finally progressed past playful mockery to flirting?" Alzolami wobbled beneath Yohan as her eyes sparkled in bashfulness. "Well... Uh... Sure you're not very tall... And not very strong... but a girl wants a lot more than that from a man..." Yohan laughed under his breath. "Maybe we should focus on any possible romance after we become Masters."

Alzolami cleared her throat. "Speaking of which, what kind of Master do you want to be? Every Master's got to hunt something." "Huh... never really thought about it. What are some of the perks of being a Master?" "Oh, there's all kinds. For one, you get immunity from all laws, and as long as you don't do anything too heinous, another Master won't try to capture you. Next, you have a right to a levy on any profits made from anything you were the first to discover. You also get unlimited access to the largest and most comprehensive databases of information. Any bank or financial institution will treat you as a first-rate customer and loan you any amount of credits, no questions asked. Masters can go to even the most high-security or access-restricted areas and locations. As long as you can provide the necessary materials and/or finances, any Artisan will craft, repair, or modify whatever you request at the top of their waiting list. Do those make a good argument for becoming a Master?" "Those... are definitely perks that make going through the ordeal of the Master's Academy worth doing. Are there Masters who hunt credits?" "There are, but they're not held in high regard by the greater Master community." "Why's that?" "From what I understand, Masters consider credits nothing beyond a means to an end. They're not special and they don't require any real talent to acquire and accumulate." "But what about my uncle?" "To Masters, people like Mohan O'Mann are trillion to one anomalies that crop up every century or two. People born in poverty tend to stay in poverty, and if they do work hard to get a better place in life, odds are life will hit them where it hurts and send them back to square one or worse." "My uncle says that anybody that works hard and makes the right decisions can be successful." "Some would say that and believe it, but one could argue that it's an excuse to not give aid to people that really need it. At least that's what my dad would always say whenever the subject would come up."

The turn the conversation had taken left a bad taste in Yohan's mouth. "What about you? What do you want to hunt when you graduate?" "I'm caught between two paths. Part of me wants to be a Bounty Master, to live life chasing, beating down, and locking up the worst the universe has to offer. The other part of me wants to be a Poacher Master, to spend my days observing and cataloging the wonders of the rarest animals and organisms in the most exotic locals of the cosmos, and when someone with greed in their heart comes up looking for an easy credit, I'll rip them a new face!" "That's a... passionate outlook for your future."