Chapter 29 - Becoming A Mercenary.

Unfortunately for Raymond, there were a few more steps left before he could start earning money. First of all, he needed to be briefed on the rules of the mercenary association. Luckily, the rules were simple, what the employer said during the mission was a priority, but if it was something outside the stated terms, the mercenary could choose to not comply, especially if it was something that went against common morals or if it threatened the mercenary's safety.

The mercenary would receive a part of the commission before going on the mission, but the bulk of the money would be received upon completing the assigned task. One of the more important rules of the mercenary association was that every mercenary could only receive missions according to their actual rank. Even if your strength surpassed your rank, you could only accept missions belonging to your rank.

The ranks were divided into silver and bronze as far as Raymond knew. In more developed countries, he was sure that there were more ranks, the mercenary association stretched across multiple nations after all. The bronze rank was equivalent to the body-refining realm, and to further divide the ranks, different levels of the body-refining realm corresponded to the number of stars that were on your badge.

Someone who had a 2-star bronze badge was someone who was in the middle of the body-refining realm, meaning someone who was in the 4th, 5th or 6th revolution of the body-refining realm. Since Raymond was in the 7th revolution, he was given a 3-star bronze badge which gave him sufficient authority to take on a lot of missions. The only people with higher authority were people who had a silver badge, people who had already stepped onto the spirit-refining path. Naturally, they were highly sought after, but they were also equally as expensive, meaning that the 3-star mercenaries were usually the ones with the most requests.

Since Raymond was pretty eager to find an interesting mission to undertake, the receptionist showed him the mission board where people posted their requests. Since he was a 3-star bronze rank mercenary, he naturally looked at the missions suitable for his rank, and there was honestly a great deal of them. He was a little surprised, but after looking around for a while, he found a few that seemed pretty interesting.

Almost all of the missions were escort missions, but a few of them paid a lot more than the others. After seeing who the employer was, it was easy to see why. The employer who paid the best was a scion of the Baxter family, one of the three biggest family's in Kredon. The mission was fairly simple, they just needed to protect the Baxter family's cargo until it reached a neighbouring city, after that, they would follow and protect some other cargo on the way back.

Such a simple mission would at most take a week, and the pay for a 3-star mercenary was around 150 gold. Finding such a lucrative job was hard, but it was definitely accompanied by some danger as well. Since the Baxter family's goods were worth a fortune, it would naturally attract unsavoury fellows who coveted it. If they were brave enough to attack the cargo of the Baxter family, they were bound to be strong, which is why many people abstained from taking the mission.

Raymond wasn't really scared of a little danger. Although he had chosen to be a mercenary instead of blindly adventuring into the wilderness on his own, it was not because he was scared, but more so because it was a steady source of income. It's not like he could rely on getting lucky in the wilderness all the time. It was better to earn money steadily first, he could naturally explore the world as much as he wanted later.

Without hesitation, Raymond picked up the mission and went over to the counter again.

"I'll take this one."

Seeing Raymond nonchalantly bring over one of the papers from the mission board, the receptionist almost started laughing.

"You didn't need to bring it with you, other people need to be able to take the mission too you know?"

Raymond was a little taken aback, but after realising his mistake, he started laughing.

After sorting everything out, Raymond quietly left the mercenary association. On the way out, he realised that he had made a blunder, but luckily the receptionist didn't notice. Raymond was supposed to be blind to the outside world, yet he had picked out a mission on his own as if he could actually see. He didn't think it through, but he could've easily aroused some suspicion because of his carelessness, this was something Raymond needed to reflect on.

Then again, if she had asked about it, he would've just said he picked one at random. Now that he pondered a little upon it, maybe the receptionist was a little bit of an airhead. She had jokingly admonished him for taking the mission note of the board down, but if he didn't do that, how was he supposed to find a mission on his own, since he couldn't read because of his blindness? The whole situation was both a little funny and a little weird.

There was not much time left in the day, and Raymond was getting a little hungry. Since there were two days left until the mission, Raymond had plenty of time to spare, so he decided to treat himself to some good food. Whilst he was out and about, he learned a little more about the Baxter family, for example, which family member was in charge of this escort mission.

To Raymond's surprise, the person in charge, or rather the people in charge, were two young masters of the family. Chloe and Christopher Baxter were siblings from the same parents and they had a great relationship. Not only that, but they were both talented cultivators that could be considered the future of the Baxter family. Since that was the case, the family invested a lot in them, and this escort mission was merely one of the many opportunities they had to learn.

They would naturally have their own guard with them, which was dispatched from the family. This made the trip a lot safer since they would never know if someone wanted to harm two of the family's most talented youngsters. Normally, the guard that the Baxter family dispatched for these escorts was at the peak of the body-refining realm, but the word on the street was that they would be accompanied by a cultivator of the spirit-refining path.

To Raymond, this was pretty intriguing news, and he looked forward to the mission a little more. Since they would be accompanied by a guard in the spirit-refining realm, Raymond might even get a chance to see him in action. Even though Raymond had fought with the silver-rank mercenary who was in the spirit-refining realm, it was not like he actually showed any of his powers, so Raymond had no real idea of how strong he was.

With some excitement for his first mission, Raymond went back to the inn for the night and got some sleep.. By the time the mission started, he wanted to be well rested.