A place where you could get weapons repaired—and people, too. Zheng Yichen made a note of it. On his way back, he glanced at the research institute behind him. The fight this time had been a bit of a free ride, but that was because he lacked experience.
Overall, it had been pretty exciting. He thought that if he'd taken a job at a farm instead, it probably wouldn't have been like this. Bears were a bit tricky to deal with, but he could take on chickens, ducks, and geese in close combat with a single jab each.
Night Banquet Bar.
The bartender set a glass of fruit wine in front of Zheng Yichen. "It's on me."
"Aren't you worried they'll dock your pay?" Zheng Yichen picked up the glass and asked.
The bartender smiled. "I give a free drink to every newcomer I know who's completed their first job. Interested in telling me how it went?"
"It might be a little boring. I barely did anything this time." In exchange for the excellent fruit wine, Zheng Yichen didn't mind sharing the gist of his experience. He could skip the parts without any fighting. As for Lewis and the others, they'd just been passing acquaintances, though they'd exchanged contact information afterward.
Now that they'd gotten to know each other a little, they could quickly put together a small team if they ever needed to work together.
They were unlikely to have much to do with one another otherwise.
"Sounds like you met some decent hunters. Getting a gun really is the best way for a novice hunter to improve." The bartender nodded, then continued, "But if you want to go far as a hunter, you need to develop a specialty of your own."
"Are you a hunter, too?"
"I used to be."
"People who say that are usually big shots."
The bartender smiled but didn't explain further. Zheng Yichen pulled out the address Jamie had given him earlier. "Do you know about the Twilight Chapel?"
"The Twilight Chapel?" The bartender paused to think. "It isn't an official church. You can think of it as a place where hunters meet and exchange information. They also offer weapon repairs and medical treatment."
"It can stay open even though it isn't an official church?" Zheng Yichen asked in surprise.
"Why couldn't it?" The bartender smiled and asked in return. "There aren't that many rules in the Lower City. It may be unofficial, but it isn't illegal. From the outside, it looks like a fairly large church. The reason it's unofficial is that they don't worship a god—they worship dusk."
"Fair enough. It's not surprising to find a place like that in Longcheng's Lower City."
The bartender glanced at the address on the paper in Zheng Yichen's hand. "It's worth checking out, as long as you don't bring too much money."
Zheng Yichen looked at his empty glass and nudged it forward. "Sorry for the trouble. Another, please."
This one wouldn't be free.
As the bartender poured him another drink, he continued, "Hunters encounter a lot of Abnormal Creatures, so they're always ending up with things they need to get rid of. The Twilight Chapel is one place where they can do that."
"Novice hunters who go there tend to spend money on a whim. Without the experience to tell what's worth buying, they can end up with counterfeits or things that look unique but are completely useless. You're better off buying a gun than wasting your money."
The bartender's advice was sound. A novice could visit the Twilight Chapel to take in the sights and learn a bit more about the hunter world. In fact, there were quite a few places like it.
Night Banquet Bar was much like the Twilight Chapel, except that it "operated" in different ways. It could arrange Hunter Licenses and introduce people to job requests, but it didn't deal in weapons or other goods, nor did it offer medical services. Small, relatively harmless items could be traded there, too, but only between individuals.
A bar wasn't a good setting for that kind of business, and it was also much smaller in scale than the Twilight Chapel.
What they had in common was that hunters could exchange information at both places.
The Twilight Chapel didn't offer the same "services" as Night Banquet Bar, but supposedly its weapon repairs and medical care were excellent. In Longcheng's official hospitals, gunshot wounds and strange injuries had to be recorded.
The Twilight Chapel didn't have that problem. You paid, and that was it.
The bartender's explanation also told Zheng Yichen about several other places like the Twilight Chapel, but he didn't give their names or exact locations. He kept the conversation focused on the Twilight Chapel.
In short, it was a decent place for a novice, as long as he could resist the urge to buy things and simply say "no."
When he got home, he found that he hadn't been back for half a month, and a thin layer of dust had gathered in quite a few places. After tidying up, Zheng Yichen thought he should bring some dust covers the next time he went out.
He took off his outerwear and stood in front of the mirror, looking at his reflection. He'd barely done anything on this job, but he'd still gotten a decent reward. During the fight with the Giant Bear, he'd collected some of its blood.
There wasn't much, but its quality was far better than that of blood from chickens, ducks, geese, and rats.
Looking at the skin on his chest, he figured that even if he took it easy for half a month, he'd probably still be able to go out shirtless.
As for the improvements to his body, he'd swallowed too little blood for the effects to be obvious. But based on past experience, even if the immediate boost was small, he'd still get a decent improvement from training afterward.
When it came to exercise, beginners and people who trained regularly improved at different rates. For the latter, even a tiny improvement was extremely difficult. Beginners, on the other hand, could make rapid progress in a short time with a reasonable training plan.
Zheng Yichen had run into that problem before, too. But he had an Abnormality inside him, and once it canceled out the negative effects, it was like a cheat. As long as he put in the effort, he could keep himself in that "beginner gains" phase.
Back on the bed he'd gotten used to sleeping in, Zheng Yichen took out the business card Lewis had given him. He might not need to get one or two guns, but it would definitely be useful to have them. On this job, for example, he'd been forced to struggle to get close because he had no ranged attack at all.
His teammates had put out a tremendous amount of fire from a distance, while he'd only made one move the entire fight. It had been an effective attack, but he still looked like he'd barely contributed. He'd even taken a little damage trying to get into close combat. If he'd had a handgun then, even firing wildly at the ceiling would have made him feel like he was doing something.
Before buying a gun, he had to register with the relevant local department. After that, he'd have to go back and register the type of gun he owned.
The next day, Zheng Yichen went straight to the nearest relevant department to register. It wasn't a police station but the Hunter Administration Bureau. After registering with his license, he took a taxi to the Lower City. First, he'd check out the Twilight Chapel, then he'd visit the Gun Store Lewis had recommended.
He'd seen gun stores like that before, but this place wasn't like the free country he'd lived in before he crossed over, where buying a gun was easy. Here, you needed a permit. He hadn't been able to buy one before, but now it shouldn't be a problem.
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