The Life Profession Adventure Party

Autumn sunlight pierced through the woods like sharp swords, driving away the last wisps of morning mist. Insects chirped throughout the forest, but they could not drown out the excited voice of the young girl.

Only after listening to Tianlan's endless introduction did Fang Heng finally understand the makeup of this temporary party—Etila had naturally come here to search for her younger brother, while the Paparal crossbowman traveling with her was actually a companion she had brought out of Sangshak.

Fang Heng had not guessed wrong before. He really was an Chosen, with the ID Parker. He was a crossbow shooter who had invested into Tier 1 in crossbow mastery, and he also possessed some drifter skills, particularly mapmaking and pilfering food from kitchens.

Of course, Tianlan had added that last part with a wrinkled nose. She indignantly told him how much food disappeared from the kitchen every day—sausages, apples, yogurt, even garlic. In the end, it had all been found in a huge sack beneath Mr. Paparal's bed.

Listening to her vivid description, Fang Heng got the impression that the kitchen belonged to her family, even though it was clearly the inn's property.

This Mr. Paparal truly was rather remarkable. It was rare to see a jack-of-all-trades among the Chosen. Someone who could be a crossbowman one moment, a drifter the next, and also practice the Life Profession of mapmaking—Fang Heng had never seen anyone like that before.

No wonder a level-seven character only had a level-five main profession.

Thinking back to Parker's performance in battle, Fang Heng came to a conclusion—this was probably a typical Paparal. Although Parker was a Chosen, perhaps he had spent so long around other Paparal that he had been assimilated by them.

This was absolutely not malicious slander on Fang Heng's part. Historically, the seventeenth governor of Sangshak had once made a famous remark:

'Those damn little fatties can't accomplish a single thing. Their only use is being put on a barbecue grill—'

Of course, not long after making that statement, Governor Sir had honorably retired for political incorrectness. However, the politically incorrect part was not the barbecue grill, as most people assumed. It was because the Paparal unanimously believed that "little fatties" was the greatest insult to their kind.

As for barbecue?

Well, the Paparal loved open-air barbecues. Just remember to use Number Three snowwood charcoal.

Incidentally, that governor's successor was the famous "Longbeard Jack," beloved by the Paparal for ordering every factory in Sangshak to shut down for a year.

Etila herself was a believer of Ameya. Naturally, no forest elf failed to revere the Forest Goddess, so the elven girl was both a hunter and a druid. Of course, there were no forest elves who were not excellent hunters.

In short, Etila was a typical forest elven girl. She was good at hunting, good at cultivating plants, and good at preserving game. But according to Tianlan, her highest-level profession was neither hunter nor druid—it was a Life Profession.

Chef—

"Miss Etila's cooking is frighteningly good!" Those were the exact words of this French young lady.

And being able to conquer a French person's stomach surely gave that assessment some credibility. Still, Fang Heng could not help feeling even hungrier after hearing it. Since yesterday, the only thing he had eaten was a biscuit. He could not help rubbing his empty stomach as his vision darkened, and it rumbled loudly.

Thinking of that biscuit, he looked around and discovered that the fairy lady was still nowhere to be seen.

The other side of this party—the trainees—had not even come from the same place. For example, the tall male trainee who had remained silent the whole time had the ID Luo Yu. Like Jita, he was a trainee of the Taboris Oak Knights.

Only through Tianlan's introduction did Fang Heng learn that it was a Free Guild, and also one of the four core guilds of the Rainbow Alliance. A Free Guild was a concept corresponding to a Club Guild, generally referring to guilds established in the New World without real-world backing or financial investment.

Of course, that had been the case in the past.

Today, as Free Guilds developed and expanded, some famous ones had begun to involve themselves in real-world affairs. A typical example was one of the nation's ten major guilds, the Ishurian Eastern Economic Community. Its predecessor had merely been a loose commercial alliance. Later, in order to resist suppression and pressure from Major Guilds, it gradually became an organized political entity and formed a massive Free Guild to match.

This guild had even gained official recognition from Corin-Ishurian. It was one of Corin-Ishurian's three major merchant alliances, and its influence there was in no way inferior to that of the Rainbow Alliance or the Descendants of Flor. Its reputation in the New World inevitably spilled over into reality as well. When the first batch of retired members from the Ishurian Eastern Economic Community returned to the real world, it marked the first time the nation's largest Free Guild had gained a real-world foundation.

But unlike Club Guilds, which generally treated reality as their core, their hierarchy dictated that New World affairs served the needs of real-world interests.

The hierarchy of Free Guilds was much blurrier—sometimes their real-world operations were merely trainee-training organizations, or even just liaison offices. Yet sometimes the relationship could reverse, with interests being fed back in the opposite direction for long-term goals.

In terms of professionalism, Club Guilds were clearly far more professional. But the advantage of Free Guilds lay in their flexibility, and that was one of their enduring strengths.

The Taboris Oak Knights were also a fairly large Free Guild. Naturally, they could not compare to colossal organizations like the ten major guilds, and only counted as a second-tier guild domestically. Fang Heng's method for distinguishing first-tier from second-tier guilds was very simple: whether he had heard of them or not. It had to be said that although this method was crude and straightforward, it was sometimes remarkably reasonable.

Tianlan's background, meanwhile, was far more "noble." She claimed that her real name was Fuli. Though she did not say much about her trainee status, Fang Heng inferred from scattered hints that her sponsor was probably the Twelve-Colored Iris Guild.

This was no ordinary name—

The Club Guild Secret behind the Twelve-Colored Iris Guild was one of Europe's three old powerhouse clubs, and the oldest of them all. Its origins could even be traced back to the heyday of esports at the beginning of the century. After undergoing multiple reorganizations, it joined the Super Competition Alliance after the Star Gate Era. The Twelve-Colored Iris Guild under it remained the foremost of Europe's four major guilds to this day.

What puzzled Fang Heng, however, was the little girl's indifferent attitude toward her own guild.

Trainees like Luo Yu and Jita, who came from nothing more than a second-tier guild, generally did not dare to casually defy the orders of the Taboris Oak Knights. They might even submit to the guild's demands regarding the contents of their trainee evaluations.

This was actually against the rules, because the supplementary provisions of the Suva Declaration stipulated that the standard trainee evaluation for Chosen required earning a full three hundred points. Among the same batch of examinees, whoever finished first within the allotted time won. No more than three assistants could participate during the evaluation, and their rank could not exceed Tier 2, so it was basically considered fair competition.

This supplementary provision was not merely empty words. In most circumstances, it was one of the basic codes of conduct for Chosen in Aethelria, and could be considered an extension of human law into the New World. The Chosen even called it the Super Competition Alliance Charter, which showed its status.

Yet even a "Charter" sometimes had to yield to reality.

The reality was that since the Star Gate Era, nearly two generations had already been born on Earth, but the number of Chosen still hovered around twenty million. Their proportion of the population had not increased, but instead continued to decline.

That was because the output of Luminous Matter had always been limited, making it necessary to select only the best of the best. Against this backdrop, competition for Chosen slots was extremely fierce. Sometimes it was not merely a contest of talent and hard work, but an arena for wealth, status, and influence.

Otherwise, Fang Heng would not have chosen the worst possible option of sneaking across the border.

The same was true among trainees. Becoming a trainee did not necessarily mean one could become Chosen; it only meant obtaining a ticket. Yet those who received that ticket often desired to become Chosen more than ordinary people did. One could imagine how fierce the competition between them was.

Guilds, which held the power to decide who received those slots, naturally occupied an absolute advantage over trainees—there had never been much fairness involved, because the commercial nature of Super Competition meant only the guilds themselves had the right to decide who would benefit their development more.

Even the "Charter" could not change that—

It had even created certain gray areas beyond the law. Before making up his mind to sneak across the border, Fang Heng had naturally tried every possible method, so he knew the inside story rather well. He knew that trainees like Luo Yu and Jita were what normal trainees looked like.

There was no trainee who did not feel uneasy about their future.

But this French girl was clearly an exception.

She had even come to Corin-Ishurian to complete her trainee graduation examination. It was generally believed that Corin-Ishurian and the Knight Nations of Guta were the spheres of influence of Chinese Chosen, while the European Union's actual controlled territory lay in southwestern Luotao.

This was simply ridiculous. After listening to Tianlan's solemn explanation, Fang Heng felt that she had come less to take an exam than to sightsee...

Still, the professions of these trainees were fairly conventional.

Because trainees held tourist status, they were basically cut off from Combat Professions. All three of them were Life Profession practitioners. Fuli was relatively skilled at negotiation—or so she said. Fang Heng, however, simply thought the little girl was lively and rather talkative.

In short, she had learned some business skills and appraisal methods for that purpose, taking on the party's logistical work.

Of course, according to her, she aspired to become a bard—but that would have to wait until after she became an official Chosen. Judging by her expression, she seemed never to have doubted whether she could become Chosen.

Even Fang Heng felt that this French girl was perhaps a little too optimistic.

As for Jita, the youngest trainee, who looked extremely shy and afraid of strangers, Tianlan had said from the start that she wanted to become a naturalist. Though that profession sounded like the sort of scholarly role that dealt with scrolls, strange objects, and specimens all day, Fang Heng knew very well that it was actually a formidable Combat Profession.

Naturalists mainly fought through Grimoires. Their Grimoires were ancient relics, very similar in principle to alchemical Magic Devices. Both transformed and used aetheric power through a medium—the Core Crystal—because the human body could not directly withstand magic power.

But the number of Grimoires had not changed since the Numelin Era—it had neither increased nor decreased. Thus, every Grimoire had to wait until its previous owner died or retired before being passed to the next successor.

That made this extremely powerful "battlefield-control profession," spoken of among the Chosen, incredibly rare. They could recreate scenes and terrain, even alter the way magic power functioned. Few people truly chose this path, after all, because no one knew whether a Grimoire belonged to them.

Because there were several top Chosen of this profession in the Second World, Fang Heng happened to know quite a lot about it.

He guessed that the Taboris Oak Knights must have obtained a Grimoire through some unknown channel, which was why they trained someone like Jita. Naturally, that book was definitely not prepared specifically for her. Major Guilds were always like this: countless people competed for the same position, and only the most outstanding among them could emerge victorious.

Still, Fang Heng felt that she was quite excellent overall. Though she was somewhat shy and afraid of strangers, she spoke with unusual refinement and possessed astonishing memory. More importantly, Tianlan had said that she was also an appraiser and the party's tactical planner.

That was truly impressive. Either role required an excellent mind. The former demanded a sufficient reserve of knowledge about strange objects, while the latter was purely intellectual work.

The last trainee, the tall one called Luo Yu, had not spoken a single word so far. Tianlan said he was an elementalist trainee trained by the guild, characterized by particular sensitivity to calculations—the exact aptitude an elementalist needed. But Fang Heng's impression of him was that he was brave and decisive. The scene of him charging out to save the Paparal crossbowman earlier had left a deep impression on him.

Naturally, he was also currently a Life Profession practitioner. He was Etila's personal Bow Maker and also knew some basic carpentry.

A taciturn carpenter.

That sounded fairly normal, but Fang Heng always felt that Luo Yu had been watching him ever since the beginning. Yet whenever he turned around, the tall young man would pretend nothing had happened and shift his gaze away.

Other than that slight oddity, Fang Heng found that this party was quite harmonious overall.

Look, they had a Paparal scout and ranged professions like Etila. Even more precious was that she was a chef herself and was good at preserving game—just think how many positions that saved. As for the others, well, their combat strength was a little weak, but from negotiator and appraiser to Bow Maker and carpenter, this was practically a perfect logistics unit.

Well, all they lacked was an alchemist.

If some guild's expedition party had such a logistics unit, this lineup could be called luxurious no matter what. Even if the expedition party was not first-tier, it had to at least be second-tier, right?

So the question was—

Where were the combatants of this logistics unit?

The moment Fang Heng thought of that, he broke out in a cold sweat. "Tianlan, are there only a few of you in your party?"

Tianlan shook her head like a rattle drum. "Of course not. We're still missing one person."

"Oh—" Fang Heng finally understood.

Thinking it over carefully, Etila and Parker could each barely count as half a combat professional. If they added one more relatively powerful pure combat professional, it would still make for an excellent small team—even if their frontal combat ability was lacking, their powerful logistics capability would be enough to compensate.

But to his utter surprise, Tianlan continued, "Since trainees can have three assistants, we're still one short. And we also happen to need an alchemist to travel with us."

After saying that, she looked at Fang Heng with expectant eyes. "Brother Ed, do you want to join our party? Aren't you going to Elpaxin? We're heading back there next to resupply and rest, and we also have—"

Fang Heng could not hear the rest, because he had been lifting his waterskin when he heard those words and immediately snorted water out through his nose.

Then he could not help collapsing to the ground in a violent coughing fit.

He coughed for quite a while, frightening everyone else. Fang Heng hurriedly waved a hand in discomfort to indicate that he was fine. But at that moment, he saw a hand enter his field of view.

It was a slender girl's hand. A red coral bracelet adorned its delicate wrist, one of the forest elves' favorite ornaments. He froze for a moment, sniffed, and looked up, only to find Etila standing before him.

The elven girl seemed to have already composed herself. She nodded at Fang Heng, a hint of apology in her emerald-green eyes.

Fang Heng could not help recalling what had happened earlier and felt extremely embarrassed, not knowing how to respond for a moment. Etila, however, appeared open and composed, as though she had already forgotten what had happened. In a gentle voice, she said, "Fuli is right. How about Ed comes with us too?"

Though it was clearly phrased as a question, for some reason Fang Heng felt that her attitude plainly allowed no objection.

"But..."

But Fang Heng felt this party was truly miserable. Six Life Profession practitioners in one team—was this not a circus troupe?

That night, I discussed the setting in the reader group for too long and got too excited to sleep... (To add, I saw people asking—the map is in the reader group's shared files. Qidian cannot upload images now, so there is nothing I can do.)