Overcoming The Beast

Anna brought them to a mountain. She then led them to a cave hidden by vines and leaves. At the end of the cave was a dead end. Anna took out a brown token with a Centipede on it.

The cave shook and a door opened. Leon followed in and entered to see a large building stood at the center with hundreds of people training around it. The area had a weird theme as it had centipede statutes everywhere. There were centipedes made of stone holding lanterns to provide light. There was large statue at the center with a person riding on it.

Anna brought Leon and the rest into the building. "These three need tokens to join."

The lady on the other side of the desk nodded she gave Anna three brown tokens. Anna gave them to the three.

"You three will have to stay here and train for a while, if you want to leave you can only do that for missions."

The three nodded. The other two turned to go up the building and find a place to rest while Leon went to find the missions hall.

Leon found the hall and quickly went through the missions. He found the mission he wanted.

"Stealing the branch of the Tree of life: S class. Only Black remembers. Three out of the ten spots taken." Leon read. "I need to rise to black rank fast. I'll need to find the most difficult missions with the lowest criteria."

Leon quickly found a few missions, "Kill a RazorLeaf Bear and brings its core: D class. All members."

"Capture a Lonely Spotted Frog: C class. Only lucky for people."

"Assassiante Lillian Green: B class. All members."

Leon picked the three and went to register for them. The lady looked at Leon strangely, "Sir are you sure you want to take these missions?"

"Yes."

"They are all very unique, The Razorleaf bear mission is likely to rise to C rank If no one was to pick it up by tomorrow. The spotted frog mission had been here since I started working here, It's risen from F class to C class. Lillian Green is a member who has betrayed the organization. All members who have gone after her have disappeared. It's one of the fastest missions rising in ranks."

"I'll take them all." Leon said.

"Very well, if you do fell like dropping them later you may, but you will have to pay a punishment of working at the Centipede farm for a month."

Leon nodded and left.

He used the token he had gotten to leave the secret area. He then ran on foot using lightning step to move through the forest.

He found an empty spot and summoned the Lightning Griffin. He rode the Griffin around for a while and found his first mission objective, The razorleaf bear.

Leon landed with the Griffin. He summoned the Ifrit, "You two kill it quickly."

The two beasts nodded, it took a few hits and the bear was dead on the ground. Leon carved out the core and moved on.

"A lonely spotted frog." Leon looked at the Griffin he was ridding. It nodded. It's eyes had black stars form in them. It quickly analysed the areas completely as moved.

It took and hour but Leon finally found it. He landed next to it and grabbed it in a cage he had gotten for accepting the mission. The cage shrunk and was absorbed by the frog and turned it into a statuette.

"Now the final mission, assassinating Lillian Green, the mission details said she was hidding in Vine Valley. That isn't too far away."

Leon had the Griffin take him to the Valley. The Griffin sped through the sky. By the next morning he arrived at the Valley.

Leon summoned the Storm Spirit Butterfly and said, "Use life sense to look for a human." The butterfly sent a pulse of life energy out. After a few seconds the pulse returned. The butterfly told Leon that coordinates.

Leon jumped on the Griffin and unsummoned the butterfly as he flew there.

Leon found a cave and entered it. In it was a person sleeping. Leon slowly walked over and tried to cut her neck but the person woke up and dodged.

Lillian looked at Leon, "Pandora sent you?"

"Yes, traitors must die." Leon said as he launched himself using lightning step.

Lillian continued to fight Leon but she realised she was losing. "Calm down I'm not a traitor, I'm still a member of Pandora, It's just I've taken a secret mission to kill spys by having them come to help me or reveal themselves to me so I can report to the higher ups."

"Sure you are." Leon said as he attacked again. He didn't think to much of her excuse. If it was real he was killing a member of Pandora that helped remove spys which was even better.

Lillian blocked and took something out from her spatial ring. "Look I have the golden Centipede toke-"

Before she knew it she was pierced by five lightning needles and fell to the ground.

Leon picked up the golden Centipede token and looked at it, "It's real, well she's dead, So I'll take it."

Leon looked at through the spatial ring and didn't find anything else of interest. He kept the gold in it and then threw away the spatial ring.

"The Golden Centipede token should have some value, I think it suppose to represent complete trust in the organization. I think if I give this in, I should be able to cash it in for a higher rank."

Leon wasn't too worried about killing Lillian. If the mission she talked about was real, It didn't change the fact he had been given a mission.

"I'll report I killed her in her sleep and found that token in her spatial ring." Leon thought.

He then made his way back to the secret hide out. He entered using the token and went straight to the hall. Leon walked up to the counter.

The lady was surprised, It had been two days Leon had left and he was already back. Even the weakest clan members took at least a week to give up on missions.

"Sir if you want to give-"

"I'm done with the missions." Leon said.

"Your done?" The lady asked.

"Yes, This is the core of the RazorLeaf Bear, a Lonely Spotted Frog beast jewel and the head of Lillian Green."

The lady looked at the things and quickly made sure they were authentic using an item. She then nodded, "All three missions have been complete. The first mission gave you three thousand points. The second gave you four thousand and the third gave you five thousand. With that you have a total of twelve thousand points."

"Use all the points to rank me up."

"Very well sir. You have the two thousand points needed to rank up to green rank. You also have the four thousand points needed for blue rank. However you do not have the eight thousand points needed for Purple rank."

Leon nodded and took out the golden Centipede token. "I found this on Lillian's body after killing her in her sleep. Is this worth any thing?"

The lady was speechless. "This can nodded indeed be cashed in to points but are you sure?"

"Yes."

"With this you have gained ten thousand more points. You have reached purple rank but don't have the sixteen thousand points needed for reaching black rank."

Leon nodded and left. He had eight thousand points left, he just needed eight thousand more.

The reason he was able to rank up so easily was because this was just a side branch. If he went to the main hideout, this rank would mean nothing. Leon also knew after reaching black rank was elder rank which allowed him to enter the main hideout.

Leon looked for missions. Now with a higher rank almost all missions were open to him.