Chapter 48: Registration..... Again

Chapter 48: Chapter 48: Registration..... Again

The morning after he’d finished building the rest of the disguise, Jason woke early, the mask and cloak already folded neatly into his bag.

"You’re going to register today," she said, half asleep, watching him check the straps on the bag one more time.

"Figured I should make it official. Can’t exactly run Gates on an application I never submitted."

"Fair point." She shifted, settling back into the pillow. "Be careful."

"Always am."

He checked in briefly with Judith when she arrived a short while later, and headed out, the city still waking up around him as he made his way toward a branch of the Hunter Association he’d never once set foot in as Jason Veryon.

---

The receptionist barely looked up when he approached the counter, mask and cloak drawing only the mildest flicker of attention before she slid a registration form across the counter.

"New applicant?"

"That’s right."

"Name?"

"Ash."

She noted it down without further comment. "Last name, or is that it?"

"Just Ash."

"Fine I guess." She didn’t press, didn’t even seem particularly curious, already reaching for the next form.

"This happens more than you’d think. The Association cares about what you can do in a Gate, not who you are outside one.

Your address and contact information can be left vague too, provided we’ve got a working number for dispatch notices."

Jason filled in the barest details he could get away with, a false address two districts over, a burner number he’d picked up with the rest of his supplies, and slid the form back across the counter.

"Cultivation test room is through that door there," she said, nodding toward a side room. "It won’t take too long."

---

The testing chamber was smaller than the one he remembered from his first registration, a simple array etched into the floor meant to read essence output directly, and he settled into the center of it with the same careful discipline he’d practiced in front of the mirror the night before.

He folded his Lightning essence inward, sealing it off behind a wall of controlled, deliberate effort, letting only Fire bleed through into the array beneath his feet.

The light flared a clean, steady orange.

The examiner glanced at the readout, entirely unimpressed. "Fire affinity. Second Level." She made her note without looking up.

"That puts you at E-Rank. Qualifies you for solo E-Rank work, or D-Rank Gates provided your party includes at least one member rated D or above."

"Understood."

"Your ID will print in a few minutes. Have a good one."

He waited in silence, same as before, and when the card finally slid across the counter, he pocketed it without a word and walked out into the morning without a single lingering glance following him.

’Officially Ash now.’

---

He put in applications to half a dozen raid parties the moment he got home, scrolling through listings on the Association’s site with methodical patience, looking specifically for squads that already had a D-Rank member willing to take on an unknown E-Rank.

Novaria watched him work from across the kitchen table, mildly amused.

"You almost look like you’re shopping for furniture."

"The processes are similar enough. Just read the listing, check the reviews, hope nobody’s lying about their qualifications."

He didn’t wait idly.

He spent the better part of the next hour in the yard, running through the stance Novaria had drilled into him over the past two days since he revealed his plan.

His sword cut in tighter, shorter arcs through the afternoon air, Fire threading along the blade’s edge in careful, controlled bursts meant purely for practice rather than damage.

"That’s much better," Novaria called from her usual spot in the shade, watching his fourth or fifth repetition.

"You’re still dragging the ball of your feet on the recovery."

"I understand."

"You say that a lot these days."

"Because you’re usually right."

"I am pretty amazing aren’t I?," she agreed, entirely too pleased with herself.

Judith stepped out partway through with a tray of water and something small to eat, setting it on the table beside Novaria without being asked.

A quiet, practiced attentiveness that had stopped feeling, at least to Novaria, like hired help and started feeling more like something closer.

"You’ve got that look in your eyes," Judith said, studying Jason. "Like you’re waiting on something."

"Yeah

It’s a job application."

"Ah. The secretive kind of job, I take it, given the sword."

"Something like that."

She didn’t push the matter, she’d shown this same kind of easy acceptance for some matters since she’d begun working for the couple.

She simply refilled Novaria’s water before heading back inside.

’She doesn’t ever ask more than she needs to. I appreciate that more than I’ve said out loud.’

---

His phone buzzed just under an hour later.

Hunter Association Dispatch: Application accepted. Gate reference #4471-D. Spawned yesterday, 0600. Raid scheduled tomorrow, 10:00. Confirm attendance and submit basic registration details.

He read through it twice, satisfaction settling in alongside the familiar, anticipatory edge he’d come to associate with every new Gate.

He filled in the requested details quickly, keeping everything as vague and anonymous as the registration itself had allowed, and confirmed his attendance before setting the phone down.

"Well?" Novaria asked, watching his expression.

"I have one scheduled for tomorrow. The gate’s already around a day old."

"Are you nervous?"

"I’m more curious than anything else," he said, after a moment’s thought.

"I don’t know the squad yet or the environment.

It’s the good kind of unknown, I guess."

"There’s a good kind?"

"The kind that teaches you something instead of just trying to kill you." He glanced at the sword still resting against the wall nearby.

"Guess I’ll find out which this one is tomorrow."

He resumed his stance drills for the rest of the afternoon, correcting the drag in the ball of his foot the way Novaria had pointed out.

That evening, once the house had gone quiet and she was settled for the night, he sat down on the floor beside her bed and began cultivating, same as every night before it

He drew in as much mana as he could with each breath.

His pores opening up to drink in the surrounding mana.

He started by refining that mana into essence, then washing that essence over his soul core in order to raise its level.

He went through the same cycle over and over.

Night after night

Knowing fully well within himself that he couldn’t afford to lose tempo.