It wasn’t just this person who had brought them Alex’s explorer card; Alex had also noticed it from the surrounding people.
Although they tried not to make it obvious, they would always give as much of a gap as possible when walking past the two of them. It was as if they were scared of unknowingly annoying Aunt Mia.
Taking one last glance at the woman beside him, Alex shook his head and dispelled the thought. To him, she appeared like an easy-going person, and there wasn’t any reason to be scared. Of course, it wasn’t enough to judge a person after just being around them for a day, but for now, Alex hasn’t seen any reason why he should be scared of her.
Maybe she was like him? Calm and friendly by default but would do the unthinkable when pissed, who knows?
After receiving his explorer card, the two of them got up to leave. On their way out, Alex took a look at the card in his hand.
It looked almost no different from his other card with his identity of Mr Chen, the only differences were the name, element, and date on the card; they didn’t include his age or any other information he had filled into the form.
Getting outside, they walked toward where Simon was waiting in the car. The man spotted them as they got close.
"Done so fast? As expected of the leader." He said with a knowing smile before moving his eyes to Alex.
"Come to think of it, I only introduced myself and didn’t ask for your name." He stated while rubbing his chin.
Alex gave his name without much thought.
"Alex, huh, not bad. Welcome to the world of explorers. I’m sure the leader will take you on your first mission soon. You don’t have to feel fear, there are a lot of seniors in the group, they’ll protect you, same for me too." Simon said and winked at Alex. Alex thanked him and said nothing else.
"Urgh, that’s enough chit-chat, let’s go. I’m so tired I could fall asleep." Aunt Mia suddenly said from the side while stretching her body, her huge chest threatening to burst out from the cover of her top.
Alex saw this and immediately looked away.
’Damn, this woman is doing it on purpose!’
Simon noticed this also and chuckled why asking Alex to get him.
Three of them got into the car, and they soon left the place.
On their way back, Alex asked where they were going, it was Simon who answered him.
He already knew that most explorer groups had places that they used as a meeting place. Some groups would even go as far as getting a place for all of their members to move into.
Where they were going right now was the meeting place of the Rising Wave explorer group, also known as RWGB.
(Short of Rising Wave group building.)
The Rising Wave group building was located on a part of Balon City where other big houses could be found; it wasn’t the best living area, but the condition of the place was hundreds of times better than the outskirts where Alex lived.
Tall buildings that were in good condition, good roads, standing street lamps and well-maintained lush bushes along the sidewalk, it looked like paradise compared to the outskirts.
Along the way, Simon took time to explain the Rising Wave group to Alex. Just like many explorer groups, most of the members lived in the group building. They had a total of twenty-one members; the addition of Alex made it twenty-two.
Every week, they would accept a certain amount of missions from the Union and go on raids outside the border once every week to go hunt magic beasts.
For the missions from the Union, the group would usually split into teams to do the work and finish early; this was the style of every explorer group anyway.
As for the raid outside the border. Depending on the information they have about the magic beasts in that area, they might go alone or team up with other explorer groups and split the gains afterwards.
"I don’t know if it’s luck or bad luck because you just became an explorer, but the next raid is the day after tomorrow, you’ll have to come. You’ll get to see how mages deal with magic beasts and gain experience, but you’ll also be exposed to danger. But don’t worry, as long as you don’t freak out and stay close to us, you’ll be fine." Simon stated.
He thought that Alex had never seen a live magic beast before and might get scared out of his wits and run away; such things happen with first-timers very frequently.
Alex nodded and thanked him again, he felt that the timing was just right. The day after tomorrow was Saturday, so he didn’t need to go to the academy and could follow them.
’ Although I would rather go out as Mr Chen since I can farm more exp that way and make more money, following them is still good since I’ll get paid and help with the debt.’ Alex thought to himself.
They had arrived in front of the group building not long after and stepped out of the car.
Alex looked at the three-story building with a huge RWGB sign hanging on the second story and could not help but be amazed, it was a spectacular sight.
"Let’s go, I’ve been out for so long and want to sleep." Aunt Mia said to the two as she approached the door.
Alex and Simon followed behind. The latter moved closer to Alex as they walked.
"Hey, what’s your relationship with the leader?" Simon whispered.
Looking at his face, one could tell that he was only curious and wasn’t asking for any other reason.
"Mom’s friend," Alex said shortly.
"Oh, I see." Simon nodded, he paused for a while before asking again. "By the way, what element do you have?"
"The space element," Alex answered.
Simon "..."
Alex realised that Simon had stopped walking and turned back to look. He saw the man standing at the back as if he had been petrified and was staring at Alex with wide eyes.
Alex was puzzled and stared back at him. "Is...everything okay?" He asked.
His question pulled Simon back to reality, and the man let out a surprised gasp as he caught up with Alex.
"The space element? Really, so lucky!"
Turned out he had simply frozen from shock after finding out that Alex had the space element. After all, elements like the space element were very rare to awaken unless one used an elemental concentrated awakening stone, which was expensive as hell!
In the whole of Balon City, the people with the space element did not number up to 100! That was how rare it was. Balon City housed over a million people, yet the people with the space element did not reach one hundred!
He was very surprised to learn that Alex had such a rare element and was soon excited, after all, Alex was now a member of their group!
By now, the two of them had reached the door. Simon opened the door and asked Alex to go in first before following behind.
"Welcome to RWGB!" Simon said from behind as he released the door and allowed it to close.