I stared at the note in horror reading it over another time before it as if my hand was on fire. I quickly dressed myself with the mask on my face trying to distract myself and avoiding looking at the note. I abstractly admired the black form fitting leather armour that fitted me like a glove, but still providing me with almost full range of motion. I was also impressed with the pair of sheaths provided on the belt ready for my daggers. A dainty looking black ring with a silver teardrop on my right hand provided the only adornment to the outfit. Only after dressing myself whilst examining the ring did I notice how badly my hands were still shaking. I closed my hands into fists to try and stop the shaking however it did not help.

  “Are you okay in there?” Shade called “it doesn’t normally take someone this long to get changed into one of my suits, is there an error or something?”

  “Nno, everything is fine” I called out disgusted at myself for the quiver in my voice. Quickly gathering the gear I had arrived in I walked back out shoving the letter into my armour as I did so.

  Seeing Shade I immediately dumped my gear and told him to give it to Lady Xing when he went back to the castle and started walking out of the shop. I turned back however when he called for me to wait. “I need to let you know how to use the ring!” he panted pretending to be burdened under the weight of the armour I dumped on him. I crossed my arms and waited knowing full well that he would have a much higher strength stat than me.

  “The ring is a storage ring” he got out, “so channel a drop of mana into it and you can carry back your own armour.”

  Grabbing back my chestplate I did so and immediately it vanished, and immediately I knew it was in the ring. Shade raised an eyebrow.

  “How much space does it have?” I asked

  “About 5 cubic meters” Shade said sounding slightly shocked “ however that includes the suit when it desummons. Have you ever used a storage ring before?”

  “At what point in my life do you think I would have the chance to use a storage ring” I asked grabbing the rest of the gear from his unresisting hands and placing it into the ring.

  “Your.. well usually people have to place the object on the ring before it goes into it. Your man’s control appears to be excellent to even possibly the level of a prodigy.” He said in a slightly shell shocked voice “I have never seen anyone do that in my life.”

  That is quite possibly the first positive comment I have heard about my capabilities since I have awakened I thought smiling to myself. Nodding at Shade who remained rooted to the spot and still staring down glancing between his hands and my ring, I turned and left.

  ***

  Headed back towards the main sewer entrance I immediately noticed that the sensation of being followed was completely gone. Whoever it was likely was the assassin that slipped me the note, maybe I can get a danger sense skill out of that, that would be really helpful. I thought to myself. Although I didn’t really know what skill to replace it with considering it was probably a general skill. The skills I had used the least at present was bartering and learning. Bartering had the potential to be a huge money saver and learning was the key to me catching up on my siblings. However bartering would be useless if I’m dead I decided, marking it as my next skill to go. I was getting some odd looks from what I was wearing as I walked down the street however there were enough classers that wore even more outlandish sets of armour that I didn’t draw too much attention.

  Note to self next time make sure that I wear regular clothes and activate the mask once I get to my job I thought as I ducked down some back streets to head towards the entrance, right behind the Adventurers Guild

  Nobody stopped me as I walked to a suspiciously large manhole cover that was already partially opened, an awful stench emanating from the entrance it covered. I was immensely grateful that the suit I wore toned down the smell immensely.

  Standing there my brain finally caught up with what I had seen in the letter and again my hands started shaking “someone paid the guild to kill me” I muttered very softly to myself ignoring the quiver in my voice “who the hell would actually pay real crowns to send an assassin to kill me!” Honestly I didn’t understand why I was reacting like this, I already knew someone tried to kill me and it was almost certainly not on a whim but having it confirmed sparked a visceral terror in me that I wasn’t able to overcome. I now knew with almost certainty that someone was still trying to kill me and it wasn’t a one off. Seconds later I realised I could hear myself panting so rapidly and loudly that I would draw attention and slowly I tried to take deep breaths to calm myself. I knew this wasn’t resolved and my heart and mind were still rapidly churning, but I knew if I didn’t do something now that I likely never would.

  “Okay goals,” I said shaking my head sharply as though to cut off the morbid train of thoughts as I shifted the man cover and looked down at the metal ladder with significant trepidation.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “I obviously want to kill at least 100 rats but I also want to develop as many skills as possible.” I said looking over my skills. Of which I knew I was going to use several of them just in ordinary combat and life, however I decided to add some other things I was going to try as I went down the list. Let’s see if I can attempt to do some sort of pseudo permanent meditation I decided, as well as using fade to fade through an object entirely and to be able to use shadow magic to give myself a permanent shadow cloak” I decided knowing full well that being able to achieve any of these was likely a very long stretch goal. But Shade had definitely increased my confidence significantly. If I’m really talented at magic in general that could give me an edge I thought excitement bubbling up no matter how much I attempted to stop it.

  Slowly I descended the ladder keeping an eye out to see if I could spot any rats. They didn’t normally come down this section of tunnels as this was where most of the members who took this mission started, and looking around today it seemed to hold true. As I stepped down I immediately started using [Silent step] and making sure to keep to the side where there were walkways for the adventurers convenience, and avoid the river of sewage floating past. I cursed at my last self mentally for taking [Senses] as the smell alone was enough to make my eyes water.

  Gathering myself and trying my hardest to avoid touching anything or walking in any of the puddles I slowly walked back towards the centre of the city trying to keep my eyes peeled for any signs of movement as I did so. Unfortunately I saw nothing of note as I walked along. Even more unfortunately whilst I was having some minor success trying to manipulate the shadows around me into a cloak it was incredibly difficult. I knew it was possible, but I also knew that I was doing something badly wrong. However knowing such a thing did not mean I had any idea on how to fix it. Moving meditation was also a bust and having a look at the walls I decided attempting to fade through them was not a wise decision.

  I was surprised at the lack of animals I saw as I continued walking around, the only sound was the rushing of liquid, I didn’t dare call what I was walking past water, and the only movement was in said liquid and no matter how desperate I was there was no way I was planning on hopping in to kill a measly rat. Particularly considering I had no idea if what I was seeing was actually a rat.

  Hours later I was still wandering down the tunnels and I was honestly debating turning around when I saw my first rat corpse. Curious as to what had killed it, and relieved I was finally making some progress. I rushed over a narrow bridge without taking any time to notice my surroundings. It was almost my final mistake.

  As I picked up the rat to put it in my spatial storage seven rats appeared as if from nowhere behind me. If it wasn’t for my advanced [Senses] picking up the sound of claws on stone I would have been completely vulnerable, even as it was I barely got out of the way of the first creatures lunge. Feeling confident in my armour I withdrew my daggers and kicked out at the nearest animal. All of these creatures were as large as a small dog and as the rat I had kicked at proved we’re lightning fast as he easily skittered out of the way. Identifying the nearest one though gave me a bit more of a concern.

  [Mutated rat (venomous) L9]

  “Damn it to the lower plains” I swore as I quickly identified the others, crouching slightly and using my daggers to stab at any that got close. They all showed the same (venomous) label.

  There is no record of these being venomous that I knew of. I thought my mind racing. I was suddenly a lot less comfortable with my armour ifa single bite could possibly kill me. The only comfort I had was I could identify the levels of all the creatures and none were higher than level 10.

  Stabbing out I tried to maneuver around the creatures and retreat however they seemed to have some sort of pack tactics that made it very difficult, any attempt was immediately targeted and hemmed in by at least two other rats. Deciding to change strategy I stood up and lunged at the weakest animal I saw, a level 4 that seemed a fair bit slower than the others and barely dodging out of the way of its bite as well as one of his neighbours I brought my dagger down and managed to pierce it through the eye.

  Congratulations you have killed a Mutated Rat (Venomous) Level 4!

  Absorb has failed to consume the class venomous mutant.

  Reading this I immediately swore. There was no way I could finish my guild assignment now, and most assignments for that matter of lower class beasts, I was not going to take the risk of getting a class like that unless my life depended on it.

  Swearing however was not the smartest move. The rats immediately abandoned any sort of tactics in favour of mobbing me from all sides, biting and clawing at any area of me they could possibly get their hands on. Reacting instinctively I liked out at the animals trying to shake them off and rapidly swung my daggers down at them abandoning any attempt at aiming for force and luck. One I managed to crush kicking it between my boot and the wall. The others I slowly dismantled with my hurricane of rapid strikes. I knew it had come down to a race, would I be able to kill these animals fast enough before they found a way to penetrate my bare skin. The rats swarmed my legs and despite my attempts to retreat they were getting there jaws around my legs. Bloody gashes marred their fur and another three slowly succumbed to their wounds when disaster struck. One rat managed to find a gap between my boots and the start of my leg armour and bit hard. Immediately I knew there was a problem as the leg started to go numb. But stabbing down I managed to pierce its scull causing it to drop dead. Immediately I put some mana into regeneration trying to get rid of the venom immediately but it seemed to just slow the spread. The last rat, which I had barely touched so far immediately turned and ran off, it’s loud shrieks echoing through the tunnel.

  “Yeah you better run” I muttered slowly gathering the corpses of the other rats before turning to leave, slowly limping as my leg went numb. Slowly I walked back the way I came, leg hurting and the rats squeaks still echoing in the background.

  Wait, was those squeaks getting closer? I turned, and a veritable swarm of the creatures turned a corner a few hundred metres back and charged in my direction..