Healing System

"Is this it...?"

Michael had headed back to the upper part of the city the same way he had gone down, via the spatial elevator.

And now, he was standing right in front of a massive building. It seemed like a gigantic castle.

Better yet, it had the word "Association" carved into the walls and highlighted with some sort of glowing white substance. It was surprisingly not mana. He guessed the little bit of technology they had was used to make other things look pleasing to the eyes.

Michael went inside and was greeted by a long waiting queue. There were a bunch of people standing in different kinds of lines, all of them awaiting their turn.

"Do I seriously have to wait here...?"

The lines were a bit longer than he thought. They seemed to spiral up the stairs and onto the second floor, meaning the receptionist was no longer down here.

That also meant he was essentially going to be wasting all of his time, and better yet, he could not do anything about it.

There had to have been some kind of VIP system, but from what he saw, no one had passed him in line. Surprisingly, everyone was pretty calm, and none were venting their frustrations at the waiting time.

Not a great time to arrive in this city, I suppose. The others are likely also short on funding, else they would not all be gathered here waiting patiently in the lines.

'Probably...' Michael glanced to the side. It really did look like some sort of castle; it almost made him think he might have entered the wrong place.

The procedure also seemed a tad different. He was expecting to see the requests plastered all over the walls, yet there was nothing like that to be seen here.

Instead, he could see people going down the stairs with little plaques in their hands, all of which were a different color. A couple were gray, others orange, some even green.

He assumed it had something to do with their strength or maybe even the request type, but he could not be sure. After all, he knew nothing and now had to wait for God knows how long.

Just practice your skills on the side, no? It's not like anyone would notice your usage of mana. There is not a single person with a Mana Core here.

Michael glanced around for a moment and used

Eyes of The Healer,

making sure that what the system had said was accurate.

After confirming it, he sent out a few extremely slim swords of light outside, making sure no one saw them or even detected them.

'Good...' Michael nodded to himself. It did not prove too difficult, almost like the lower-leveled people were not even able to tell that he used a skill. But for that, he could thank his extremely fast casting speed.

'Is

Sanctuary

off cooldown yet?' he asked the system and walked forward every couple of minutes, making sure his spot in line did not get taken. At the same time, he was controlling the swords around the entire outside of the building.

A few more hours. Though besides that, what do you plan on doing after this whole event? Are you going to visit that old continent of yours or go straight for the other worlds?

Michael thought for a moment and responded, 'Honestly? I'm thinking of paying a short visit to Meph and then probably heading out... As for Astraea, I am still weaker than her, and from her story, the people she will be going up against are very strong...'

So you want to get stronger first and then come back? That is not a bad plan. But then what?

'What do you mean?'

After you get strong and help her, what comes after?

Michael flinched upon hearing the slyness in the system's voice and decided to ignore it. It was starting to get some strange ideas.

After several hours of waiting and very unproductive training, it was finally his turn to speak with the receptionist.

The second floor was a bit more spacious than the first. It almost made the first floor seem useless, which, from what he could tell so far, was indeed the case.

It was just a place where you could sit down after a tiring day and relax—definitely not while there were hundreds of people present, though.

The receptionist stared at him for a moment and pulled out some sort of orb. It was emitting a tiny amount of mana—mana whose property he could not recognize.

It almost looked like it was artificially made. 'That's impossible... right?'

Technically, it is possible. Imagine the mana people exude when they fight; if the properties clash, it would cancel each other out, and the excess mana would be possible to contain, even if only temporarily... But...

'But?'

They managed to harness it more fluidly than the people of my time. It is quite fascinating. That device will most likely scan your mana. Odds are, it will break. But who knows? Maybe it can detect those with Mana Cores?

Michael nodded and placed his hand on top of the orb. Immediately, he could feel it pulsating, and a very small amount of mana was traveling up his arm.

As it reached the very top of his arm, the mana split at the shoulder and headed in three different directions. One thread of mana was heading for his brain, another for his heart, and the final one for his abdomen.

He immediately understood what it was playing at; it was trying to search for Mana Cores in those particular areas. However, he did not have that kind of Mana Core.

Instead, it was something a bit more special—a core located in the spine, the

Flow Core.

The mana kept swirling around, looking for any core in sight, nearly enveloping his entire body in the search—all but the spine.

Until finally, the search was over, and the receptionist took the orb back and placed it under the table, a bored look on his face.

"Choose a request..." he said, handing Michael a tablet. It had a similar technological outline as in the villages. There were different categories, and the one he was most interested in currently was monster subjugation.

Michael clicked on it, and after a few seconds of loading, it displayed a large list. At the very top,

1854 Results

was written, meaning he would be here for a while.

There is a filter option on the left. Click it and sort it by difficulty.

'..Oh right.' He followed the system's words and found the difficulty setting. It made him feel like an old man, not knowing how technology worked.

'Hmm...

Wolf King? Basilisk King?'

Michael thought while browsing the selection. All of the rewards were in the multimillion-dollar range. However, all of the requests were grayed out.

The only ones available were simple requests, like taking down a group of goblins or some kind of dungeon subjugation—a low-leveled one at that.

Michael glanced at the receptionist, who had been patiently waiting by the side, and asked, "Why are these requests grayed out?"

"They are for the special kind of powerful people. Sorry, you don't qualify." He was met with a swift and fast refusal.

'So the requirement was for me to have a Mana Core, really...' He sighed and summoned a single sword of light right in front of the receptionist, flying it all around the association building.

He made it glow and even dim, split in half, and reassemble. Finally done with his little performance, he returned his gaze to the receptionist, who was now staring at him with wide eyes.

"One moment..." the receptionist said and quickly ran towards a door not too far away from the desk.

Michael could not help but grin at the sight.

'Much better...'