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Unlike the robot from earlier, Ena-117 had a humanoid body. In fact, if she had not introduced herself as a robot Ashton would have believed she was an alien. That\'s how realistic she looked. Not to mention, her persona and the way she behaved, everything about her resembled a living being. She was more of a clone than a robot.

Before Ashton had a chance to respond, Irina jumped in, "They are here to complete their registration for the mercenary licence."

"Oh, wonderful!" Ena excitedly clapped, "Could you tell me your name and affiliation? It\'s required in order to look up your registration request."

"It\'s under Ashton Fenrir and Anna Swan, affiliation: Neutral." Irina continued.

Ashton had no idea what the hell was going on there. Irina was talking about him, but he had no idea what she was on about. After looking up something on a handheld device, Ena looked up at Ashton and Anna.

Unbeknownst to them, she had clicked an image of them to be stored in the Association\'s database. While she was doing her work, Verina couldn\'t take it anymore and asked Ena a serious question.

"I don\'t mean to offend you or anything, but isn\'t the job of registering new mercenaries left to the lower-end AI models, like the robot from earlier?"

"Yes, you are correct." Ena replied without looking up from the screen, "Usually, I only handle clients that are Rank-5 or above. But since I was in the area and you had an uncomfortable experience because of the Roller-bot earlier, I thought it was only fair I assisted you in any way possible."

A moment later, she handed over the device to Ashton and continued, "Please pick a mercenary name for yourselves. Your real identity would remain undisclosed to the clients to maintain fairness for the other mercenaries as well as to protect your privacy. You will have the option to make your information public once you reach Rank-3."

"I see..."

Ashton was happy about the arrangement. After the events of Euphoria, he wasn\'t sure using his name so freely would be beneficial to him. Michael might not chase after him, but he had picked up a fight with the radicals.

Although they seemed weak and aloof at times, it wasn\'t a good idea to boast his name around space. They might not be able to do anything to him, but they could attack Anna, and he sure as hell wasn\'t going to let her go through what she did on Euphoria. Never again.

"How about... Reaper?" Ashton mumbled after thinking about it for a while.

"Sounds... ominous, but acceptable." Ena quickly typed something into the device and turned towards Anna, "And what about you, ma\'am?"

"Bella."

"Wonderful! That takes care of the administrative part of the things... now, please deposit the collateral amount of 4000 yenos each."

Ashton turned towards Verina who had a mischievous smile on her face. When she gave him the card with money on it, he thought the progenitors were giving him a start-up fund. But to his surprise, it was actually to complete the registration process.

\'I don\'t think I have any right to complain. After all, they did give me the money. Who knows how long it would have taken me to get the money by myself?\'

[That\'s right! Be grateful for their kindness, you ungrateful overpowered freak.]

\'That\'s rich coming from you. When was the last time you thanked me for letting you rot my brain?\'

[How about you thank me for saving your ass time and time again?]

\'Why should I? After all, I am an ungrateful overpowered freak.\'

[...touche.]

Ashton handed over the card to Ena, who promptly gave it back to him after deducting the said amount.

"That\'s all. It\'ll take a couple of minutes to generate your mercenary cards." Ena reported as she placed the device in her pocket, "In the meantime, would you like to know more about the rules and regulations of the Mercenary association?"

"It would be great if you would do that for us," Anna responded.

Ena wasted no time after that. The first thing she explained was how the hiring procedure worked. In basic terms, a client will offer a job to the association and the rewards associated with the job. Based on the terms of the job, the Association would decide whether they would hand it over to a mercenary or a mercenary group or will it be open for any mercenary to take that offer.

Generally, the jobs with higher rewards were often assigned to the high-ranking mercenaries as they were often sought after. As for the open contracts, they were assigned based on the reputation system.

"Your reputation will affect how the association will treat you. You can gain reputation by completing missions and by achieving recognisable feats." Ena explained, "Your reputation will also contribute to the ranking system that ranges from Rank 1 to Rank 10. The treatment you\'ll receive in Kernel tower will grow based on your ranks."

By this time, another roller-bot arrived, with Ashton\'s and Anna\'s Mercenary licence. The black card with golden borders had almost no information about them. That was until they pressed in the middle of it.

A moment later, an electronic screen appeared on the card with all the necessary information about them shown. Their mercenary name, rank, bank balance as well as current reputation... which happened to be 0 out of 200. In other words, they would not receive any special treatment within the tower.

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Mercenary Name: Reaper

Reputation: 0/200 (Newbie)

Rank: 1

Class: Undisclosed

Level: C-Grade (Mid)

Feats or Achievements: None

Affiliation: None

Missions completed: None

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Around the bottom of the screen were two tabs, [Missions completed] and [Feats or Achievements]. So far, both of these pages were blank, which was obvious since they had no reputation either.

"As you keep completing missions and achieve feats, they\'ll be automatically added to the respective column." Ena explained, "Also, the fee for completing a job would be transferred to you as soon as you complete it, after deducting 25% as commission. Don\'t worry, as you climb ranks the commission rate would go down."

She continued, "Please keep in mind, just like succeeding in a mission would raise your reputation, failing to do so would also reduce it. That\'s why it is suggested you only pick up missions suitable to your rank and not get overambitious. The ranking system is created for your own safety more than anything else."

Anna listened to her very carefully, but Ashton did not. He had his own questions to ask.

"How did you determine my grade? I don\'t remember you ever asking about it either."

"As a robot for the Ena series, we have inbuilt scanners capable of determining that. Well, the scan only has about a 70% success rate so we often make mistakes as the scan itself depends on the stats of the user and nothing else. If there\'s any discrepancy, please inform me and I\'ll correct it instantly."

"I see." Ashton breathed a sigh of relief, "The grade is incorrect. I\'m actually D-grade, not C-grade."

"Please show me your card."

After tweaking for a bit, Ena handed the card back to Ashton and it now displayed that he was a D-grade being. Not C.

[That was a close one. I didn\'t think other civilisations would develop such technology so soon.]

\'Yeah, I almost thought she knew my cumulative level...\'

"Thank you for joining the Mercenary association. I hope you will achieve great success in the coming years." Ena wished them well as she left, "You can accept job requests on the floor right above. If you have any other questions, you can revisit this floor and someone will help you out for a small fee of 20 yenos per question."

The group nodded and left for the upper floor. Ashton pocketed his card and was about to leave the elevator when he accidentally activated it and clicked on the achievement section. The screen lit up but this time, it had another icon. A \'+\' had been created there.

Out of curiosity, Ashton clicked on it and a new window opened up in front of him. On the screen his \'feats\' were visible. At least the feats he achieved on Euphoria.

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Please select the achievements you want to add.

>> [Hydra\'s Adversary] ---> 100 Reputation Points (Maximum value reached!)

>> [Gryphon Crisis Manager] ---> 40 Reputation Points

>> [Behemoth Slayer] ---> 100 Reputation Points (Maximum value reached!)

>> [The one who completed 7 Euphorian Trials] ---> 70 Reputation Points

>> [Fourth Euphorian Trial Seat Holder] ---> 60 Reputation Points

Please note that once the achievements have been added to your resume, they can\'t be removed.

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\'Seat holder? Wait... is it because I killed Jacklin?\'

[That would make sense.]

"I see, you already have so many reputation points to claim," Verina mumbled as she skimmed through the information window, "Both Irina and I only got like 60 points from our accomplishments on Euphoria. What about you Anna? How many points did you get?"

"Let me check," Anna mumbled and did the same thing as Ashton, "102, not bad right?"

"It\'s way better than ours." Irina shrugged, "Considering our score reached 120 after completing two jobs."

"I have a question though," Ashton got back inside the elevator, "You guys go ahead, I\'ll be back in a moment."

"You know you can ask us first, right?" Verina smiled, "Why are you so eager to waste your money by asking them questions?"

Ashton had a light bulb moment but got a bit embarrassed as he walked out of the elevator, "I suppose I could do that. Once I add these achievements do they become visible for the others to see?"

While he was happy he could get his hands on some reputation points and gain access to better job requests, it also became a source of concern for him.

Even though he hid his real name and could also alter his appearance, it wouldn\'t take long for someone to link the dots to his real identity if they saw those achievements. After all, he was the only one who accomplished such feats in recent times.

Especially [Gryphon Crisis Manager] and [Fourth Euphorian Trial Seat Holder]. These two achievements could easily out him to the radicals and he did not want it. That being said, if the achievements were visible for everyone to see, then he would most likely not add them to his resume. At least not till he was strong enough to take on the Radicals as a whole.

"Nope. No one can see the achievements except you and the association once you have assigned them." Verina replied, "However, there are some jobs that would make you release that information as a clause for being employed."

"Most of the high-ranking jobs often ask the mercenaries to release that information to them under a confidentiality contract." Irina chimed in, "They can not release that information to anyone else, or the association itself would hunt them down."

"I see..." Ashton scratched his chin, "It\'ll take a while for me to receive those kinds of quests. Even then, I can just ignore the job requests that require me to reveal the information. Fine, let\'s add them for now."

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Your rank has risen!

Current Rank: 2

Current Reputation: 370/1000 (Not-so-new Newbie)

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