Mythology: Ragnarok

Agreed then tossed the sword to Pushkin and warned him, "A treasure, however powerful, is not immune to theft. My friend, unless absolutely necessary, you'd better not display this treasure in public."

Pushkin took the sword, looked at Agred with eyes full of approval, and said, "You are truly a person worth befriending. I, Pushkin, am determined to be your friend."

In fact, the divine sword had already recognized Pushkin. Pushkin could recall it at any time with just a thought. From the very beginning, Pushkin was testing Agreed to see if he was worthy of being befriended.

After that day, the two young men completely let down their guard and became friends. Pushkin made Agred understand that he should hate a type of person, not a group of people; he should hate the members of the Church of Light who treated human life like dirt, not the church righteous people like Pushkin who were willing to speak out for the people.

During his conversation with Pushkin, Agreed learned that there were many like-minded people in the Church of Light who shared his ideals. Their idea was simple: to help the people live a peaceful and prosperous life away from the persecution of monsters, beasts, and alien species. They did not want the church to bring war. Those people joined the church in the hope of contributing their meager strength to bring prosperity and peace to mankind.

Unfortunately... the Church of Light deceived them, so they began their own resistance. These people spontaneously organized themselves and created a somewhat independent organization outside the Church of Light, the 'Knights of Light'. The Knights of Light traveled to various countries and spontaneously participated in the campaigns to hunt monsters and resist magical beasts, and repeatedly rescued towns that were powerless to fight against magical beasts and had no financial means to recruit adventurers.

The Church of Light adopts a laissez-faire attitude towards the Knights of Light because the Knights of Light are clever. They act under the banner of the Church of Light, which is tantamount to advertising for the Church of Light and increasing their popular support. Therefore, the Church of Light has no reason to interfere with them and even funds their actions.

Pushkin also said that he would join the Knights of Light and become a great paladin, and that one day he would make the Knights of Light replace the Church of Light!

After hearing these stories, Agreed couldn't help but sigh, "That's just how the world is sometimes; there will be darkness, and there will be light."

In the days that followed, Agreed rapidly cultivated his physical body to the level of a high-level warrior by practicing the Magic Crystal Body Refining Technique.

(Additional explanation: The cultivation realm of battle qi is divided into seven levels: beginner warrior, intermediate warrior, advanced warrior, knight, paladin, grandmaster, and legendary warrior. The strength of these seven levels corresponds to the seven levels of mages. Normally, in actual combat, the difference between those at the same realm is not much, and warriors even have a greater chance of winning in a one-on-one situation. However, mages are much more important in a strategic sense.)

Agreed's conjecture was correct; the problem of the soul leaving the body never occurred again after the physical enhancement. So Agreed spent his days practicing the Magic Crystal Body Tempering Technique to hone his body and learning swordsmanship from Pushkin, and his nights practicing the Soul Vortex to hone his soul. The days passed quickly, and soon it was the end of the semester. The academy issued a new final exam to all students: the "Adventurer's Trial".

The so-called Adventurer's Trial is to have the students of Agreed's class go to the Adventurer's Guild in Augustus to register as adventurers and take on quests there to raise their adventurer rank to Bronze.

(Additional note: Adventurer ranks are divided into seven levels: Iron, Copper, Steel, Silver, Gold, Gem, and Magic Crystal.)

This is a relatively safe trial mission devised by the five academies after the unexpected incident in the Warcraft Forest Trial. It can hone the students without putting them in danger. Most of the missions for low-level adventurers in the Augustus Adventurers Guild are small tasks such as cleaning up sewer monsters, capturing fugitives, collecting herbs, and delivering items.

So, a month before the end of the semester, Agreed joined the students at the Adventurers' Guild in Augustus to register as an adventurer and begin his adventurer career.

Agreed was clever; while everyone else was scrambling for high-difficulty, high-reward tasks like capturing fugitives and protecting caravans, Agreed only took on small tasks like cleaning up monsters in the sewers and delivering letters.

Agreed knew that high-reward missions were very rare, and with more wolves than meat, it could easily turn into a fierce competition. The academy's mission only required him to reach the Bronze level, and Agreed didn't need to fight to the death with his classmates for that little bit of reward. Besides, cleaning the sewers was actually a rare and desirable job, and in terms of long-term benefits, it was better than any other mission.

After accepting the task of cleaning the sewers, Agreed took his staff and entered the vast sewage system from the entrance. The sewers of Augustus were built to be very large, like an underground labyrinth. Because the mages often dumped waste potions and various byproducts into the sewage system, the cockroaches, rats and other animals here often mutated and evolved into troublesome monsters. Some even had magic crystals born in their bodies and became magical beasts.

After a massive rat and insect infestation that lasted for three years several hundred years ago, Augustus began to prioritize the patrolling and cleaning of the sewers. Since the Augustan royal family lacked an army and even law enforcement agencies and was short-handed, they naturally delegated this task to the Adventurers' Guild. The royal family provided the funds, while the adventurers provided the labor to carry out year-round cleaning of the sewers to ensure that the tragedy of that year would not be repeated.

Argreed walked cautiously through the wide sewers. The stench of the sewage around him made him put on his homemade gas mask. The disgusting smell of the sewage also deterred many people from doing this job. In addition, the royal family has been paying less and less attention to funding this work in recent years, so no more than ten adventurers actually come to work in the sewer system every day.

Before Agred had taken more than a few steps, he was greeted with a warm welcome from the sewer natives. A swarm of rats, each a meter long, darted out of the stinking ditch, brandishing their filthy claws and sharp teeth, and charged at Agred.

But Agreed was not alarmed. He instantly cast the third-tier light magic 'Radiance', which directly enveloped the entire section of the sewer with intense light. Creatures living in the dark could not withstand such intense light. All the rats were blinded in the blink of an eye and fell to the ground in pain, rolling around.

At that moment, the other monsters were also alerted. Countless cockroaches, each nearly half a meter long, flew in from the air, while snake-like monsters emerged from the water. These natives knew very well that these humans were going to kill them all, so at this critical moment, they united against the adventurers who had come here.