Second Genesis

Grey startled awake. "What? Huh?"

He sniffled twice in quick succession, his nose coming back with a particular floral scent that caught him off guard. By the time he realized he was still on the toilet, he had been convinced he’d smell a wave of something foul, but instead he smelled honey and lilacs.

"...Technologia..."

Grey grumbled and stood. ’I guess I should shower. How long have I been out?’

Grey looked out to find that it was dark again. Had he slept through the entire day? ’I’ll have to ask the old woman to see. But first...’

He hurried to take a shower. Lucky for him, there was a laundry service, which was actually just him throwing his clothes into a vent and them coming back seconds later nicely pressed and refreshed.

Grey ignored it, though, sitting on his bed and flicking through the tutorial for the first time.

’Damn, it is right there.’

The first thing Grey looked up was this talk of nobility and Registration. It turned out that one could become a knight by finding a special ruin that came with a higher-order challenge.

However, if one wanted to become a minor noble or even a named noble like a baron, more than just that was necessary.

’They need to find two of those and find a sacrifice for the Holy Goddess to become a minor noble. They need five and the sacrifice of a Holy Goddess to become a baron.’

Grey nodded to himself.

There wasn’t anything else in the tutorial that detailed such a clear path to nobility.

The only other way to become a knight, for example, was to gain the acknowledgment of an active knight, become a squire, and then gain enough battle achievements to eventually be knighted by the Holy Goddess.

The "how" was all very vague. Even for minor noble and baron status, it only vaguely mentioned battle achievements and such.

It was no wonder the Great Udon was so smug. Registration was the best chance to do all of this. Afterward, it became several times more difficult.

’Hm? What’s this?... Arc one...?’

Grey’s gaze flickered as he paused.

’Interesting...’

It seemed that this "season" of the Genesis Games functioned in terms of arcs. There were the individual storylines of the people participating, but there was a larger, overarching plotline that the entire Genesis World followed.

Arc one signified the first leg of this overarching plotline. However, there was no clear information about what this arc entailed, how it would end, or anything of the sort.

The only thing the tutorial said was that every arc ended with a "cataclysmic" event. When this event occurred, the world would collapse.

This was all very vague. But it gave Grey an idea.

If he could figure out the plotline he was dealing with, that would probably be a good thing, no?

He already had a thread to pull on. No, in fact, he had two.

’The Goblins and the Mechanical Jaw Lineage... but it wouldn’t be so coincidental, right? I actually think the latter might be far more important.’

Grey closed the tutorial window, feeling like he had covered enough. After ordering food and stuffing his face, he left with nothing more than a dagger on his hip.

...

"Hey, miss, can you tell me how long it’s been?"

"It’s been 15 hours," the donkey-tailed old lady replied as Grey walked by.

"Gotcha. Has anyone else come to register?"

"I cannot tell you that."

Grey’s steps paused and he walked back to the counter. "Let me see the apartments, please. There are only nine hours left until I might be kicked out, so I’d like to see how many more chances I have."

The old lady didn’t resist as Grey pulled up the list. There were, indeed, some apartments lit up, but not many. From Grey’s count, there were 54 available apartments, and only eight of them had been used up.

Seems not skipping sleep was a good idea. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

’Making it around the rules of these NPCs isn’t that difficult either,’ Grey thought, closing the book.

"Thank you."

Grey left the cul-de-sac.

’I can level up my stats now. But doing that is easy. I just have to go out and kill monsters and the stats will come. What’s far more valuable are the Abilities. The trouble is getting them is far more difficult.’

Sure, Grey could improve his stats with ease. But all of that wasn’t as good as one Goblin Warlord Spirit.

Sabrina’s physical stats were probably pitiful considering how easily he had killed her after getting close, but that staff made her a difficult opponent to deal with nonetheless.

’If I can’t find what I’m looking for in the city, I’ll just have to head out then.’

Grey believed he had made the smartest choice by resting. This wasn’t just because he was tired in ways the other participants, who had had Safe Rooms and time, couldn’t understand, but because forcing the issue would have left him on his back foot.

If he tried to go after Joaquin the moment Registration began, for example, the concentration of participants would have been so high that he could easily find himself surrounded.

With how amped up they had been, that was the obvious conclusion.

However, if he went now, by this point everyone was so focused on hunting down Registration Altars that they had likely dispersed.

Some of them would still be in teams and near one another, but if he was careful enough, he could come out on top.

The only reason he didn’t do this was because of one simple question...

How would he find Joaquin?

By now, he could be anywhere, with anyone.

No.

It was just like his time in the ring. You couldn’t just be on your back foot, reading and reacting to everything the opponent did. If you wanted to win a match, you needed to counterpunch, you needed to take control of the pace yourself sometimes.

The first step of that was making sure he was as fresh as a daisy.

The next step was establishing himself well enough in the city that even if they came back nobles, they would have a hard time doing much of anything.

Grey’s steps suddenly paused.

’Hm?’

Something was blinking at the corner of his status screen.

’Sponsor...?’