《Rebirth: Might, Magic, Mayhem》


 Prelude: The End of Humanity

    Rebirth: Might, Magic, Mayhem


    Prelude


    This was it; the final stand of humanity.


    The demon armies of Driblark could be seen gathering several kilometers from the settlement. An army unmeasurable in size - from the distance one would only see a growth of darkness and fire, writhing and increasing in size.


    If the settlement, which the survivors had named "Final Refuge", were to be looked at from above; only a small island of light surrounded by an ocean of darkness and flame would be seen. The smell of death and decay was on the wind, a smell so terrible that any weaker individual would be retching off to the side.


    There were no weak individuals left though, they all had died by now.


    The worst part were the screams; the banshees out in the distance outclassed every other demon in terms of sound. Multiple shrill screams could be heard over the distance, masking the growls, the moans, the shrieks and the roars of the demons in the hoard.


    Towards the west the sky was bathed in a splendor of orange and yellow as the sunset began its final descent before the night. The sky was bathed in a splendor of colors, a beauty so bold that it could be declared Queen of all Sunsets; it was almost as if the sky was bidding a final farewell to humanity. The beautiful sunset was a stark contrast against the writhing mass of flames, flesh, and living bones across the fields. Very soon the bloodbath would begin.


    About a year ago when the popular VRMMO game --Might, Magic, Mayhem-- had a global server crash which kicked everyone from the game, the portals opened. A moment after these portals opened the hellish armies of Driblark invaded our world spreading death and destruction.


    The villainous forces of the popular full-immersion virtual reality game --Might, Magic, Mayhem-- had entered our world, and began a slaughter that no amount of modern weaponry could stop.


    The day the portals opened became known as Invasion Day. At the same time as the opening of the portals; almost as if it was a gift from heaven; those who had played --Might, Magic, Mayhem-- received the abilities and items from the game that they had worked for in-game. Those who received their powers and items from the game became known as Users. They then used these abilities and items to oppose this otherworldly invasion. However if they couldn''t stop the demon tide in the game, they were destined to fail in reality. Those that had played -- Might, Magic, Mayhem-- and inherited their abilities were known as Users.


    The Users stood on top of the walls, looking out towards the army that was gathering. Individuals who wielded strength, and speed beyond that of a normal human; individuals who had access to magic and items they had obtained in-game. None of the Users protecting this final bastion of humanity were weak, they had survived over the past year through their skills and cunning to protect their loved ones and make a new home here, a home they knew wouldn''t last.


    They were the last Users, according to their knowledge, numbering 50 in total and were the strongest humanity had to offer. Attempts had been made to find more survivors, and they had been in contact with other shelters but all those shelters had recently gone dark. Every effort, both technologically and magically wouldn''t get through, so it was assumed they were dead. Now every team of Users which would go out looking for more survivors would only meet advance scout teams of the demon hoard, so it was mutually agreed upon that no more teams would be sent out to search. By this point, it had been several months since the last survivor had entered.


    The survivors of the Invasion Day had built a shelter here the day after The Invasion, in the aftermath of the devastation left by Driblarks forces. One of the players had a mythical grade artifact that would create a fortress the size of a small town thus giving birth to the Last Refuge. They didn''t have to worry about crushing the previous city, as it had already been leveled in the battle that took place during Invasion Day.


    The fortress was made up of an inner keep which looked like an old medieval European style castle with a large 30 meter tall and 10 meters thick wall 2 kilometers out. In-between the castle and wall were a series of small stone huts, gardens, and fields. Most importantly the defensive measures were otherworldly to say the least. A mythical grade transparent field surrounded the Last Refuge, with multiple magic cannons on the wall, all powered by legendary magic cores. Originally this was going to be used in game as a guilds personal city, now it served as a safe haven for the survivors.


    The fortress was made to last over a century and be completely self-sustainable. Unfortunately, it wasn''t going to last more than a year due to the impending battle.


    ...


    A tall, broad shouldered man stood upon the west-side wall. His short black hair was messy, and he wore regal golden armor that covered a muscular build. Across his back sheathed in a silky blue and red sheath was a sword hilt inlayed with fiery gems in its hilt, with two small dragon heads cross-woven to make the guard. This was the leader of the "Final Refuge", Jason Ultman.


    Jason looked down from the wall, back towards the inner keep. A multitude of children, women, and men had gathered; the last of the survivors known as non-users: the ones without powers, or skills.


    There at the center of the keep the non-users were gathered and were being given weapons and armor above the rare grade. Even though steel and iron would work against a small number of demons, it wouldn''t work against most of them. For this reason, the majority of guns and modern weaponry wouldn''t work against these creatures. Luckily there were several users who specialized in blacksmithing and enchanting to make weapons that could bite through the thick hide of the majority of demons.


    He saw a little boy who was nine years old put on a helmet that had been sized for an adult head. The boys helmet ended up covering his face and tipping him over backwards. With a mighty crash he fell on his rear end, with the helmet falling off his head and rolling away. A blacksmith came and picked up the helmet, and gave the boy a dagger. This dagger looked like a short sword in this boys hands.


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    The old-man next to Jason, noticed him looking back towards the keep and spoke, "They need to at least be ready for battle if we fall."


    Jason glanced towards the man named Steven, a tall slim man, armored in blueish gray leather with a dark black bow in his hands and a short thin dagger by his side.. He was in his late 40''s ¨C early 50''s, and Jason held him in high regards as this man was well known for his fighting skills and his jovial stories that he would tell around the campfire.


    A rouge among rouges, the master assassin. Stevin''s enemies wouldn''t know how they died, they would just blink and awake in the afterlife. Due to his battle prowess and his amiability towards others, he was the best fit to be Jason''s second in command, and good friend.


    "If we fall, they won''t last a second. " Jason said emotionlessly.


    Steven glanced back towards him sighed and replied "This is all that''s left of humanity. Better to die fighting than ending up as livestock for the demons."


    "You''re being overly cautious," Jason said. "You know I won''t let anything happen to them, not as long as I''m still standing." Jason calmly turned towards the demon horde once more, and stared out silently.


    Steven laughed and slapped him on the back, "Ha! With you on our side here, the ones who should be quaking in their boots are the demons over there! Its only thanks to you that we''ve survived this long."


    After a moment of silence, Steven asked, "Have you heard of the Legend of Cumorahs Hill?" Without waiting for Jason''s response, he continued. "They say that in the past, an entire Native American civilization made their last stand here before they were annihilated by their enemies. Just like us, even their women and children had to fight to the last man."


    Jason faked a laugh, "This truly is a cursed hill then. I''ve never heard of that legend before, when was this?"


    Steven smiled, "This was long ago. Supposedly long before Columbus crossed the sea. I don''t know if there''s any truth behind this story, I find it interesting nonetheless. Only one person survived."


    "One person?" Jason muttered emotionlessly.


    "Yes, he fought bravely but ended fainting due to blood loss. He woke up a day later after the armies had destroyed his people. I can only imagine what its like being the last of your people."


    Jason didn''t reply. He didn''t care to much about the past, because at this point none of it mattered to him.


    Thousands of years of human history was all going to end within a couple of days. Jason knew he was strong, but fighting a never ending horde was beyond his abilities. That wasn''t important to him though, none of this was. He was only fighting and living so that others could live on, because for him, his life ended the day of The Invasion when his wife and children were slaughtered by the blood orcs.


    All he wanted was to return to his wife Beth and hold his 3 kids in his arms once again. The only reason he hadn''t killed himself to end his sorrows was because he knew his wife would be ashamed of him if he didn''t give his all to protect the people that were left.


    Four years ago when the game -- Might, Magic, Mayhem -- was released; the mysterious developers behind the game had announced that this was more than a game, and that failure to protect the realm would result in "Game Over" for humanity. Everyone laughed this off as a marketing ploy and just enjoyed themselves in the first ever fully immersive game that had come on the market. It instantly made billions!


    With the fan base immediately in the millions at launch, it quickly rose to dominance in the market worldwide with its hardware made available for $99. It was almost as if the company were giving the headsets away for free! All the console needed was a direct connection into a power outlet, and the headset connected to the server via the companies'' private satellites.


    The player base increased by the millions on a day to day basis, and with business investing heavily in --Might, Magic, Mayhem-- the game became part of daily life for the world. After bank accounts could be attached to the game and in game currency could be exchanged for real world money, MMM gold became the new bitcoin.


    When the game crashed and the portals had opened one year ago, Jason had been at the local pizza deli picking up some food for his family that night. He had arrived home to see blood orcs setting fire to his neighborhood and had instinctively went into game mode and slaughtered the squad.


    He had been to late to save his family though, as his home was already nothing but ash.


    The strength he had to decimate armies with a single spell and tear apart demon generals with his bare hands was useless to him as his family had already passed on.


    As he reminisced about the past on top of the stone wall, Twilight fell. Only a few rays of sunlight shined from the west. At this moment, the Demon horde roared as one, and began rushing towards the Final Refuge.


    Jason enhanced his voice magically and roared "Prepare for Battle!"


    He pulled out his artifact grade longsword, F''thanir and raised it to the skies. He activated the swords ultimate skill, Celestial Lightning with a shout and with a giant crash, golden colored lightning came crashing out of the night sky onto the horde surrounding them.


    Screams and cries of anguish came from all directions as countless demons writhed in pain, many of them bursting into flames as they were sent back to hell, leaving nothing but their demon essence.


    "What a lovely sight. That has to be at least a third of them right? Pickle my tenders, that''s got to be at least a couple million." Remarked Steven whistling in astonishment.


    Jason smirked, "At least? I''d say a little closer to five million! I don''t think I''ll ever get tired of seeing demons roasted by Celestial Lightning." Replied Jason, bringing his sword into a ready stance; preparing to charge into the endless horde that was already filling the gaps made by Jason''s Holy Lightning.


    "I will definitely miss seeing that stunning lightning attack of yours." Said Steven.


    Jason paused, and turned inquisitively towards Steven, asking "What do you me-" when a knife slid across his throat. Choking on his own blood, Jason fell to his knees while clutching his slit throat, his eyes looking up at Steven who held a bloodied knife in his hands.


    Steven kicked Jason in the chest pushing him onto his back, "Turd nuggets! That was supposed to cut your head off."


    Jason was struggling to keep his blood in his body, casting heal on himself as many times as his essence would allow. Steven squinted his eyes at Jason''s futile attempts to heal himself, "Don''t bother with that, I''m sure you can already feel the demon poison coursing through your veins by now. You know there''s no way to heal while the poison is there."


    Steven sighed as he crouched down next to Jason, and swept up some of Jason''s blood off the ground with his finger. "I made a deal with Driblark," said Steven "Immortality as a Demon General if we killed you."


    Steven laughed as he slid the finger covered in blood into his mouth. "Mmm" He sighed. "Much better than I thought it would have been. You should thank me, I''m reuniting you with your loved ones."


    "Humanity has prospered long enough, it''s time for demons to take their proper place and consume this world!" Steven roared with laughter once more as he stood up, his eyes glowing red. His skin grew pale, and his canines elongated.


    Jason could feel his veins on fire as the poison spread from the cut in his throat through his veins. His hands, wet with his own blood slowly slid off his neck, as blood loss and the poison began to take its effect.


    He turned his head towards the inner keep one last time, and saw Stevens team of six morph into demons and begin to slaughter the non-users in the center. Screams assaulted his ears, and blood filled his vision as he gave into the welcoming embrace of death.

 2 Homecoming (Part 1)

    As Jason''s vision faded, the familiar words of the system popped up in front of his eyes.


    [You Have Died]


    ''No sh*t sherlock'' Jason thought. ''Will my life flash before my eyes like the stories say?  Is there a heaven?  I doubt it.  No angels came to save humanity.''


    Jason couldn''t sense anything around him anymore.  ''Where am I?''


    ''What am I?  I''m dead but I still have consciousness?''


    ''Maybe I''m being reincarnated?  I hope I don''t get reincarnated as a slug.  That life would SUCK! Maybe a fish? Nah, I''d prefer a bird.  I can just soar through the clouds all day long and enjoy a nice quiet life.''


    Jason longingly thought, ''If only I could''ve seen Beth and the kids again¡­''


    [System Message ¨C As humanities final leader, you have been chosen to decide humanities fate.]


    ''Huh?''


    [System Message ¨C Three options have been randomly selected:]


    ''Wait what? What''s going on now?''


    [Option One: Send one final message to Alien Species requesting revenge.]


    ''Lame''


    [Option two: Resurrect as a lich and enact revenge yourself]


    ''Interesting¡­  That sounds fun. The mighty undead Jason! Muahahaha fear me and my legion of undead!''


    [Option 3: Reincarnate into your past self]


    ''¡­.''


    ''You can do that?''


    ''Do I get to choose what time I would reincarnate into?


    [System Message ¨C User would be reborn the day before --Might, Magic, Mayhem-- came to your world.]


    ''That sounds interesting too¡­  Would I retain my memories?''


    [System Message ¨C Yes]


    ''Tell me a bit more about the other two options?''


    [System Message --  The system can continue to survive and guide the alien race to wipe out the demons.  Or this system could continue to be your exclusive necromancy system if you choose to be a Lich.]


    ''Calling an alien race for revenge honestly sounds really lame. As a lich I would be unstoppable, but then I would definitely never see my family again. Going back to reincarnate would allow me possibly change everything that happened and make it so we never lose.  System, as cool as an undead necromancer sounds, I choose the third option.''


    [System Message ¨C User has chosen: Reincarnation into past self]


    [Initializing¡­]


    [Count down in:]


    [3]


    [2]


    [1]


    [Thank you for choosing --Might, Magic, Mayhem--]


    .....


    .....


    .....


    Jason waited for something to happen, but time seemed to drag on for an eternity as he eagerly anticipated to see his wife and children again.


    ''This time, I will make sure nothing will happen to them.  I can not make the same mistakes as before.''


    All of a sudden, Jason felt something soft beneath him.


    ''Is this a bed?''


    He opened his eyes to see the ceiling of his old house.  He was lying on his old comfy bed again.


    ''It actually worked?''  Jason incredulously looked at the clock on his bedside table.  A plain rectangular digital clock read back to him, 09:45am.


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    ''Electricity! I''m lying in bed and the clock works!''


    The day the servers shut down and the invasion began, a massive EMP had appeared worldwide; eliminating 90% of the electronics and capabilities of the world.  Only the government and those nuts who prepared for apocalyptic scenarios with military grade electronics were prepared for an EMP.


    Since that day the majority of the world had no access to anything electrical, so this was a marvel for Jason to see his clock working again.


    ''What''s the date?'' Jason wondered as he picked up his smartphone lying on the side of the nightstand.  Turning on his smartphone he stared at the photo of his wife and kids that he had as a screensaver. Over the photo lay the time and date.


    09:45am


    11/08/2045


    It was the day before --Might, Magic, Mayhem-- turned on its'' servers for the world to join.  The first ever Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online game to be released.  This game changed everything, and it wasn''t until the war against demons was lost that everyone accepted that it wasn''t just a game.


    ''Eight years from now is the day the war is lost and the demons invade.  I have plenty of time to prepare for that day, but I need to quickly gather strength and prevent that day from ever coming. Prevention is always better than treatment.''


    The defeat of Socrathia was akin to a pile of dominos that had knocked each other over.  One event led to another, and they were constantly losing. They didn''t have enough manpower in the end because of wars between the nations.  They were not only short on man-power, but high tiered individuals were lacking due to in-fighting.  The in-fighting came about due to land disputes and petty squabbles which came about because¡­..


    ''What is that?'' he lifted his head up sniffing the air.


    ''Is that bacon?'' Jason stood up quickly remembering that his family was here!


    ''Beth!''


    Jason quickly went to the door, opening it and rounding the corner of the hallway.  He ignored the family photos on the wall, passing his kids rooms.  As he passed them, images of blood splattered throughout this hallway filled his head.


    He stopped, held his head for a moment, and shook it to clear his mind of the terrible images he had come home to in the past.  He took a deep breath and rounded the last corner that would take him into the kitchen.


    Standing at the foot of the oven was Beth.  She was 5 foot 8 inches tall, with cascading auburn hair.  Even after giving birth to triplets, she still had the rocking body of a model. She and Jason were high-school sweethearts who got married right out of high-school, and she had gotten pregnant shortly after; giving birth to their fantastic triplets.


    Jason was standing in the hallway, staring at her with his jaw hanging loose.


    "D*mn. Your still as beautiful as I remember" He muttered absentmindedly.


    Turning around after hearing something, Beth''s baby blue eyes landed on him and a smile that could light the world spread across her face.


    "I made bacon today!  We''re having an early celebration since you''re leaving the military today!" She said enthusiastically as she reached to the cupboard where they kept the plates.  Her thick southern accent sweetly spread throughout the house.


    "It will be ready in just a few minutes." Beth flashed her dazzling smile over at Jason once more as she set the table.


    Jason quickly strode over to her, taking the pile of plates from her and setting them aside as he embraced her in his arms. His eyes glistened as he held her in his arms, her sweet strawberry scent filling his nose as he breathed in deeply and whispered in her ears, "I missed you so much Beth, I love you more than anything."


    Surprised, Beth returned his hug. ''Where did this sudden show of affection come from?'' she wondered.  She sighed with happiness, ''nothing beats hugging this hunk of muscles,'' and she melted into his arms enjoying the comfort and safety his embrace always brought her.


    After a few minutes, she slapped his but and pushed him away. "Unless you want extra crispy bacon, I need to get back to cooking." She winked at him, gave him a quick kiss and rushed back to the stove where the sizzling pork was giving a slightly burnt smell.


    Jason chuckled, began setting the dining table and asked "Where are the kids?"


    Beth replied, "Where do you think?  They''re at school right now wishing they could have this great breakfast with you! You got home from deployment pretty late last night you know."


    Jason was part of the special forces for the Navy.  He would often be deployed all over the world to participate in secret missions that he could never tell his family about.  Today was technically his last day in the Navy and was his last chance to change his mind and re-enlist.


    He had promised Beth in the past that no matter what, he wouldn''t sign any re-enlistment papers today; however, when he arrived on base his Chief had given him an offer that he couldn''t refuse.


    The offer held a re-enlistment check so large that it would pay off all his debt, and allow his dad to receive the medical treatment that they weren''t able to afford at the time.  Jason had immediately signed the re-enlistment papers and gone home to a furious wife later that evening.


    That decision had put a huge strain on their marriage, and it wasn''t until later that he realized that the money wasn''t going to come immediately. It would take years for him to receive that money, and his father passed away from cancer without receiving the medical treatments he had needed.


    Not only that, but due to being in the military he and every other serviceman had been forbidden to play --Might, Magic, Mayhem-- causing them to miss out on many unique missions in the game that only appeared in the beginning.  The Users who had obtained those quests had become famously powerful individuals in game, amassing all sorts of fortune.


    One opportunity missed can lead to another, and once the military realized the potential of --Might, Magic, Mayhem--, it was almost impossible to catch up to the other users.


    "I was thinking babe¡­ You know that game the kids were asking to join? --Might, Magic, Mayhem--?" Jason asked.


    "Yeah? What about it? I thought you were against the kids playing it since there''s going to be a ton of blood and gore in it?" Beth responded, while bringing the bacon and eggs over to the table.


    Jason sat down in his chair eagerly, eyeing the mass of eggs and multiple strands of bacon that Beth had placed on his plate. ''I hope she doesn''t get pissed off at me for allowing our 9 year old''s to join this game¡­'' He thought for a second on how best to word it to his overprotective wife.


    Nervously he said "I think it would be a great opportunity for me and the kids to bond together some more.  It''s supposed to be a super realistic game, so I can take them camping, and adventuring.  We can learn magic together and you know, they''ve been asking to play this game so much. Supposedly this game is the hype of the century!"


    She stared at him, listening to him go on and on about how he changed his mind and why he thought it was a great idea for them to play the game.


    "Even you could play this game!" Jason finally declared, smugly thinking he had laid a perfect case to his wife that she couldn''t refuse.


    Beth was staring at her food at this point, and it seemed a shadow had come over her.


    "Even I can play this game?" Slowly she looked up, danger seemed to radiate off her pupils.


    At this moment, Jason knew¡­ he F**ked up.

 3 Homecoming (part 2)

    "What do you mean by, even I can play this game?" Beth''s tone was low and even, and she seemed to be shooting daggers out of her eyes.


    Jason realized that he had just broken the taboo that their family had an unwritten agreement about, and that was to never mention how terrible Beth was at video games.


    Jason had always loved video games and that didn''t change after he married Beth.  He''d still spend nights with his buddies playing all sorts of different games and thankfully Beth didn''t seem to mind.


    After seeing how much her husband loved those games Beth decided to join him in playing. While Jason was more than happy to accommodate her wishes and would try teaching her how to play all the new big hype games, there was one problem.  Beth was absolutely terrible at gaming.


    No matter how good of a teacher Jason tried to be, it was nigh impossible for Beth to understand how game controllers worked.  Even once she got the basic functions down, she would be unable to figure out the basic objectives of a game and quickly become lost; her character wandering aimlessly about the game world.


    Beth knew she was terrible at video games, but that didn''t stop her from attempting them over and over again so she could spend more quality time with her husband. This quality couple time eventually became quality family time as the kids grew older and more capable in video games.


    Eventually the children quickly surpassed their mother in video-game prowess. She had a ''never-quit'' attitude that carried her through the years of suffering at the hands of gaming.  Jason greatly admired this attitude of hers and so he patiently persevered in carrying her through different games.


    "Babe, I didn''t mean it like¡­." He started to say but was quickly interrupted by Beth.


    "Didn''t mean to say it like that?  Even I could play the game?" Beths'' voice quickly raising in intensity. "Are you trying to imply that I''m terrible at gaming and will have difficulty in this game as well?" She sat back in her chair crossing her arms and put on an adorable pouting face.


    Jason stared at her for a moment trying to sense the situation.  He knew he was on dangerous grounds at the moment and suddenly realized he would much rather face a horde of demons alone than an upset wife.


    "What I meant to say darling," he began, "I think this would be a great game for us and the kids to play together and that you would absolutely love it!" Jason put on a salesman like smile and stiffly held it, hoping that he had managed to put out the fire before it became a raging inferno.


    She held her pose in the chair with her arms crossed, but Jason could see that the dagger-like gaze had been put away and in its place was hint of amusement.


    She laughed and said to him, "You''re too cute when your pushed against a wall and get all nervous like that. I definitely need to push your buttons more often." She winked at him and stood up with her empty plate. "I''ve actually had several friends invite me to join them in-game tomorrow when it starts. I had originally told them I wasn''t planning on joining them, but now I changed my mind! I''ll prove you wrong this time!"


    Jason laughed and said "In that case I''ll order some headsets today!"


    Beth nodded and had a smug look of victory on her face.


    After a moment, Jason smirked and said, "You know¡­ you can push my buttons whenever you like." Saying that he gave a sultry look that he knew gave his message across.


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    Beth blushed and looked down at his plate that had barely been touched, "You better hurry up and finish or you''ll be late to sign your discharge papers!"


    Chuckling Jason quickly checked his phone and realized that he was indeed running behind on time.  He wolfed down his scrumptious breakfast and ran to his bedroom to change out of his pajamas. He knew he had only escaped the situation due to his wife''s love and mercy.


    After changing and giving his wife another kiss, he entered his car, turned on auto-pilot and sat back.  While his vehicle began taking him to his base of operations, he turned on his phone and purchased five platinum editions of the VR-headset that would arrive by drone to his house later that day. One for himself, his wife, and his three children.


    There were three different editions of the VR headset. They varied in cost, synchronization rate, and the ability to play while sleeping.  Synchronization rate affected how realistic the environment was to the individual.  The higher synchronization rate, the more realistic the world felt to the individual.  The more realistic it was to the individual, the higher their reaction rate in game would be.


    This would become important the further into the game one would go as enemies became faster and more powerful, specifically in the player vs player department, or pvp for short.  If two individuals with the same training, gear and class fought, but had different synchronization rates; the player with the higher synchronization would win 10/10 times.


    Due to this reason, people quickly realized that the edition of the headset was just as important as innate skill and talent. Platinum edition headsets would be in such high-demand after the first week of --Might, Magic, Mayhem-- came out that they would sell for almost 5x their original price.


    Eventually VR Pods would come out for sale at insanely high prices, which boasted synchronization rates at 100% and the ability to play for days on end due to nutritional fluids that would be injected during gameplay.


    The Bronze Edition was the most basic and cheap version that allowed anyone to enter into the game.  It''s cost was at $99 and was aimed to be affordable for the majority of people.  It''s synchronization rate was at 92%.  The Silver Edition was double the price at $199 but only brought the synchronization rate up to 95%.


    The Golden Edition of the headsets brought the user up to 97% synchronization rate and brought along the option to play while sleeping.  This vastly increased the play time of individuals, allowing them to quickly pull ahead of their competitors and leave the casual players in the dust.  This edition was priced at $1700.


    The Platinum Edition set itself apart by boasting the ability to play while sleeping and was the only edition (besides the VR Pods that would come a month later) that had 100% synchronization rate.  This liberated the player of any awkwardness while playing and allowed them to fully immerse themselves in the game.  The Platinum Edition was sold at $5,000 per unit.


    Jason took a glance at his savings and winced in pain when he saw how much of his savings he had spent.  There was only a couple thousand left now, and he knew he was going to get an earful from his wife later that night.


    As he waited for the AI to drive him to his office, he stared out the window and began to think of what the future would bring with the next steps he would have to take. Out of the many tasks he needed to complete as soon as possible, one of the major decisions was right in front of him.


    As his car pulled into a parking spot, he sent a text message to his chief.


    {I''m here} Jason


    He quickly received a message in return.


    {Come to my office} Chief


    Jason stepped out of his car and began the first step in his journey to change the fate he and the world once had.


    Passing through security and the hallways of the building, Jason arrived at his Chiefs office.  He crisply knocked on the door and waited a moment before he heard a stern and deep voice commanding him to enter from the other side.


    Grabbing the doorknob and crisply opening the door, Jason entered the room to see a large man sitting behind a desk.  He was a bit on the heavier side, dressed sharply in his military uniform with his mustache sitting proudly on his top lip.


    As Jason smartly walked in and stood at attention in front of the desk, he wondered for a moment what his chief would look like without his mustache.  With that though he knew his chief would probably kill him if he knew what he was thinking about.


    "Jason, no need to stand on ceremony with me. Come, have a seat." Chief said as he gestured towards a chair in front of his desk.


    Jason smiled, relaxed and languidly sat on the chair and spoke, "You have my discharge paperwork ready? I''ll be sleeping on the couch for a month if I don''t sign that today!" He knew that for a fact, as that was exactly what had happened in his past life after he had re-enlisted on this day.


    Chief chuckled and relaxed back in his chair, clasping his hands across his slightly plump belly.  "Before I pull those papers out I wanted to talk to you.  You have a very specific skill set that the military spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on. I know you plan on getting out, but I was authorized to give you a special re-enlistment offer."


    Already knowing what the "special" offer was going to be, Jason nodded and waited for the Chief to finish his spiel.  Essentially the offer was about $200,000 with half of it to be paid up front and the rest at the end of the 6 year re-enlistment period.


    This was a decent offer that would''ve paid for all of his fathers medical bills and paid for all his debts. Yet in his past life, the half that was supposed to be paid up front was supposedly delayed, and each time he would inquire they would tell him that the delay was pushed out further.


    He eventually found out that his Chief never actually had the authority to give him a special offer, but that he as the Chief would receive a reward if he managed to convince Jason to stay on as an operator.


    As the chief was going on about the pros and cons of staying in the military Jason interrupted him.


    "Chief, I really appreciate the offer, but nothing you say can convince me to break my word to my wife."


    Chief paused for a moment, and seeing the determination in Jason''s eyes, he sighed.


    "I was worried you were going to say something like that Jason.  In this case I have no choice now.  Jason, there''s a Top Secret mission that I want to invite you to be a part of¡­"

 4 The Offer

    "Jason, there''s a Top Secret mission that I want to invite you to be a part of."


    Jason felt a little surprised at his moment.


    ''A top secret mission? This wasn''t a part of my past life. Did I cave too early to the first offer in my past life?''


    Chief continued, "Before I continue, I would like to ask you what your plans are, once you leave the military?"


    Jason paused for a moment thinking about how to respond. In his past life, his plans had originally been to work at a desk job at a local firm but he had given up that offer when he had re-enlisted. Now, he still had plans to renege the desk job offer and play --Might, Magic, Mayhem-- full time. Besides the opportunity to grow stronger and stop the apocalypse from happening, the game was also a massive financial opportunity just waiting be bent over and taken advantage of.


    With the online launch came a trading forum where people could post their in-game money and others could trade real world currency for it. This quickly became a feature that many individuals and corporations with too much money used to quickly advance their position.


    Gold to dollar ratio at the beginning was 1:$1000, and would slowly decline as more gold became available but never went below 1:$50.


    Jason already had several treasure mines he planned to exploit to make some big money in the beginning, yet he couldn''t let anyone know that. He would become the laughing stock of the century if he told people he had plans to make millions off of a video game that hadn''t even been released yet.


    Jason quickly replied with the intent to hide his true plans, "I already have a job offer lined up in town. A boring 9am-5pm desk job, but at least I''ll get to see my family every day. Plus, I won''t be traveling at all like I did here in the military and Beth will certainly be happy to have me around more often."


    "I''ll have plenty of time to hang out with family, so maybe I''ll even try out that new game that comes out tomorrow that everyone''s been talking about." Jason shrugged, and leaned back in his chair, doing his best to give off an air of nonchalance.


    Chief studied him for a moment and slowly started saying, "Listen, I understand not wanting to continue within the Navy. We''ve already taken you away from your family enough, and I know its pretty hard on the wife and kids."


    Chief snorted, "Hell, I''ve already been through 3 divorces during my time here. It''s a wonder that you and Beth were able to make it through these 8 years."


    Jason smiled, and nodded; silently hinting towards the chief to get to his point.


    "Jason look, I''ve been tasked with setting a team for --Might, Magic, Mayhem--. The hire-ups see a lot of potential in this game and I want to extend an offer to you to join. You would receive the same pay as you have before, only you wouldn''t have to travel anywhere dangerous."


    "You would be able to work from the safety and comfort of home," Chief continued, "what do you think?"


    Jason was a little shocked. He had no idea that the military was already deciding to put it''s interests into the game.


    Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    In his past life and in this life, the military had forbidden it''s members and its members families from participating in this game. They had claimed that it would be a waste of time and effort. It wasn''t until about a year later that they had openly sent service members into the game to exploit it''s secrets and wealth.


    "Chief, if I may ask, why is the military interested in this game?" Jason inquisitively asked.


    "That information is classified Jason. You would be under my direct command and just play normally, and report any suspicious activity or information you receive to me. You would also hand over any special items and gold you obtain in game." Chief firmly spoke, clearly intending for there to be no negotiation on Jason''s end.


    ''This old fart'' Jason thought. ''Does he really take me for a chump? With the pay the military offers that''s a blatant slave contract!''


    Jason paused and looked down at the desk; acting as if he was thinking the offer over. He may have no intention of accepting the offer, but he didn''t want to burn bridges with his superior. Even if Chief had taken advantage of him in the past, Jason knew that Chief could be an important bridge to the higher ups in the government if needed in the future.


    "Chief," Jason took in a deep breath, wondering how best to let him down.


    "I appreciate the offer, but I don''t intend to earn a living through playing video games. Playing for more than entertainment would give me a headache and I just have no interest in your offer."


    ''Yes! That should let him off easy!'' Jason smirked in his head, but made sure to keep a steady and slightly apologetic expression.


    Chief looked slightly downcast upon hearing this news.


    "Well, to be honest I''m slightly disappointed Jason. You''re a good man and a hard worker. We could really use a man like you. If you change your mind, our doors are always open. I truly wish you the best in your endeavors in life."


    He turned around and picked up a manilla colored folder, and placed it in front of Jason.


    "These are your discharge papers, I just need your signature and your free to go."


    Jason quickly picked up a pen lying on the desk, scanned through the paperwork and after seeing that everything was in order he placed his signature at the bottom.


    The two of them then stood up, shook hands and spoke a few words of parting before Jason turned around and left the office.


    After saying his farewells to his co-workers he walked out of the building towards his vehicle.


    As he walked out of the building, he took a deep breath of the fresh mid-morning air. It was as if a huge weight had lifted off his shoulders and a feeling of profound satisfaction spread throughout his soul.


    His position and job in the military made it so that he was traveling 95% of the time. His relationship with both his wife and kids had been strained because of it. In his past life when he had re-enlisted, he had been traveling just as much if not more.


    While he was traveling he would always keep up to date on the happenings in --Might, Magic, Mayhem--. Even though he couldn''t play, as a video game fanatic there was no way he was going to miss out what was going on in the game.


    Every chance he had he was surfing the forums, fascinated by the triumphs and success of the users online. As soon as the military raised the restriction to play on it''s members, he was online every chance he got; with the knowledge he had obtained through the forums he was able to speed run through his levels to catch up and surpass the other users.


    His connections in the military also helped him obtain the resources in game to level up and break through different tiers.


    ''I wonder how things will change from here. Now that I''m not in the military, I have absolute freedom to live my life the way I want. I can finally give my wife the life of luxury she deserves and have a better relationship with the kids. This decision will definitely impact me and my family for the better¡­''


    Jason smiled as he got into his car and clicked the autopilot function to begin driving home. "I wonder how the kids will react when I give them their headsets."


    He took out his phone that he had put on silent when he entered the building, and saw 30 missed calls and multiple unread texts. All from his wife.


    With a sense of dread he opened the first message.


    {WHAT THE F*#K HAPPENED TO OUR SAVINGS!?!?} Beth.


    ''Sh*t''.

 5 Introspection

    Going through his messages Jason saw his wife sending an angrier message with every text she sent and call he missed.


    ''Well looks like I''m sleeping on the couch again tonight. I wonder if there''s some way I can salvage the situation. I really don''t want to sleep on the couch¡­''


    Jason had bought the Platinum Editions specifically so that his family could train longer and gain more strength than others in the world without the Platinum Edition could.


    There was no price too high that Jason wouldn''t pay in order to protect his family. To him, spending all of his savings so that his family could have a higher chance of surviving the apocalypse was money well spent.  Not to mention he could earn back more than triple that amount in just a couple of days.


    However, he couldn''t exactly tell his wife those prior reasons. To her and everyone else in the world, at the moment this was just a game.


    Jason sighed and shrugged.  What''s been done is done.  He''ll just have to wing it when the situation comes.


    Maybe he''ll have to give her a bit of information from the future, claiming that it came from a reliable source.


    Jason replied to his wife over text,


    {I''ll explain everything when I get home} Jason


    A moment later¡­


    {I''ll be waiting} Beth


    ''I haven''t even been back to this time period for more than 6 hours and I''ve already made Beth upset several times. This isn''t good. I hope my time as a General, leading humanities meager forces, hasn''t changed me from the man that Beth once loved.''


    Memories of coming home to blood-stained hallways and the mangled corpses of his family forced its way in his head once again. His face turned stoic as he remembered everything that had happened after that fateful day.


    After burying his wife and three children he had gone on a slaughtering rampage, killing every demon that crossed his path.  Once he had found the Blood Orcs responsible for his families miserable fate, he slowly tortured the b*sta*ds to death.  He made sure that every moment was as excruciating as possible for them before he sent them back to hell.


    Any demon that arrived to give back-up to the orcs were slaughtered, and after he had finished making the orcs wish they had never existed, he left to go hunt the other demons of that first invasion day.


    He eventually would save one group of humans after another and established the Last Refuge with them. That was when one of the users he had saved brought forth the mythical fortress treasure which protected them until the end.


    Jason had been a firm and fair leader that was loved by those he had saved.  They may have all looked up to him, loved him, and obeyed his word as if he was a god; but no-one was able to fill the void in his heart that his family had left behind. His capacity to empathize and feel emotions had seemed to disappear.


    This had even affected his ability to lead at the beginning, until he learned how to fake emotions for those around him. This way he could be the leader they had all needed.


    Even so, he had truly felt nothing since the death of his loved ones that day.


    ''Now I have to jump back into life, acting as if nothing had ever happened.''


    Jason had felt nothing but emptiness since that invasion day, but now he would have to force himself to feel again, to love again; something that wouldn''t be too difficult since his family was everything to him. Nonetheless he would have to start making decisions with his wife again.


    He may have made every major decision for himself and others for the past year, but now he has his wife who is his partner and equal in all things. Someone who married him to stand by his side through every trial in life.


    Jason decided that he would tell her everything that happened in his past life, eventually. Definitely not today. He would have to find the right time to do so.


    After Jason''s vehicle pulled into the driveway, he stepped out, walked up to his house and entered through the front door.


    Opening the door into the family room he saw Beth sitting on the couch surfing through her phone. A moment later she put her phone to sleep, set it on the seat next to her, and gestured at the couch in front of her.


    Flashing a sweet smile that Jason could tell was very forced she said "Come have a seat babe, we need to talk"


    ''The dreaded ''we need to talk'' phrase!'' Jason knew he was in for an earful and an uncomfortable night on the couch if he couldn''t smooth things over.


    "Sweetie," Jason started as he went to go sit elegantly on the sofa, "I''m sorry I didn''t consult with you before I spent that much money." Jason paused, trying to find the right words to continue.


    Beth sat there stoically, waiting for Jason to finish.


    With a sigh, Jason continued. "I''ll be honest Beth, this game is going to change the world in ways that we can''t imagine.  I bought the best quality items for our family because our family should have the best possible future that we can have."


    Beth interrupted Jason at this point, "That money was our savings!  All the hard work and deployments you put into the military have now gone down the drain to fund your videogame habit! I want you to return those headsets immediately and get our money back!"


    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Jason could tell she was furious.  He knew she had sacrificed a lot through the years, especially during his deployments.  Due to the nature of his missions being top secret he wasn''t allowed to contact his family back home, leading to his wife always wondering if he was even alive.


    "There is a lot of potential in this game. To say the least, there is a huge financial opportunity in here that we can take advantage of. You can think of this as an investment."


    "An investment?" Her voice quickly began to rise.  "If we are going to invest, we should invest properly by buying stocks in the game! In addition to that, when are you even going to have time to play this game? Your job at the office starts tomorrow!" She spread her hands wide, as if daring Jason to refute her.


    Jason paused for a moment, waiting to see if she was going to say anything else.  When she didn''t, he continued. "Beth, I need you to trust me. I don''t plan on starting that job tomorrow."


    "Now your quitting your job to play a video game?" Beth was practically yelling at this point.


    "I''ve received good intel that this game is a mine of gold waiting to be harvested. This is the opportunity you and I have dreamed of! With this I can finally give you and the kids the life that you deserve.  We can build that dream house we''ve been talking about, even get the kids the best education possible. We can even start vacationing wherever we''d like to in the world!"


    Jason spoke with passion, trying to get her caught up in their dream lifestyle choices that they would talk about to each other for hours on end. ''Hopefully this will work!''


    "How about we make a deal Beth? If I can''t triple the money we invested in three days, I''ll return the headsets.  There''s a five day trial attached to them so they will still accept them if we decide to return the headsets."


    "I don''t know Jason; this is really risky." Beth paused and frowned.  ''He seems pretty confident he can do this, if he can really triple the money¡­'' She began thinking about the possibilities.


    "But most importantly Beth, the functions of these headsets will also allow us to spend more time as a family due to the ''play while you sleep'' function.  We''ll be able to easily make up for all the lost time that came about because of my choice to work for the military."


    At the mention of this, Beth''s eyes glittered. Her whole demeanor seemed to relax, and Jason could tell that the danger had passed.


    "You should''ve started by mentioning that!" Beth exclaimed. Standing up she walked and sat down across Jason''s lap.


    "I forgive you Jason." She smiled lovingly while staring into his eyes. She then gave him a stern glare. "But if you can''t triple the investment within three days, you''re returning the headsets."


    Jason could feel his heart almost stop.  She felt so soft, smelt so good, looked absolutely stunning, and her lips were so close to his.  He began to lean forward to taste the sweet nectar of her lips.


    "It''s a deal." He whispered.


    Beth smiled deviously and leaned back, placing her index finger on his lips.


    "Just because I forgive you doesn''t mean your off the hook!  I need to punish you somehow." She gripped her chin and looked up, putting on a show as if she was pondering.


    Jason decided to take a gamble after looking at the clock and seeing the kids wouldn''t be home from school for several hours. He picked up Beth and looked longingly into her eyes.


    "You can punish me however you like." He started carrying her to the bedroom, "I am yours to command my love."


    After several hours the doorbell rang.  A few minutes later two, eleven-year-old boys and an eleven-year-old girl came walking through the door with multiple packages in their arms.


    The two boys looked exactly the same; as if someone had ''copy and pasted'' one of them. The girl was similar in height to the other two, and while carrying 2 boxes she yelled out,"MOM! DAD! YOU GUYS GOT SOME PACKAGES!"


    After a moment Jason and Beth walked out of their room. Their clothes were rumpled and Jasons shirt was on backwards.


    Once Jason saw the kids, a huge smile spread over his face and he ran towards them. "Clark! Bryan! Jessy! I missed you guys so much!" He laughed, scooping each of them up and spinning around with them, causing the boxes to tumble to the floor.


    "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad" The three children cried harmoniously. "Your squeezing us to hard!"


    After a few more spins, he set them down laughing.  Beth was just standing by the hallway with her over her mouth, suppressing a giggle. Pure joy could be seen radiating out of her eyes.


    "We only had school this morning, its not like we didn''t see you last night?" grumbled Clark, the oldest of the three by 2 whole minutes.


    Jason laughed and said "It''s cause I got you guys presents!"


    Of course, Jason wasn''t going to tell them that he hadn''t seen them for a year and that last he saw them, they were dead.


    "Presents?" Jessy squealed with joy, "Where! I want it! I want it!"


    Bryan bent down to pick up the boxes he dropped and asked, "Are these it? We got off the bus and saw these drones fly to the house with these boxes."


    "Of course!" Jason said with bravado. He handed a box to each member of his family, keeping one for himself.


    Everyone, including Beth, then tore into the packaging.  After they got through the generic brown box, bright LED light came shining out of the boxes.  The kids and Beth''s eyes lit up, and they all started talking at once.


    "You got us the Platinum Edition Headsets for --Might, Magic, Mayhem-- online!"


    "AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"


    "I can''t wait to play this game! Look! Mom and Dad got one too!"


    "I can''t wait to play with all my friends!"


    As the kids were talking at a thousand miles an hour, Jason cleared his throat saying.


    "Yes, I got you guys this.  It comes with rules and conditions for you guys though."


    "One, you always have to listen to mom and dad.  Two, treat everyone in game with respect, that includes the NPC''s. Three, no joining any guilds.  Your daddy is going to create one eventually, and all of you will be the first ones in it." Jason took a breathe and continued.


    "Lastly, the three of you have to stick together at all times.  If I find out you don''t stick together, then I''ll take away your headsets.  Am I clear on these 4 rules?" Jason looked around at this point, staring down his children with the air of a commander.


    In unison they said yes and nodded their heads.


    Jason was beaming at this point. His children were so obedient and were the best kids ever.


    He started walking towards their rooms, calling over his shoulder. "Now let me help all of you get your headsets set up.  You all can call in sick to school tomorrow so you can get a head start."


    "YAY!"


    "WOHOO!"


    "YIPPE!"


    At 8am the game would go online, and everyone could enter.  Jason wanted to be completely ready and have his family prepared for everything.


    After spending some quality time with his family through the evening, Jason and Beth put them to bed and had some more quality time with each other.


    They all woke up early the next day, had a good breakfast, talked about plans they had for once they entered the game then went into their rooms to put their headsets on 5 minutes before the game started.


    Jason snuggled up next to his wife, put his headset on and waited.  Eventually the timer came up.


    [System Message ¨C Time remaining until game start 1 minute.]


    ¡­


    ¡­


    ¡­


    [System Message ¨C Time remaining until 5 seconds]


    [System Message ¨C Time remaining until 4 seconds]


    [System Message ¨C Time remaining until 3 seconds]


    [System Message ¨C Time remaining until 2 seconds]


    [System Message ¨C Time remaining until 1 seconds]


    [System Message ¨C Welcome to --Might, Magic, Mayhem--]

 6 Game Start (Part 1)

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    Jason''s sight blurred and all of a sudden, he felt like he was travelling at high speeds.  His vision went dark, and with a flash he found himself in a pure white room.


    Everything was white, the floor, the ceiling and walls.  He could tell that there were walls around him because there were picturesque paintings hanging on all four walls in their center.


    He recognized these scenes as major areas of Socrathia; the Obsidian Monolith in the Socrath Empire the mighty Volcano Dracon in the dwarven kingdom, the shadow forest realm of the elves, and the Swamp Marshes of the south.


    In the center of the room floated a pint-sized fairy.  The fairy was no larger than a small saltshaker and was clearly female due to her voluptuous figure.  She had grass green hair that flowed down her back, and rainbow-colored wings that were fluttering as fast as a hummingbirds.


    As the fairy noticed Jason''s gaze upon her, she spoke in a high pitched voice that reminded him of tinkling glass.


    "Socrathia welcomes you with open arms adventurer! My name is Rimi!"


    Jason placed his right fist over his heart and gave a slight bow.


    "I am honored to be welcomed by such a beautiful maiden."


    The fairy blushed and gave a slight giggle then flew up to almost a foot in front of Jason''s face.


    Flattery went a long way with the fey, especially here at the beginning of the game. It wasn''t found out until the game had been out for several weeks that the greeting fairies responded very well to flattery and would give a gift along with the standard introduction of Socrathia.


    "I like you adventurer, let me tell you a bit about Socrathia before I send you fully into Socrathia." She giggled and twirled in the air.


    Jason smiled and said with another flourishing bow, "As you wish my lady."


    Keeping a smooth smile on his face Jason sighed on the inside. ''Here comes the long and boring introduction.''


    "Socrathia is a continent that has many different kingdoms and empires. You have been summoned to aid us in our fight against all those who aim to corrupt and spread chaos.  We are currently being besieged by demons, creatures of the dark, and our own kin who have been infected by demonic energy."


    "As you are not from this realm, once you fully enter our world you will be given an interface that displays your different attributes, skills, and allows you to interact with the System."


    "The System was born of a combined effort of the greatest minds of all races centuries ago in order to save our realm from absolute destruction."


    "Over the ages The System has evolved to not only aid the original inhabitants of this world but any being that enters into this realm. Hence, once you fully enter Socrathia, you will also have access to the System."


    She then delved into a deeper description of The System.


    "Essentially one-thousand years ago, the greatest Magicians, Sages, Artisans, Array Masters, and Druids came together to stop their universe from dying. In the process they gave their lives, and in their final moments their consciousness formed into a semi-sentient, non-corporeal entity known as The System.


    From then on, The System would then awaken a deeper connection to mana in every individual, guiding them to higher tiers of strength and power. It also aids Users in managing their interface, initiating and completing quests, guiding their mana through spells, and leveling up."


    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    After Rimi stopped to take a breath, Jason took the initiative to speak.


    "Ms. Rimi, I am thankful for the call and am ready to aid you and Socrathia to battle against the Demons."


    "Thank you Sir Adventurer!" She squealed in a high pitch voice.  "Now, before you enter you must choose a name for our world!"


    Jason pondered for a moment.  He needed a name that not only would become an inspiration to humanity, but one that would invoke fear in his enemies.


    "Demon Slayer? No¡­ It needs to be something that means more. Hmmmm, Thanatos is the personification of death in Greek Mythology.  I choose Thanatos."


    Remi sighed, "I''m sorry, Thanatos has already been chosen by someone from your world."


    "How about the god of eternity, Aion?


    "Also chosen."


    "Zues?"


    "Taken."


    "Ares?"


    "Already chosen."


    "F*ck!"


    "That has already been chosen too."


    "I didn''t mean it like that¡­" Jason sighed and rubbed his head.  He had chosen the lame name of Dragon Slayer245 in the past, and he didn''t think that was very terrifying or inspiring.


    Rimi continued to flutter in the air, waiting for Jason to choose a name.


    ''Hm, I''m going to have to combine a name. Eternal Death would be a cool name, but that''s to simple.  I wonder¡­''


    "Rimi, I''ve decided.  My name will be known as Thanataion." ''Eternal Death, such a cool name!''


    "Thanataion will now be your name in this new world."


    "Yes!"


    Rimi appeared to be happy at his enthusiasm.


    "Thanataion, I welcome you to Socrathia!  Take this as a parting gift, this should aid you in gaining more strength."


    She handed Jason a yellow potion.  She continued saying, "One last word of warning.  Now that your world has come into contact with ours, should this world fall, your world will be targeted by the Demons thereafter. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors."


    Jason frowned.  He understood the severity of those words.  He also knew that the majority of Users who joined this game wouldn''t take this warning seriously.


    Remi waved her hand and a complicated magical array appeared underneath Jason''s feet. As the array began to glow, a message appeared before his eyes.


    [System Message ¨C Please choose your starting village]


    A long list of villages appeared before Jason''s eyes, and he quickly spoke the name of the one that he had told his family to choose before they all entered their rooms; Reunfry Village.


    A beam of light shot up towards the ceiling, enveloping Jason completely.


    Jason closed his eyes to avoid being blinded by the light, and when he opened his eyes again he was in the center of a small village.


    There were wooden and stone buildings all around a large courtyard with cobbled stone pavement.  In the center of the courtyard was a large fountain with water spouting out of it. The largest building in sight was a 4 storied manor at one end of the courtyard.


    He wasn''t the only one that had appeared here. Many bright flashes of light were happening every second with people appearing and looking around.


    Jason quickly ran to the fountain in the center and climbed on top of it so he could look around. He saw individuals in armor, mage robes, and other medieval attire sitting at a table with a strange stone in front of them.  Many Users were already lining up at this table to see what was going on.


    Of course Jason already knew what the table was for, this was an opportunity for the various NPC guilds to recruit the new Users.  People would be able to sign up here for the Adventurers Guild, the Warriors Guild, the Mages Guild, or the Artisan Guild here.  There were many different paths a User could take in choosing a class and gaining strength and these were just opportunities for the Users to start on a path and receive training.


    He continued to look around and quickly found his kids standing in a circle. He saw that they were standing around Beth who was sitting on the ground.


    He smiled and ran over to them to see what was going on.


    When he arrived he approached Beth and saw that she was relaxing on the ground just looking around, craning her neck to see around the legs of the other Users.


    When she saw Jason she waved at him and greeted him with a, "Hey babe!"


    Jason smiled and asked her, "Sweetie, why are you sitting on the ground?  You''re not tired already are you?"


    Jason really couldn''t think of any conceivable notion as to why Beth would be sitting on the ground in the middle of a courtyard.


    Beth looked exasperated as she grumbled, "It''s cause I don''t know what the controls are! The little fairy didn''t explain the controls to me and so I decided to just sit and wait here until my gaming controller shows up! How are you moving around?"


    Jason stared at her, dumbfounded.  She seemed absolutely serious.


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 7 Game Start (Part 2)

    "Pffffffft, Hahahahahahahaha" Jason couldn''t stop himself as he fell over backwards laughing.


    There was no way he could stop it, laughter continued to flow out as he rolled on the ground clutching his stomach.


    As Jason rolled around laughing his heart out, Beth could only stare at him in shock. ''When was the last time he ever laughed so hard?'' Beth wondered, completely oblivious to why her husband was so jovial.


    Clark, Jessy, and Bryan could only stand there staring at their father in horror. They knew exactly why their father was laughing so much, and they knew that if their mother found out¡­ Well, they knew things were going to get bad really quickly.


    After a few minutes Jason was finally able to control himself, and he just stayed there on the ground staring at his wife lovingly.


    ''I really missed her.'' He thought to himself.


    He quickly stood up and brushed the dust off his clothes and extended his hand towards Beth to pull her up.


    "There''s no need to worry about controls here babe. Forget that this is a game and you''ll do just fine." He said with a genuine smile on his face.


    She frowned while looking up at him and reached out to grip his hand. Jason then lifted her up in a smooth motion, laughing while saying, "See? You''re already a master at this game!"


    She paused for a moment, then defiantly puffed out her chest and said "I was only joking around! I knew this the whole time and only wanted to see if you would fall for it!" Her cheeks went rosy red at this moment and a deep blush spread across her face.


    She lifted her chin in the air and turned away. "Hmph! You are so gullible sometimes!"


    Jason laughed, he could tell that his wife was pretty embarrassed just by looking at the redness spreading across her face. He decided to play along with her to spare her feelings.


    He chuckled a bit more then pointed at the large line that was quickly gathering at the table. "Alright, you guys need should go hop in line before the line gets to large. That''s where you can join one of the NPC guilds and receive free combat training and beginning gear. They can also test your affinity to magic and guide you to start learning how to manipulate mana."


    "But dad, wasn''t one of your rules to not join any guilds?" Bryan pipped up at this moment.


    Scratching his head remembering that he had said that, Jason replied "I meant not to join any guilds made by people from our world. There''s no danger in joining the Adventurers Guild here, only benefits."


    He then looked at Beth and said, "Can you take the kids over to join the Adventurers Guild and start training with them? I''ll catch up to you guys in a bit."


    Beth tilted her head and looked at him quizzically. "Why don''t you join us too?"


    "I have a top-secret mission to accomplish." He winked at her and said mischievously. He then looked over at his kids and gestured with his head to come a little closer. He then bent down a bit, pulling Beth with him so that the five of them were at the same head level forming a small huddle.


    He put his arms around them and then whispered to them, "I heard from a good source of intel that the first people to get their chosen skill proficiency to master level will receive a mithril weapon of that given proficiency." He looked into each of his kids eyes with a serious gaze. "Before you guys go out to complete quests, train hard with the instructors and obtain that rare item!"


    The kids looked at each other with a determined look in their eyes. They then looked at their dad and nodded, giving their affirmation that they would be the first.


    After sending his wife and kids to go join the Adventurers Guild and begin their training, Jason turned around and set off to begin his plans. He knew they would be the first ones to grind their proficiencies up to the master level and obtain a rare item since this was something that wasn''t discovered till about 2 weeks after the game had been out.


    He was excited to see what kind of proficiencies they would strive to improve and what classes they would choose. This game was different from other MMO''s where there was a set class that limited the type of weapons and skills an individual could choose.


    A User could choose as many classes as they would like, their level would be determined by the level of all their classes combined. For example, a User could choose to be a rogue and an archer. If they input their experience points to level up their rogue class to level 2 and enough experience points to level 1 for their archer class, their total level would be level 3.


    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    Proficiency was how well someone could wield their chosen weapon, and this was something that could be obtained by becoming more familiar with the chosen weapon. By using the weapon, one''s proficiency level would increase. If someone were to train with a trainer, there would be a massive percentage boost on their speed of proficiency gain that they would obtain with that weapon.


    Most Users at the beginning of the game would focus on increasing their level instead of their proficiencies, which had its advantages but also led to a lack of skill with their weapons.


    Now if a User had prior knowledge on how to use the weapon, for example if you trained with swords all your life on Earth; your proficiency bar would increase faster than others, but still not as much as it would with a trainer. It was even possible to increase proficiency bars by using experience points obtained by The System.


    Experience points were given by The System for completing different tasks. These tasks were typically quests obtained by NPC''s or given directly by The System. Experience points would also be given in abundance after defeating an opponent.


    These experience points could then be input manually by the User into whatever they desired; whether it be to level up a class level, a specific skill, or their proficiencies.


    As Jason was thinking about the mechanics of the game, he felt more than ready to get started and stack up on a few rare and unique classes. These were going to be incredibly difficult to obtain and had many pre-requisites which is why he decided to go alone.


    He knew it wasn''t a good idea to have too many different classes and proficiencies, as the experience points required to level up to higher ranks would be spread out too much. However, he knew of several unique classes that would give him great power and a huge advantage that were an absolute necessity to obtain.


    The quests and ways to obtain these classes were long and arduous though, and he only had the beginning 20 silver that every new User was given by The System at the beginning. So, his first stop would be to obtain a weapon and some gear, and he knew just the place to do so.


    As Jason left the courtyard, the crowds of Users slowly thinned. He would see a rare few Users run by him, just to stop at every NPC possible in order to chat with them. He knew that they were trying to activate different quests and were all hoping to get lucky and find rare or hidden quests. He chuckled at their naivety.


    Every NPC, or in other words, original inhabitant of Socrathia could issue quests through The System. Any request an NPC would make to a User would be interpreted by The System to be a quest, which would then be issued with the corresponding rewards attached. The System would then also generate the rarity level and difficulty of the quest and add experience points to match the difficulty onto the quest if completed.


    It was rare to find a rare or unique quest, hence the associated tag. The ranking system of quests, and items and their associated color tag were as follows: basic-white, uncommon-green, rare-blue, platinum-silver, mithril-orange , legendary-gold, and mythical-purple.


    It was rumored that there was a tier above mythical, which was artifact-red. Jason knew this rumor to be true as his sword from his previous life, F''thanir, was an artifact. He had no idea if there was anything above that grade. He didn''t even think about trying to obtain F''thanir at the moment, he would need to at the very least be level 40 before he set out to obtain his old trusty sword.


    Jason passed many cobble stone shops on his path. All advertising merchandise such as clothes, perfumes, potions, weapons, armors, food and other assorted items. He stopped by one of them to pick up 8 bottles of beer which he quickly stored in his User inventory costing him 2 silver in total. The inventory was a 5x5 dimensional space that was only able to be accessed by the individual User.


    He would occasionally pass a Tavern or two, even some smithies. However, his target was in a particularly run-down part of the town.


    As he walked through the streets, the cobbled stone pathway quickly changed to a dirt pathway. The buildings here were all made of wood, and stores became far less frequent. After a few minutes he turned into an alleyway and entered through a door at the end.


    Stepping inside, the room was only lit by a few flickering candles. Sitting passed out on a table, with a spilled over beer bottle was a dwarf snoring away. The dwarf appeared to be your stereo-typical dwarf; short at about 1.5 meters, bushy red hair hanging off his head and face. The beard and hair were almost as long as the dwarf was tall, and all tangled up with each other.


    There were beer stains all over the table, and the room smelled of urine.


    Jason walked into the room and up to the dwarf who only continued to snore. He pulled out one of the beer bottles, uncorked it, and waved it under the dwarfs nose.


    With a start, the dwarf woke up. Glaring up at Jason who so rudely woke him up, the dwarf grumbled, "Whaddya want? Thad beeeer bedder beer fer me." His speech was nearly unintelligible, slurring together so much it was clear he was heavily drunk.


    Jason handed him the bottle, pulled out the other 7 beers and placed them on the table.


    "All of these are yours if you let me use your forge and materials to forge myself some weapons and armor."


    The dwarf eyed him and guffawed, slapping the table. He quickly chugged the bottle Jason gave him and grabbed another off the table.


    "All I got er scraps boy! Give me 10 silver and ye got yerself a dreal!"


    Jason smiled and handed him the coins.


    "De forge ish in da back." Mumbled the dwarf as he began to nurse his second beer that fate had brought him.


    Jason thanked the dwarf and looked around the room a bit more. There was broken plates and mugs on the ground, rotting food in the corners, and a curtain cutting the room in half. Jason walked up to the curtain and pulled it down, revealing a beautiful smithy.


    The anvil was shining, the tools were neatly placed on the walls, and the forge was glowing a beautiful soft orange.


    Jason rubbed his hands together with a smile on his face.


    "Time to get busy!"

 8 Perks of Being First

    Looking at the forge in front of him, Jason couldn''t help but feel giddy inside. ''This is one quality forge!'' He thought to himself.


    He saw a pile of metal scraps on the side, gathered them together and placed them in a mold to melt them down into raw material for forging.


    In his past life he had always been a fanatic about forging. There was just something about the process of forging something misshapen and raw into a deadly force of nature, or even a fortress to protect the soft flesh, that brought joy to his life. There was something beautiful and deadly that came from creating through the forge.


    When he had the spare time to forge, he would; but he hardly ever had extra time as he was always striving to reach the next level of strength.


    The main reason Jason wanted to forge his own gear right now was because he knew that he needed quality gear that he could trust, not the left-over rusty gear that the Adventurers guild was handing out to the new Users. The gear they gave was better for nothing more than learning how to wield weapons and practice new skills.


    After Jason poured the molten iron into bar shaped molds, he received a notification before his eyes.


    [System Message ¨C detected that user is beginning forging process, would user like to use system generated guidance to forge?]


    "No."


    Jason already knew the steps of forging by heart, so he had no need for the systems help. He knew he was missing one crucial factor that dictated whether his items would be above the basic tier, and that was mana manipulation.


    Mana was the essence of the universe, an essence that was inside every molecule that gave structure and order to all things. Sensing this mana was the first step to manipulating it, and as one gained greater proficiency in sensing mana and manipulating mana, they would gain greater control over the universe. This was how one would begin to form spells and control different skills.


    Mana Sense was the first skill that every user would learn from a trainer. The majority of Users would then be able to use this skill in conjunction with incantations or specific movements to cast their spells and skills.


    On the other hand, Mana Manipulation is one step higher than Mana Sense. If obtained and mastered, a User would be able to manipulate mana and the elements at will and the higher the proficiency of this skill was the higher their control.


    While he waited for the molten iron to cool, he sat down on the cold hard ground. He stilled his mind and focused on his surroundings, breathing in and out.


    He sat there like this for about an hour clearing his mind of all distractions, using all his senses to observe the world around him. His body slowly and gradually relaxed enough to a point to where he was able to sense the flow of mana in his body.


    He allowed his body to familiarize itself with this feeling, before gradually searching for this same feeling outside of his body.


    Opening his mind to observe the universe outside of him, he could sense faint wisps of mana swirling around. As he focused on this mana, he received a ding from The System.


    [System Message ¨C User has learned mana sense. Adding skill to interface.]


    [System Message ¨C Since user learned mana sense without any guidance from a trainer or The System, 15 experience points added.]


    [System Message ¨C 15/10 Experience points, User may now increase level.]


    At this moment Jason felt that he could easily sense the mana around him even without focusing like he had been before. He smiled and clenched his fist, overjoyed at his success. Coming out of his hyper-focused state he opened his eyes to see the dwarf sitting on the floor a few feet in front of him.


    "Just learned mana sense, eh? And without any guidance, you''re a special one aren''t ya?" Muttered the dwarf, surprisingly not as drunk as before as he stood up and walked back to the table with empty beer bottles on it.


    Jason didn''t respond as he wondered what the dwarf meant by that. ''Special as in stupid or special as in a prodigy?''


    He looked over at the molds to see that they were cold and hard now. He tried to guess at how much time he had spent trying to learn that skill, but quickly gave up and called up his interface.


    [System Message -


    User: Thanataion


    Level: 0


    Experience: 15/10


    Titles: None


    Class: None


    Race: Human


    Strength: 13


    Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    Dexterity: 11


    Constitution: 11


    Intelligence: 11


    Will: 17


    Vitality: 33


    MP: 340


    Resistances: None


    Proficiencies: None


    Skills: Mana Sense ¨C 1/10 (Beginner)


    Inventory: 8 Silver]


    ''Yep, this is about where I was the last time I started the game. Except my will stat is a lot stronger. This must have something to do with me being reborn to this past life.''


    Jason longingly looked at the experience points he had gained. What he could do now was increase his skill mana sense, but he decided to hold off on that for the moment. He really wanted to be able to use them right now to level up but unfortunately, he was unable to at the moment due to him not having a class.


    ''Well, that''s why I''m here.'' He looked at the iron ingots and sat back down going back into his meditative state. He had to do this correctly from the beginning.


    Now that he had learned Mana Sense, he looked inside himself feeling the mana infused in every part of his being. He focused on his right hand to make things easy on himself and began to will the mana from outside his body to flow towards his hand, forcing it inside.


    This was a skill that took many people months to obtain, and years to master. You were considered to have a high talent in magic if you could obtain this skill within a week and master it within 2 years.


    Jason was confident of obtaining the skill now; he already had the knowledge from his past life. Now he was only re-teaching his body how to manipulate mana.


    At first nothing happened, but as Jason simulated the feeling of mana manipulation he had in his past life, things quickly changed.


    Jason could sense the mana pause as it flowed through the air, then rush into his hand. He then focused on retaining that mana, causing that mana to strengthen his hand.


    A slight sheen appeared on his hand at this moment, shining for the world to see.


    [System Message ¨C Skill Mana Manipulation learned. Skill Iron First learned.]


    [System Message ¨C Congratulations, you are the first User to learn Mana Manipulation, gained Unique Title: Mana Guru.]


    [System Message ¨C Mana Guru: Reduces Mana Consumption by 50%]


    [System Message ¨C Iron Fist: increase density of fist. +50% base damage when attacking with the fist. +3 Defense Points to fist area. Fist has same characteristics as iron while skill is active. Mana Consumption ¨C 1 point per second.]


    Jason smiled; he had no idea that being the first to learn Mana Manipulation would give him so many rewards. All he wanted was the mana manipulation so he could input mana into his tools and the iron as he forged so he could have a guaranteed uncommon equipment.


    As he stood up and stretched, he heard a loud crash from behind him. Turning around he saw the dwarf on the ground prostrate as if he had fallen out of the chair he was sitting in. The dwarf was staring dumbfoundedly at Jason''s hand which still had a slight sheen to it.


    "Y-y-y-y you learned Mana Manipulation just now?" The dwarf stuttered as with wide eyes he looked at Jason. "I-I-I-I impossible!"


    Jason just shrugged and turned around and went to go pick up an ingot. He walked over to the still burning forge and injected his mana into it using mana manipulation, making the fire immediately flare up and increase in temperature drastically. Still carrying the iron ingot in his iron fist hand, he placed it into the forge; not even feeling the heat.


    ''I''ll start with a shield. It''s hard to mess that up.'' He went back to obtain 4 more ingots out of the 7 he had made. He placed those in the furnace alongside the other ingot. He then directly input 10 experience points into mana manipulation.


    [System Message ¨C Mana Manipulation is now at Intermediate.]


    As he increased the temperature of the fire, he also urged the mana in the ingots to flow towards each other. As he was doing this, he could see his mana in his interface decreasing rapidly, but he pushed on.


    A few minutes later the iron had lit up brightly, and instead of multiple ingots it was now one larger piece of metal.


    Jason then used Iron Fist on both hands and carried the lump of bright iron to the anvil. He then picked up a hammer, willed his own mana into the hammer, and commanded the ambient mana to enter his arm.


    [System Message ¨C Skill Mana Strengthening learned]


    [System Message ¨C Mana Strengthening ¨C Increase strength through mana]


    Not even noticing the messages, he began to shape the metal with his hammer. Each of his blows was placed exactly where he wanted, and with each blow he would send his mana from the hammer into the shield.


    BANG-BANG-BANG


    Jason focused intensely as he shaped the shield to the image in his head. Each blow moved the metal and mana, and Jason''s own mana quickly became infused into the shield.


    BANG-BANG-BANG


    With each strike the shield quickly formed into a Heater Shield.


    After Jason had obtained the shape he wanted for the shield, he then set it aside as he placed another ingot inside the forge. After waiting for a bit, allowing his mana to recover, he took it back out and cut it in half lengthwise and shaped it into handles and attachment points for the shield.


    He then put the shield, handle, and attachment points all into the forge at once and manipulated the fire to increase its heat at each of the points he desired. Manipulating the mana once more, he influenced the metal in those locations to become one. After he had succeeded, he heated the whole of the heater shield waiting for the shield to turn bright once more before swiftly picking it up and dunking it in the oil cooling vat.


    Steam and fire leaped out of the bin as the raging metal quickly cooled. After it had cooled, he took it out and examined it. Searching for any warping or cracks, which after diligently searching, he found none.


    Nodding with satisfaction he went over to the pile of leather and began the final steps of adding buckles and straps to his shield.


    The dwarf was watching Jason throughout this whole process with his jaw hanging loose the whole time. He was amazed at the skill and smoothness with which Jason handled the tools of his forge. ''This human is nearly as good as my brother!'' He thought to himself.


    As Jason put the finishing touches on his product, he nodded with satisfaction. It was 25 inches from top to bottom at its points and 19 inches wide. It weighed in at a solid 7 pounds which was perfect for Jason. It wasn''t too big where it would hamper his movement, but just big enough to protect him as needed.


    Almost as if sensing his satisfaction of completion, he received a notification.


    [System Message ¨C Heater Shield ¨C Uncommon ¨C forging completed]


    [System Message ¨C Congratulations, you are the first User to forge uncommon equipment]


    [System Message ¨C Congratulations, you are the first User to forge equipment successfully without the aid of the system]


    [System Message ¨C Congratulations, you are the first User to forge uncommon equipment without the aid of The System]


    [System Message ¨C Rewarding User with Unique title Forerunner Forger: Increases forging success rate by 80% for grades uncommon through platinum, increases forging success rate by 40% for grades Mithril and Legendary, Increases forging success rate by 20% above Legendary. Add''s one additional special effect to each equipment forged.]


    The newly forged Heater Shield fell clanging to the floor as Jason stared bewildered at the notifications The System had sent him.


    ''Did I become the protagonist of some novel?''

 9 Business Proposal and Rare Equipment

    Jason stared at the new title that he had gained.  Forerunner Forger was a godly title that would pretty much guarantee his success while forging!  This was an insane title to have since the success of forging a higher-grade item decreased with each grade above uncommon.


    Typically, a forger would have a 50% chance of creating a rare item, 40% chance of a platinum item, 20% to create a mithril, and normally the chances of creating anything legendary and above was below 10%.


    With this title, it meant that 1 out of 5 times he would be able to create legendary items or higher.  All he would have to do is obtain the materials necessary.


    A forger could increase the chances of obtaining a higher-grade item when using higher grade materials, but the difficulty would increase dramatically when using higher grade materials.  When trying to make items of mithril or higher, the necessary materials were needed in order to make something of that grade.


    [System Message ¨C Forging Proficiency obtained]


    Jason didn''t even glance at this message as ideas raced through his head of the possible items he could obtain, and how he could outfit an entire raid group in legendary gear or higher.


    ''A group of 20 people with legendary or mythical gear? With an artifact or two in the group?  Not even the Demon Overlord Driblark would be able to stand against them!'' Jason began to laugh jovially, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel leading to his family''s and humanities safety.


    The dwarf walked over to Jason and seeing that Jason seemed to be mesmerized by his interface, he decided to pick up the shield that was just forged.


    "This shield isn''t bad at all¡­" He muttered to himself, "I''d be lucky to forge something this good!" He paused for a moment pondering.


    "Oy, boy! I got a proposal for you!"


    Breaking away from all the ideas and possibilities that were in front of him, Jason looked down to see the dwarf holding his freshly forged shield.


    "What is it?" Jason asked, already knowing what the dwarf was going to offer him.


    In the past the top ranked forger would brag in the forums about how he had gotten started.  He had talked about a dwarf who was terrible at forging, who had fallen upon hard times.  His brother who had been a well renowned forger had gone on an adventure 10 years ago and ended up never returning.


    Ever since then, the dwarf holding Jason''s shield had attempted to become a forger in order to carry on the business but ended up never being able to get the hang of being a blacksmith.  Even with the mithril ranked forge that his brother had left behind, the best that he could make was uncommon equipment.  Forging an uncommon equipment was even a rare achievement for this dwarf


    In the past this top ranked forger had stumbled upon this dwarf and the forge within the first week of the game.  With the aid of The System, this User has quickly learned how to forge and became the main supplier of equipment for the dwarf.  This user not only had the opportunity to use a mithril ranked forge, but also had a dwarf who would sell all the equipment for him with only a slight commission fee.


    Due to the synergy between the two, the User quickly increased his blacksmithing proficiency and rank, forever holding the position of top blacksmith among the forgers.


    Jason had come to this forge not only to forge his equipment for nothing but a few bottles of beer and silvers, but also to obtain the business of this dwarf.


    "I''d like to offer you a job lad." The dwarf continued, "Me name is Foryun Hammermight, and I run a shop that sells armor and weapons." The dwarf gazed at the shield Jason had just built.


    "I can tell yer a great blacksmith lad, and seeing as ya needed to use me forge, I reckon that ye don''t have one. Nor a shop I presume?" Foryun tore his gaze from the shield and looked up at Jason.


    Jason smiled and nodded his head. "You are right.  It''s a pleasure to make your acquaintance." Jason placed his right hand over his heart and bowed slightly, the proper way to show respect in Socrathia. "What''s your proposal Foryun Hammermight?"


    "No need for such high manners here lad!  Ye have the talent to be a great blacksmith boy!  I have the tools and shop to sell your equipment.  I say we work together to turn a great profit!  Ye provide the equipment, I sell it, and we split it 20/80?"


    Jason placed his hand on his chin and pondered for a moment.  He was just putting on a show for the dwarf; he didn''t want to appear desperate.


    "As long as the 80 is my profit, it''s a deal." Jason outstretched his hand for a handshake.


    A huge smile appeared on Foryun''s face as he grasped Jason''s hand in a firm grip. "It be a deal then!"


    Foryun then handed Jason the shield and walked off saying "Ye can come in here whenever ye need!  I''ll be off to tidy up the shop!"


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    "Wait!" Jason hastily grabbed the dwarf''s shoulder, "Do you by chance have any rare materials here?" Jason wanted to put his new title to immediate use, the only thing he lacked were the materials.


    Foryun paused and turned around.  He went to the back where the anvil was lying on the ground and placed his shoulder against it. Heaving with all his might, he slowly began sliding it to the side.


    As the anvil moved, a small hidden handle in the ground appeared.  After the anvil seemed to be far enough from this handle, Foryun walked over to the handle and with a deep grunt he lifted it in the air revealing a wooden trapdoor that had been covered in dirt that was now sliding off as he lifted the door.


    As the light from the candles shone into the newly formed hole in the ground a faint shimmer of white light shone out.


    "Dis be me stash o'' materials.  I have no use fer it other than to sell it.  Make some fine equipment and let''s get rich!" The dwarf grinned, seeing Jason''s wide eyes at the fresh materials that were literally under his nose.


    Jason handed him his newly forged shield, keeping his eyes on the new materials. "You can start off by selling this piece. I''ll make several new pieces for you to sell today, and I also need to make myself some gear. You can take the material costs out of my cut."


    The dwarf nodded and seeing that Jason was distracted with the new materials in front of him he walked out through the door.


    Jason began looking through the materials.  There were plenty of steel ingots and materials from rare creatures in there.  He also saw several mithril ingots!


    ''This is more than enough to make new gear, and with my new title I''ll quickly turn this pile of materials into rare gear! I''ll hold off on the mithril for now, my forging proficiency is nowhere near high enough for it.''


    He decided to send a message to his wife and kids before he started though. They had all been in the game for several hours, and even though he knew that time flow was different in this world, he didn''t want to worry them.


    {Hey, the time flow here is different just so you guys know! 3 hours here is 1 hour back home, so it''ll be lunch here soon.  I''m still pretty busy so I''ll see you all for dinner tonight!} Thanataion.


    As he started organizing the materials, he received a message from his daughter.


    {Hey dad!  Mom wasn''t able to figure out how to message so she asked me to tell you that we''re all doing fine, and we''ll see you at dinner!  We''re having pizza! Don''t forget that Grandpa is coming for dinner too!} CutiePie


    Seeing his daughter''s name that she chose for this world Jason chuckled. ''A warrior name!'' That was the nickname he would always call her since she was a baby.


    He was glad Jessy had reminded him about his father coming for dinner, he had truly forgotten.  He was looking forward to seeing his father again; before his dad had contracted his illness they would always plan activities to do with each other.


    Looking at his newly organized pile Jason smirked, ''What kind of rewards will The System give for the first rare item forged without the system?'' Knowing that The System enjoyed rewarding first timers, Jason immediately got to work.


    The rest of the day had passed, and as the large pile of new equipment lay before him, Jason could only jump for joy!  He hadn''t failed a single time while forging!


    This was only natural due to his Forerunner Forger title and the effects of the Mithril Forge.  With his 80% success rate of forging uncommon through platinum items and the additional 20% success rate added by the mithril forge, the only way Jason could fail would be if he purposely tried to mess it up.


    He had first used the rest of the iron ingots to level up his blacksmithing proficiency to intermediate so he could work with the rare materials without any issues.


    After he had leveled up his blacksmithing proficiency to intermediate, he used up all the rare materials that were in the hole except for the mithril ingots.


    With the number of materials available he was able to make 1 full set of gear and some special equipment for himself. He had decided to first practice a bit with the materials before he added in the monster materials to put extra stats and effects into the gear he wanted for himself.


    He was going to give the uncommon equipment he had made with the iron ingots and the first set of gear to Foryun to sell.  Jason wanted to give him special instructions to sell it as a set, and to not sell it for a week.  Jason had the idea that he could market it to the User Guilds and set it out as an item to be auctioned.


    Jason had used the steel and monster materials to specially make himself a breastplate, heater shield, and a double-edged longsword.


    For the breastplate Jason had added blessed water into the ingot, the sword had an Ice Crystal embedded inside, and the shield had hell hound teeth added on the edges.


    After examining his gear for any imperfections Jason checked his notifications.


    [System Message ¨C Blessed Breastplate ¨C Rare


    Defense: 50


    Durability: 100/100


    Constitution +8 Strength +3


    Passive: Necrotic Resistance +15


    Skill 1: Stalwart ¨C Increase defense by 15% for 3 minutes. 10-minute cool-down


    A breastplate made by a rising blacksmith. Holy water added for extra undeath resistance.]


    [System Message ¨C Frosty Longsword ¨C Rare


    Attack: 30-47 damage


    Durability: 50/50


    Strength +10 Dexterity +5


    Passive: Builds up frost on the enemy with each attack. -2% Movement Speed, stacks up to 5 times.


    Skill: Ice Spike ¨C Shoots an ice spike at target, 50 Ice damage, adds 3 stacks of frost. Cooldown 60 Seconds.


    Longsword made by a rising blacksmith.  Ice Crystal embedded for ice damage.]


    [System Message ¨C Hellhound Heater Shield ¨C Rare


    Defense: 45


    Durability: 75/75


    Attack: 20-30 damage


    Constitution +15


    Skill: Spike Growth ¨C Slam shield into the ground to grow earth spikes in an outward fan up to 15 feet.  Spikes cause 15 damage with each step the enemy takes inside.  Slows enemy movement speed by 50%. Cooldown ¨C 3 minutes.


    Shield made by an experienced blacksmith. Hellhound teeth added for additional damage.]


    Jason was more than happy with the equipment he had obtained for himself. This balanced out exactly what he would need for the first few quests he wanted to complete in addition to giving him powerful offense and defense. He even obtained a long-range skill and an area control effect from the sword and shield.


    Jason placed the equipment for Foryun in the hiding place and replaced the anvil over it, erasing all traces that the anvil had every been moved.  He then sent a message via the interface to Foryun Hammermight telling him he left the goods in the special spot.


    Checking the time, Jason decided he had just enough time to knock out the first hidden quest he had decided to tackle.


    He walked up to the door, scanned the room one last time to make sure he left everything in place, and set out to go on his first adventure in this new life.

 10 First Blood

    First Blood


    As Jason walked out the door, he set off towards the housing areas.  He didn''t want to risk completing the quest objective without initiating the quest first, as he might lose out on the special reward.


    As he walked over, he checked his notifications that he had obtained while forging.


    [System Message ¨C Blacksmithing Proficiency obtained]


    [System Message ¨C Blacksmithing Proficiency increased to Intermediate]


    [System Message ¨C Congratulations, you are the first User to forge a rare item]


    [System Message ¨C Congratulations, you are the first user to forge a rare item without The System''s aid.]


    [System Message ¨C Reward given will be title: Extraordinary Forger ¨C Forging speed increased by 30%]


    [System Message ¨C skill mana sense has increased to intermediate]


    After nodding in satisfaction, Jason took a glance at his interface.


    [System Message -


    User: Thanataion


    Level: 0


    Experience: 4/10


    Titles: Mana Guru, Forerunner Forger, Extraordinary Forger


    Class: None


    Race: Human


    Strength: 13 (+13)


    Dexterity: 11 (+5)


    Constitution: 11 (+23)


    Intelligence: 11


    Will: 17


    Vitality: 102/102


    Mana : 340


    Defense:


    Resistances: Necrotic +15


    Proficiencies: Blacksmithing - 7/20 (Intermediate)


    Skills: Mana Sense ¨C 0/20 (Intermediate) | Mana Manipulation - 6/20 (Intermediate) | Iron Fist - 4/10 (Beginner) | Mana Strengthening - 5/10 (Beginner)


    Passive Skills: Mana Guru Effect - 1/10 Beginner


    Equipped: Frosty Longsword, Hellhound Heater Shield, Blessed Breastplate


    Inventory: 8 Silver


    Jason was very satisfied with his interface at the moment.  ''I''m not even level one and most of my stats are already at the power level of a third level warrior.''


    When looking at the numbers of his stats, Jason could determine how strong he was compared to the average man by the stat number.  Ten was the average for every human being, give or take some depending on their real-world characteristics.  For example, Jason was a heavy lifter on earth, so comparatively his stat was that much stronger than others.


    Strength obviously determined how strong an individual was, if they were able to lift certain weapons, armors, or objects, and how much extra damage would be added on to an attack.


    Dexterity determined an individual''s reaction speed and how fast they could move.


    Constitution determined how hardy an individual was; how quickly their vitality would regenerate, how much vitality they had, how strong their base resistances were, how quick they would recover from status effects, and how much stamina one had.


    Intelligence determined how quick an individual could learn, the complexity of spells that one could learn and how fast that mana regenerated.


    Will determined the mana pool size and the protection of the mind and the spirit.  Much how constitution was for bodily resistances, Will was for the mind and spirit resistance bonuses.


    Vitality was your health pool; this was determined by your constitution.  One constitution would equal three vitality points.  As damage was taken from the enemy, vitality would fill the wound area healing the wound completely. Once the vitality points ran out, any damage would be permanent or deadly.  In --Might, Magic, Mayhem--, once a User died their account would be deleted permanently and they would have to create a new account. Vitality would only regenerate after all wounds had healed completely and the User was out of combat.


    Mana determined how much more mana a User had stored inside their body before they ran out. This stat was determined by the Will Stat. One Will would equal twenty mana, and the regeneration speed of mana would be determined by the intelligence stat.


    As Jason was walking and trying to recognize where the User from the past had found this unique quest, he saw a group of players walking down the street.


    There were 8 of them walking together, taking up the majority of the road.  They had the weapons that the NPC guilds would give out to new Users, and they were clearly walking towards the exit of the village to go start the beginner quests the guilds would hand out such as, "Hunt down 20 goblins" or "Find 30 Sunflower Rocks".


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Jason had no interest in these quests, as such he hadn''t been to any of the NPC guilds yet. Seeing this group taking up the roadway, Jason walked off to the edge of the road so he could continue on his merry way.


    This group was laughing and joking around as they walked by when one of them, who seemed to be leading the pack, noticed Jason in his freshly forged gear.  Jason''s sword and shield hung off his back, and his breastplate was out in the open for all to see.  As they were freshly forged and polished, they were still shining faintly in the late afternoon light; clearly of a high quality and grade.


    Just as Jason was passing by a door where a small boy was leaving through, Jason heard one of the users call out.


    "Hey you!  Where''d you get that shiny gear from?" The leader of the pack sauntered over, stopping in front of Jason with his hands on his hips. Jason stopped and turning around he glanced over at this User.


    He was a tall skinny fellow, probably in his early 20''s. Jason stood at 6 foot 3, and was considered tall by everyone he met.  This tall skinny dude took the prize though, probably standing around 6 foot 8. He had bushy brown hair that was pushed up by a bandanna tied around his head, with a two handed ax strapped across his back.


    The skinny dude continued, "Never mind, you probably got it from some quest.  We''ll buy it all from you! Now hand it over." The man outstretched his hand and began reaching for Jason''s sword, clearly not taking no for an answer.


    Jason looked at the outstretched hand, and as it passed his face he grabbed it with his left hand, twisting it into a hand lock. The tall guy began yelling in pain as he was brought to his knees, where he gripped Jason with his other hand in order to break free from Jason''s grasp. Jason looked down at him, a shadow appearing across his stoic face.


    "I''m going to give you one chance." Jason muttered to the man in a low voice. "When I let you go, you will stand up and continue on your way with your party.  I don''t want any trouble." Jason let go of the man who then staggered back to his party.


    Rubbing his sore wrist, tall guy yelled out to his band of merry men while pointing at Jason, "No one messes with the Whiplash Guild!  Get him!" Tall guy then stood there and watched, while his guild members instantly began moving towards him.


    Jason stretched his neck out to both sides, cracking and loosening his spine.  ''This will be a good warm-up.''


    Time seemed to slow down from Jason''s perspective as he took in the scene.  Tall guy was pulling out his heavy two hander, while two more of his party members were pulling out maces and shields from their inventory.


    Two other men with robes started waving their staves in the air, drawing arcane symbols while chanting a phrase.


    One other man wearing a hood stepped off to the side pulling two daggers out from behind his back, while another hooded figure went to the other side drawing an arrow across a bow. Lastly a holy aura began to emanate from the last robed man in the center of the group.


    At the same time Jason was noticing all of this, he drew his sword with the right hand and equipped his shield in the left.


    He then remembered the boy who had begun to walk out of a door from the house directly behind him.


    Lastly, he noticed that on the other side of the street sitting on a porch was an older woman, who was beginning to shield what appeared to be an infant with her body.


    ''They are all most likely level 0''s like me, level 1 at most. Their weapons most likely range between ten and twenty-five  damage, their vitality around thirty, with no apparent armor on any of them. All of them are fresh from the Adventurers Guild.'' Jason analyzed the situation in a split second and was already jumping into action. ''The street is too narrow to use spike growth.''


    He quickly brought his shield up while pointing his sword tip towards the man with the holy aura; firing an ice shard as an arrow bounced off his shield.  The man had no time to react, as he did not expect a swordsman to have ranged attacks. The ice shard quickly pierced through the man''s heart and the red vitality bar above the man instantly depleted.  The man''s eyes widened as he fell to the ground dead. ¡®Always get rid of the healer first¡¯ Jason mused to himself.


    Before the dead man hit the ground Jason was moving forward; he activated the skill stalwart from his breastplate to increase his defense by 15% as he dodged to the side of the descending mace from one of the warriors.


    As he moved he swung his sword up, severing the arm of the man.  Blood spurted out of the man''s arm, and as his vitality bar zeroed out Jason slammed his shield into the shield of the other mace warrior; allowing the mans mace to hit his shoulder while an arrow bounced off Jason''s breastplate. His vitality dropped another nineteen points.


    The man that Jason just shield bashed was pierced by the Hellhound teeth in Jason''s shield, and was sent flying, never to get up again.


    ''Having nearly triple the amount of stats than these guys is f*cking awesome!'' Jason smiled from behind his shield.


    An arrow and two fireballs the size of a baseball began to fly towards him.  Jason positioned himself so that the arrow would bounce off of his armor and took both fireballs with his shield.


    A mini explosion happened on his shield, slightly engulfing him.  Jason felt his vitality drain thirty points as he charged through the fiery-curtain towards the archer that had separated himself from his party.


    The man with the knives was quick to follow Jason but was still considerably slower than him.


    "Noob." Jason muttered as he blocked another arrow with his shield and spun around backwards to give a backhanded slice at the archer.  Jason felt the sure feeling of cutting through something solid, and as he turned to stare at the rogue, he heard a soft and a heavy thud hit the ground from behind him.


    As the rogue looked at the now beheaded archer, he quickly turned and ran through the streets as far as he could from Jason.


    Jason turned towards the mages, quickly catching both fireballs with his shield again. Feeling his vitality drop another thirty points, he pointed his sword towards the tall guy.


    "It''s not too late for you to join your friend with the daggers.  He''s obviously the brains of the group." Jason loudly taunted.


    Tall guy ground his teeth and his knuckles turned white from gripping his ax too tightly.  He glanced at the one-armed mace wielder who was now lying in a pool of his own blood.  Without any vitality points, healers, or medical treatment the man could only bleed to death.


    Gritting his teeth harder, tall guy looked at Jason and roared, "Who are you?"


    "I am known as Thanataion." Seeing that the mages had stopped chanting, Jason lowered his shield. Even though he lowered his shield he continued to keep his sword at the ready.


    "You have not seen the last of us Thanataion!  We, the Whiplash Guild will never forget! I, Alex the Gladiator, will forever remember this injustice!"  Alex looked at his remaining party members and left while waving his hands.


    Leaving behind the dead bodies of his comrades, he walked out of the city with the last two mages.


    After they had left, Jason used the shirt of the archer to wipe the blood off his blade and shield.


    ''That was a close one!  Only 23 vitality points left. I definitely wouldn''t be able to block any more double fireball attacks!''


    [System Message ¨C Combat ended]


    [System Message ¨C Killed 4 level 0 combatants ¨C 8 Experience gained]


    After Jason received the notifications, the bodies of the four users burst into white light and disappeared; leaving behind all of their items from their inventory and what they had on them.


    ''At least there''s no more mess to clean up.'' Jason thought as he quickly went to pick up his spoils of war.

 11 Quest Start

    Quest Start


    As Jason went to pick up the loot a small crowd had formed.  There were several Users who had been watching from the side.  Some of them were staring at Jason with their mouths wide open.


    "Did you see that?"


    "Look at all that blood!"


    "That guy must have Legendary equipment on him!  He doesn''t even have a scratch!"


    "No way that''s Legendary, it has to at least be Mythical!"


    "Nah man, that guy''s probably just a high level. He''s just bullying the weak, you''ll be able to do that as well when you''re his level."


    There were even some Users who were chatting to themselves describing the whole scene over again to an audience.  --Might, Magic, Mayhem-- had an option for streamers to connect to their audience, spreading the fame of this game even more in the real world.


    "My name is Dreamcatcher with Funky Real News bringing you the first in game footage of Player vs Player action!  Viewer discretion advised, as you can see there was a ton of blood!  Let''s go interview the winner and get his name!"


    As Jason picked up the last silver coin he counted his gains; Two maces, two Oak Shields, one bow, thirty arrows in a quiver, eight health potions, one dagger, a holy staff, and twenty nine silver. Plus the eight silver he had leftover, he now had 37 silver.


    Jason looked up after picking up the last silver, very satisfied with his gains. He saw a black haired, robust female with a smile that could win a million dollars walking towards him. She was wearing the beginners clothes and holding a staff in her left hand.


    "You said your name was Thanataion right?" She said while outstretching her hand to shake his, "My name is Dreamcatcher!" She flashed him a smile that could melt a thousand hearts.


    Jason looked at the hand outstretched hand and shook it. "Can I help you?" He asked.


    "Yes, my 2,000,000 viewers and I all wanted to ask you some questions!  Would you mind if we go somewhere a bit more¡­." She bit her lower lip as she looked him up and down, "private?"


    Jason chuckled, "I am busy right now, maybe some other time." He quickly turned in the direction he was originally walking towards.


    Dreamcatcher was stunned, ''Did he just turn me down?''


    "Wait!" She yelled as she ran after him.  "At least send me a friend request so we can chat later!" She lightly grabbed his elbow, making sure to put on her cute puppy dog eyes.


    Jason didn''t miss a step as he continued walking, he did send Dreamcatcher a friend request though which she quickly approved.  She could prove to be useful later on.


    After Jason pushed through the crowd that was becoming larger by the minute, he continued down the street eventually arriving at his destination, the Crusty Bakery.


    As Jason opened the door a pleasant smell of freshly baked bread washed over him.  He walked in to see a large counter in the middle of the room, clearly separating the store font and baking area.  The counter didn''t have much bread left on it for sale, most likely because they were nearing the end of the day and didn''t want to have an abundance of leftovers they couldn''t sell.


    There was a cute little girl on the other side of the counter, maybe only a few years older than his daughter. She had an apron on over her casual villager clothes and smudges of dough across her face.


    "Good afternoon sir!" She said with happy little smile over her face, "What can I get for you today?"


    Jason glanced at her and walked up to the counter.  He scanned over the bread and asked "How much for the rest of today''s batch?"


    The little girl looked pleasantly surprised.  They very rarely ever sold out early in the afternoon!  "That''ll be 45 copper sir." She politely stated.


    Jason nodded and put the 7 loaves of bread into his inventory after giving her a silver coin. He was just grateful that time froze for objects that were put into the inventory; preventing any decay from occurring.


    "Keep the change."


    "Oh thank you sir!"


    He chatted with the girl a little bit about the bakery business while he munched on a loaf to quell the slight hunger he had.  As he built rapport with her, he finally got to the topic he had come to this building for.


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    "I''ve heard there''s been a lot of disappearances lately." Jason questioned.


    The countenance of the girl immediately darkened, and tears seemed to glisten in her eyes as she nodded.


    Jason, waiting for this reaction, then asked, "Are you ok?  Have you lost anyone?"


    The girl couldn''t hold back her tears and nodded. "My brother just went missing yesterday"


    ''Yesterday? I didn''t think I''d be that lucky to walk in right after it happened!'' He thought to himself.


    "I''m sorry to hear that.  I''m sure the guards will be able to find them." He calmly said to her, he patted the table gently and turned around to begin walking out.


    "Wait! You''re an adventurer right?" She suddenly looked up with hope in her eyes, "You look like one of those new Users who came to our world right?"


    "I don''t have much money," she continued, "but I beg of you, please save my brother!"


    [System Notification ¨C Quest issued: Save my brother ¨C Unique


    Difficulty: B


    Mona Lokisdu has requested that you save her brother, please follow any leads and rescue him before he dies.


    Objective: Return Henry Lokisdu home. Bonus reward if returned alive.


    Experience Points: 40


    Do you accept?]


    After scanning over the mission and seeing that it was the same one that was published in the forums in his past life, Jason nodded his head.


    "I will bring your brother home." He said firmly as he walked out the door.


    Jason walked out the door, and continued towards his next destination, the House of Magic.  ''This quest is going to be a hard one.''


    Missions were graded by the system according to their difficulty; the grades ranked from easiest to hardest were F, E, D, C, B, A, S, SS, SSS and X.


    In the past this quest had been activated by a player two weeks after the brother had gone missing. The guards were never able to find the missing people or the culprits in charge, and it wasn''t until the User started finding clues after he accepted this quest that the culprits were found.


    After defeating the culprits the user obtained an item that granted him an extremely powerful unique class.  Since this was a one-time quest and a unique consumable item, the player bragged about his victory and the process of obtaining the class on the forums.  He then became an almost unstoppable existence until he betrayed humanity by joining the ranks of Driblark.


    This unique class was what Jason was after and he felt no guilt taking this man''s fate from him.  Traitors deserve nothing more than to rot in hell.


    There was a major difference between him and the previous user who had completed this quest, and that was that the previous user required a team of 6 where they were all level 5 in order to complete the quest.  Even then they still lost four of their team-mates on the quest.


    Jason wasn''t too worried though, he had three rare items with some powerful titles attached. That plus his previous knowledge in fighting, all he really needed to increase his chances of success were a few extra skills.


    As Jason walked up to the House of Magic, he noticed that it seemed like a rather simple building comparable to the other wooden buildings around it. The only difference is that the sign was glowing a bright red with the words "House of Magic" dancing around it.


    Jason walked into the store and he saw an extreme change from the simple exterior.  Inside, rows upon rows of book lined shelves that spanned for hundred of meters.  Great marble pillars rose from the ground to support the impressively sculpted ceiling with a mural of the universe painted on it.  The paint seemed to be moving and twinkling like the night sky would, with shooting stars running across the ceiling here and there. The inside was clearly bigger than the outside.


    An elf came floating down from the top of one of the bookshelves.  "Good afternoon and welcome to the House of Magic where we serve all with delight and might. My name is Frenir, how may I help you?" Frenir seemed to be giving a rehearsed welcome with little enthusiasm in his voice.  He clearly was bored with his job.


    Jason looked at him and quickly got to his point of asking for three skills specifically; Flame Throw, Holy Seal, and Night Eyes.


    "I''m also going to need a mage rune imbued into the front of this shield."


    "Very well." He waved his hand and a glowing stone appeared out of thin air and transcribed an ancient rune that looked like a blue circle in the center of his shield. "That will be five silver."


    "These are all level 0 spells that anyone can learn, are you sure you want them? It will cost you 30 silver." Frenir drawled out, "I have class items for sale as well if you would like to take a look?"


    "No thanks." Jason firmly stated, handing over the thirty silver.


    "As you wish." Frenir then clapped his hands and three books flew off the shelves and stopped right in front of him. "Here are your items and have a magical day." The elf then disappeared into smoke as his last words echoed in the air.


    Jason was pleased, because of the run-in with the Whiplash guild he had enough money to buy all the skills he needed.


    Jason picked up the Flame Throw book and received a message,


    [System Message ¨C Flame Throw ¨C Skill Book


    Fires a jet of flame out of an arcane focus.  Five-foot length and three-foot width.


    Thirty damage per second.


    Consumes ten mana per second.]


    [Would you like to learn skill?]


    ''Yes.''


    [System Message ¨C Holy Seal ¨C Skill Book


    Imbue item with Holy Energy.


    Demonic and Necrotic enemies take double weapon damage.


    Fifteen Mana per second.]


    [Would you like to learn skill?]


    ''Yes.''


    [System Message ¨C Night Eyes ¨C Skill Book


    Allows user to see in the dark.


    One Mana per second.]


    [Would you like to learn skill?]


    ''Yes''


    The inscription that Jason just received on his shield allowed him to cast spells through his shield if he needed.


    Jason finally felt completely confident he could tackle this quest and set off with full desire to conquer this new challenge.


    He walked outside and walked back towards the Crusty Bakery and stopped at an abandoned church along the way. In the past the User who had completed this quest had given detailed information on where the clues led. All the clues led to this church where a cult was performing a demonic ritual in the catacombs underneath.


    ''Thanks to the hard-work of the fellow who completed this quest in the past,  I can skip the boring and back-breaking work of following the clues.'' Jason mused to himself.


    There was a large empty courtyard in front of the church, with nothing but weeds and an old dried-up fountain. Looking at the church he cracked his knuckles, drew his sword and attached his shield.  He then walked through the front gate, ready to get work.

 12 Operation Rescue

    Operation Rescue


    As Jason walked through the gate, he noticed that the earth below had many different footprints that had trampled over the weeds. These footprints were going to and from the church that looked abandoned from the outside.


    ''So much for being abandoned'' He thought to himself.


    Walking up to the front door he put his ear up against the wooden frame, listening for any signs of activity on the other side.  After a moment of hearing nothing on the other side, he slowly cracked open the door to peak through.


    All he could see were broken pews, candelabras that lined the wall, and then finally an altar that had been split in half down the center.


    Jason fully opened the door, nerves tense and ready to react at the slightest hint of danger.  The user who had completed the quest before only gave information up to this point.  The only information he gave to the public was that he fought cultists that wielded necrotic power ¨C in other words death magic.  He also mentioned that there were some minor demons that served these cultists, and many undead minions.


    The church was similar in appearance to catholic churches back on earth, tall cathedrals, gothic looking architecture, and entirely made of stone.  As Jason walked down the aisle, he passed by broken pews seeing old ragged books strewn here and there.


    The people of Socrathia had stopped worshipping the Gods after The System was born. The reason being is that The Gods didn''t step in to save the Universe when it was dying, so many people wondered why they should be worshipped? Since then, religion was generally neglected by most; though, throughout the ages religion would go in and out of popularity due to the ever changing whims of the public.


    As Jason approached the cracked altar, he saw signs of intense blood flow over the smooth stone.  Dried blood here and there had clotted on the stone, and small pieces of bone were strewn across the top.  What looked to be the bottom half of a jawbone of a humanoid lay across the top.


    Jason wasn''t fazed by this.  He had stood among thousands of demon, elf, dwarf, human and other allied corpses on the battlefield before.  This wasn''t even a small taste of what he had experienced.


    Looking towards the back of the church behind a large statue of a headless god was a tapestry.  This tapestry stood out among the church as it didn''t have any holes or blemishes and covered the entire back wall.  However on it was a gruesome scene of demons and creatures of the dark sitting at a large round table. These creatures all had sinister smiles and were in the act of laughing and toasting with each other as they feasted upon corpses and blood.


    Keeping his sword at the ready, Jason pulled out the holy staff from his inventory and while gripping it in his shield hand he slightly moved the grotesque tapestry to the side, revealing a small staircase that descended into darkness.


    Jason activated his Night Eyes skill and could clearly see into the depths, fading back to darkness about 15 meters ahead.  His vision was very similar to an animal now, and he could only see in black and white.


    He quietly stepped onto the staircase while putting his staff away and holding his shield in front of him. He then slowly made his way down, passing what appeared to be a torch sconce every feet he went.


    After several minutes of walking down the stairs it opened into a hallway that split off into three different directions.  In three alcoves lining the two walls before the junction were six skeletons, each holding two-handed claymores.


    Taking a moment to analyze the situation Jason realized that the skeletons most likely activate when someone approaches.


    ''The cultists must have an item on them that causes the skeletons to ignore them.'' He realized. ''I can either wait here and ambush the cultists when they come, or I can charge in, which will most likely alert them.


    He checked the interface to see how much time he had.  ''Sh*t, only a few hours before I have to meet Beth and the kids for dinner.  Even though ambushing is the smarter idea¡­'' Jason smiled, anticipating the battle before him.


    The hallway was about 5 feet wide, just wide enough for the skeletons to swing the two-handed swords.


    Jason quietly crept forward and once he was within three feet of the first skeleton, its eyes lit up with a green fire and stepped forward. Almost as if starting a chain reaction, each skeleton also ignited with a green flame and stepped forward while readying their swords.


    Upon the first skeletons movement Jason rushed forward and swung his sword, cleanly bisecting the skeleton at the waist.  As the top half fell, it weakly swung at Jason who easily parried it with his sword, who then followed up by stabbing his sword into its skull.  With a loud shatter, the Vitality Bar of the skeleton drained, and the skull cracked into pieces as the body crumbled to dust.


    Jason then turned to the rest of his new ''friends'' and seeing that they were in a line walking down towards him he chuckled and calmly walked forward.  Undead were highly vulnerable to fire, and since they had all lined up perfectly for Jason¡­


    He held his shield up before him and activated flame-throw as he continued down the hallway.


    The skeletons continued forward despite the flames, and one by one they quickly succumbed into ashes.


    Their Vitality wasn''t very high, so with the high damage over time and high vulnerability to fire the skeletons stood no chance.


    [System Message ¨C six level zero skeletons killed ¨C 6 experience points gained.]


    Jason glanced down both tunnels to make sure that nothing else was coming down either one before he gathered the 2-handed weapons of the skeletons.


    [System Message ¨C Claymore ¨C Basic ¨C Level 0


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Requires: 5 Str 4 Dex


    Attack 19-30


    Claymore that does terrible damage, not worth much.]


    Looking at the tunnels before him, Jason wasn''t sure which tunnel to go down as there weren''t any footprints to follow at this point.  Not really caring which one he to start with, he chose the farthest one on the left and continued walking.


    This hallway had a slight downward angle to it which he figured would be where he wanted to go.  ''Bad Guys like it deep right?'' He chuckled to himself amused at his attempt to give a dirty joke.


    He continued on and eventually came to a room that opened up into a large open space.  There were dozens of skeletons and zombies aimlessly walking around aimlessly with a large river separating the undead from what appeared to be numerous cages pushed up along the edge of the cavern. Upon closer inspection Jason could see a bridge over the river with a gate built on top of it to keep back the undead.


    As Jason strained his eyesight to see what was within the cages, all he could make out were shadowy shapes hunched over in the cages.


    ''If I want to see what''s inside those cages, I''ll have to get past this large group of undead.'' These are just low level undead; I should be able to easily defeat them. Just to be safe though¡­''


    Jason put nine of his experience points into flame-throw to level it up to intermediate.


    [System Message - Flame Throw ¨C Proficiency level up to intermediate.


    Fires a jet of flame out of arcane focus.  Seven-foot length and four-foot width.


    Thirty-five damage per second.


    Consumes ten mana per second.]


    ''Alright, time to gather the mob and farm some experience!''


    Jason looked at how slow these undead were moving and double-checked to make sure there weren''t any other higher level undead.  If it was just skeletons and zombies, he should easily be able to outrun them all.


    Jason waited a few more minutes for his mana to recharge fully and started jogging around making sure to grab the attention of all the undead.  Since he was jogging, he was able to stay ahead of all the zombies and skeletons, and would only have to dodge or parry the occasional attack as he would run by an undead.


    Jason quickly gathered the twenty zombies and fourteen skeletons and made sure they were chasing him.  He then ran around the group back towards the hallway so he could filter them into a tight-knit pack.


    Jason backed up through the hallway waiting for the whole group to come in. Three of the undead could fit into the hallway abreast, and as they came limping and staggering down the hallway, Jason snorted at how stupid undead were.  ''Why would anyone want to command creatures like these?'' He wondered, ''I''m so glad I didn''t choose the lich option.''


    Once he saw that they were all in the hallway Jason stopped backing up and strode forward with his shield and activated flame-throw again.  ''This is too easy'' He thought as he strode forward incinerating all the undead before him.  ''Free experience points.''


    Jason only needed to use ten seconds to turn all the undead to ashes, which used up fifty points of his mana.


    [System Message ¨C Twenty-two Level zero zombies and thirteen level zero skeletons slain. Thirty-five experience points obtained.]


    Jason now had thirty-six experience points in total.  That was more than enough to level up a class twice if he had one.  He decided to hang on to them for when he completed the quest or a situation that he would need to spend them on a specific skill or proficiency.


    Jason then strode over to the bridge and opened the gate to the side where the cages were and strode through to the other side.


    When he looked around, he saw various people of different races with gaunt faces behind the bars of the cages. He saw many humans, several dwarves, a fewelves, and an occasional gnome here and there.  All of them obviously saw his actions on the other side of the river and were looking up to him with hope in their eyes.


    Jason looked around to see if he saw any keys and noticed that they were over by the gate he had walked through. After picking them up he went and began opening every single cage. The now freed individuals all thanked him profusely, and began following him.  Some of the caged individuals had been there for so long though that some of them lacked the strength to even stand.


    Jason looked to the ones who were standing without any issues and urged them to help those too weak while he continued to unlock the cages.


    When he got to the last cage, he noticed an elf who looked strong and healthy when compared to the others.


    "What''s your name elf?" Jason interrogated, a little suspicious.


    "My name is Leviticus," he responded. "I thank you for the aid my friend, but I would''ve escaped on my own soon enough." The elf seemed relaxed and confident as he said that, leaning against the back of the cage.


    Jason could tell that Leviticus was a city guard due to the blue guard uniform he was wearing.  The elf stood at a lanky 6 foot tall, had blonde hair and green eyes that shown in the torchlight.


    Jason raised his eyebrows "Really?  Should I just leave you here then so you can have the satisfaction of leaving on your own?"


    Jason figured this elf was just too full of pride to admit that he needed help from a human.  ''Typical elf'' he thought.


    The elf hastily waved his hands back and forth, "No, no, my friend! This is actually very convenient that you came at this time as I was about to enact my plan for escape!  But since you''re here, there''s no need for that.  In return for freeing me, I shall aid you in punishing my captors!" The elf pounded his chest, expressing his intent for revenge.


    Jason unlocked and opened the cage door, "There''s no need for that Leviticus, I just need you to guide these people out of here." He then turned to the small group of thirty people that had formed, "Who here is the brother of Mona?"


    A man raised his hand, surprised that his sisters name was said in such a dark place.


    Jason eyeballed him, "I''m glad your still alive, your sister requested that I come save you." Jason was overjoyed, ''Bonus reward here I come!'' He sang to himself in his head.


    The man, Henry, beamed with joy, "Thank you kind sir! Thank you for saving us all!"


    Jason waved his hands, "It''s nothing, your sister offered to pay me, so I followed the clues here. What can you tell me about this place?" He asked as he looked at the group he had just saved.


    Leviticus piped up saying, "I''m one of the guards that was assigned to locate these missing people, and like you I stumbled upon this church last night.  Unfortunately, I arrived here as the cultists were coming out and as they had the number advantage they captured me before I could go for backup." He quickly explained the last part, afraid that Jason would misunderstand him for being weak.


    "With you though, we should be able to stop this abominable operation they have here!" Leviticus raised his fist in the air, excited at the mere thought of destroying the cultists!


    Jason chuckled, amused at the bravado of the elf. Looking at the elf questioningly he asked ¡°Were you able to find out what the cultists are doing here?¡±


    Leviticus scratched his head saying "I actually don''t know.  I just know that they return here every hour or so to bring more prisoners here. Occasionally these prisoners are taken and only ever return as corpses, which were the zombies you just burnt¡­"  Leviticus trailed off in his speech, looking out at the vast empty field that remained after Jasons ¡®experience run¡¯


    "Very well then." Jason looked towards the group of prisoners, "I will help you return most of the way safely, but at the junction I will have to let you guys find your way out so I can continue on to stop whatever their plan is." Jason then handed out the weapons he had picked up from the skeletons to the few that were strong enough to stand and weren''t carrying anyone else. "Take these to defend yourselves if the need arises."


    He had given out six claymores for them to use, but most of them looked at the weapon as if it was their first time holding one.


    Seeing their nervousness he said in a calming voice, "There should be nothing to worry about, I cleared out the enemies on the way here."


    After Jason took one more glance around, also double checking to see if there wasn''t any extra loot he had missed, he motioned to the group and lead the way out over the bridge and through the tunnel.


    "Lets move out."

 13 Ambush

    Ambush


    As Jason began to walk towards the gate to cross the river, Leviticus piped up saying "Hold on a moment!"


    Jason looked back at him quizzically, "What is it?"


    "You see¡­ I''m actually not that great with swords¡­" He scratched the back of his head, embarrassed to be bringing this up. "I''m a level two ranger and a level one rogue. By chance do you have a bow, arrows and daggers so I can be of more help?" He continued looking down at the ground, not a hint of his previous arrogance displayed.  Jason could tell he had taken a hit to his pride by asking Jason for gear.


    Jason knew that a level three fighter would be of immense help if they got into anything that he couldn''t handle. Without a second¡¯s hesitation he took out the bow, arrows and dagger that he had obtained from the Whiplash guild out of his inventory and passed them to Leviticus.


    "This is the crappiest bow I''ve ever seen." Mumbled Leviticus as he began to pull at the string.


    Since Leviticus was mumbling Jason had a hard time hearing him. "What was that?" He asked.


    Leviticus looked up and said "Thanks! Best bow ever!" Flashing a salesman like smile at Jason.


    Jason shook his head, flabbergasted at how shameless the elf seemed to be and walked through the gate, striding across the field and re-entering the catacombs gate with the ex-prisoners following him.


    They hadn¡¯t encountered any problems and so while they were walking Jason started handing out the loaves of bread, splitting it first among those who held weapons so that they would have enough energy to fight and then those who could hardly walk.  It would take several days if not weeks for these people to recover.


    Jason had lit some torches for those behind him so they could see where they were going, not everyone had night eyes like him.  Thankfully his mana regeneration was high enough to where he could keep it active without worrying about consuming all his mana.


    Mana regeneration was normally one percent of the total mana pool.  Different boosts from skills, equipment or passive skills would be able to increase this to higher rates; at the moment Jason could only rely on his own passive mana regeneration.


    With his mana pool at three-hundred and forty points his regeneration was at three and four tenths mana points per second; since he had the title of Mana Guru all of his mana consumption was halved, and he was only spending half a mana point each second with his Night Eyes skill.


    After giving orders to yell for him if anything strange happened, he went ahead of the group to make sure there was no danger.  He had destroyed several undead minions, so there was no way their masters hadn''t noticed their disappearance by now.


    As he got closer to the junction, he heard voices ahead.


    "The i-i-i-i-intruders should be d-d-d-d-own that tunnel over there, d-d-d-do we go after them?" A nasally sounding voice asked.


    "No. We wait here." A deep raspy voice responded.  "They have to come down this way anyway to get out."


    "Mmmm, b-b-b-b-but what if they b-b-b-b-bring the p-p-p-p-p-prisoners too?"


    "They''re prisoners, what are you scared of? We just need to kill them all, then throw them to the wretches.  We can always get new prisoners."


    They continued talking about how great it was to hear people scream as they were eaten slowly by the wretches.  Wretches were a low-level demon that were relatively easy to summon and control.  A low-level summoner could control them easily depending on if the right summoning ritual was done; a summoning ritual which required gallons of blood to summon.


    Wretches were imp-like creatures about 3 feet tall, had grey motley skin with a head and jaw similar to a bristle jaw worm.  They also had three sickle like arms that were sharper than katanas. They were fearsome, and when summoned wretches were difficult for anyone under level two to deal with.  However, when compared to the other forces of the Demon Horde, they weren''t even worthy to be called cannon fodder.


    Jason suddenly realized that this quest was going to be a lot more complicated than he had originally thought.


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    ''First I need to deal with these two before the ex-prisoners arrive.''


    Jason prepared himself knowing that he was most likely running into a prepared ambush, but he had no choice but to power through it.


    He crept forward until he could barely see the original corridor he had come through, and he did his best to see what he could until he finally saw the individuals who were speaking before.  Alongside them were a dozen skeletal warriors and one other skeletal warrior that looked slightly different than the others.


    This skeletal warrior was larger by a full foot and was decked out in partial plate armor.  It had a helmet with horns going off to the sides and held the claymore in one hand with a tower shield in the other.


    ''D*mn, I wish I had bought an appraisal skill to see the levels and skills of these guys. I would guess that the knight is at least a level three. The two dudes should be around level two or level three and the rest of the skeletons are probably still level zero to level one. Unfortunately, I can only guess their levels and abilities.''


    An appraisal skill would allow the User to see basic information of the individual or item that the appraiser was viewing.  The higher the level the proficiency of this skill was the more information was given to the User.  Some people would even level up their appraisal skill solely so they could be paid enormous amounts of money to identify high level items.


    The two cultists were arguing about if a wretch could taste what it eats or not, and so they hadn''t noticed that Jason had been spying on them this whole time and Jason slipped back to the group of prisoners he had freed.


    He explained the situation to them and decided to leave the human warriors behind who couldn''t see without the torches to guard the group while the rest of them would move forward and sneak attack the prepared ambush.


    Jason and Leviticus slowly crept forward and inch by inch they got closer to the two arguing cultists.


    Jason pointed at himself then the taller one on the left, and Leviticus nodded and pointed towards the right.


    Jason then held up five fingers, put down one, and another in the same amount of time; Leviticus nodded and pulled his bow taught with an arrow nocked.


    On the count of five Jason fired an ice bolt at his target while at the exact same moment Leviticus released his arrow.


    The plan was that Jason and Leviticus would ambush the two cultists, and then the two of them would battle the skeletal knight while the rest took care of the other skeletons.


    A simple plan that should''ve worked out without too much difficulty, but sometimes things don''t go according to plan.


    The ice spike and the arrow flew side by side; both aimed expertly, but with different targets in mind.


    The arrow arrived at it''s destination, piercing through the eye of the right cultist, the nasally voiced one with the stutter. The arrow sunk deep into the skull and lay there quivering as all movements of this man ceased and he began to fall over backwards.


    The ice spike fired by Jason flew steady and true but shattered against a tall black shield before it could reach its target.


    The skeletal knight had stepped forward at the last minute to block the attack, and now stood between Jason and the cultist.


    The cultist looked surprised to see the knight move of its own accord, then noticed ice fragments flying through the air and lastly saw a man in armor with a sword and shield running towards him and the knight as an elf to the side pulled another arrow out of his quiver.


    When Jason saw the knight step in front of the ice spike at the last second he cursed, then began to sprint forward with all his might to reach the duo before the cultist could cast any spells.


    The cultist began to chant at this time, and a large green flame began to condense into his hand.


    Jason heard the roars of the few prisoners he had brought with him to fight as they rushed to the other skeletal warriors and saw another arrow fly past his shoulder only to crash against the knights shield as it shifted position to defend the cultist.


    As Jason neared the knight, he saw mana rush into the knight as it put its shoulder against its shield and with uncanny speed unbefitting of it''s size charged towards Jason.


    Knowing that he didn''t have time to dodge Jason slammed the ground with his shield, and activated Spike Growth, causing six-inch earthen spikes to erupt from the ground angled towards the knight and the cultist.


    The knight was within seven feet of Jason and slowed down considerably while charging through the spikes.  Jason could see the knights speed slow while it''s vitality gauge over it''s head was quickly shrinking.  He also saw the spikes arrive before the cultist and saw that the spikes growing beneath his feet had interrupted the cultists spell making him have to restart it.


    As the knight charged forward Jason braced himself behind his shield and activated stalwart to increase his own defense and flame-throw on his shield as the knight crashed into him.


    More arrows quickly flew over Jason''s head towards the cultist who now didn''t have a guard in front of him.


    "F*ck!" Yelled the cultist as he began casting barriers and dodging the arrows flying at him.  He began to cast small bullet looking green flames towards Leviticus who also began dodging the flames.


    Jason braced behind his shield as the knight crashed into him which now only had about a quarter of its health bar left.  The flames quickly dug into the knight, chipping away at it''s vitality bar which began to shrink slowly and surely.


    As the knight charged into Jason, he felt like he was standing before a fully loaded truck.  The knights charge hadn''t finished yet and was still pushing Jason back causing his feet to dig deep ruts in the ground behind him. By the time he felt the momentum of the charge end Jason saw that a quarter of his hit points had been devastated.


    With a mighty roar Jason pushed back with all of his strength.  He refused to admit defeat even though the knight was clearly stronger.


    As the knights charge ended, it raised it''s sword high in the air where green energy began gathering around its edge, coating it in the sickly energy of necromancy.

 14 Ambush (Part 2)

    Ambush (Part 2)


    Jason immediately jumped backwards, not daring to take this power strike from the skeletal knight.


    Necrotic energy, also known as necromantic energy, had a damage over time effect if applied to a living being that would not only eat away at the vitality points but also steal those same vitality points to heal the wielder.


    As soon as Jason landed on the ground a flash of green light erupted from the skeletal knight''s eye socket, and three bone spears erupted from the ground, piercing through Jason''s thigh. Jason roared in pain as his vitality dropped to 60/102.


    The skeletal knight seemed to finish charging it''s sword and thrust it towards Jason.  As Jason was currently pinned, there was nothing he could do except tank the hit with his shield.


    Jason pushed his shield forward and at the last moment he angled his shield to the left slightly causing the knights claymore to skid across the shield and angle off to the left of Jason. The necrotic energy sparked as it slid over Jason''s shield, and he felt his vitality lower slightly as he saw several points go into the knights vitality bar.


    Jason gritted his teeth and activated Holy Seal causing a yellow light to envelop his blade.  As the knight''s momentum carried him forward, Jason thrust his sword upwards through the chest of the knight burying it up to the hilt.


    A high-pitched wail came from the knight as it punched it''s tower shield at Jason, pushing him off the ground and flying through the air. The bone spikes shattered as the force of the punch was so great tearing large chunks of flesh out of his thigh as he began rolling on the ground.  Vitality 20/102


    "F*ck!" The pain was terrible, but worse was the fact that a large amount of his vitality points was lost due that hit.  "Definitely fourth level." He cursed his rotten luck to meet such an opponent while his body was still at the weak level of 0.


    Before being reincarnated Jason had been at the high level of 299 and was a step away from becoming a Tier 4 Sage; the epitome of power in Socrathia. As a Sage he would have surely been able to take the horde on by himself, and even have a chance to defeat Driblark.


    No one from Earth had been able to become a Sage, while there were only five different Sages in Socrathia.  Two of them killed each other battling over an item which was rumored to be a god-tier item, but that was never confirmed.  The other three disappeared at a crucial point in the war, which led to the inevitable defeat of Socrathia.


    Jason stood and swung his sword in the air and rested it on the edge of his shield and began pacing around the Knight.  When he was close enough the Knight swung its sword at him cutting through the air like a hot knife through butter.


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    Jason parried with his holy-infused blade, counteracting the necrotic damage that tried to surge towards him, and began an intense duel with the Knight.


    They were trading blows left and right, blocking with their shield and trying to gain a hold of each other.  As they were in an intense duel, other battles were quickly coming to a conclusion.


    Leviticus glanced over towards Jason dueling with the knight, "I hope he can hold on or we''re all done for." Leviticus refocused as a necro-arrow almost went through his shoulder.


    He knocked another three arrows and sent them all towards the cultist who summoned a large green barrier around himself.


    As the three arrows crashed into the barrier from different angles, they all withered into dust before they could hit him.


    The cultist then paused for a moment to gather mana for a powerful attack as another five arrows flew into his barrier.  With a loud yell he then thrust his hand forward, causing a bone lance to shoot out of his wrist; tearing a large gaping hole in it.  His vitality bar dropped as the lance shot out towards Leviticus who nimbly rolled to the side.


    "Missed MotherF*" Began Leviticus as he confidently taunted the cultist before the lance that passed by his head exploded into pieces.


    Leviticus was thrown to the side as bone fragments pierced through his skin.  Half of his vitality bar was drained as he crashed into the wall moaning in pain.


    "Hahahahaha you think you can triumph over the power of the dead?" Roared the cultist, his body shaking with laughter at the look of surprise and pain that was on Leviticus'' face. Seeing that the elf''s bow was destroyed in the explosion the cultist wrote him off as having been eliminated from the fight.


    He glanced over at the low level undead and saw the prisoners rolling through them like a wrecking ball.  He then saw Jason tied up with his Undead Knight and was enraged that his knight hadn''t defeated the intruder yet.


    "Who the hell do you think you are that you can withstand the might of the undead?" He roared, "Lie down like good dogs and die!"


    He began chanting a spell that he assumed should utterly destroy all these imbeciles.


    Jason glanced at the cultist after he felt a surge of mana through his mana sense. Jason could tell he was building up a powerful spell.  ''This knight is stronger than me, and just as fast as me.'' He thought. ''Looks like I''m going to have to get a little creative.


    Seeing that the vitality of the knight was just under an eighth full, he figured that now should be the best time.  He opened his guard and waited for the knight to take the bait.


    As the Knight swung forward with his sword Jason slipped underneath and stepped forward, knocking the Knights shield away with his own.  He then gripped his sword with both of his hands and with all of his strength he lifted his body into the air and shoved it through the skull of the Skeletal Knight.


    The Knight roared in pain, and before it could do anything Jason activated Ice Spike point blank inside the skull.  With a flash of yellow light the skull erupted in a shower of ice, and the Knight dropped to it''s knees and fell to the side with a thud.


    Jason quickly turned towards the cultist and began sprinting.  Jason had to stop him from releasing that spell before it was released.


    "You''re too late!" Roared the cultist maniacally, "Prepare to die!" A large green skull had formed over his head and as the cultist laughed maniacally he began to lower his arms to initiate the spell, when a dagger suddenly pierced through the back of his throat.


    As the dagger appeared out of thin air, so did a bloodied elf who had come out of a stealth skill. Leviticus leaned forward and whispered in the cultists ear, "Never underestimate an elf."


    Leviticus then quickly tore the knife out and stabbed it through the cultists heart, quickly yanking it upwards through the neck again; with a final slash he decapitated the cultist.

 15 Loot

    Loot


    Seeing Leviticus dispatch the cultist Jason turned around and ran over to help the others deal with the last of the undead.  It was as simple as casting his flame-throw, and within a few seconds the rest were cleared out.


    The moment after the last skeleton fell, they all received notifications from the system and Jason focused on his interface.


    [System Message ¨C Your party has slain twenty-three enemies. Calculating individual contributions.


    Level Four Skeletal Knight ¨C One ¨C Solo Contribution ¨C full rewards will be given ¨C Fifty experience points.


    Level Zero Skeleton ¨C Nine slain ¨C Partial contribution and final hit ¨C Partial Rewards ¨C six experience points.]


    After the notifications finished flashing before his eyes, Jason looked towards the corpses of the skeletal knight and the cultists that were beginning to disappear in a sparkle of white light.


    When The System would finalize a battle, as long as there were monsters or NPCs of this world over level one, it would convert their bodies into items, skill books, or materials for the victors to use.


    Anyone would be able to pick up this loot, including the original items that were carried by the enemies.


    Due to this feature, there were certain Users who would attempt to steal the kills and loot of others; it quickly became important early on in the game to always be on guard even after a battle.  It was impossible to know if others were secretly waiting in the dark waiting for the perfect moment to steal your experience points, loot, and your life.


    As the corpse of the Skeletal Knight faded away, his armor, weapon, and a book clattered to the ground.


    Over by Leviticus the two corpses disappeared leaving behind their clothes, a pile of items, and a skill book.


    Jason walked over to the Knight to pick up the loot dropped by it and was delighted by what he found.


    [System Message - Helm of the Dark- uncommon ¨C level 3


    Defense: 20


    Requires: 15 Str | 13 Dex | 14 Int


    Intelligence + 5 Constitution + 10]


    [System Message ¨C Cracked Breastplate ¨C Common ¨C Level 3


    Defense: 30


    Requires: 10 Dex | 13 Str]


    [System Message - Necro-Claymore ¨C Rare ¨C Level 5


    Requires 30 Str | 13 Dex


    Attack: 50-60 Damage


    Skill: Necrotic Overload ¨C Bathe the Claymore in Necrotic energy. For three minutes increase all damage by 200% and add life-steal effect, regain 1/8th of damage delivered as vitality points.


    Damage over time effect ¨C Rot: Twenty damage every second.


    Skill Cooldown: Five Minutes]


    [System Message ¨C Tower Shield ¨C Common ¨C level 5


    Requires: 20 Str


    Defense: 50]


    [System Message - Bone Trap ¨C Skill Book


    Summon three angled bone prongs at location of choice trapping the enemy.  Bone Prongs deal 5 damage each and can take ten points of damage before being destroyed.


    Area of effect: one foot by one foot


    Mana Points: Ten


    Skill Cooldown: Thirty Seconds]


    Jason was overjoyed at this moment even though he hadn''t even taken a look at the cultists drops yet.  This Skeletal Knight had given him 50 experience points, a rare weapon and a Skill Book. Skill


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    Books wouldn''t always drop and were difficult to obtain even later on in ¨C Might, Magic, Mayhem ¨C.


    Receiving one now was a huge help for him, especially since this was a skill that had a ton of potential.  Just like how his Flame Throw skill increased in size and in strength when he had leveled it up, each and every skill could level up and become more powerful.


    Some skills had higher potential than others and there was always a maximum number of times a skill could level up. At a certain point the skill would evolve into a higher tier skill and could be increased when certain pre-requisites were met. Jason knew that this skill that he had just picked up had huge potential and couldn¡¯t wait to see the power it would have at higher levels.


    Jason immediately chose to learn the skill and poured his experience points into it.


    [System Message - Bone Trap - 10/10 (Beginner)]


    [System Message - Bone Trap ¨C 20/20 (Intermediate)]


    [System Message - Bone Trap ¨C 40/40 (Adept)]


    [System Message ¨C Bone Trap has evolved into Bone Prison ¨C 0/80 Expert


    Summon five angled bone spears surrounding a location of choice, piercing, and trapping the enemy.  Bone Spears deal twenty damage each and can take 100 points of damage before being destroyed.


    Area of Effect: Five feet by five feet


    Mana Points: Forty


    Cooldown: Fifteen Seconds]


    After draining his experience points down to 22/10 and evolving the skill to Bone Prison, Jason felt content.  He now had an extremely powerful skill that would aid him immensely throughout the rest of this quest.  Compared to the other players that were out grinding low level mobs, Jason was raking in a fortune.


    Even though there might be players that have leveled up two or three times and maybe increased a skill or two, Jason had already leveled up a skill to Expert. A skill of this power would instantly kill any player under level five, and incapacitate any player under level ten.


    He looked up and saw that Leviticus was walking over with his arms full of the loot from the cultists. "All of these belong to you Jason." Leviticus dropped the pile at Jason''s feet. "If not for you, we all would either still be trapped or have died at this point. I am grateful to you and wish that you receive my kills loot as a token of my gratitude."


    Jason nodded at Leviticus, "Thank you, your kindness will be remembered." He then knelt and began looking through the loot.  The two cultists didn''t leave behind much.  They had thirty copper between the two of them, common robes that didn''t provide any defense or attack bonuses, some uncommon crafting materials and two medallions that The System notified him of being medallions that hid him from the senses of the undead in this catacomb.


    What really excited Jason was the Skill Book.


    [System Message ¨C Necro Tide ¨C Skill Book


    Requires: Int 20


    Summon a wave of necromantic flames to wash over your enemies.  One-Hundred Necrotic damage.  Half-Damage returned to User as health.


    Area of Effect: Twenty Feet Wide by Thirty Feet Long


    Damage over time effect ¨C Rot: Twenty damage every second.


    Chant Time: Ten Seconds


    Mana Points: Seventy


    Cool-Down: Two Minutes.]


    This skill was the definition of over-powered at this stage of the game.  Jason knew that as a swordsman and front-line fighter he wouldn''t have the time to charge a skill like this.  It would be possible if he used it on a single target that was trapped by Bone Prison, but in the end that would just waste the area of effect of the skill.


    A skill like this would be best fit for a mage, a User who focused on their intelligence or will stat. He would have to find someone suitable to learn this skill who would be loyal to him.


    After putting everything into his inventory, he asked one of the men to go and grab the others they had left behind.  After everyone had regrouped, he motioned towards the stairs leading upwards and said, "Lets get you guys home.  Once we make sure the church upstairs is clear of any enemies, go home; you''re free.  Leviticus, you should inform the guards of what is happening here so they can send back-up."


    Jason knew the guard house was on the other side of town.  That should give him just enough time to finish his quest and grab anything valuable before the guards arrive.


    "What about you?" Asked Leviticus while he gripped his broken bow tightly.


    Quickly thinking of a bullsh*t excuse, Jason answered "The cultists surely know by now that their plans are exposed and it''s only a matter of time before the guards arrive.  They might be hastening whatever plans they had and I intend to stop whatever nefarious purpose they have." Jason wanted to give himself a pat on the back, that sounded so noble and righteous.


    Outwardly Jason attempted to look heroic and determined to do away with all evil.  He thought he was doing a decent job at it, even though he just wanted to keep the quest rewards to himself.


    Leviticus looked at him in awe, ''Such a brave man!  If only there were more hero''s like Jason among the new Users!''

 16 Running out of Time

    Running out of Time


    As Jason reached the top of the stairs where the tapestry separated the hallway from the rest of the church, Jason decided to shoot a small blast of flame.


    Jason stood back with his shield raised, ready to defend himself in case anything charged through to attack him. After igniting it in a surge of flame the tapestry quickly crumbled to ashes, revealing an empty church.


    After glancing around Jason stepped out of the hallway leading to the catacombs and made way for the ex-prisoners to come out.


    As they all began running for the front entrance to leave this accursed place, one of the men stopped and grabbed his arm. Jason glanced at him, recognizing him as his quest target, Henry Lokisdu.


    "Sir, I never received your name." Henry hastily stated.


    "Thanataion."


    "Thank you, Thanataion, I will always be in your debt." He then looked down at the hallway and muttered while gritting his teeth, "Kill those B*stards for me will you?"


    [System Message ¨C Quest - Save my brother ¨C Unique ¨C Status Completed


    Difficulty: B


    Mona Lokisdu has requested that you save her brother, please follow any leads and rescue him before he dies.


    Objective: Return Henry Lokisdu home. Bonus reward if returned alive.


    Objective completed.


    Reward: 40 Experience Points


    Bonus objective completed, rewarding Rare Treasure Chest]


    [System Message ¨C Quest ¨C Destroy Cultists ¨C Unique


    Difficulty: A


    Cultists are using living beings as a sacrifice in some sort of ritual. Demons have been summoned, and more are on the way.


    Objective: Destroy the Cultists. Exterminate the Demons.


    Reward: 200 Experience Points


    Bonus Objective: Prevent Greater Demon Summoning]


    With the completion of the previous quest, it had gifted him experience points and a rare treasure chest. Every treasure chest generated by The System had a guaranteed item at the same tier of the chest, and a small chance to gift an item of a higher tier.


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    Completing this quest and the bonus objective was fantastic for Jason because this gave him the opportunity to obtain a guaranteed rare item, and possibly even a platinum tiered item. Whatever Jason obtained from this chest would, without a doubt, be of great use to him in completing the follow-up quest issued by the system.


    When he saw the last notification The System gave him, he felt an intense sense of urgency to complete the new quest that The System had given him.


    Monsters, just like items, were broken into tiers. There were common monsters, special monsters, elite monsters, special elite monsters, Lesser Monsters, Greater Monsters, and unique monsters. Each step up in tier was a qualitative leap in power for the monsters.


    The System had notified him that a Greater Demon was in the process of being summoned which had turned a difficult quest into an almost impossible one. If he couldn''t stop the quest before the Demon was summoned, he could only kiss his butt good-bye and create a new account. All the effort he had given this past day would go down the drain with the achievements and the titles being lost forever.


    Jason saw Leviticus patting one of the men on his shoulder and pointing in the general direction of the guard house. The man then began sprinting in that direction as Leviticus walked back to Jason.


    "I''m coming with you." Exclaimed Leviticus, a fiery light of hatred igniting in his eyes.


    "No." Stated Jason firmly, turned his back and began walking back inside the catacombs. After what happened with Steven betraying him after having trusted him for so long, Jason had no interest in forming new friendships or trusting someone again. He had lost his life the last time he did and he didn''t have time to waste in this new life.


    "Thanataion, your not stopping me. Those men nearly killed me, and they robbed me of everything I had." Continued Leviticus.


    "I don''t care. I''ll bring you your stuff back." Jason coldly spoke as he walked a little faster. He had to get there before the greater demon was summoned.


    Leviticus continued to follow Jason, "You need my help."


    "No, I don''t."


    "You would''ve died back there if it hadn''t been for me."


    "I wouldn''t have been in that mess if it wasn''t for you."


    "True¡­ Granted I still got you out of it. Without me you plan would''ve failed."


    Jason shrugged his shoulders, "I would''ve come up with a different plan."


    Jason finally arrived back at the junction and was trying to decide which way to go.


    "I think we should go that way." Leviticus stated, pointing down the far hallway to right.


    Letting out a big sigh, Jason asked "You''re not going to leave me be are you?"


    "Nope." Leviticus simply stated with a smirk on his face, he knew he won.


    As he lifted his hand to point to the far-right hallway, Jason stated "Then go down that hallway." He then pointed to the middle hallway, "I''ll go this way."


    Leviticus stared at him for a moment, wondering what this man was thinking. He knew that they would have a higher chance of success if they worked together, but Thanataion seemed completely against that.


    "Very well, good luck." Leviticus began lightly running down the far hallway with his bow and an arrow at the ready.


    Watching Leviticus leave, Jason let out some pent breath. He really didn''t know if he could trust Leviticus or not, something didn''t seem right about him.


    Unbeknownst to Jason, Leviticus was wondering the exact same thing about Jason.


    Looking at his interface, Jason activated the reward icon of the quest he had just completed. With a flash of light, a large waist high treasure chest appeared in front of Jason. This chest was just like the old-fashioned treasure chests that people would see in pirate movies except the only difference being that a faint blue radiance surrounded the chest.


    Jason rubbed his hands together, a hint of greed flashing in his eyes. He quickly walked over to the chest and quickly opened it. No loading bars or tricky locks to crack, just a simple lift of the lid.


    As he opened the lid, blueish white light erupted from the chest, illuminating the room. Looking into the chest, Jason could only let his jaw drop in awe at what lay before him.

 17 The Catacombs

    The Catacombs


    Laying on top of a satin cushion were two dark blue blades with golden hilts. These blades had a regal air about them that radiated outwards. As Jason lifted them gently at the hilts he could feel they nestled softly into his grip as they formed to fit perfectly into his hands. He lightly spun them in the air and could feel that they had an impeccable balance as they turned into extensions of his limbs.


    As he further inspected the weapon, he saw slight notches in the hilts. With a smooth motion he brought the two hilts together which then merged perfectly into one long hilt. He now held a short staff with two long blades on either end. He instinctively knew he could increase or decrease the length of this staff to a certain extent. As he spun it slightly from side to side, he could feel how smoothly the blades cut through the air.


    A small smirk crept upon his face. This weapon was meant for the pure destruction, and it had found a superb owner to deliver its absolute potential. He glanced at the attribute panel which displayed the weapons attributes so he could further understand this new weapon.


    [System Message ¨C Royal Double-Bladed Staff ¨C Platinum ¨C Level 5


    Requires: Str 34 | Dex 45


    Swordsmanship Proficiency: Adept


    Damage: 66-80


    Strength +30 Dexterity +45


    Double Bladed Staff made for the guards of ancient Elven Royalty, can be wielded as one or two weapons.


    Passive: Increases Attack Speed by 15%


    Skill One: Return ¨C Double-Bladed staff will appear in the Users hands at will.


    Mana Points: 5 per activation


    Skill Two: Royal Manipulation ¨C The User can manipulate the Double-Bladed Staff at will to fly through the air.


    Mana Points: 20 per second.]


    Staring at the deadly weapon in is hand, Jason was awed into silence. The damage he could deal with this weapon would be tremendous and allow him to exert a power high above his level; it was a shame that he didn''t have the requirements fulfilled to wield it at the moment.


    Looking down into the chest to see if there was anything else, Jason immediately put away the double-bladed staff into his inventory; quickly forgetting it as he picked up a wrinkled old parchment.


    [System Message ¨C Concealed Blade Armguard ¨C Blueprint ¨C Rare


    Blueprint that gives knowledge on how to forge the Concealed Blade Armguard. An elite assassin tool that conceals a pure mana blade in the armguard.]


    In ecstasy Jason poured over the contents of this blueprint. He could forge this easily given the right materials and have another tool in his arsenal that would propel him towards success. As he poured over the required materials and design of this blue-print, he was even more stunned.


    The blade made out of pure mana was theoretically as powerful as a plasma blade from a sci-fi film. It would extend to about six inches in front of the users fist and could easily cut through any material. The process involved in making this item was rather complicated and involved a lot of mana circuits and mana stones that he needed to obtain.


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    This blueprint had an even higher potential than the double-bladed staff he had obtained. He could build and equip as many Users as he would like, giving them an extra weapon to use along with the added armor.


    Remembering that he was in an urgent situation, Jason put the blueprint into his inventory and began to walk down the middle hallway carefully looking for traps and enemies.


    As he walked away from the chest, it quickly evaporated into mana streams as it rejoined The System. In his past life, many people had tried to take the chest with them as well. What people quickly discovered was that the chest would dissolve back into pure mana.


    No one was aware from where The System obtained the items it rewarded, but what they did know is that the items were real and fantastic. The chests only seemed to be a gimmick The System used to enhance the atmosphere when handing out rewards.


    Jason crept down the hallway he feeling the urgency of the situation and desiring to rush through to get to the end. While he knew that a Greater Demon would be impossible for him to deal with, knew he had to take it slow so he wouldn''t fall into any possible traps. There wasn''t much point to rushing if he died along the way.


    The decrepit hallway carried on straight for a while before it began to slightly angle downward. Occasionally Jason would come across more skeletal warriors in their crypts. As Jason approached the first crypts, he decided to test to see if the medallions he obtained off the cultists corpse would really allow him to pass without waking the dead.


    As he carefully walked up to the first crypt with the skeletal warrior inside, he began slowly walking towards the skeleton. Inching forward bit by bit, he was constantly tense and ready to immediately act if the green fire were to activate in its eyes.


    As he closed the distance to the skeleton, still nothing happened; even up to the point where he was staring deep into the empty eye sockets. Staring at the inactive skeleton in front of him, Jason had one last test he wanted to try.


    He looked over at the other fifteen skeletons lined up on the wall, pointed his shield at the skeleton in front of him and activated flame-throw: immolating the skeleton in an instant.


    Jason quickly looked over to see that the remaining skeletons hadn''t reacted to him destroying the first skeleton. He smirked, ''free experience points''.


    As Jason passed each skeleton he would cleave at it with his sword. Each stroke to the skull was a critical hit, and the majority of the time he would destroy it in one hit. Occasionally he would have to take a second swing at it, and the entire time he was destroying one skeleton after the other, none of them reacted at all to the slaughter of their brethren or their own execution.


    After he had cleared these few skeletons, The System rewarded him with his experience points and he continued down the pathway. Now that he knew the medallion worked as some sort of key of passage through the hallway, he started going much faster.


    ''I probably should have given one of these medallions to Leviticus¡­ Oops''


    Jason felt a little bad he had forgotten to give the elf the second "Hallway Pass" they had obtained from the Cultists. He figured that the elf probably would be ok without it.


    Due to Jason having the cultist''s medallion on him, none of the undead would awaken as he passed and he used this an opportunity to get the free experience point from each undead he would pass in the hallway.


    He eventually came to a section of the hallway that opened into a large new cavern. This cavern had moss hanging from the ceiling, with stalactites and stalagmites scattered throughout the cavern. About thirty feet away from Jason stood a single man in dark robes. Alongside him were five wretches who were staring at Jason voraciously. Drool began cascading down their bristle-jaws as they caught sight of the prey their master had promised them.


    The man seemed to be waiting for Jason to enter the room and began clapping boisterously. "I see you managed to escape the ambush that Mick and Rory had set for you! Bravo and well done!"


    "It is regrettable that your actions have been fruitless in the end." The man sighed and rubbed his face, feigning sorrow. "This is where you die, and my pets shall devour your flesh and soul!"


    He waved his hands towards Jason as he turned around, intending to leave. "Eat to your diabolical content."


    With this command the five wretches promptly dashed forward towards Jason, releasing a screech of joy as their sickle like arms prepared to tear Jason limb from limb.

 Battle in the Catacombs

    Seeing the wretches running at him a small smirk appeared on his face as he charged forward towards the wretches. His anticipation for battle built and his fighting spirit ignited as he watched all the movements of the wretches; predicting the movements he needed to make as he ran forward.


    Activating Holy Seal, he jumped in the air over the first wretch who began elongating its neck to snap at him with its jaws. With a quick twist of the torso, he slashed at the wretch, cutting it vertically in half.


    Landing on his feet facing the other four wretches Jason blocked two slashes directly with his shield, and let loose a blast of flame throw while ducking underneath a slash from another wretch. He angled his sword to block another slash with his sword sliding his sword along that arm to cut it off at the shoulder. With a screech that wretch backed away as another one took its place, raising its three arms with the intent to bisect Jason.


    From behind the shield that was blasting fire, a wretch''s head appeared through the flames with Jaws wide open to tear his throat out.


    Jason leaned back and slipped under the sickles of another wretch attacking him, chopping at the head of the burning wretch that had attempting to slither over his shield. Jason''s sword connected, cleaving the head from the rest of the body.


    As Jason had his back to the wretch that he had slipped and was extremely close to it, the Wretch attempted to bite him on his back. Jason felt the pincer like teeth clamp onto his breastplate and slightly pierce through, partially crushing the breastplate with it''s strength.


    The notification Vitality 60/102 flashed before his eyes.


    Gritting his Jason reverse gripped his sword stabbed towards his back, while fending off the attacks of the other two Wretches. The sword flashed past his armpit stabbing through the skull of the wretch which he then pulled downwards towards the floor, forcing its guts to spill everywhere.


    Jason then stepped to the side, dodging while blocking the continuous strikes of the wretches as he sliced the mandible of the now dead wretch off his back.


    He then began sensing a large buildup of mana, and saw the cultist that had previously spoken charging a ball of green flame in his hands.


    Jason wasn''t willing to allow the cultist to release that spell and alter the course of the battle. He glanced over at the cultist as a light flashed in his eyes.


    Instantly five jagged spears of bone jutted out of the ground surrounding the cultist from different angles, impaling through him as he became pincushion. With a cry of pain this cultist hung from these spears, unable to move with blood beginning to flow out of the new wounds.


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    Focusing again on the wretches Jason quickly began slashing back at the final two wretches in front of him. Dodging and blocking the different attacks swung at him, Jason finally decapitated one of the wretches as he slashed of the last limb of the last wretch.


    Unwilling to admit defeat the final Wretch attempted to bite at Jason''s head to which he responded with a simple sidestep and a slash, bisecting it at the waist.


    Leaving it there on the ground to bleed to death, Jason walked over to the still breathing cultist who was hanging on the bone spears unmoving. When Jason neared him he could see that the man was in enormous pain as every breath was accompanied by uncontrollable spasms.


    As Jason neared the cultist the hood on the mans face fell back revealing a youthful face. The man looked up and whispered to Jason, "H-h-how?" Another wave of pain wracked the man as he began to cough unceasingly. Jason assumed this man''s vitality points had run out and was only waiting for death.


    Walking up to the man, Jason said, "You still have a chance to redeem yourself before you enter the abyss. Tell me everything you know about the summoning that is about to happen."


    Smirking the man let out a wheezed as he muttered, "So you know about that to?" *Cough* *Cough* "You''re too late, I''ll see you in hell." With a final breath the man relaxed completely and shook himself, causing irreversible damage as the jagged bone spears tore him apart on the inside.


    The man slumped back dead, and The System sent him a notification.


    [System Message ¨C Five Wretches Level 1 killed. One level five Daren Hobnoker killed. 35 Experience Points rewarded.]


    Jason unsummoned the bone spears so he could reach the corpse and loot it easily. As he was picking through the pockets, the corpse and the bodies of the wretches all disintegrated into light particles making things even easier for Jason.


    In his hands there was only a cloak and a few silver coins, while where the wretches were there were only a few scattered coins and a single item.


    Jason went over to pick up the four silver pieces and the pair of boots that had dropped. Seeing that the boots were at the uncommon grade and only increased his agility a little bit, he shrugged and put them on. ''Something is better than nothing right?''


    He then glanced at his status as he began jogging down the hallway again, descending deeper into the catacombs.


    [System Message -


    User: Thanataion


    Level: 0


    Experience: 94/10


    Titles: Mana Guru, Forerunner Forger, Extraordinary Forger


    Class: None


    Race: Human


    Strength: 13 (+13)


    Dexterity: 11 (+10)


    Constitution: 11 (+23)


    Intelligence: 11


    Will: 17


    Vitality: 75/102


    Mana : 340


    Defense:


    Resistances: Necrotic +15


    Proficiencies: Blacksmithing - 7/20 (Intermediate)


    Skills: Mana Sense ¨C 6/20 (Intermediate) | Mana Manipulation - 6/20 (Intermediate) | Iron Fist - 4/10 (Beginner) | Mana Strengthening - 5/10 (Beginner) | Flame-Throw - 9/20 (Intermediate) | Holy Seal ¨C 2/10 (Beginner) | Night Eyes - 2/10 (Beginner) | Bone Prison - 0/80 (Expert)


    Passive Skills: Mana Guru


    Equipped: Frosty Longsword, Hellhound Heater Shield, Blessed Breastplate, Boots of Speed


    Inventory: 30 Copper - 6 Silver - 2 undead medallions - Two maces - 2 Oak Shields - Helm of the Dark - Cracked Breastplate - Necro Claymore - Tower Shield - uncommon materials - Necro Tide Skill Book - eight health potions - one dagger - a holy staff. - 13 two handed swords - Boots of Speed]

 19 Consequences

    Consequences


    In the furthest depths of the catacombs were a group of men; surrounded by more than a dozen wretches who, with eyes closed, were faced towards their masters.  These men huddled around a complex pentagram-array whose every point contained a body that was slowly and surely adding more blood to the array.


    These seven men were all dressed in the same clothes discussing quietly the recent activity happening outside the room.


    "Mick and Rory are not responding to our messages master."


    "I''ve lost connection with all the undead we stationed near the entrance."


    "It can''t be the guards, we''ve overpaid on the bounty to continue our activities here."


    "Adventurers!"


    "I''ve lost connections with the wretches we sent with Daren."


    "He''s not responding either."


    "We have intruders who seem to be very capable."


    "It must be a large group to have defeated our pawns."


    "Yes, a large group.  We must do something, or all our plans are ruined!"


    One of the men who had silently been staring at the ground during the entire discussion finally looked up. A mask of a blue horned demon sat across his face, preventing the others from seeing his features. Instantly the group quieted down, eagerly leaning forward in order to hear the wise words of their leader.


    In a raspy voice the man said, "We cannot allow the efforts and sacrifices we have made to be in vain.  For too long the nobility have trampled upon the poor in this city, treating us like garbage.  Our champion and future ruler, Driblark, is willing to send a messenger to this city to cleanse it of all filth."


    "We cannot let these intruders stop us from summoning him.  Send all the undead to meet the intruders, they will stall them long enough for us to complete the ritual."


    One of the men spoke up, "Cleric Hrefner, what about the Undead Amulets? They might have stolen them from Mick and Rory!"


    "We shall destroy the spell holding the amulets together.  There is no more need for any of us to have the undead protection, as we are about to be under the protection of a much mightier messenger."


    With a nod each man took out their amulets and began chanting, mana quickly gathering around the group as in synchronicity they crushed the amulets they held.  The mana quickly condensed and a ripple was sent in all directions.


    "Urey, step forward."


    One of the men stepped forward and knelt on one knee.


    "We thank you for your sacrifice." Cleric Hrefner looked down, placed his hand on his chest and clasped his left elbow.


    "We thank you for your sacrifice." Repeated the men in unison, replicating Cleric Hrefners actions.


    Spreading his arms wide and looking up with bloodshot eyes, the man exploded in a mist of blood.  The blood hung in the air before it appeared to be sucked dry by the blood pentagram underneath.  With this the pentagram began to glow a little darker red, and the men all returned to chanting their invocations.


    ------


    "Mom! How are you doing that?" Exclaimed Jessy as her jaw hung loose upon seeing her mom consecutively cast fireball after fireball without any pause at the training dummy.


    Beth smiled proudly upon seeing her daughter awestruck at her new achievement.  "It''s rather simple cutiepie! It''s just like how when you meditate you can feel the energy of the universe, I just go into that same state of mind and I can feel the energy of this universe which I then command to do this!" She then shot another five fireballs, spiraling around each other until they crashed into the metal dummy down range.


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    Jessy couldn''t figure out how her mom did it, "Mom¡­. Now you''re just showing off¡­" she muttered as the fireballs exploded and left huge dents in the training dummy the guild had set up for her.


    "I''ve tried teaching you before sweetie, but you never seemed interested¡­ Now maybe you''ll start doing yoga with me in the mornings?" Beth was rather hopeful that she finally got Jessy interested in joining her for her early morning exercises.


    Beth had always been an avid fanatic of yoga and meditation; a love she tried instilling in her children but was never able to.  After listening to the instructions of the Magic Instructor at the Adventurers Guild, she found that it was very similar to how she felt while meditating and so she gave it a try.  After about a minute she obtained the skill mana sense, and an hour later she received mana manipulation.


    "This game is actually easier than I thought it would be, I can''t wait to tell your Dad that I''m almost all the way to master in mana manipulation! I wonder what he''s up to?" Beth began pondering at how awestruck her husband would be when he found out she was having a good time playing this game and was actually pretty good at it.


    "You think Dad will take us out to level our classes after dinner tonight?" Jessy asked her mom.


    "He''d better!" Beth snorted. "I really want to see what fun kind of magic I can unlock with this class at higher levels!"


    After Beth and the kids had gone through the introduction to the different classes they could choose, they all had decided on different classes.  Beth had chosen to go with a sorcerer, she loved the idea of being able to deal an enormous amount of damage while standing there.  She figured she''d be with her husband most of the time anyway and could have him protect her while she cast her spells.


    Clark had chosen a berserker class while Bryan had chosen to be a hunter.  Jessy wanted to be a summoner because the summoner instructor had a cute albino fox curled around her neck.


    In ¨C Might, Magic, Mayhem ¨C Users could choose from the typical classes of fighter, mage, rogue, ranger, and healer. In addition to these, the other main classes included thief, sorcerer, druids, paladins, summoners, and berserkers.  There were also hidden, unique, and legacy classes throughout Socrathia that the players could find and level up through.


    "You think dad can help me get a cute little fox like the instructors?" Jessy asked with hope in her eyes.


    As Beth looked over at the other training areas to see Clark and Bryan training with their individual class instructors, Beth shrugged her shoulders "I don''t see why not." She then saw Jessy''s hopeful face and smiled while patting her on the head, "I''m sure he''ll get you the cutest fox out there!"


    Beth turned her attention back towards her training dummy, "I should be able to master mana manipulation before I log off to make us all dinner¡­"  She then began thinking of all the possible twists and variations she could give the fireball spell.


    She had shrunk it into a tiny bullet, added spin, twisted it into a horizontal mini tornado, enlarged it, sent multiple at the same time, and many more variations.  Even her instructor would give her suggestions on new variations to try that she quickly got the hang of.


    With each successful attempt, The System would notify her of a new skill she had obtained; quickly growing her list of spells she knew. Along with a new skill, a large increase in proficiency would be added to her mana manipulation and new fire manipulation skills.


    She giggled again at the thought of finally being better at a game than her husband is.


    Unbeknownst to her, an individual in the far corner was staring at her and watching her complex spells attack her target.  A hint of hunger flashed through the eyes as they greedily ate up the image of the beautiful sorcerer.


    -----


    As Jason began running down the hallway, he felt a large wave of mana pulse throughout the cave. In the next instant, the two medallions he got off the cultists shattered in his pocket.


    "F*ck!"


    Jason''s protection against the undead had just been taken from him, and the easy-going experience run had come to an end.  Jason assumed the cultists ahead knew he had gotten past their ambushes and destroyed the connections to the medallions in case he had been carrying them; which he of course had been.


    Jason assumed that all pretenses were off by this point and they knew that their ambushes had failed.  He would have to hurry in case they did something to increase the speed of the summoning.


    Jason began moving much faster down the hallway at a speed that was only a jog for him due to his high dexterity but could be comparable to an Olympic athlete''s sprint.


    ''These boots aren''t too bad. It''s really a shame there''s no active skill accompanying them.''


    Jason turned the corner up ahead and was startled to see rows upon rows of skeletal warriors marching down the hallway towards him.


    Frowning he knew this was an attempt to slow him down which would inevitably give the cultists the time needed to accomplish their goals.


    With a sigh he held up his shield and began charging forwards, there was no way around this and he knew that he would just have to force his way through.  He activated flame-throw as he came within range and continued sprinting forward, ducking and weaving through the crowd as he forced his way through.  Bones flew in the air, skeletons turned to ash, and a never ending sea of bones seemed to be in front of him with the intent to swallow him whole.

 20 Injustice

    Injustice


    After fifteen minutes of continuous fighting, Jason had hacked, slashed, and blasted his way through the horde of skeletons. These level zero skeletons were no challenge for him as he was stronger and faster than these minions; making it so they weren''t even worthy of being used as cannon fodder against him.


    As the last skeleton fell into pieces with a final shield bash, he continued to sprint down the hallway, not even giving the piles of bones behind him a second glance as he received his experience points from The System.


    -----


    Stopping his incantation, one of the cultists looked up towards the blue devil masked man. "Master, all of the undead have been destroyed."


    Frowning, the blue masked man stopped his incantation and examined the array.  After a moment he looked up and said, "At this rate we will still need several hours.  Mcay, Friju, Geralt, step forward."


    At his word these three men stepped forward, bowing to him with awestruck expressions.


    "We thank you for your sacrifice."


    At this phrase, the three men exploded into blood mist that quickly was swallowed up by the array.  "Send the wretches, they should be able to hold the intruders at bay long enough for us to complete the ritual."


    The blue devil masked man watched fourteen wretches run into the tunnel leading to the surface.  He knew that those numbers would prove difficult for any large group of people. Hopefully this would buy them enough time to complete the ritual, as with the sacrifice of their brethren they had just made, the summoning should be completed within the hour.


    After confirming there was nothing wrong with the ritual, he continued with his part of the incantations.


    -----


    As the wretches ran down the hallway, they would let out shrill screams which echoed far ahead of them.  These screams were otherworldly and haunting, identifying the wretches as predators beginning their search for prey.


    Jason knew what these screams were as he was very familiar with them.  Wretches were numerous in the armies of Driblark''s horde, outnumbering the allied forces alone by a ratio of three to one.  Only the terrifying screams of the banshees would be able to surpass that of the numerous voices of the wretches.


    It sounded like there were many moving down the hallway towards him.  He figured the cultists must be pulling out every card they can to stall him long enough to summon the demon.  He knew he couldn''t be delayed by these wretches one second otherwise he might end up arriving too late.


    Going over all the abilities he currently had access to, he began sprinting as fast as he could.  The more distance he traveled without being obstructed, the better.


    After about a minute, he saw the first wretch approaching.  Behind this wretch he saw many more, some were running side by side, or directly behind one another.


    Jason stopped so he could catch his breath and calmly waited for the wretches to approach.  Upon seeing Jason, the first wretch let out a loud triumphant screech while clacking its pincers together and charged forward at a much faster speed than before.


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    As soon as the first wretch was about sixteen feet away, Jason slammed his shield into the ground to activate Spike Growth.  Angled at a sixty-degree angle, spikes quickly began shooting half a foot out of the ground towards the wretches.


    The wretches quickly slammed into the spikes, taking damage with every movement forwards they advanced.  As some of the spikes broke, new ones would quickly grow and replace them.


    Jason shot an ice spike at the first wretch, nailing it in the forehead.  This spike drained the wretch of its vitality points, causing it to fall and impale itself on the spikes that had grown out of the ground.


    The wretches behind this one quickly became obstructed by the body and were slowed down even further in their race to tear out Jason''s throat.  Climbing over each other, and slowing themselves down more, they ran straight into Jason''s flame throw.


    With close to no remaining vitality points as they reached Jason, they were quickly executed with his blade and holy seal combo.


    [System Message ¨C Killed fourteen level one wretches ¨C fourteen experience points obtained]


    Glancing at the message that had brought his experience up to 227/10, he chuckled.  This was enough experience points to raise his level at least to level six, and all of his skills up to at least expert.  If he had decided to go with the swordsman class as he had in the past, he would already be far ahead compared to the rest of the Users.  ''This class better be worth it'' he thought to himself.


    He began quickly moving down the hallway after he picked up the loot the wretches had dropped. He had picked up several uncommon materials and an uncommon belt.  This belt increased his constitution by 5 and gave him quick access to potions that he could store outside it; similar to a caped crusaders utility belt.


    -----


    The blue demon masked man opened his eyes that had become bloodshot with rage.  He sensed that the wretches had all been eliminated quickly, not even giving the intruders a run for their money.


    He glanced at the brethren around him who were intently focused on their incantations.  They had sacrificed so much to make this dream they had a reality.  He as their leader had been the first one to see Driblark in a dream. Driblark promised him eternal life as a new member of his demon army, all he had to do was betray humanity and bring about a part of their downfall.


    He was only a simple cleric at the time, living in a church and preaching to the people every day.  All he wanted was to live a happy and blessed life, but that was only a pipe dream.  He lived in a world where the rich and the powerful were able to do as they pleased and get away with it.  What instigated his hate for humanity was when his brother was run over by a carriage in the walkway.


    The owner of said carriage didn''t even stop to see what they had hit, and after the guards had found the perpetrator, they wouldn''t do anything to him.  The man who owned the carriage was the son of the governor of this town, and since his father held the power and money of the town, the guards couldn''t do anything to him without putting their own jobs and families on the line. Hrefner was unable to obtain justice for his brother, and so held every intention to obtain revenge.


    This wasn''t the only injustice that had befallen this community, there were many instances of those with power and influence getting away from the penalties of their actions.  Cleric Hrefner would often hear of these injustices as a result of his position as cleric of the local church.  After he had been visited in his dreams by Driblark he slowly obtained multiple followers who had the same desire to turn traitor.


    They had planned for months, and only recently began their summoning of one of Driblarks Greater Demons.  They should''ve had plenty of time to complete this, as they had paid off the guard to turn a blind eye to the local kidnappings.


    All of their hard work and planning was coming to an end.  ''The locals must''ve hired some adventurers after the inaction of the guards, and powerful ones at that!'' Hrefner thought to himself.


    Glancing at his comrades one last time, he muttered "I thank you all for your sacrifices."


    With a look of surprise, they each looked up at Cleric Hrefner as they exploded into blood mist; leaving Hrefner alone in the room.  This mist quickly condensed and was sucked into the array which quickly turned black and began to glow a deep crimson.


    The blood from the corpses at the corners had all been sucked dry, leaving behind dried out mummies.  The array flashed once and quickly condensed into a circular door which began emitting an ominous feeling of oppression.

 21 Determination

    [System Message ¨C Quest ¨C Destroy Cultists ¨C Unique


    Bonus objective: Prevent Greater Demon Summoning ¨C Failed]


    [System Message ¨C Updating Quest ¨C Defeat all Enemies ¨C Unique


    Difficulty: S


    Objective: Prevent demon from escaping the crypt.  Destroy the Cultists.


    Bonus Objective: Exterminate the Demon.


    Reward: 400 Experience points.]


    Jason glanced at his interface to see that his quest had updated and for the worse.  ¡®The cultists must¡¯ve rushed the ceremony to complete it.¡¯


    Frowning he knew that his job had just turned from an extremely difficult one into a nearly impossible task.


    Should he turn back now?  Should he press forward and risk it all?  There were other quests he could go and complete that gave generous rewards and paths to powerful classes.  He wasn¡¯t at a point of no return and could still turn back at this moment.


    He had originally chosen this quest for the class that made the previous user unbeatable.  Humanity might¡¯ve truly won the war in his past life if this man hadn¡¯t turned his back on them and betrayed them in the end.


    This man had been the top ranked User, and in all the pvp tournaments he had participated in, he had defeated every single opponent.  This man had plenty of skills to be sure, but everyone attributed his wins to his unique class that only he possessed.


    Jason paused his steps, was he truly willing to risk the effort and achievements he had already obtained for a class that would now be nearly impossible to obtain? A greater demon had been summoned, an event that, to his knowledge, had not occurred when the previous User in his past life had completed this quest.


    Obtaining this class was going to be the beginning of Jason¡¯s path to make sure his family would survive the coming apocalypse. If he couldn¡¯t obtain it, at the very least with his blacksmithing title he could still do his best to prepare and protect those around him. Dedicating himself to forging and outfitting everyone in tremendously powerful gear to protect themselves didn¡¯t seem like too bad of an option at this point.


    Was he really going to choose to run away now?


    At this moment images of his family¡¯s corpses arose in his head burning their images further into his memory.  A ravaged Earth with countless demons surging upon it coursed through his head.  Memories of a red-eyed friend, whom he had trusted beyond anyone else, slashed his throat while laughing; gloating over his defeat.


    Jason fell to a knee as these images began to overwhelm him.


    He couldn¡¯t let that happen again.  He couldn¡¯t let what fate had demanded to occur happen once more.  Why did he fail last time?  He was weak.  Pitifully and undeniably weak; even now he was pitifully and undeniably weak.


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    He may have stood at the peak of power before, but even then, he was unable to stop Driblark and his horde.


    Frail, feeble, puny; all words that could describe humanity and himself in his past life.  Opening his eyes, he saw himself on both knees, realizing that his own despair had driven himself to his knees.


    Why was he afraid?  He realized that these past twenty-four hours with his family had brought back the joy he had thought was forever lost.  Seeing Beth¡¯s smile, hearing the laughter of his children, these were the only things that mattered.  He was terrified of losing that again, of losing his family to the demons once more.


    He held up his sword and looked at himself in the reflection cast on the hard cold steel.  He was too weak to protect his family in his past life, and too weak to save himself in the end. Even now, he was still too weak; there was no way he could take on a greater demon and come out alive.


    As he stared at his sorry reflection, a deep rage began to envelope him.  So what if he was weak in his past life?  He had the opportunity to change everything in this new life that The System had given him.  He may be weak now, but he knew exactly what was needed to be done to accomplish the impossible task of defeating Driblark and his horde.


    The rage began to envelop him, he would do everything in this life to protect his loved ones.  He hated this feeling of being weak; of not having control over his own fate due to his ineptitude. Once he was strong enough, he could command his own fate and prevent the horrible destiny that fate had commanded occur to his family and his world.  Hell, he could even prevent the demise of the world Socrathia that he was currently in.


    Jason stood up, rage enveloping him and agitating the surrounding mana; causing small sparks of flame to ignite in the air around him. He allowed the memories of the past to wash over him. He will never forget the deaths of his family, nor the murders that the demons had wrecked upon his people, or even the betrayals of his own kind.  As the images of the past washed over him, he accepted them as a part of him and vowed to become strong enough to prevent it from happening again.


    At this time, the faces, and names of all those that he knew that had betrayed humanity flashed through his memory.  Remembering that there were individuals out there who, without hesitation, betrayed and tortured their own kind, his anger seemed to have reached a peak that it could not go past.


    Roaring with rage Jason felt his mana ignite as he vowed to never let the fear of losing his loved ones overcome him again; to punish those who would turn traitor and avenge those who had already fallen to the horde. Feeling his inner rage begin to dissipate into the ambient air, he realized that a small cyclone of flames had enveloped him, seeming to feed off his emanating rage.


    [System Message ¨C Fire Manipulation Learned ¨C 0/10 (Beginner)


    Rage fuels your inner fire: fire attacks +10% damage, passive resistance +10%.]


    ¡®Huh?¡¯


    Jason was bewildered to see that he had learned a new skill, how could he learn fire manipulation though?  That was a mage or sorcerers¡¯ skill, and he hadn¡¯t even accepted a class yet.


    Jason took a deep breathe, feeling the flames he had just created ebbing and flowing with his breathing.  He wondered at this strange phenomenon, nothing like this had ever been posted in the forums in his past life.  His mana seemed to be interacting with his state of mind, his emotions becoming one with the mana.


    Staring at the new fireball he had just created in his hand, he chuckled.  He may not understand how this happened, but he wouldn¡¯t complain.  He would have to talk to a Magic Instructor to see why he was able to obtain this new skill without a class, and why it was responding to his emotions.


    Seeing that his mana was draining quickly, he released the connection he had just forged with the flames. He quickly tried igniting a fireball in his hand again and succeeded but this time it was a smaller and more controlled flame.  He tested to see what would happen if he channeled the anger he had just felt into the flame, and felt it quickly increase in temperature and size.


    Cutting the connection with the flame, it sizzled into nothingness.  He then looked forward and continued running down the hall, he wasn¡¯t going to give up this quest, no matter what. The quest may have just become nearly impossible to complete, but he would complete it nevertheless.  If he was to obtain the strength needed to resist Driblark and his horde, he would need every advantage that he could get.

 22 Shrarzok the Shadow

    The further that Jason ran down the hallway, the greater a deep ominous feeling grew within him.  It felt like a great weight was slowly being pressed upon his chest, and cold chills ran continuously down his spine.


    The oppression of a demon was an otherworldly phenomenon that could bring the uninitiated to their knees.  In his previous life it had taken him an enormous amount of time to overcome the oppression that the presence of demons brought with them.  On the interface it would show up as a 10% debuff to their stats if they weren''t able to successfully able to ignore the oppressive atmosphere. Most Users were able to overcome this suppression, but not all.


    As Jason had plenty of experience overcoming this oppression, there was no affect to him. What bothered him though was that he didn''t knw what to expect as the pressure he was feeling wasn''t the pressure that one would normally feel from a Greater Demon; it felt weaker and less firm than it normally would.


    He continued pressing down the hallway, no longer receiving any resistance from any undead or wretches.  Jason assumed that this lack of resistance was due to either all the minions having fallen under his blade, or because they no longer felt pressure from him now that their goal had succeeded.


    The hallway began to widen, and a large open doorway appeared before Jason who slid to a halt several meters from the doorway.  He slowly approached the opening, sword and shield at the ready.  Taking precautions to silently walk forward, he approached the doorway to see a large black circle with flames around it''s edges suspended in the air in the middle of the room.


    In front of this doorway lay a man on the floor fully bowing on his knees and face with his arms spread wide to the being in front of him.  The being stood at nine feet tall and was shrouded in shadows.  The shadows seemed to be alive as they moved across its body, avoiding areas where flames seemed to flow out like molten lava.  It''s head was a blend of flame and shadow, a maroon dyed canine skull. From the distance Jason could hear a deep ominous voice speaking with the man on the floor.


    "You have opened the portal far too soon, insect!"


    "I apologize m''lord. There are intruders who were about to ruin all of the hard work we''ve put into summoning you!"


    Jason recognized this demon; it was a lower ranked captain in Driblarks horde that had gained notoriety amongst the Users in his past life.  Its name was Shrarzok the Shadow, and had led the demons in the first large scale battle that the Users had participated in his past life.  There had been multiple large scale battles around all of the starting villages about two weeks after the game had started. Shrarzok the Shadow was particularly memorable because of its unique battle strategies that had cost the lives of thousands of different Users to defeat him.


    The average level at the time was level 10, and due to this particular demon thousands of Users lost their progress they had obtained over those first two weeks and had to create new accounts.  It wasn''t until the methodology of how this Demon battled and killed his enemies was figured out that he was able to be sent back to hell. When Demons died, their essence would be sent back to the Hell they came from, and depending on how strong they were they would reform and wait to be summoned back to the mortal realms.  This was the greatest difficulty to overcome when fighting demons, and Shrarzok was a particularly difficult Demon to deal with.


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    "Incompetent fool, your summoning was incomplete!  You shall pay dearly for your mistake."  Shrarzok the Shadow then extended his hand towards the man with the blue demon mask on the floor.  Shrarzoks shadow seemed to extend from his feet towards the man, slowly sliding across the floor illuminated by the flames of the demon.


    Looking up, the blue masked man screamed. "Wait! No! Please!  I can still be of aid!"


    The shadow continued to slither towards the man as he continued to beg and plead.  "I know of many secrets!  I know everything there is to know of the people here! I can help bend them to your will!"


    As the shadow reached the man, the canine skull of Shrarzok seemed to grin at him. The ominous deep voice range out once more, "No one cares about what you know."


    Shrarzok clenched his fist and a large ethereal spike shot out of the shadow and impaled the man into the air.  The man visibly began to decay in the air as his screams echoed throughout the chamber.


    After the mans screams died out, Shrarzok retracted the spike back into his shadow and turned towards Jason who was standing valiantly in the doorway.


    "Come out, come out little man. I know you''ve been there this whole time."  Shrarzok crossed his arms as he stared over at Jason, the flames on his body intensifying in anticipation.


    Jason calmly strode forward, his shield at the ready and his sword at his side.  "Shrarzok the Shadow.  It''s not a surprise to see you mingling with such low life. Scum such as yourself probably feels right at home with fools like these." Jason smiled, taunting the hulking demon before him.


    Flames surged within the skull of the demon.  "A bug who knows who my name.  Very impressive!  Have we met before?" His curiosity piqued, Shrarzok leaned forward slightly.


    Continuing to walk forward, Jason did his best to buy more time.  Shrarzok''s strength lay in fighting at a distance, and could perform all sorts of sneak attacks with his shadows. Jason was prepared to react at a moments notice, but he knew his only chance was to take the Demon on in close quarters combat.


    "Everyone knows of you, oh Shrarzok the Timid!" Jason intended to goad the Demon into a rage, at least that way Jason would have a higher chance of getting closer.  Demons had huge egos and tended to overreact in anger when insulted, often attempting to crush the insects who had insulted them with their bare hands. "Tales of you fleeing the battlefield time and again have spread like a wildfire across the mortal plain!"


    Shrarzok watched Jason as he continued walking forward.  "You''re not going to run with your tail between your legs again like a frightened puppy are you?"


    Shrarzok placed his hands on his hips, and an enormous guffaw escaped his pearly canines.


    "Insect you amuse me! Come, pledge allegiance to me! I will share my power with you and make you my disciple! Through endless misery I will teach you the path to true power!"  Shrarzok looked upon Jason, opening his arms wide as if preparing for an embrace.


    [System Message ¨C Demonic Discipleship ¨C Quest


    Difficulty ¨C S


    Description ¨C Shrarzok the Shadow has offered to make you his disciple.  Pledge your fealty and offer your soul to Sharzok the Shadow.


    Reward: Unique Class ¨C Shadow Legate and Race Change to Shadow Demon


    Do you accept?]

 23 Mistakes

    Jason stared dumbfounded at the notification that was sent to him by The System.  This was the Unique class that he was after, but why was it attached to becoming the disciple of a demon?  Heavenly Defiance, the User who had obtained this Unique Class in the past, had always stated that it was an item that he had found from the quest reward that had given him his class.


    Had Heavenly Defiance accepted Shrarzok the Shadows invitation from the very beginning? Had he always been on the demon''s side, waiting for the perfect moment to betray humanity?  Looking back, Jason realized that was exactly what had happened.  Heavenly Defiance had shown his true colors in a major battle that ultimately tipped the war in favor of the Demons.  This battle was three years after ¨C Might, Magic, Mayhem ¨C had opened for players on Earth, and it had been a shock to the general population that Heavenly Defiance, the strongest of the Users, had defected to the enemy''s side.


    It wasn''t uncommon for players to defect to the enemy''s side as the majority of the Users truly only believed this was a game.  They all just wanted to have fun and spread anarchy, and since it was a game there would be no consequences to their actions in or out of game.  They only realized too late that betraying their humanity was an irreversible decision that carried on into the real world on the day of the invasion, causing them to lose their minds and attack their fellow humans. Friends and family weren''t excluded from their mindless rampage, consuming the flesh of all who crossed their path.


    Jason had halted in his footsteps completely, revealing a weakness that Shrarzok immediately began to take advantage of.  Unbeknownst to Jason, Shrarzok''s shadow began stretching towards him from a corner of the room behind his back.  Slowly creeping across the floor towards Jason.


    Jason had misunderstood his advantage of coming back to the past from the future.  He had thought the whole game was within his grasp since he had in depth knowledge of the game and knew the outcomes of everyone in it.  How would he have known the hidden truth that this quest was nothing but a trap for anyone who accepted it?  The choice he had was either serve under Shrarzok the Shadow and obtain unimaginable power or die.


    He could attempt to battle, or even run away, but what good would running do?  He had already altered the course of events and Shrarzok had arrived much earlier than he should have, most likely bringing the large-scale battles forward.  He knew the Users wouldn''t be high enough level to affect the battle at this point in time; it was still the first day the game had been released!


    Memories of the prior determination he had obtained within the last hour burst forth in his mind.  There was no chance he would give up now.  He may not be able to obtain the unbeatable class he desired, but right at this moment he had the opportunity to give a large can of whoop-ass to a demon who could cause a lot of problems in the future.


    Jason stared at Shrarzok, not intimidated in the slightest by the difference in size.  Crouching into a fighting stance, Jason pointed his sword at Sharzok.


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    "A disciple for you? Who would agree to becoming disciple for a cowardly decrepit demon?  You would have better chances at begging the wretches to work for you, they might even accept if you pay them a decent hourly wage."


    He sneered in contempt as he continued, "How about this, you bow before me and declare me to be your daddy and I will spare you if you pledge your eternal soul to my sovereignty."


    The fire behind Sharzoks eyes intensified, "I see, you still have fight in you." With a snap of his fingers, dark ethereal shadows erupted from shadows that had crept behind Jason, wrapping around his wrists, and pulling him the floor.


    Jason attempted to evade them but was unable to due to his own lack in attentiveness to the situation. Jason cursed his luck, and his moment of weakness that led to his capture.


    Straining against the ethereal chains that bound his arms to the ground, he could only look up at Shrarzok who slowly began to approach him.


    A deep grotesque laugh escaped Shrarzoks canines as he approached Jason. "Puny bug.  You will burn in eternal flames until you grovel at my feet and lick the crust from between my toes.  When you finally give in to swearing your soul unto me, I will show you further despair by making you kill the ones you love and feeding their corpses to me for my afternoon snack."


    No matter how much Jason strained against the chains it was of no use.  He noticed that these chains had an anti-mana property that prevented him from activated any skills.  Jason could only hatefully stare up at Shrarzok who now stood right before him.


    "Resistance is futile.  Take pleasure knowing that soon you will know what unstoppable strength means."


    Shrarzok opened his mouth and Jason could see swirls of mana condensing into it''s mouth.  After a moment, the mana appeared to ignite as it rushed forth in a stream towards Jason.


    Standing in the hallway with stealth activated, Leviticus had watched the entire scene of Jason''s defiance towards the demon and his subsequent capture.


    After Leviticus had left Jason at the intersection he had to battle his way through a small army of undead.  At the end of the hallway, that he had chosen, was a large doorway where a single Undead Knight was standing guard.


    After a successful ambush and lengthy battle where he had almost died several times, he managed to defeat the Undead Knight, picked the lock, and opened the door to find the treasury room of the Cultists.


    There he had found all sorts of awesome gear, plenty of gold, and his guard equipment.  After equipping his gear and feeling much more secure, he ran to go catch up to Jason who he assumed had gone down the correct path towards the Cultists.


    Leviticus had arrived just in time to watch Jason entering the large room to confront the demon, so he decided to activate stealth and observe for the moment.


    After watching for a moment, Leviticus couldn''t understand why someone strong like Jason would allow himself to be captured, maybe he had some hidden plan?  Though, after he saw Jason struggling to get out of the chains, even with the demon right in front of him, he knew something was wrong.


    He prepared his bow and two arrows and activated a skill called mana charge that allowed him to imbue his arrows with a large amount of mana.  It came with a charge time and significant mana cost, so he could only hope that it was enough to break the chains.


    As fire erupted from Shrarzok''s mouth, two glowing arrows became visible as they shot forth through the darkness, both in a direct collision course with the chains binding Jason''s arms.

 24 Battle in the Shadows

    Seeing the flames surging from the mouth of Shrarzok, Jason was thinking of every possible way he could get out of this situation.  He just didn''t have any time, nor could he activate any skill.  He was literally chained down with no moves left.


    As he was about to resign himself to enduring a grueling period of torture until the town guards arrived, if they even came, he felt a large impact on the shackles of both of his wrists.  At the same moment Shrarzoks flames descended upon him he felt the shackles shatter like glass, freeing him to act as he pleased.


    Shrarzok felt pleased with himself as he saw the insect who dared belittle him about to be roasted like a good sirloin.  He made sure to keep the temperature of the flames low enough so it would slowly cook him from the outside in, releasing the maximum amount of pain!  He clenched his fists in joy thinking of the mayhem he would ravish in this plane of existence with his new toy! Driblark would surly reward him for a job well done!


    As fantasies of plump and roasted nobles filled his mind, to his surprise a glowing sword came out from the enveloping flames straight for his throat.


    Cutting the flow of mana to his spell, he stumbled backwards in disbelief moving his neck out of the way from an instantaneous severing. The sword, however, still managed to pierce his collarbone inciting a furious howl of pain from Shrarzok.


    Before Shrarzok the Shadow stood Jason with a tightly wrapped cloak of flames around him.  The instant that Jason felt control over the mana return to him, he enveloped himself in his own mana and ignited it with his rage. This had provided him with a decent buffer against the flames raging towards him, even though he still took a decent amount of damage.


    With the flames hiding him from Shrarzoks view, he had the perfect opportunity to unleash a mostly successful ambush against Shrarzok.  Now that his blade with Holy Seal activated had pierced Shrarzok, he could see a magma like substance leaking from the wound that appeared to be extremely painful to Shrarzok.  Jason could also see a little bit of frost on the wound, evidence of his sword''s Frost Stack starting to take effect.


    As Shrarzok glared hatefully towards Jason, three arrows curved through the air towards the demons head.  Snarling, Shrarzok swatted them out of the air and began moving backwards to create some distance between him and Jason.


    "Watch the shadows!" Jason roared to whoever was aiding him, as he rushed forward so as not to lose his initiative.


    Jason activated his bone prison which instantly surrounded Shrarzok; five bone spears erupted from the ground, attempting to pierce into his sides.  Shrarzok instantly disappeared, only to reappear directly behind Jason''s back with his massive claws inches away from crushing his skull.


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    Jason smirked, he was prepared for exactly this move as he held his shield behind his head which glanced the claws away.  The force of the blow was so great that Jason slid forward across the floor; as Jason was sliding he aimed the tip of his sword at Shrarzok and fired an Ice Bolt which firmly hit Shrarzok in the center of his chest. With an explosion of ice it pierced into Shrarzok covering him with frost.


    More arrows flew through the air, piercing through Shrarzoks back, chipping away at the Vitality Points of the Demon as Jason pressed this advantage.  Running forward Jason used his sword and shield to block tendrils of shadow that erupted from the ground that attempted to pierce through him.


    Seeing Jason approach, two long skinny daggers materialized into Shrarzok hands as he roared in anger at the annoying flies afflicting him.  The same tendrils that were erupting from the ground also grew off his body and began waving in the air to intercept the arrows flying towards him.


    As tendrils of shadow and shadow spikes flew at him from all directions, Jason was able to block and dodge every single one as he came closer to Shrarzok.  Expertly weaving through the attacks like a fish in water, Jason arrived in front of Shrarzok to begin battle with him.


    Jason was very familiar with this demon and how he fought due to the beginners rift that he had cleared multiple times in his previous life. After every major battle or event, The System would create a rift in the area that Users could enter to experience the battles that had occurred in that area.  These functioned similar to how dungeons worked in video games, where the player could enter an instance that was separate from time and space.


    It carried all of the major characters of the event, and served as a training ground for Users to become stronger and earn better quality equipment.  When Jason had entered the game in his past life, he began by speed running the rift of Shrarzok the Shadow because it would always give good gear and experience.


    If one were to die in a Rift, The System would only extract a level as a penalty and bring the User back to the entrance of the rift. Rift Running quickly became the way to speed level low-level characters, and Jason had immediately hopped onto that band-wagon the instant he joined the game in the past. Since Jason would speed run rifts due to the fact that the rewards were high, and the death penalty was significantly lowered, he had participated in almost every rift known to the public.  He had especially met with a lot of success in Shrarzok the Shadows dungeon, quickly obtaining an intimate knowledge of Shrarzok that even Shrarzok didn''t have of himself after having run the dungeon multiple times.


    If Jason hadn''t become distracted earlier, there was zero chance he would''ve been captured by Shrarzok.


    Arriving before Shrarzok, Jason slashed at the Demon''s thigh but was blocked by a shadow tendril that was quickly followed by a double slash of daggers from Shrarzok.


    Bashing away the daggers with his shield, Jason side stepped and ducked under a few shadow tendrils and slashed his sword again.


    This time Shrarzok''s body turned ethereal, allowing Jason''s sword to pass through him.  About mid-way through his swing though, Jason activated Holy Seal once more and held his sword in the misty body of Shrarzok. The sword that had once slid through the incorporeal body of Shrarzok now shone in the darkness and caused the black mist to evaporate with a sizzle.


    With a howl Shrarzok dropped his daggers, falling to the floor, and vanished.

 25 Battle in the Shadows (2)

    Jason returned his sword to the ready and glanced towards where the arrows were coming from.


    Seeing Leviticus standing in the corner, Jason nodded to him and yelled out "Be ready.  He''s not dead yet."


    Leviticus nodded back and nocked another arrow while crouching down into a battle stance. He began peering around, ready for an attack to come from any direction.


    Jason knew that Shrarzok hadn''t died yet, not only because The System hadn''t said anything, but also because this was a signal of the second phase of the Shrarzoks battles in the rifts in his past life.  Shrarzok would feign death to lull is enemies into complacency, then strike the instant they let their guards down.


    Shrarzok was highly susceptible to the holy element, more so than the typical demon.  This was due to Shrarzok mainly being made up of shadows and flame, other than holy and celestial elements, there weren''t many elements that could damage him.  The majority of the elements would do a limited amount of damage against him, except for the holy and celestial elements which do 300% extra damage to him.


    In the land of Socrathia, magic was made up of four base elements: Earth, Fire, Wind, Water.  The rest of the elements were made of a different amount and combination of these four elements that would make any chemist on earth proud.  However, there were several unique elements that had no combination among these four elements, namely; celestial, shadow, demonic, time, and chaos magic.


    Shadow was among those unique elements that very few individuals could manipulate. It was unique in that it could make the user resistant to almost every magic and very few individuals had a resistance against it.  This was one of the reasons Heavenly Defiance was able to stay as the strongest User in his past life.  Shadow Magics only weakness was Holy and Celestial magic; these two elements caused the shadow magic to disperse and its wielder to take magnified damage.


    Now that Shrarzok had tasted his Holy Seal and sword combo, Jason knew that Shrarzok wouldn''t be making that same mistake again and would aim to stay as far away from him as possible.


    Jason was also running low on mana, and his Vitality Points were below half.


    [System Message -


    User: Thanataion


    Level: 0


    Experience: 227/10


    Titles: Mana Guru, Forerunner Forger, Extraordinary Forger


    Class: None


    Race: Human


    Strength: 13 (+13)


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    Dexterity: 11 (+10)


    Constitution: 11 (+28)


    Intelligence: 11


    Will: 17


    Vitality: 54/117


    Mana : 100/340


    Defense:


    Resistances: Necrotic +15


    Proficiencies: Blacksmithing - 7/20 (Intermediate)


    Skills: Mana Sense ¨C 2/20 (Intermediate) | Mana Manipulation - 13/20 (Intermediate) | Iron Fist - 4/10 (Beginner) | Mana Strengthening - 5/10 (Beginner) | Flame-Throw - 4/20 (Intermediate) | Holy Seal - 0/10 (Beginner) | Night Eyes - 0/10 (Beginner) | Bone Prison - 0/80  (Expert) | Flame Manipulation ¨C 2/10 (Beginner)


    Passive Skills: Mana Guru Effect - 1/10 Beginner


    Equipped: Frosty Longsword, Hellhound Heater Shield, Blessed Breastplate


    Inventory: 30 Copper - 6 Silver - Two maces - 2 Oak Shields - Helm of the Dark - Cracked Breastplate - Necro Claymore - Tower Shield - uncommon materials - Necro Tide Skill Book  -  eight health potions - one dagger - a holy staff. - 20 two handed swords - Boots of Speed - Hardy Belt]


    Jason took the opportunity during this short lull in battle to drain a vitality potion into his mouth.  His Vitality Points immediately rose back to their max.


    At this moment two shadow hounds appeared in the middle of the room.  Leviticus shot an arrow at each of them as one ran towards Jason and the other towards Leviticus.  Both arrows embedded into the hounds feet, causing them to tumble to the ground and Jason very quickly executed the two with a Holy Seal powered slash.


    As Jason killed the final hound, he very quickly turned and raised his shield where his back once was just in time to block a slash from Shrarzok who had appeared from thin air.  After being denied his kill Shrarzok immediately disappeared into the shadows again with a growl.


    In the corner Leviticus activated his stealth skill and disappeared into the shadows leaving Jason as the only visible being in the room.


    Jason stretched his mana sense to the extreme, waiting for any fluctuations in the surrounding mana to give him a hint.  This was the most dangerous stage of battling Shrarzok, as the demon would come out to attack at random moments.


    Jason activated his breastplates stalwart skill, and patiently waited for Shrarzok to appear again.


    The shadows around him were constantly moving and flickering due to the flame borderline of the gateway that was still active.  The only sound being his own breathing and the rattle of his equipment with every step he took.


    Closing his eyes, Jason took a deep breath; sight would only distract him from his mana sense and he needed to focus intently at the moment.


    Spreading his senses out, Jason could see the swirling mana and feel the direction it was going in.  After a few moments of waiting, he could sense some mana gathering just a few paces to his right.  He waited patiently for the mana to peak, and immediately stepped to the side and activated Bone Prison.


    Five bone spears erupted from the ground as Shrarzok became visible with a large black fireball shooting towards where Jason was previously standing.


    The black ball of flames completely missed Jason and erupted on the ground as the five bone spears pierced into Shrarzok, severely injuring him, and pinning him in place.


    Four glowing arrows quickly flew out of nowhere piercing through Shrarzoks elbows and knees, completely incapacitating him.  Roaring in agony, black tendrils erupted from Shrarzok once more as the tendrils relentlessly began to batter the bone spears protruding through him.


    Jason pressed his advantage, and with a flurry of blows he lopped of many of the shadow tendrils as more arrows continued to embed into the Demon.


    As the struggling of Sharzok slowly grew weaker, Jason pierced his glowing white sword through the center of the  Demons chest causing the roars and struggles to cease, and the body of Shrarzok the Shadow began to dissipate into white smoke that flew into the portal that was hanging in the middle of the room.


    With a loud snap, the portal shattered into a million pieces and scattered itself all over the floor.


    [System Message ¨C Congratulations, you have slain Shrarzok the Shadow.  Calculating contribution now.]

 26 Nyx

    With a deep sigh of relief Jason relaxed his tensed body.  He looked over to see Leviticus smiling as he walked towards him while attaching his bow to his back.


    Laughing in joy, Leviticus yelled over to Jason, "That was f*cking fantastic man!"  A huge smile crept over his face as he began massaging his left shoulder, "That was the first major demon I''ve ever killed!  With you here that was just like shooting ducks in a pond! Man, I almost ran out of arrows!"


    Leviticus thumped Jason on his back and stood next to him, eagerly awaiting the rewards The System had yet to give them.


    [System Message ¨C Shrarzok the Shadow and two shadow hounds slain.  75% contribution awarded to you.


    750 Experience Points.]


    [System Message ¨C Updating Quest ¨C Defeat all Enemies ¨C Unique - Complete


    Difficulty: S


    Objective: Prevent demon from escaping the crypt.  Destroy the Cultists.


    Bonus Objective: Exterminate the Demon.


    Reward: 400 Experience points.


    Primary Objective ¨C Complete


    Bonus Objective ¨C Complete


    Reward: 400 Experience Points


    Bonus Reward: Mythical Treasure Chest]


    Seeing the rewards that The System had given him, Jason''s eyes grew wide and a huge smile crept across his face.  All the trouble he had gone through for this quest was well worth it!


    [System Announcement ¨C User Thanataion has completed the first S ranked quest ¨C Rewarding 1,000 gold coins, 100 renown in each kingdom, 100 renown in each empire, title Demon Slayer, and one Mythical Ranked item.]


    [System Announcement ¨C User Thanataion has completed the first S ranked quest ¨C Rewarding 1,000 gold coins, 100 renown in each kingdom, 100 renown in each empire, title Demon Slayer, and one Mythical Ranked item.]


    [System Announcement ¨C User Thanataion has completed the first S ranked quest ¨C Rewarding 1,000 gold coins, 100 renown in each kingdom, 100 renown in each empire, title Demon Slayer, and one Mythical Ranked item.]


    Upon seeing this message, Jason''s heart felt like it was constricted by a boa constrictor.  System Announcement was a message that every user in the game would receive.  This was a rare announcement that many people would attempt to attain as it meant instant fame and success.  All sorts of guilds and high-profile companies would attempt to recruit any players that had their name announced by The System.


    This also brought about a ton of attention from thieves and people with not-so-good intentions.  Now that everyone knew he had such an item and a small fortune, he would become the most wanted man in this game. He had just become a high-profile target on the first day of the game; to all the Users in the game this was an unimaginable feat as they were still working on completing their basic quests of kill X number of goblins.  Now, there were many Users who wouldn''t rest until they had killed him and taken all his possessions for their personal benefit.


    Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    With The System announcing his attainment of a Mythical Treasure Chest he would become hunted by everyone, and his bounty of a mythical item was something that would always last.  Even eight years from the beginning of the game, Mythical Ranked items were a scarcity, and there were only eight items that were known to the public that held the rank of mythical.  This was insane since by that time the amount of Users in-game had reached up to the tens of billions.


    What the public didn''t know either was that Jason didn''t just have the Mythical Chest that The System had announced, but a second Mythical Chest he had obtained from the quest bonus reward.


    Jason sighed and glanced up since in the location where Shrarzoks corpse had fallen, lights were coalescing into loot.  He glanced at Leviticus to see what his intentions were.


    Noticing his glance, Leviticus smiled and clapped Jason on the shoulder, "It''s all yours friend.  I would''ve died as a sacrifice to that demon if it weren''t for you, and I owe you a life debt. This loot is yours, I only ask that you allow me to travel with you in your future adventures."


    Jason peered into Leviticus'' eyes, trying to discern what his intentions were. From what he could see, Leviticus truly intended to travel with him and didn''t have any ulterior motives.  Time would tell though; after all, it had only taken Steven a good enough offer to betray him.


    Glancing back at the loot, Jason saw a pure black orb floating in the air.  A dark mist was emanating from this orb and the light in the room seemed to be avoiding this orb, almost bending around it to avoid touching it.


    As Jason approached the orb, he could feel himself becoming colder and it almost seemed as if time slowed down the closer he came.


    As Jason arrived in front of this strange orb, he placed his hand underneath it and attempted to lift it in the air.  As he raised his hand, the orb seemed to float several inches from his hand, almost as if it were refusing to touch his hand.


    [System Message ¨C Nyx''s Inheritance ¨C Class ¨C Grade ???


    Description ¨C Before Nyx left the mortal realm, she prepared an inheritance for a mortal worthy of Her. You have been chosen to be taught the ways of Nyx, do you accept?


    Reward: Unique Class


    Note ¨C Choice cannot be undone. Experience cost will be 5x higher, and tests will be given as you level.  Failure to complete these tests will result in death.]


    Jason stared at the item that lay in front of him.  This was an inheritance; a class change item that very few Users had been able to obtain in his past life.  Inheritances were basically Unique Classes that were handed down from the Gods and were incredible paths to power.  They were filled with fantastic abilities but were also known for being incredibly dangerous paths to power.  Nine times out of ten, when someone would attempt an inheritance path they would fail and have to restart their character from the very beginning.


    The more powerful the being that left behind an inheritance, the more difficult the trials would become.


    Jason remembered Nyx from not only the lore of Socrathia, but also the lore on Earth.  Nyx was the Goddess of the Night, one of the first primordial beings to awaken.  Her strength was so great that not even the mighty god Zeus would dare to offend her.  She was the Empress of the Night, the Monarch of Shadows, and Ruler of the Dark; none could defy her whims.


    She was one of the most powerful gods to have existed in the past, and he had obtained the opportunity to acquire her legacy.


    Accepting this legacy though was going to be a huge risk.  Let alone the experience point demand, he knew that the tests from the legacy would be nigh impossible to complete.


    Jason knew though that nothing worth having ever came easy, and so he knew he had to risk it all for his future, and his family''s future. Without any hesitation he replied to The System.


    "Accept."

 27 System Announcement

    [System Announcement ¨C User Thanataion has completed the first S ranked quest ¨C Rewarding 1,000 gold coins, 100 renown in each kingdom, 100 renown in each empire, title Demon Slayer, and one Mythical Ranked Treasure Chest.]


    [System Announcement ¨C User Thanataion has completed the first S ranked quest ¨C Rewarding 1,000 gold coins, 100 renown in each kingdom, 100 renown in each empire, title Demon Slayer, and one Mythical Ranked Treasure Chest.]


    [System Announcement ¨C User Thanataion has completed the first S ranked quest ¨C Rewarding 1,000 gold coins, 100 renown in each kingdom, 100 renown in each empire, title Demon Slayer, and one Mythical Ranked Treasure Chest.]


    These three messages flashed before the eyes of every User in the game and would be the first messages to everyone who would log in for the first time over the next day. These three messages caused a sensation worldwide, which many large corporations, guilds, and every other User couldn¡¯t ignore.


    ¡°Someone already completed a S ranked quest?¡±


    ¡°No way! I still haven¡¯t even activated my first quest!¡±


    ¡°Who is this Thanataion? I don¡¯t recognize this username from any of the famous E-Sport players?¡±


    A large group quickly gathered in a suite at the top floor of a skyscraper in New York. The CEO of Global Connect had ordered an emergency meeting to all the board members, several of whom had to disconnect from the ¨CMight, Magic, Mayhem ¨C to arrive in time.


    As everyone sat at the large rectangular table, they all eagerly awaited the CEO to arrive as they chit-chatted about the latest news of Thanataion who not only had his name resounding around the world at the moment, but also had obtained a small fortune from completing an S-ranked quest.


    Currently one silver was equal to $10 out of game if traded on the official website of ¨C Might, Magic, Mayhem¡ª. This meant that the User Thanataion had just earned a million dollars within a day of the game being launched. A million dollars within a day of work was an unimaginable amount for the majority of people worldwide, but only a simple matter to the elite of the world.


    The doors to the room slammed open as a large imposing figure strode in and walked towards the seat at the head of the table. The room immediately became silent as the footsteps of this man echoed throughout the room. This man was the picture of status and wealth, standing at 6 feet tall, silver-grey hair, and a presence that radiated a sense of confidence and power.


    ¡°I believe you all have already heard the news of Thanataion, I¡¯ve gathered you all here to discuss the ramifications of this System Announcement and how things are changing quickly.¡±


    The CEO, Harrison Wade, then began the discussion that lasted throughout the night.


    This feat changed a lot of things for people worldwide now that it was a fact that someone had become rich instantly through playing video games. The game had only been open for seven hours and someone had just obtained enough gold to instantly trade for a million dollars. Many people who originally had no intentions of playing the game had begun to line up at gaming stores to buy themselves a helmet while drone orders worldwide had obtained a backlog of orders that would cause them to constantly fly around for the next several weeks in order to deliver the new orders.


    ¡°What do we know about this game so far? Whose company owns the game and how much do we need to offer to buy it from them?¡± Asked Harrison.


    One of the board members stood up, a slightly nervous looking new board member named Kenneth Gijoke. ¡°Sir, no one knows who released the game, or who runs it. The website is where all transactions are made, forums are run, and where suppliers obtain the merchandise. All deliveries are by drone who have stealth capabilities comparable to military grade drones. Our hackers have been incapable of accessing any further information, and our informants lead us to believe that no one else has any more information about this mysterious company than what we have.¡±


    Harrison frowned, and asked ¡°You¡¯re telling me that this is a ghost company?¡±


    The board members all nodded their heads, no one daring to say anything more that could possibly anger their CEO.


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    Sighing, Harrison sat down. ¡°Tell me about this game.¡± He ordered in a commanding voice.


    Another board member then stood up and began projecting details of the game from his holo-brain watch onto the center of the table, explaining in depth to everyone present what they currently knew about the game and the possible benefits the company could obtain.


    After affirming the importance of ¨CMight, Magic, Mayhem¡ª and the innumerable benefits to the company that could be obtained, Harrison Wade then gave the order to start their own branch in the game for advertisements and gold farming. Harrison also gave the order to recruit elite gamers worldwide, give them high paying salaries, and to dominate the game; suppressing all competition.


    Global Connect was not the only company that was having a meeting similar to this. All the major cooperations such as Amazonian, Banana, TinyHolo, Yippee and many more were setting similar goals and releasing the similar press statements of their intentions in this game.


    With the large corporations releasing these statements, more fuel was added to the fire that Thanataion had started, causing even more individuals to have the desire to join in this new craze.


    With all these new individuals joining the game, there was a large movement to find out who Thanataion was. Many people wanted to recruit him to be the pillar of their new guilds, others wanted to buy his gold and mythical item he had obtained. Some wanted him to carry them to higher levels, while many others secretly wanted to steal his newly gained fortune and mythical item that would surely make him the top player in the game.


    On the forums the top post was ¡°Who is Thanataion?!?!?¡±


    There were many posers who tried to claim the credit of Thanataion, claiming themselves to be Thanataion. All of them were easily discredited, as with every post the username of the individual would appear alongside them, and every account was tied to one person individually. Creating a new username was only possible with a special item obtained from a quest from the Guild Master of the Adventurers Guild. Even if someone was able to change their username with this item, they could still only pick a name that hadn¡¯t already been taken.


    ¡°Mom! Did you see the message just now? Dad just completed a S ranked quest!¡± Shouted Clark as he and Bryan ran towards where Beth and Jessy were training.


    ¡°Dad is so cool! I can¡¯t wait to hear about his adventure! It¡¯s sooooo boring training here for hours on end¡­ I want to do something fun!¡± Yelled out Bryan as they came closer.


    Beth¡¯s eyes sparkled as her kids ran towards her as a wide smile appeared on her face. She had just received a message from The System congratulating her on achieving mastery on her Mana Manipulation. As she was reading what The System was rewarding her with, she received another message that was talking about her husband completing an S ranked quest.


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s your father! Just as he always is, your dad is dominating us in video games¡­¡± Beth sighed, she had thought that she had for sure surpassed her husband in a video game achievement with her new mastery. All it had awarded her with was a silly title and a Platinum treasure chest; nothing compared to the mythical chest that her husband had just obtained.


    Clark began to drool over the idea of a Mythical Treasure Chest, ¡°I wonder what kind of item dad got!¡±


    ¡°Dad is probably a level 50 now with those rewards! He can take us to go adventuring and level up with him!¡± Bryan jumped up and punched the air with excitement spreading across his face.


    Clark looked at his brother incredulously, ¡°More like Dad will be able to carry us and power level us now!¡±


    ¡°Mom, will Dad take us to go do something more exciting now?¡± asked Jessy, hopeful eyes looking up her mom.


    With Jessy¡¯s question, both Clark and Bryan eagerly looked up at their mom and in unison clasped their hands together and implored their mother with a drawn out, ¡°Please!¡±


    Beth chuckled and as she was about to respond, she felt something tapping her shoulder as she heard someone say, ¡°Excuse me miss.¡±


    She turned around to see a man who she had never seen before, and multiple more people walking in her direction. Little did she know that this was the same man who had been watching her and her children for the past several hours.


    ¡°Yes? How can I help you?¡± She asked, taking a step back and pulling her children behind her.


    ¡°My name is Yakuzar, I couldn¡¯t help but overhear that Thanataion is your husband?¡±


    A strange gleam appeared in the eyes of several of the individuals who were walking over, Beth immediately became very defensive.


    ¡°Oh we actually aren¡¯t sure if we know this person or not.¡± She quickly tried to think of different ways to explain Clarks and Bryans shouts and the conversation that she and the kids had just had that was most likely overheard by these strangers.


    ¡°We were just confused, my husbands name is Thanatos not Thanataion, I was just about to correct my confused children.¡±


    The man chuckled and crossed his arms, ¡°A mother who plays videogames with her family, that¡¯s unusual. Are you sure you don¡¯t know Thanataion? I would gladly pay you for any information you could provide.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I can¡¯t help you.¡± She became slightly curious at this moment. ¡°Why do you want to meet Thanataion?¡±


    The man laughed some more, ¡°Well I have orders to recruit this guy no matter the cost into my company¡¯s guild. I¡¯m trying to give him a job.¡±


    Beth smiled, Jason was needing a new job anyway, so it wouldn¡¯t hurt to try to get more information for her husband. ¡°Well, if I ever meet him, I will definitely mention you! How much are you wanting to pay him?¡±


    ¡°He could decide his pay. No price would be too small for him.¡±


    Beth¡¯s mouth dropped, this is a dream offer! ¡®I have to mention this to Jason later tonight!¡¯


    ¡°Well if you ever see him, give me a call.¡± Yakuzar then sent Beth a friend request, who accepted it immediately.


    Seeing the accepted friend request, Yakuzar smiled and bowed, ¡°BethUltman, it was a pleasure to meet you.¡±


    Clark¡¯s, Bryan¡¯s, and Jessy¡¯s eyes all widened when they heard the man use their mom¡¯s name. Pulling at her mom¡¯s dress, Jessy whispered ¡°Mom! Did you really use your real name as your username?¡±


    As the man continued walking away, Beth nodded her head towards her daughter. ¡°Is there something wrong with that?¡±


    The three kids could only stare up at their mom dumbfoundedly. ¡®How could she not know how dangerous using her real name was?¡¯ They were all thinking.


    Yakuzar continued walking away as others came up to meet and greet the possible family of Thanataion.


    Beth saw the crowd gathering and frowned. Looking at her children, she told them to log off quickly before anything unexpected happened.


    After the family disappeared in white lights, Yakuzar glanced back and licked his lips. ¡®Who knew I¡¯d get so lucky with this sexy sorcerer? Boss will be happy with this information I managed to get. I can¡¯t believe she was so dumb as to use her real name for her username.¡¯


    Pulling up his friend list, he stared at the name BethUltman. She was his ticket to promotion! Not only a sexy and provocative female, but also most likely the wife of Thanataion. After giving his boss this information, they could extort Thanataion for all of his wealth and items, and even get him to work exclusively for them.


    Giggling to himself, fantasies of what he would do to that sorcerer after all was said and done ran rampant through his head. He quickly logged off so he could give his boss the great news.

 28 Shadow of Nyx

    Shadow of Nyx


    As soon as the word "Accept" left Jason''s mouth, time seemed to stop.  The black orb in front of him began to tremble almost as if this inanimate object became excited, and in a sudden movement this floating black orb dropped into the center of Jason''s palm in the shape of a teardrop.


    [System Message ¨C Assimilation of Inheritance has begun ¨C Termination of this process will result in the loss of this inheritance.]


    As the teardrop splashed into his hand, a black flame quickly enveloped his hand. A searing, deep cold emerged from this flame, and it felt as if Jason''s very being was having the heat sucked dry.  Jason knew that this was the first trial of the inheritance, and that if he couldn''t even endure this he might as well quit and wait for the inevitable invasion of the Demons and death of his family.


    A progress bar appeared on his interface, and began showing the percentage of the assimilation.


    [System Message ¨C Assimilation ¨C 1%]


    [System Message ¨C Assimilation ¨C 2%]


    The flame quickly spread and began to crawl up his arm, enveloping his torso and head as it spread downward.  The cold was akin to taking a bath in liquid nitrogen, and each passing second was torture.  However, with each passing second, the progress would increase by 1%.


    Leviticus watched from the side as a strange black flame quickly enveloped Jason.  He could tell Jason was in an extraordinary amount of pain, but at the same time he could see determination in his face and the tenseness of his body.  From the strange item, to the body language of Jason, Leviticus could tell that Jason was in the process of activating some sort of legendary skill or technique.


    After what seemed like an eternity to Jason, but in actuality was only a little more than a minute and a half, the progress bar completed.


    [System Message ¨C Assimilation ¨C 100%]


    In an instant, the flames vanished; to anyone watching, it would seem like they just disappeared. Jason gasped and fell to his knee, breathing heavily Jason examined the state of his body. He knew that these flames had entered his body, and could feel them lying dormant inside.  He no longer felt any pain or cold from these flames, and he felt a slight intuition that he could summon these flames if he desired.


    Deciding to look through the new class before he tried anything, he looked at his interface.


    [System Message ¨C You have assimilated Nyx''s Inheritance ¨C Class ¨C Grade X


    Description ¨C Before Nyx left the mortal realm, she prepared an inheritance for a mortal worthy of Her. You have been chosen to be taught the ways of Nyx and will be given a trial at each breakthrough phase. Failure will result in death.


    Phase One ¨C Shadow of Nyx ¨C Level 0/10


    You have been selected as a candidate to obtain the inheritance of Nyx.  Become one with the shadows as you begin to incorporate the Night into your being. All stats are tripled during the night, or in any shadow during the day.


    Skills: Unlocked


    Shadow Affinity ¨C Active ¨C Become as incorporeal as a shadow, phase through all physical and magical attacks.  Length ¨C 2 seconds | Cool down ¨C 1 Minute | Mana ¨C 20 Mana


    Dark Optics ¨C Passive ¨C Darkness is as bright as day to you.  Nothing can hide from you in the dark.


    Shadow Flame ¨C Passive/Active ¨C The fire of the night lives within you.  Ability to manipulate this fire is granted. Damage is classified as shadow damage.  Length, mana requirements, and cool down are dependent on skills user creates.


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    Stealth ¨C Passive ¨C When in shadows the user becomes semi-transparent until discovered.  User is 50% more difficult to be discovered when in the shadows.


    Shadow Immunity ¨C Passive ¨C Shadow damage deals no damage or status effects to User.


    Locked


    Invisibility ¨C Unlock Requirements: Level 1 + 200 Exp Cost ¨C Active ¨C Become one with the dark until you become discovered or initiate an attack. Length ¨C 2 hours | Cool down ¨C 10 minutes | Mana Cost ¨C 5 Mana per minute.


    Shadow Clone ¨C Unlock Requirements: Level 3 + 400 Exp Cost ¨C Active ¨C Create a shadow copy of yourself, with 25% of attributes. Switch places with clone at will.  Length ¨C 10 minutes | Cool-Down 20 minutes


    Shadow Hop ¨C Unlock Requirements: Level 5 + 1000 Exp Cost ¨C Active ¨C  Jump from shadow to shadow. Range ¨C 25 Feet | Length ¨C 1 minute | Cool down ¨C 3 minutes | Mana ¨C 10 mana per jump.


    Cold immunity ¨C Unlock Requirements: Level 7 + 1500 Exp Cost ¨C Passive ¨C Immune to all environmental and magical cold effects and damage.


    ???? - Unlock Requirements: Level 9 + 5000 Exp]


    As Jason looked through his class, he could feel nothing but joy!  Shadow damage was one of the rare damage types that very few could give, and very few had resistance against. Thanks to this new class, he now had both!  Not only would he deal a damage that very few would be able to resist, but there were so many advantages to this class that each new perk astounded him further.


    The current skills he had unlocked were already incredibly overpowered.  With the Shadow affinity, he could completely avoid any damage that was sent his way for a brief moment.  This would be a life saving skill and a trump card that would surely save his life many times in the future.


    Dark Optics was basically an upgraded version of Night Eyes.  He could already tell a difference though as he looked around the room that was only faintly lit before with his night eyes.  What was once a faintly lit, black and white room, now became a bright room with a plethora of colors.  What stood out the most was the blood on the ground from the sacrifices that had been used to build the summoning ritual.


    Jason could see a tinge of black surrounding the light of the torch that Leviticus had recently lit, clearly defining for him where the light ended and the shadows began.  As Jason''s new class was all about shadows, he figured this was how his class helped him distinguish where shadows were since his vision was now unaffected by the dark.


    Jason was really excited about the Shadow Flame skill.  This was akin to a manipulation skill of an element, a powerful and rare skill that allowed Users to manipulate the element that had been mastered according to their imagination. This was a skill that was typically only seen with mages and sorcerers as their classes focused around the manipulation of mana and magic, but Jason would never complain about having this skill.


    Having seen the ways that Users in the past had manipulated their elements, Jason could already see multiple different paths he could use to use this skill to his advantage and become a terrifying force on the battlefield.


    Stealth was normally only a rogue or assassins skill that was exclusive to their class after level three.  Now that Jason had this skill starting out at level zero with this new class, he could already think of a dozen locations that now opened up for him to explore that were originally too dangerous for him.  He could now easily sneak in, and sneak out without ever needing to put himself in danger.


    Putting aside the locked skills for now, Jason was most awed by the fact that this class multiplied his stats by 3 during the night.  This was an incredible boon to Jason, as Demons only ever came to battle during the night.  The sun was deadly to the majority of weaker demons who needed to hide during the day time, while it considerably weakened the rest.  Only those that were lesser demons or higher were unaffected by the sun, and received boosts to their strengths during the night.


    With his stats being tripled at night, Jason was an even more deadly demon hunter and would deal a lot larger blow to their forces when they were stronger.  Demons may become stronger during the night, but that now had no affect on Jason.  While the majority of Users would wait for the morning to hunt Demons and magical beasts to level up and complete their quests, Jason would prefer the night-time when the Demons and magical beasts were typically more active.


    Ignoring the two mythical chests that he had gotten, as he intended to open them when he was alone, Jason looked at the rest of his rewards.  The title of Demon Hunter was a title which allowed him to deal an additional 10% damage to all demons, and gave him rights equal to a baron in any part of the world.  With this title and the renown he obtained in practically every location in this world, he would be able to skip the annoying grind of obtaining noble status throughout the world of Socrathia.


    As he glanced at the 1000 gold coins he had obtained, Jason opened up the trader option in his interface and immediately traded 900 gold for dollars.  This would solve a lot of his financial issues for a short while and also cause his wife to get off his back about spending so much money on the helmets.  He knew Beth would be absolutely shocked when she saw their bank account now, as 900,000 dollars would be sitting in their savings.


    Chuckling Jason stood up and looked to see what Leviticus was up to.

 29 Dead mens treasures are the best

    Dead mens treasures are the best


    "Jason, are you ready to leave?" Asked Leviticus seeing that Jason was standing up and smiling like he had just found a million gold coins on the ground.


    "It''s actually time for me to return to my world for a bit." Jason nodded his head.  "I''ll walk with you out of this forsaken place, but after that I''ll need to go."


    Nodding in understanding Leviticus began to walk alongside Jason back through the tunnel to get out. They began to talk about the battle, and different tactics they could have used to defeat Shrarzok the Shadow.


    The fact that Jason had said he was returning to his world was not strange to Leviticus at all. To the NPC''s of Socrathia, they all knew that the Users had come from a different world.  They knew that a demon invasion was coming thanks to the oracles spread throughout the land, and that somehow Driblark would escape the cage that he had been in for the past thousand years.  They just didn''t know how he would escape or how bad the invasion would be, so their most powerful magic users created a summoning pool that summoned warriors from another realm.  These warriors would be given access to The System, and would fight alongside them in the inevitable battle against the Demons.  They would also be given the ability to travel to and from their world.


    When they arrived at the junction where the paths separated, Leviticus pointed down the tunnel he had gone down when they separated paths.


    "Down there is the treasury of these bastards.  Want to go check it out?  I only grabbed my gear and hurried back towards you."


    Leviticus chuckled, "I figured you might need some help since my path ended up in a dead end."


    Jason glanced at him with his eyebrows raised, "Did you run into any trouble?"


    Leviticus smirked, "Just another one of those undead knights.  It wasn''t too difficult for me as I had leveled up on the way there by taking out the other undead minions on my way."


    Jason nodded, he had guessed that Leviticus had run into further undead minions.  He was tempted for a moment to mention the undead amulets, but in the end decided against it.  He had already made the mistake of forgetting to give one to Leviticus before he left but seeing as how everything turned out well in the end there was no need for an apology.  Jason would just make sure to not make the mistake again; after all, having a plenitude of experience from the future didn''t assure that he would never make any mistakes nor that he couldn''t make mistakes.


    They walked down the hallway towards the treasury, continuing to talk about the previous battles they were in and the experiences they had obtained through different battles.  Jason learned that Leviticus had only recently joined the guards and had become a captain in the guards.  He originally hailed from the elven homeland of Lothremben but had left his small village after it had been destroyed by magical beasts.


    Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    He then traveled around doing odd jobs here and there and lived off the land until he decided to settle here and receive training in order to become stronger and return to his homeland to seek revenge against the magical beasts that had killed his people and ravaged his home.


    Jason could sympathize with him, as he had lived through the exact same situation in his past life.  Only instead of magical beasts it was demons, and Jason was given the opportunity to go back to the past to make sure it never happened.


    When they arrived at the treasury, Jason''s eyes widened.  There were piles of weapons, food, rare materials, copper coins, silver coins, and gold coins all around the room.  The room was about the size of a basketball court, and shelves lined the whole room holding up the precious bounty that the cultists had gathered.


    Seeing Jason eyeing up the bounty that lay before them, Leviticus smiled. "Jason, I see that you''re a smart man.  Not only are you smart, but you also have the air of a commander about you.  You saved my life, and my intuition tells me that you''re an ambitious man. You saved my life, and thus everything here should belong to you."


    Jason glanced over and nodded at him, acknowledging his well-placed intentions.


    ¡°Thank you.  However I can¡¯t accept this favor.  You and I are a team now, and if we¡¯re going to work together we should share the loot.  You are right though, I do have grand ambitions.  I intend on creating a guild among us Users that will stand against the boundless tides of demons that are coming our way.  Much of what is here will help me greatly in creating a capable force.¡±


    Leviticus nodded thoughtfully, and after a moment of pondering responded to Jason. ¡°Then let us use what is here to create this organization.  If you¡¯ll allow me, I can help you set this up without any hindrances and even provide some personnel who can handle the administration in your guild. It is fate that we have met, and you and I can help each other to accomplish our goals. You take everything for now, and I will let you know how much these people will cost. I only ask that you then use this guild to help me reclaim my homeland and rebuild it into a great city.¡±


    ¡°Deal.¡± Jason accepted without any hesitation.  Bringing Leviticus in to help manage the administrative duties would save him an enormous amount of time. He would only have to vet these people that Leviticus would bring in, but other than that all that Leviticus required of him fit into his goals nicely.  He would have to build a guild city eventually and reclaiming an elven land in order to do so would bring him much fame and renown.


    Leviticus nodded as Jason stepped forward to collect everything into his inventory. A grand total of 230 gold coins, 450 silver, and 535 copper were added into his bag. He left behind all of the food and rotten materials that he found but found a good deal of uncommon green equipment and materials and even a rare blue amulet.


    He and Leviticus then turned around and walked out of the crypt.


    As Jason and Leviticus exited the decrepit chapel, Leviticus urged Jason to find him at the guard house when he returned.  Promising to do so, Jason opened his interface and chose to log out.  He couldn''t wait to see the look on his wife''s face when he showed her their bank account!

 Overlord of Hell

    In the deepest layer of hell lay an abysmal realm where creatures from the most horrifying of nightmares lay. They battled each other with ferocity to quell their boredom as they waited and hunted.  There were no other beings other than them, so they hunted each other to fill their emaciated bellies as they anxiously waited.


    Their every desire was full of yearning to escape the endless prison they were trapped in. They had been trapped here longer than they could remember and were only ever able to leave if they were summoned into another realm. They were the strongest of all of their brethren and as such they had the strictest bindings placed upon them by the Gods when the mortal realm banished them to this realm.


    Demons from lower layers of hell could at least have a chance to escape, but not those from the last layer.


    In the very center of this torturous land of fire and brimstone where lakes of lava lie and mountains were made of corpses, stood a formidable fortress that loomed over the realm. Standing as tall and wide as a mountain, this fortress was the heart of the command of the Tyrant Driblark. Here the mightiest of his generals lay in wait for their chance to establish a foothold in the mortal realm. Plans were made here but were only ever given the go ahead by Driblark himself.


    At the highest point overlooking the land stood a Demon dripping with power. He stood over 20 meters tall, with two large dragon horns on his canine shaped head. Humanoid in shape, with limbs as thick as cedars, Driblark stood staring over the kingdom he had subdued after centuries of bloodshed. It took centuries to cause every demon to submit him, because no matter how many times he would kill them they would always return. Not even death could free one from hell. After a century of endless bloodshed, he became acknowledged as Overlord and his command was more powerful than the word of gods.


    He sensed one of his generals walking towards the door that separated this terrace from the hallway. Without saying a word, he waved his hand and the door opened on its own revealing Marzoh, his trusted subordinate.


    ¡°Master¡± Marzoh immediately dropped to his knees as the doors swung open.


    Marzoh was the most powerful sorcerer in the legions of hell, second only to Driblark. He had the ancient blood of dragons running through his veins and as such he had not only their magical abilities, but also their physical characteristics. He had come from an unnatural experiment where 2 gods had tried to combine a minotaur and a dragon, they succeeded but the result was far from their expectations. He was a nine meters tall humanoid with the head of the dragon and horns of a minotaur, with wings coming from his back and bull legs and dragon claws as his lower half.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Driblark growled in a low gruff tone. He had no patience for boot-lickers at the moment. His plans to start invading the mortal realm had already started and the moment for his summoning was on the horizon.


    ¡°The summoning of the Generals have been initiated and they should all enter the mortal realm in a weeks¡¯ time, as you have commanded.¡±This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Driblark snorted causing the fire element in the room to go out of control for a moment. ¡°If everything is on schedule then why are you here?¡±


    ¡°There has been a slight¡­ complication¡­¡±  Marzoh began to tremble as he knelt before Driblark. He was afraid that Driblark might lose his temper and throw him to the torture pits for the next 30 years. He couldn¡¯t miss the invasion of the mortal realm!


    ¡°Shrarzok¡¯s summoning seemed to have been rushed and completed early¡­.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Driblark glared at Marzoh, daring him to repeat what he had just said. The rooms temperature grew higher, and slight black tears began forming in space. The telltale sign of chaos energy entering the room.


    Feeling the anger behind Driblarks voice and seeing the chaos element leaking into the room, Marzoh¡¯s trembling grew even more. ¡°Master, our slaves in the mortal realm rushed the ceremony bringing Shrarzok into the mortal realm too early! We don¡¯t know why, only that Shrarzok entered in a weakened state and soon after we found his essence having returned to the birthing pool.¡±


    Flames of fury began dancing in Driblarks eyes. Shrarzok was his strongest shadow demon, and his prowess in assassination and commanding legions was a great asset. Shrarzoks strength was so unique, that only Driblark himself was able to defeat and subdue him. His power was also the reason Driblark did not fully trust him, and he was only waiting for the moment that Shrarzok would stab him in the back.


    Now that Shrarzok had returned to the birthing pool, it would take months for him to be reborn and fully regain his strength. This was a significant detriment to his future plans in the mortal realm.


    ¡°What happened to the slaves?¡± Driblarks was voice was deep and a growl escaped as he fully intended to cause suffering to whoever was responsible for this.


    ¡°None of them are alive master.¡± Marzoh continued to cower on his knees.


    With a snarl, Driblark turned to the side and slashed the air with his claws laced with the chaos element. A small tear opened, and the after-math of the battle in the cultists den appeared before his eyes. Blood and bodies were strewn over the floor, and marks of what appeared to be the aftermath of a great battle lay about.  He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, and a deep hole opened in the center of his forehead. White wisps began condensing together, and the silhouette of a man formed before him standing in the center of the room over one of the dead bodies.


    ¡°You better have a damn good reason to summon Shrarzok so early.¡± Driblark glared at the soul that had condensed before him. This was the last cultist that had been alive, and as Cleric Hrefner opened his eyes all he could see was the flaming pit before him.


    ¡°Overlord Driblark have mercy!¡± Hrefner dropped to his knees with his forehead pressed against the floor. ¡°We were discovered and came under attack, and so I feared that they would destroy us and I hoped that Shrarzok could save us!¡±


    Driblark opened his eyes and bellowed, ¡°Show me!¡±


    With a scream of pain from Hrefner, images flowed from his head and Driblark could see everything that he saw within the last 24 hours of his death. The last image he saw was of Jason walking into the room to confront Sharzok.


    After the images finished, Driblark snapped his fingers and caused chaos elements to traverse the void and enter into Hrefners soul. Bones quickly grew out of the ground and bound themselves to the soul of Hrefner, who immediately groaned in pleasure as sensation was restored to his otherwise non-existence.


    ¡°Go, find the name of that man and how he found you. I don¡¯t want a repeat of this mistake elsewhere.¡±


    Hrefner looked at his now skeletal body and could feel a large amount of necrotic power inside him, and he nodded. ¡°As you command Overlord!¡±


    The image quickly faded before Driblark, and he looked towards Marzoh who was still on the ground.


    ¡°Once we have a name, destroy him.¡±