One second where he was still asleep, and the next he opened his eyes, as his brain kicked back online.
As soon as he opened his eyes, he looked up and the first thing he saw was Annie looking down on him.
"Am I late?" He asked, not getting up from her lap just yet. "No, My Lord, you aren't. However, in order to stay this way, you have to get there soon." Annie informed, causing for Zen to groan.
"I really want to just stay here... just lose all my responsibilities, and just stay here with you and everyone else." Zen spoke from his heart, which suddenly made Annie's face light up with red.
"M-my Lord, we would absolutely love to do the same, but don't you have other responsibilities too?" She was obviously flustered, but she denied her own wants to just stay with him forever, without having to worry about others.
"Yeah... you're right." The Shadow Sovereign got up, and wiped his face, before stretching and letting out a sigh of relief.
"Alright, let's do this." Zen left the I.D. and wasted no time before activating Stealth, a skill he hadn't used in a while, and buffing himself to the max, just to see his max speed.
Then, he sprinted towards his destination, which was a good distance from his home.
In an instant, he arrived at the Gate, his speed truly impossible for even the best to comprehend.
He deactivated his skills, and walked like he just arrived there into the other worker's lines of sight.
"Here, before you talk to the manager, put these on." A big bulky man, who would've intimidated Zen at the beginning of his journey, handed him an outfit and a workers hard hat.
Zen quickly found a place to change, and did, storing his clothes in his inventory, and he finally walked up to the manager, fully ready for the day of common work ahead of himself.
"You're an E Rank Hunter?" The manager asked, causing Zen to nod. "Yes sir." Zen responded, staying very respectful despite the man being undeniably weaker than himself.
"Are you experienced in this line of work?" He asked, causing Zen to shake his head. "No sir."
"Then... what's your combat type?" He hesitantly asked, as men and women alike hustled around, all doing their own tasks before they would all be mining together.
"I'm a physical combatant sir." Zen responded. "That's a relief. There aren't too many people like you here. Just don't get nervous and work diligently. You'll be on standby, and entering with us later. Oh, and don't forget your gear." The manager slapped Zen on his back, chuckling. "Yes sir."
"I don't know why, but I feel like today's gonna be a good day." The manager grinned.
"Full Guilds are more complicated than normal ones. They normally have 3 seperate divisions. The first is the attack force, where the most members go. They take care of fighting the monsters and the boss. Second is the mining force, who go into dungeons and mine mana crystals in order to take the best profit out of a Gate. Third is the collecting team, who collect the corpses of monsters. After a dungeons gets so strong, even the corpses are extremely valuable, so using this process allows dungeons to be completely used. And all of this work is because technology doesn't work inside of Gates, for some unknown reason." Zen thought as he looked up at the Gate, it's power very clear to him.
"So this is an A Rank Gate. I'm glad I took this opportunity to see one." Zen couldn't hold back a grin, as he felt his Shadows grow rowdy.
"This dungeon is quite deep." The calm voice of Choi Jongin hummed as tree-like monsters approached his guild.
"It's already past the designated time. Since people have plans, it would be inconsiderate to the other teams to take much longer here." Choi took a breath, taking in his cigarette smoke.
"Come out Tanks. I'm not a huge fan of rooms being too bright, but..." The Tanks of the guild came in front of Jongin as he flicked up his cigarette, and with his own abilities, he used the embers of the flames to create a storm of fire, which he aimed straight towards his enemies.
The cave lit up as his flames scorched anything in it's path. It traveled through every direction of the cave, and soon, it would come back to where it was casted from.
"Tanks, brace yourself." Choi spoke, as his Tanks planted their shields into the ground, protecting the guild from the storm of fire.
It was still hot, and powerful, but at least it didn't hurt the guild.
"I took into the moderation the depth of the dungeon and the fact that we can't simply have all of our monsters burnt to a crisp. I'll guide you all to safety." Choi gestured to deeper inside the cave, with a small grin on his face.
"The lady with the sensitive nose should be cautious of the burnt smell." Choi warned, mentioning his next-in-line for the position of being the Guild Master.
"Are they done yet? It seems like they're taking longer than normally today." The manager groaned, causing for another manager in a suit to respond to him nervously.
"They should be done soon, but wouldn't it be better for them to be thorough now, rather than a monster appearing in the middle of your shift?" He asked, causing the manager of the mining force to sigh.
"That's the third time I've heard you say that." The manager rubbed his eyes. "Well, how about a drink after work?" The man in the suit asked, gaining a troubled sigh from the the manager.
"Geez, I get it. Just leave us alone." The manager sighed for what felt like the thousandth time, and as he did, the Gate began to shift.
"The attack force is coming out! Prepare to enter the Gate!" A miner warned the other miners, bringing Zen back to reality.
He had been meditating, something he commonly didn't have time to do, and by doing it he had helped himself focus and level up his meditating skill, even if it didn't do much else for himself.
"So they're finally coming out?" Zen noticed, as the Hunter's Guild exited the Gate. "That's the Hunter's Guild. The strongest Guild in the country." Zen could feel the power on each and every one of them.
"Choi Jongin." He kept his energy low, but that didn't stop his Shadows from becoming excited, cheering within his Shadow.
"Number 2 of the Hunters is also coming out." A miner spoke, drawing attention to a beautiful woman with a light sword attached to her waist.
Her blonde hair was bluntly cut, stopping right above her shoulders. Her skin seemed to shimmer, and she seemed to be completely out of focus, like the current event almost bored her.
"It's her. S Rank Cha Hain." Zen thought as he focused in on her ridiculously strong aura.
Her energy was extremely dense, fitting of someone in the S Rank. Her energy certainly reflected how she felt, and Zen's Shadows seemed to like her, even though they had never even met her before.
Ikari's energy seeped out, and the energy of a Dragon was nothing to laugh at.
As soon as Choi Jongin and Cha Hain felt the energy at all, there was no time for even the smallest of thoughts.
The air around the Guild suddenly thickened tenfold. Cha pulled out her sword and quickly dashed towards the miners force, jumping up into the sky to come down on the energy she felt.
Choi charged up an attack the instant he felt the Dragon energy, and right before he fired it, he realized that the energy had dissapeared.
Cha similarly couldn't tell what had happened to the energy. She was in the air, and right as she had thought she had locked on to her enemy, the energy had dissapeared.
Unfortunately, she couldn't change her directioning to much, because she had committed as soon as she jumped up into the air.
"Huh?!" The manager was completely caught off guard as Cha jumped into the sky. There was honestly nothing he could do as a D Rank against her, so the sudden shift in behavior was that much more shocking.
Cha let go of her weapon, and tried to get a solid landing, without hurting anyone.
"Watch out!" A miner warned, which caused most of the other miners to move out if the way of Cha's falling figure.
Zen however, stayed firmly planted in his spot. "Watch out!" Cha warned, but instead of moving out of the way, he shocked seemingly everyone by catching the S Rank woman.
"Wh-wha?!" Cha stuttered as a blush came onto her face. She was so positive everyone could see it, that there was nothing to do but be embarrassed.
Luckily, Zen knew how to perfectly defuse the situation. "Woah there, we wouldn't want a pretty lady like yourself falling now, would we?" He didn't miss a beat before letting her stand up on her own, almost as if to normalize the whole situation.
The air was odd for a second. Some were nervous about her attacking, others were simply embarrassed by seeing Zen flirting, and somehow a decent chunk of people only caught the tail-end of the situation, and were extremely confused.
"Anyways, don't we have work to be doing?" Zen stayed nonchalant about the situation, heaving his Mana imbued pickaxe over his shoulder.
Cha was stunned into silence, but then she shook her head, bringing herself back to reality.
She stayed silent as she looked towards the ground and walked over to Choi. They met gazes, and in an instant, decided to have a conversation about what just happened later.
With that, normality seemed to wash over everyone, but many people crowded around Zen.
"You can all ask him questions later, for right now, we need to head inside!" The manager ordered, causing for everyone to begin entering the Gate.
"Both of them didn't waste an instant before attacking. Even the presence of a Dragon is scary. Ikari, you can't let your energy leak out like that again." Zen scolded his strongest Shadow, who's silence seemed to show his emotions all too well.
"What's the hold-up Mr. Zen? Is Hunter Cha in your head?" The manager asked the Shadow Sovereign, causing him to shake his head in response.
"Nah. Let's head inside."