Miguel locks eyes with the manager and she walks right at him, when she arrives she makes a customer service smile, although she had doubts if what she had heard was true then this could later become a person the association might want to recruit "Hello, I'm Liv, the area manager, would you mind coming with me to confirm a couple things before we can authorize the expedited reevaluation" Miguel nods at her and follows behind her; they walked past the receptionist she stayed quiet and attempted to go back to work unnoticed, worried she might have made a mistake because of attitude.
Liv brings Miguel into a dedicated training area with what seemed to be a reinforced, floor, walls, and roof. "wow this place is great, last time I was here I was so nervous I didn't notice but you guys really have a great variety of weapons" as he points at the weapons mounted on the wall.
"yes, Mr.… I'm sorry what was your name again"
"Most people call me Mike, I'm fine with that, no need to add Mister to it"
"Alright, Mike, we saw that last time you didn't have any skills, in order to justify the allocation of funds I would need to confirm that you have acquired some since last week. Unfortunately, I can't override the 3-month wait time before you retake the exam until I have visual confirmation" She walks over to a wall with a control on it "Last time you took the test your rank was very low, for now well just start off with the practical exam first, since our training goblins are overpopulated anyway it should be fine" Liv didn't want to do all the paperwork for a reevaluation unless there was merit to it.
"Either way I was going to have to do this anyway, so sounds good to me" Liv walks over to the side and grabs a sword "If you need help and want to give up just let me know and we'll stop" she then presses a button on the control which opened a panel in the wall and out came a small green-skinned monster with pointy ears and a big head in proportion to its body.
"Rocky, come out and have a snack" Rocky appears, the way he appeared was normal for Miguel but when Liv saw this she was very confused because typically summoning a familiar takes preparation, which is why they typically walk around with them. This was the reason she was so doubtful of him. Miguel had drops of sweat coming down his forehead and, his eyes widened, and he could feel his heart beat stronger.
Rocky immediately runs at the monster and lunges at its neck with its teeth, this gives Miguel a sense of relief since he didn't know if Rocky would even fight for him. The relief was short-lived because the monster evaded the bite and ran to attack the weaker enemy, as Miguel watched the monster run at him. He took a step back and remembered seeing a weapon behind him, so he reached back felt a handle, and grabbed onto it, before the goblin reached him Rocky bit its left leg and pulled, making the monster fall over. Miguel took the opportunity and swung what turn out to be a hand axe onto the monster's head on the ground, killing it, last time he managed to push it back but since it grazed him the exam proctor stopped the fight. Three screens popped up in from of Miguel
Achievement: first kill
Reward: Exp boost for 2 days
Rocky: Level up
Rocky has learned Howl
"the servant wants to protect its master so it makes itself a target"
Liv starts to clap "A little rough around the edges but not bad for an F rank, looks like you might not be able to go further for now though if you had trou..." Miguel interrupts her "Again please!" she then sees him hold out an empty hand and touch the corpse, she was surprised to see that a copy of the monster was made and Miguel handed it the axe.
Liv hesitated a moment "alright ill bring it up a notch" She presses a button again and this time 3 goblins come out with rusted knives. "alright guys get them" This time Rocky ran to the right and around them, then Howls, getting the attention of the monsters. when they turn around the new servant starts attacking from behind with the axe that Miguel gave him, in the confusion Rocky lunged at one of their throats. Suddenly there was only one left which the two servants quickly took down. Liv looked at Miguel's disappointed face confused since his familiars had completed the task so easily she didn't understand the disappointment.
Miguel saw another level-up screen for Rocky but was waiting for a notice for collected souls, but it didn't happen. A worry that maybe he could only collect souls from human awaked hit him.
"it seems like you're just figuring things out, and don't have much experience in actual combat" Liv waits for him to summon another, but it doesn't happen "alright we are stopping here for now" Miguel looks at her in a panic "I can keep going" Liv places the control back on the wall "ill approve your reevaluation, but it'll be next month, in the meantime I'll issue a stop on your previous credentials so that I can issue a separate temporary D rank license with a D rank dungeon restriction"
Miguel was confused and anxious to get this over with "I can keep going, we just..." Liv elevates her hand signaling for him to stop. "this is to help you out, I, more or less understand where you're at, and if we continue today I'm not sure you'll get to D rank" Miguel felt disappointed "However, if you use the temporary license you'll be able to enter F and E rank dungeons in a group of by yourself, but with what I've seen here today D rank dungeons are off limits"
Miguel understood that she was trying to help him but his body still felt like it was in battle; that's when he noticed he was being hypervigilant, he had completely lost his calm. he noticed that his hands clenched and his fingers were white, he released his hands and could feel blood flowing into his hands.
"yea I think your right, maybe in a month I can get enough experience to get a better rank, but if I promise to star in an F-rank dungeon and not go into a dungeon I'm not prepared for could you lift the restriction in case I get invited into a raid by others". Liv thinks about it for a moment "alright, but your signing a waiver, I don't want anyone blaming me if you die" Miguel takes the axe from the servant and places it back on the wall "ok guys, go to sleep" the servants disappear into their shadows "I would recommend you keep a familiar out at all times, just in case you need him, no one would suspect your dog to be one so that's perfect" Miguel listens to her and summons rocky "stay close".
Having left the building Miguel looks at the temporary permit that Liv gave him, it looked like a Bank Card with an ARA at the top, "D rank permit" under it and a picture with the name Mike it also showed an RFID chip on the right side of the card. Liv told him that using Mike would be fine since using a nickname or pseudonym helped protect awakened information.
Miguel remembers that the pop up said he had 2 days of exp boost so he decides to head to a local F rank dungeon he found on his phone since it was still early, unfortunately it seemed to be located in the Henderson area which was practically on the opposite side of Las Vegas since he was in North Las Vegas. When he got into his old beat up Honda civic, rocky got into the back seat, he turned it on and rolled down the windows since the air conditioning was not working, rocky stuck his head out the window as they drove off.
When he arrives at the dungeon portal he notices that there is no other awakened, only the A.R.A. Officer next to the dungeon portal entrance. "Menu" a screen shows itself, Miguel immediately navigates to the servants screen and sees that rocky grew to Level 3 without him noticing while he was anxious, but when he looked at the new servant he noticed that it was still at level 1 after helping kill 3 monsters "looks like unnamed servants really don't get stronger" just then the officer wakes up and is surprised to see Miguel there "civilians need to stay way from this area, please turn around and walk away" attempting to sound imposing.
Miguel takes out his permit and shows it to the officer "you're an awakened?... what are your doing here? The monsters in F rank dungeons dont have crystals and their monster dismantling prices cost more than the materials acquired" Miguel finally understood why there was no one else here, but he needed the experience of being in a dungeon so the weakest dungeon is a good place to start, the officer sees that Miguel isn't discouraged "well if your still going in, don't worry go get your equipment and your team we will get you in quickly since there's no one else here" Miguel feeling kind of embarrasses that he hadn't even thought of equipment yet "I'm going in as is, my friend here is a…" he remembered Liv kept calling it a familiar "familiar, I just want to see how he hold up to the monsters and I'll be right out" the officer seemed a little worried but accepted since the monsters where not to strong and if he was just going in and out quickly it should be a problem "alright, just wave your license in front of that machine there and go on in"
Miguel follow the instruction and goes into the dungeon, after 2 hours the officer starts to get worried and decides to go in after him to confirm that Miguel had not died. As he walks into the dungeon he smells blood and gets worried but as he walks forward he notices the mutilated corpse of 4 goblins, with blook spattered all over the walls of the cave like dungeon. "Guess I was unnecessarily worried, looks like a bear attacked them" the officer decides to go further into the cave only to find miguel but only sees corpse after corpse when suddenly he hears yelling and he runs towards it thinking something bad might have happened.