《I am System》 It all started with a big bang There was a big bang¡­ Not the one that created everything, but an actual explosion. It all started a few minutes ago when Jack was living his usual boring life. Although it was extremely boring to most people, he found it quite satisfactory. He had a stable income from a peaceful job which was actually quite interesting. Although it wasn¡¯t as highly paid as a surgeon, it was close to that value, and on top of that, he enjoyed his work, which was to program games for a company called Heavenly Games Pvt. Ltd. His work lasted for barely a few hours a week, and most of the work he did from the comfort of his home. On every Wednesday and Friday, he would have to go to the office to report on his work so far, and confirm his new assignments. With this enjoyable lifestyle of sitting at home on your bed and typing away at the Alienware laptop, Jack was more or less completely satisfied. He had worked hard, and after university and post-grad, he had immediately joined this company. He had worked his a*s off and made enough money to pay off his debts to his parents for his tuition in university and post-grad, and slowly began collecting money, and had even bought his own house after nearly 10 years of slaving off. Now he was nearing 35 years, and was nearing the stable point in his life, where he had everything he needed with no exaggerated expenses and nothing too high in terms of salary. It was late afternoon and Jack was returning hm after submitting his latest assignment and receiving a new assignment.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. After working at the company for so long, both his superiors, and himself had understood his strong point. He was good at creating ¡®systems¡¯ for the games he worked on. No matter the type of game it was, if he was given a few days to work on it, Jack was able to somehow put together varying types of systems based on the occasion. Heavenly Games Pvt. Ltd., worked differently than normal companies in the industry. They did not make a coding slave machine, but rather brought in people for a contract of a month in order for them to find a particular specialisation in terms of the game building and marketing process. During this month, the people are made to try out all the parts of process, and were judged in each aspect by the superiors after the month. Some people were good at building the controls, while others were good at fighting mechanics. Some were good at increasing game efficiency, while others were good at managing the physics in the games. Jack was good at creating systems, and very good at that. This was rather useful for the company since most of their games were single player RPGs, and online multiplayer RPGs, both of which required systems. This job was initially done by anyone willing to do it in each project individually, but after Jack began working, all of this was done by him. The job entailed not only creating a system, but also creating a method of segregation between power, and skill level within the game world, along with a smooth yet entertaining way to progress through those segregations. While returning, Jack noticed something flashing conspicuously in a nearby alley. Being the normal citizen that he was, he squinted his eyes towards the flashing light. The next moment, he ignored it as if it never existed and moved on with life. This chapter in his life was closed, never to be revisited again, as Jack reached the door to the two-story house he had bought near where he worked. *click* He unlocked his door, and pulled open the door. At that moment, suddenly, the door exploded. There was a big bang¡­and everything went white. And that was the last thing Jack remembered. One way trip In the white void of nothingness, Jack had just regained consciousness. Around him, there was nothing. Above him, below him, and in every other direction possible, he only saw white mist. He tried to move, but nothing moved. Now that he thought about it, he could not move, nor see anything. The white mist he thought was around him might not actually be there, since he did not have any sensory organs. In fact, he did not have a body to begin with! It was only his consciousness that remained. ¡®Did I die?¡¯ he thought. Thoughts kept going through his mind as time passed. He asked for forgiveness, he asked to meet his parents once more. After sadness, came regret. Although his life was fulfilling, it was not fulfilling at the same time. He regrated not making friends. He regrated not having ambition. He regrated not trying harder. Next came hope. Hope of how his life would have been if he tried something different. He lived through countless repetitions of his life with a single small change to see how things would turn out in his mind. This number went from a few, to a few hundred, to a few thousand. There were so many things he could change that time flew by and he had already lost count of how many times he replayed his own life. He had already completed all major and minor changes in his overall life, and had moved onto random guesses like ¡®What if I won a $100000 lottery¡¯, and ¡®What if Bill Gates adopted me¡¯. Time passed and he finally ran out of things to change. He could not change anything anymore. Madness began to come over him and soon his mind was filled with random sentences. Sentences were broken down into words, and words into letters. Soon, nothing but sounds filled his mind. Then, all of a sudden, nothing. Silence reigned in his mind. It was a state of being he had never reached before. A state of peace reached only after going through hell and beyond. He could not feel it, but the whiteness around him began to ripple outward with him as the centre. Completely unknown to him, a mysterious hand reached out for him, and without knowing it, grabbed his consciousness. [Ah! #2831573 is a success! You have reached enlightenment child. You will be able to succeed my position now!]The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Said the owner of the blindingly white hand, hidden in more white fog. Suddenly, a black hand reached out for Jack¡¯s consciousness from nowhere, bringing a black mist along with it. The owner of the white hand screamed in an unknown voice. [Why are you here L*c*f*r!] [Why are you so angry M*t*tron. I¡¯m here for that of course.] said the owner of the black hand through the black fog as the hand grabbed at Jack¡¯s consciousness. [NO! He will inherit my position! Leave him and leave E**n. Go back to the depths of H**l!] [Kuku. No. The child will come with me. It has died already and belongs to me.] [He does not! He did not die in this world and belongs anywhere he wished to be.] The black fog clashed with the white fog as the hands were stuck in a fierce stage of equilibrium. Suddenly, a third hand descended upon the two of them. This was not a white nor black hand. It was the hand of a woman. Half black and half white. In a soothing voice, the woman, larger than the owners of the two hands combined, spoke. [Now, now. Do not fight over something as trivial as this. Give it to me.] The two hands let go of Jack¡¯s consciousness immediately and the woman grabbed it. She then lifted her hand back up enough for her to inspect it, pulling Jack¡¯s consciousness out of the sphere of black and white fog, into an empty void. [Rather marvellous workmanship you have here M*t*tron. But it will not spare you, nor take your place in the 10,000-year punishment. Anyway, your punishment is almost over. Just hold out for another 30 years or so and your father will release you both.] With that, the woman pulled back her hand, before throwing Jack¡¯s consciousness. Into the void of nothingness, he went, moving past unimaginable distances every second. The sheer speed causing fragments of Jack¡¯s consciousness to crumble away and get left behind, leaving a trail behind him. Just as the last bits of his being were about to fade, he stopped moving. A new hand stretched out to him. This hand was that of a man, clearly a lot larger than any of the beings from before. The indistinct being looked at Jack¡¯s destroyed consciousness for a moment. [Sigh. Those brats did that to you? And the ¡®she¡¯ went ahead and threw you into ****? Sigh. ¡®She¡¯ probably knew I would find you.] He muttered as he reached out with his other hand and pulled. All the broken-off parts of Jack returned immediately and formed Jack once more. The man thought for a moment and then pulled out faint energy from nowhere, as though he was creating energy itself, and injected it into Jack¡¯s consciousness. [There, you should be able to live with that. I added some of your un-enlightened self into the mix to give you some instincts. This much should be enough.] With this much, the man covered Jack in some unknown force-field and aimed him to a distinct star some distance away, shining like a beacon in the empty void. The man hesitated for a moment. [You came from there. I¡¯ll send you somewhere else.] The man then aimed jack at another, more distant star before throwing him. The speed he was thrown at was infinitely faster than when he was thrown by the woman, and he reached his destination in an instant and smashed into the star. The force-field around him met the star¡¯s surface, and caused an opening to appear in the star, allowing Jack to pass into it, while the force-field melded into the star as compensation for a one-way trip. Mason A long time later, Jack regained consciousness. This time, although he still did not have a body, he could see certain things. In fact, he could only see two things. They were the images of two dying people. He still couldn¡¯t move or do anything else except see the two people dying, slowly. One was a young man whose leg had been torn off and was being eaten by a wolf-like monster. The other was a woman about the same age as the man, however she had been impaled by a spear and was in the middle of a battlefield. Jack had regained some of his humanity after that ¡®Man¡¯ had rebuilt him, without him knowing anything had happened in the first place. He could not just sit there and watch them die. He tried everything he could, but he simply could not move. Suddenly, a window popped up in his consciousness. [You are the system little one. You can help them by working with them. Give them a system, and things will work out.] Jack¡¯s eyes flashed when he heard this voice. He had an inexplicable feeling that the being that just told him this was too great to be spoken with, only to be revered. This was also odd since he was an atheist beck when he was alive. Nonetheless Jack willed to give a system to each of them with all his might. ¡®Go!¡¯ he thought in his mind as two windows flew from his existence towards the two poor souls on the edge of death. Mason, whose cut off leg was making him writhe in pain, suddenly stopped. He noticed a blue square hoovering above him. He was shocked it fist and tried to crawl away, but then realised that he was hiding in a small crevasse in a rock-cliff, and there was no space to move. The wolf monster was waiting for him outside and he could only stay in his current location. Instead of worrying too much about what the floating square was, since he was going to die this day anyway, Mason tried to read what was written on the screen. ============== Do you wish to live? The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ============== ¡®Hmm?¡¯ Mason was slightly stunned. It seemed he was hallucinating due to excessive blood loss or something. ¡®Why not indulge the hallucinations of a dying man¡¯ he thought as he reached out with his trembling right hand and clicked on ¡®Yes¡¯. Suddenly, the window disappeared before appearing once again with new text on it. ============== Welcome to the Survivor¡¯s System ============== ============== Survivor¡¯s System V 1.0 Name: Mason Gates Age: 19 Level: 0 (0/100) Class: None Sub-class 1: None Sub-class 2: None Titles: None Current state: Grievously wounded + Bleeding + Frostbite ---------------- Strength: 1(3) Vitality: 2(4) Stamina: 2(3) Toughness: 1(1) Dexterity: 0(2) Sense: 2(2) Mana: 2(2) Aura: 1(1) Stat points: 0 ---------------- Skills Basic Woodcutting Lv 1(0/100) Basic Cooking Lv 1(0/100) Basic Running Lv1(0/100) ============== ============== Due to the inability of the host to survive through this experience, the System has loaned the skills ¡®Basic Healing Lv 2¡¯ and ¡®Basic Wind Bullet Lv 3¡¯ to the host. After a time period of 4 hours, all exp collected by the host thereafter will be transferred to the system without affecting your stats until the loan is repaid. The loaned skills will remain with the player. ============== Mason felt a rush of information flood his brain as he instantly understood how to use the skills the system gave him. He was shocked out of his mind for a long time, but soon recovered and began to use Basic Healing Lv 2 on his leg. Slowly, wound began to close up and the bleeding stopped. Mason was thanking both the gods and the system for this miracle as he completely closed off the wound, and spent 1 mana on it. To Jack, this was also miraculous. If things could have been healed like this back on Earth, so many people would have been saved. Not that it mattered now anyway. Jack was also shocked at the appearance of these two new skills. The moment he gave out the two system screens, the ethereal voice spoke in his head once more. [You have a shop. You can buy things from there in exchange for Core Points. You get core points, or CP by siphoning off exp from those under you who use the system. Remember, they can earn more exp for you when they are stronger.] Jack then quickly went and opened the shop. ============== CP shop -Basic Healing Lv 2 (10 CP) -Basic Wind Bullet Lv 3 (10 CP) -Basic Judo Lv2 (10 CP) ============== These were the only items in the shop which amounted to 10 CP each, approximately 100 exp for a player. He could also only take these three items on credit while the others had to be bought with up-front CP. Jack knew that this was the Man¡¯s doing, and had no complaints for it. In fact, he was thankful. Seeing how highly priced the other items are, and how not a single of them had a credit function, it was clear that ¡®The Man¡¯ had helped him out. While Mason was healing in the cave, another person received Jack¡¯s System. Alice lay on her back, with a spear stabbed through her abdomen, rendering her ineffective for battle. Alice ============== Do you wish to live? ============== As she was laying on the battlefield of magic and swords, she, a normal soldier with no special qualities, who was about to die a regretful death, received a notification. She did not have enough mental energy to think about what it was or why it was there. She just reached out for the ¡®Yes¡¯. ============== Welcome to the Survivor¡¯s System ============== ============== Survivor¡¯s System V 1.0 Name: Alice Bard Age: 18 Level: 0 (0/100) Class: None Sub-class 1: None Sub-class 2: None Titles: None Current state: Grievously wounded + Bleeding ---------------- Strength: 3(4) Vitality: 1(5) Stamina: 1(5)This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Toughness: 1(2) Dexterity: 0(3) Sense: 2(2) Mana: 2(2) Aura: 2(2) Stat points: 0 ---------------- Skills Basic Swordsmanship Lv 1(0/100) Basic Marching Lv1(0/100) ============== ============== Due to the inability of the host to survive through this experience, the System has loaned the skills ¡®Basic Healing Lv 2¡¯ and ¡®Basic Judo Lv 3¡¯ to the host. After a time period of 4 hours, all exp collected by the host thereafter will be transferred to the system without affecting your stats until the loan is repaid. The loaned skills will remain with the player. ============== Just like Mason, a cold feeling rushed into her mind, giving her all the information, she needed on how to use each of her two skills. The reason Jack did not give her ¡®Basic Wind Bullet¡¯ was due to two reasons. Firstly, she had only 1 mana, which meant that she would only be able to use 1 spell, which would be used for healing. She would have to wait a long time for her mana to naturally refill in order to use wind bullet again. Instead, learning an incredibly useful hand-to-hand combat skill would be far more useful. In fact, a sword skill or knife or dagger skill would be even more useful in this battlefield, but Jack did not have access to those. Judo was the best he could do, and he felt this was a good choice. On the other hand, Mason could use more than one spell since he had 2 mana. However, fighting with a monster almost as tall as you while on four legs in hand-to-hand combat was just committing suicide. Therefore, for him, a ranged spell was a lot better. The second reason for this was that Jack needed to buy the skill for each user, which meant that he had to buy ¡®Basic Healing Lv2¡¯ twice, once for each person. Jack doubted that any of them could survive being deprived of more than 2 whole levels of exp. While Alice was healing herself on the side-lines of the chaotic battlefield, Mason had just completed healing himself. ¡®Now what?¡¯ Mason thought to himself. He could not outrun the wolf-beast even when he was perfectly fine, not to mention in his current state of having a missing leg. Mason began to doubt himself and began to fall into the quagmire of depression. Jack noticed this and decided to intervene. =============== Survival Quest Injure or kill the wolf beast using [Basic Wind Bullet Lv 3] Reward: Exp rewards will be taken by the system due to loan penalty Failure: Death by starvation/ Death by dehydration/ Death by Disease/ Death by Wolf-beast Time limit: 3 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds =============== Currently, Jack could not provide any actual rewards. He had learned that killing living creatures, increasing skill proficiency, as well as destroying certain things and affecting certain events would give exp. Quests did not ¡®give exp¡¯. For quests, he had to give exp himself from his CP reserves, which were currently non-existent for him. However, since Mason owed him, Jack could issue him effectively unlimited quests at zero cost. Mason received the quest, and stared at it for a while, before steeling his heart. ¡®I will survive.¡¯ Wolf Mason Waited till his stamina had completely recovered, and waited as much time as he could. The system told him that the mana stat was required to use the healing and spells, and that this stat would naturally recover over time. Nearly an hour later, his mana rose from 1(2) to 2(2), filling up his mana pool completely. With his hardened resolve, Mason neared the entrance of the cave with silent footsteps. The entrance was incredibly small, just enough for him to barely squeeze through sideways. This had prevented the wolf-monster from entering and had kept him safe so far. Limping closer, Mason picked up a small pebble and the it out the narrow opening, making it land on the layer of snow that had accumulated outside. *Whoosh* All Mason saw was a white blur as the place where the pebble fell was destroyed, some of the snow parting ways to reveal a white fur wolf a few times larger than the ones found on earth. It also had bright red eyes and its canines were nearly double the length of the other teeth, slightly showing through the closed mouth. ¡®Dammit! It was still waiting for me¡¯ though Mason. This situation had started with his regular excursion into the woods to bring fire-wood to sell at the town. He had entered with his trusted axe and a fur coat. A long hike later, he reached the part of the woods with the least snow and the driest wood. A long time later, he had chopped off the tree and it fell with a resounding thud. However, in the process, he heard a yelp of fright and pain. Moving closer to the sound, he found a white wolf cub, impaled by one of the branches of the tree, laying on the more or less snowless ground, covered in blood and leaves. Mason had remembered a saying said by everyone in his town, ¡®Any child is accompanied by their parents in the wild.¡¯ Realising the situation, Mason had tried to run away towards the path to the town, but from the bushed, an extremely large white wolf came out, bearing its fangs at Mason.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Instinctively, Mason had swung his axe at wolf, which was already mid-air in its attack. The axe lodged itself deep into the front foot of the wolf, making that limb nearly useless. However, the problem was that his axe got stuck in between the muscles and bones of the leg, and Mason was unable to pull it out to protect himself any further. The wolf, that was in the air, finally descended and bit off his leg, and began to feast on it instead of going for the kill. It seemed as though it was toying with its pray. Mason did not turn back and just began running, the adrenalin in his body keeping the pain of his leg at bay. Running away from the wolf, he found himself against a cliff, and looking backwards, he could roughly make out that the wolf had finished its snacks and was coming for the main course. He could also make out that the axe was no longer lodged into the wolf through the chape of the distant silhouette. Not wasting any time, Mason had tried looking around for a way out and had luckily spotted a crack in the cliff, small enough for himself to fit into. And that led to the current situation. From the snow around it, it was clear that the wolf was still bleeding slowly from the deep wound his axe had created. However, it wasn¡¯t enough to put its life in danger. Noticing Mason¡¯s look, the wolf charged towards the entrance to the cave as though it was possessed. However, Mason did not step back this time. There would be no other rescue for him. No one to save him. No one was left in this world to look after him. He raised his right hand and extended his index finger to form the shape of a gun using his hands. He did not know what a gun was, but due to Jack¡¯s thoughts, the skill was formed in this manner. [Wind Bullet] Mason chanted as the wolf was just a meter away from him. His aim was the softest part of the wolf, its eye. *Baang* *Baang* Two shots occurred on after another, one missing the eyes and hitting the check slightly below the eye, but still penetrating deep into the bones, and nearly taking half the wolf¡¯s mouth with it. The other hit the eye, went through without resistance, and followed a straight path to leave the back of the Wolf¡¯s head, bringing white brain matters and fresh blood along with it. The Wolf, that hap pounced at Mason, lost its momentum and fell to the ground just short of Mason. The light in its eyes dimmed as it breathed its last. Mason looked at the dead creature and sighed with indistinct emotions. ¡®Mother, Father, did you see that? I stood up for myself. I did not back down. And I won¡­¡¯ Mason looked up at the sky as though to give his late parents a last goodbye. Letting the emotions he had held within, flow freely for the first time in the years since his parents died. Rattling death As Mason received his mission completion notification along with absolutely no reward, Jack was rejoicing at the incredible exp gain. In a single monster, Jack had earned the exp required to pay off the debt of 10 CP, equivalent to one of the skills bought on credit. And that is exactly what he did. On the other hand, Mason began to use his spar knife to cut the beast. It was currently late at night, and trying to find his way back to the town at this time was more dangerous then fighting the wolf. The wolf, according to the system, was merely level 3. Based on this assumption, Mason had already distributed different species to different levels, and there were creatures with levels in the double digits lurking within the woods. Therefore, he decided to get some materials from the carcass before returning to the crack in the cliff and spending the night there. After a gruesome flurry of stabbings and slicing, Mason recovered all the useful bones, fangs, useful meat, eye balls, as well as the heart. He did not know why any of these items were useful, but the system specifically pointed them out and so he decided to follow its guidance. There may be no one left to take care of him in this world, but there was one thing he could trust in with his life, and that was the system. At least for now, it was one of the few things that actually helped him, not to mention saving his life. With the spoils of victory, Mason returned back to his cave for a night of rest. In a place far, far away from Mason¡¯s location, a bloody war was still ongoing. It had been nearly an hour since the system gave Alice a new shot at life. She had already completely healed from the grievous wound in her abdomen. Unlike Mason¡¯s case, her wound could be healed through [Basic Healing Lv 2]. Over the course of the following 40 minutes, Alice moved slowly through the slide-lines of the battlefield. Although the system had given her the level 0, it had given everyone else levels, be it friends or enemies. According to the system, this was to display their combat power. Most of the soldiers were between level 0 and 2, while she had not seen enough of the battlefield to see the levels of stronger individuals. However, that did not matter. When she had enlisted to the army, she had made a pledge. A vow to never back down from the war until she had killed 10 people. Naturally, in the army, barely anyone paid heed to that saying.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. However, she believed in it, and the system, as though it was reciprocating that emotion, gave her a mission. =============== Survival Quest Kill at least 10 soldiers from the Roland Kingdom to protect your homeland of the Leon kingdom, and collect their badges. Current Progress: 0/10 Reward: Exp rewards will be taken by the system due to loan penalty Failure: Death by enemy hands/ Dishonourably discharged from the army upon return. Time limit: 2 hours 42 minutes 31 seconds =============== The time limit for this was much lower since the war would be ending very soon. This war had already dragged on for nearly 2 continuous days, and all the soldiers were nearing the ends of their stamina. However, these conditions were perfect for Alice. She did not carry her sword, and instead was using [Basic Judo Lv 3] to efficiently disable her exhausted opponents and finish them off with a small knife she was carrying. She moved slowly, and creeped up close to her targets like a predator getting ready to hunt her prey, before launching her flurry of attacks to finish them off swiftly before jumping back onto the piled of corpses around her, disappearing from view. Time passed, and after another hour, she had ling completed her mission, and was just killing to vent her anger. Her kills piled up slowly, and began to reach the forties. She had collected so many enemy badges that they made a rattling sound everywhere she went. A rumour began spreading through the friendly and enemy soldiers. It was the rumour of a certain ghost soldier. One that came and went with the wind, the only evidence of their existence was a dead body with its badge gone, and a faint rattling sound of badges. It was the rumour of ¡®Rattling Death¡¯. With just [Basic Judo Lv 3] and [Basic Healing Lv 2] every now and then to recover stamina and any lost vitality, Alice had killed off early 50 Rolandians. When the bugle for retreat was sounded, and the Rolandians began to turn their backs from the battlefield, Alice stood up from her hiding position, completely out of breath and exhausted beyond belief. However, looking at her status, she grinned. Jack, who was looking down at the entire scene from some unknown location, was also stunned. Alice alone had given him enough exp to, when converted to CP, cover for all his debts, and left him with some extra. Naturally, he did not do that. Instead, he used only the amount used to buy her own skills, and returned the extra back to her, levelling her up instantly to Level 2. Alice looked at the message which had popped up. ============== Please assign your Stat points Note: This is a non-reversable action. ============== After reading through the meanings of each of the different stats available to her, she followed the system¡¯s prompt and assigned her newly gained 4 stat points. ============== Survivor¡¯s System V 1.0 Name: Alice Bard Age: 18 Level: 2 (4/100) Class: None Sub-class 1: None Sub-class 2: None Titles: None Current state: Tired ---------------- Strength: 6(6) Vitality: 5(5) Stamina: 3(5) Toughness: 2(2) Dexterity: 3(3) Sense: 2(2) Mana: 3(3) Aura: 3(3) Stat Points: 0 ---------------- Skills Basic Swordsmanship Lv 1(5/100) Basic Marching Lv1(0/100) Basic Judo Lv 3 (52/300) Basic Healing Lv 2 (4/200) ============== Barracks Alice completed her check with the system was sincerely thanked it from the bottom of her heart. If not for it, not only would she had already died by the spear, but exhaustion would have also killed her. She was able to survive only because of the miraculous recovery given upon levelling up. She did not know of this feature until it actually happened. Every time she levelled up; all her stats were filled back to the max stat value given in the (). This basically meant that even if she was on the brink of death, with only 1 vitality remaining, and she levelled up, all her injuries would recover completely. Naturally, this was only referring to immediate injuries and not those that have existed for some time, or those that are caused by the removal of large parts of the body. This meant that cases like Mason could not be healed by the instant recovery of levelling up. Alice was done with the task she had been given, and began walking out of the battlefield. Since it was the Roland kingdom which had launched the offensive, the battlefield was naturally the land of a noble who was part of the Leon Kingdom, bordering with the Roland Kingdom. A mixture of feeling ran through Alice¡¯s mind as she returned to the temporary base camp. ¡®Father, Brother, I will avenge you.¡¯ She thought to herself. ¡­ In the temporary base camp, the mood was rather mixed. Those who survived were thrilled at the fact that they had survived, while those who had lost their close friends of blood-relatives were grieving. In this tense mood, as more and more soldiers were returning from the battlefield, a strange clanging was heard. It caused silence to spread among the people as the returning soldiers parted ways to allow a single figure to enter the camp. *Clang**Clang**Rattle* The figure was that of a bloodied lady, with a rather exquisite figure. She had the right curves in the right places, but also did not have any excessive baggage. Most of her body was covered in a thin layer of chiselled muscles. She was wearing a tight black top soaked in blood, and rather baggy full pants. In the pockets of those pants, was a collection of 53 badges clambering against each other.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. ¡°It¡¯s her right?¡± ¡°Rattling Death was a she!¡± Hushed whispers echoed along with the clanging of her badges, and mournful cries. Alice walked up to the slightly dazed sergeant and emptied out her collection of Rolandian badges without saying a word. Her stiff expression coupled with the blood and mud covering almost every part of her gave off a strong impression, enough to prevent people from giving lecherous looks at her. ¡°52!¡± The sergeant exclaimed when he counted the number of badges. With this number being exposed through the thin walls of the tent, more whispers began spreading. However, Alice did not flinch in the slightest and just waited for her reward. The sergeant quickly collected all the badges and asked. ¡°Which squad are you from?¡± ¡°24th squad of the 13th battalion, sir.¡± ¡°24th? You are the only survivor them?¡± The sergeant recalled for a moment before asking. ¡°Yes. Everyone else died.¡± ¡°Alright. I will speak with the lieutenant. He had authority over squads 20 to 30.¡± ¡°Thank you.¡± Alice gave a military salute and left the tent to return to her barracks. Time passes, and nearly an hour later, 2 soldiers came into her squad¡¯s tent. Looking at their shoulders, Alice realised that they were squad captains. In the Leon kingdom, military command was rather strict. At the bottom most rank were the soldiers like herself. These soldiers were grouped into squads of anywhere between 5 and 20 soldiers, with a squad captain as their leader. Next came the lieutenants who were in charge of anywhere between 10 and 30 squads. Above them are the battalion commanders and vice commanders to whom the lieutenants reported directly to. Above battalion commanders were the ranks reserved only by nobility. This did not mean that one had to be a noble by birth to become the generals and admirals above battalion commanders, but it meant that once you achieve enough merit to reach that rank, you will be given at least the lowest level of nobility. There were also special ranks within the army, like sergeants, who are part of logistics or special units like mages and aura wielders. Alice already knew all of this information since it was drilled into her along with all the other new recruits when they joined. ¡°Soldier Alice Bard! The lieutenant is calling for you.¡± Alice quickly finished changing her clothes and went along with them. In the Leon kingdom, equality between genders was greatly emphasised. This was mainly because Over the last 200 years, the ones who inherited the throne were queens, who then married other influential families and announced them the king. However, most of the power remained in the queen¡¯s hands. Therefore, seeing a half-naked woman, although somewhat enticing to any male, especially one as good looking as Alice, was not a strange scene, just the same as you would see half-naked men in the barracks. Naturally, as certified ¡®gentlemen¡¯, the two squad commanders did not peek and waited outside the ten after delivering their message. Wolf Cub For Alice, the day was turning into night as she went towards the lieutenant¡¯s tent. In a place far, far away, the night was just turning into day. Mason had completely healed his wound, and was now left with a stub on his left leg up till his knee. Everything below the knee was empty. He had also cooked all the meat and made some necessary tools using the trees. He had made a fur coat to replace the one he had lost while running away from the wolf. With his knife from earlier, and improv crutches for his left hand to take the load his left leg would have taken. This was made out of wood he had collected from nearby tree branched, binding them together to form a stronger stick. He had also made a backpack to carry the wolf¡¯s other part in, hoping it would bring him some money. Along the way, the came across the tree he had felled earlier. There, he found that the creature that had been the starting point of everything had died, and was already half-covered in snow. Although it was due to the cub¡¯s death that he lost his leg, he still felt sorry for the wolf. Not only did he kill it, but he also killed his mother. Clearly, the father was nowhere close by, or else the mother would have been howling for help instead of stalking him. Suddenly, he heard soft sounds, as though something was struggling in the snow. After a few moments of hesitation, Mason decided it would be better to investigate, since it was still pretty early in the morning, and not many large and dangerous animals come out at this time. Turning right, Mason stumbled his way through the snow and discovered another cub. This one was much smaller than the one who had died, and was lucky enough that not a single tree branch hit him due to his small size. It was about the size of his palm, and by the looks of it, it had been birthed not too long ago.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. However, its small size also passed a problem. The tree branches did not kill it, but trapped it within a sort of wooden cage of branches. Looking at the poor little fellow, Mason was saddened. Technically, it was his own fault that the first cub was killed, and that the mother attacked him. According to how things flowed, he should have died, the mother should have feasted on his remains, and then returned to save the little cub from its freezing prison. However, he had received ¡®The Survivor¡¯s System¡¯ and had been able to turn the tides and kill the mother wolf, leaving this little cub to a twisted fate. Mason felt both wronged and guilty at this moment. During this mix of emotions, Jack decided to help him out a little. Jack was naturally a rather kind person, and did not want a cub to freeze to death. Furthermore, Jack was a dog person and could not allow such a ball of cuteness to come to any harm! Puppies forever!!!! ================== Quest Rescue and tame the white wolf cub NOW! Reward: Due to loan penalties, exp reward will be snatched. Additional rewards will be given after the loan is covered. Additional reward: [Basic Taming Lv 0] Failure: Death of the cute little innocent puppy dog Time limit: 59 seconds ================== Mason was slightly shocked. Did the system display this much emotion before? But that didn¡¯t matter. He would be getting a new skill after the loan period was over, and there would be nothing better than that. Mason had already learned the power of skills. He had already killed off a level 3 wolf with just the power of a single level 3 skill. Naturally, Level 3 wolf was a lot stronger than level 3 humans, since wolves are faster and stronger than humans of the same level. However, they were mere beasts, and did not have intelligence equal to a human and were hence easier to kill if you had a powerful skill to one-shot it, like Mason¡¯s [Basic Wind Bullet Lv 3]. Following the quest¡¯s instructions, Mason swiftly rescued the animal, which for some reason did not rebel against Mason. ¡®Must be the fur of its mother.¡¯ Mason thought to himself as he stuffed the curled-up ball of fluff inside one of his pockets inside the fur coat, before continuing his trek back to the town. On the other side of the world, Alice had arrived outside the lieutenant¡¯s tent and was waiting to enter. Squad captain ¡°Come in.¡± said a voice from inside. Alice walked in, leaving the two rather chatty squad captains; Jon and William, outside. ¡°Sir.¡± Alice gave a stiff military salute before standing at attention. In front of her was a middle-aged man with black hair, completely unlike her own golden hair which had been dyed reddish due to the blood which had stained it. Due to the lack of soap and shampoo, her hair would likely stay this colour for the foreseeable future. The middle-aged man¡¯s dark grey eyes stared into Alice¡¯s blue eyes for a while before he said. ¡°You should already know, but the only way to increase in ranks is to gain merits.¡± ¡°Yes sir¡± ¡°Today, you have not only killed 52 enemy soldiers with the proof for it, you also saved many people, who have already reported your actions of saving their lives at the right time.¡± ¡°This is enough merit for you to increase your rank. Furthermore, since many people have died in this battle, you do not need to create your own team. You can choose one of the following squads to lead; 21, 24, or 25.¡± Alice thought for a while before saying, ¡°21st¡±. She had already seen both the 24th, he own squad, and the 25th, the squad that went to battle along with her own squad, get crushed under an enemy cavalry encirclement.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Therefore, 21st was the only available option. ¡°Then congratulations Squad Captain Bard on your promotion.¡± After shaking the lieutenant¡¯s hand and accepting her new badge along with her new uniform, she exited the tent, only to meet with the expectant gazes of Jon and William once more. ¡°So? Which squad captain are you?¡± ¡°21st.¡± ¡°Hmm. Not bad. I think they still have 12 people in it. A good choice.¡± Said William as he extended his hand for a handshake. ¡°We will be working together for the near future.¡± Said Jon as he tried to pile onto the handshake, but missed and lost his balance after Alice and William separated their hands just before he could reach. A dirt covered Jon stood up and walked away as though nothing happened, and William began laughing loudly like crazy. Even the stoic Alice let out a soft chuckle before covering it up with a question. ¡°So which squads are you the captains of?¡± ¡°Squad captain of the 23rd squad reporting for duty!¡± said William loudly, which grabbed the attention of the wandering Jon who quickly ran back and spoke up as though he was being left out of the conversation. ¡°I¡¯m the captain of the 27th squad!¡± ¡°Well then, shall we go and have breakfast together before we take you to your squad?¡± ¡°Sure.¡± Replied Alice who had returned to her emotionless face. However, the one of the ends of her lips were slightly curled up, betraying her fa?ade. Naturally, William noticed it but did not say anything, while the air-headed Jon was just rambling on about his exploits in the battle just now, praising the almighty god of war for his might in battle. On the other side of the world, Mason had finally arrived outside the town gates, and the nearby patrol had spotted him. Priest Arth Seeing the familiar faces, he had seen every now and then at the small-town gates, Mason sighed in relief. ¡°Who are y- huh? Mason?!¡± cried out one of the two guards in confusion. ¡°Yes. It¡¯s me in the flesh. Though I am missing a leg.¡± Shouted Mason in a rather regretful tone. He knew that unless he got some high-ranking bishop of one of the 9 supreme gods, he would remain an amputee. But that would not stop him! He now had the Survivor¡¯s system, and with that, he would be able to survive without a leg. Especially with his new skills! Thinking this far, Mason¡¯s face brightened slightly as he made his way to the temple of the Church of Ares, God of war. This was the only church willing to have a branch in a remote town located at the edge of the Kingdom of Bard, nearing the border with the Fodian tribes of winter barbarians. Entering the temple, Mason finally noticed something. Every single living being had something floating above their heads, including himself. [Player Mason Gates] [Lv 0] When he looked at the others with curiosity, he saw something even more bizarre. [Human Permon Hall] [Lv 4] [Human ???? ???] [Lv 5] [Human-Priest Arth Rampart] [Lv ?] Some of the people had names, while others had strange symbols. A moment later, a note came up on his notification. [Note: Symbol ¡®?¡¯ means unknown. The names of people you do not know the name of will remain as ??, while you will not be able to see the levels of those who are 10 or more levels higher than you.] [Note: Players of the System will have Player before their name, while all others will be graded as anywhere between green, meaning friendly, White, meaning neutral, and Red meaning hostiles. You are permitted to use skills on Green parties, but cannot kill them except under special circumstances, while you are allowed to attack white and red parties with deadly force. You can attack other players, but you cannot kill them.] [Note: The last decision is up to the system¡¯s discretion.] Reading this, Mason finally understood what it all meant. This was a way to identify the different people, their level, and their intentions.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Looking around again, although he could not see the names of many people, he could not see any red people, which meant that no one here was hostile to him. Further inspection proved that almost everyone present was completely white, except the two guards, who were quite a bit green, and some of the townsfolk whom he had helped before. Naturally, in the entire temple, only one person existed whose level who he could not see. And that was Priest Arth. ¡®So, his full name was Arth Rampart¡¯ thought Mason in his mind as he limped toward the priest with the help of the two guards. Although he was more or less as healed as any sacred arts could get him at the priest level, he still decided to pay a visit to the priest, in case he was poisoned or under some sort of curse. Soon, a hulking figure stood before Mason, nearly double his height, and with biceps as thick as his own waist. This was Priest Arth, an incredibly large man with muscles bulging out of every possible location, just like the rest of the Church of Ares, ¡®a bunch of warmongering brutes with more muscle than brain¡¯. This was the rumours Mason had heard from a passing merchant. Naturally, he did not consider this to be the truth since humans tend to exaggerate things to gather more attention. Furthermore, he had met the priest a lot of times despite his young age, and not once did the priest seem to be leaning towards violence. ¡°Priest Arth.¡± Mason said in an extremely polite tone, bordering a speech used to honour brave warriors who return home victorious. ¡°Mason¡­¡± The priest looked at Mason with a calm gaze at first, which turned into a solemn one after he saw Mason¡¯s leg, which them turned into pity. But then, When the priest saw the fur of the white wolf, a satisfied expression plastered his face. ¡°You have achieved victory I suppose.¡± He said with a slightly proud smile. ¡°Yes! Somehow.¡± Mason replied shortly as he explained what happened. Naturally, he kept the part of getting the system, and simply said that some unknown god had given him the blessing of healing, which allowed him to close his wounds. He could not expect the priest to assume the average joe called Mason was able to kill a white wolf and heal his leg completely within a day¡¯s time with just his own power. Hearing this, the priest frowned slightly before nodding. ¡°I see. I will check you up. I will also need you to remain here while I relay this message with my superiors. I¡¯m sure you understand. This is the standard procedure for chosen ones of new or unknown gods. We just need to make sure this new god of yours is not evil nor a devil.¡± Mason did not object. He had heard of such occurrences, and knew that even if his god was deemed completely evil, or even classified as a true devil, he himself would not be harmed unless the god who had chosen him was a god stronger that the God of War, Ares. Naturally, this was not possible, since all of the 9 supreme gods were of more or less equal standing, while there was no evil gods or devils stronger than the 9 supreme gods. There was only the Quaternity of creation, who created everything, which included the two angels who must not be named, and the two overlords who cannot be named. This was the basic teachings all humans received to know the ranking of gods, and not be misled or coaxed into believing some devil or evil god. While Mason was being checked up on by Priest Arth, and being detained for further investigation, Alice Bard was meeting up with her newly assigned squad. Baron Vandyke Although the battle had been won by the Leon kingdom¡¯s army, the war was still ongoing. Since it was just turning into summer on this side of the world, the yearly wars which would generally last until the next winter had just begun. Due to the harsh climates of winter, most nations in the world had come under an unspoken treaty to temporarily halt all wars during the winter periods. Naturally, there have been plenty of hot-blooded fools who continued their existing wars, leading to masses of their armies being whipped out by nature, eve with the blessings of gods, and finally resulting in a great reduction in their military might. This had caused most of them to be forced to become a vassal nation of another nation, or be completely taken over by the other nations as soon as the winter ended. This meant that this particular war would not end with a few battles at the beginning of war season. At least a few hundred battles would take place all across the entire border, and finally result in one of the two nations winning, and taking a small portion of the land from the losing side. Entering the tent, Alice looked around. There were a total of ten soldiers present, with 3 being young females, and the others being young males, both around the age of 18, about the same age as her. One of the soldiers noticed her and saluted. ¡°Captain!¡± Although the soldier did not know which squad captain the lady in front of her was, he could be sure she was one since she had the captain¡¯s uniform, which was essentially the same as the other soldier¡¯s uniforms, besides the badge on their chest, which was excessively pushed out by Alice¡¯s body, and the number of bronze lines attached to her shoulders, which amounted to a single line on each shoulder, showing the lowest rank in the hierarchy, but still higher than the common soldier.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The rest of the squad members quickly stood up at attention when they heard the shout of the first member. Alice looked around for a bit longer, before saying, ¡°At ease¡± The soldiers calmed down a little, however, faint signs of sadness lingered on their expressions, most likely from the loss of friends, or loved ones in this battle. However, war was not a place where one looked out for emotions. Alice knew this the best, since both her father and brother were killed in a battlefield due to a mistake of judgement by her father on the strength of the enemies based on the number and strength of scouts, they had sent ahead of them. This had led to an ambush followed by a massacre of the entire platoon, which is considered a smaller version of a battalion. Alice did not waste time and said in a cold voice with an indifferent expression on her face. ¡°I am your knew squad captain. Orders are to prepare to march. We will be going into enemy territory in 1 week. Till then, I wish to conduct training in order to understand the fighting power of the platoon.¡± Although one of the male players gave a slightly displeased look, Alice simply ignored it and accepted the silence as an affirmative. ¡°Aright. Take the day off today, and report back for duty at 4 in the morning tomorrow at the training grounds. Make sure you are in your training gear and not in full combat armour, nor in casual clothes.¡± With that, she turned around and left the tent, where she met up with Jon of the 27th squad and William of the 23rd squad, who were waiting for her to complete her briefing with her squad. ¡°Shall we take the day off?¡± questioned Jon in an obviously probing manner. ¡°Sure¡± shrugged Alice as the group walked to the squad captain¡¯s tent to prepare some items before leaving the temporary base on their day off. Nearly half of the army received the day off, with strict instructions to remain within 1 km of the temporary base. This made only one location possible to visit, and that was the Asser Fort, which was owned by Baron Vandyke, who coincidentally was one of the supporters of the peace-loving faction. Now that the war had reached into his own territory, he had changed his views and supported the warmongers, including the current ruler; King Phillip, in order to get them to help him repel the Rolandian army. Day of rest begins Alice had also just received her notification regarding the player tags, and colouring of enemies, friends and neutral units. Alice looked around the tent of squad captains, and noticed that all the names were white, while William and Jon had yellowish green colour on them, with Jon¡¯s name being greener than William¡¯s. [Human Jon Tart] [Lv 7] [Human William Fogs] [Lv 9] Alice sighed as she rummaged through her bag, which she had moved to this tent after meeting with the lieutenant and eating breakfast. Soon, she had found what she was looking for, her bag of money. Currently, she had a total of 12 gold in total savings, counting the money her father had prepared for her. Naturally, she had hidden most of that money in a secret location, and was currently only carrying 9 silver and 20 copper, which amounted to exactly 10 silver, which was equal to one gold coin. She also brought out some casual clothes to change into. Next, she halted in her actions of removing her shirt halfway, as she noticed the number of stares on her. She realised that there was not even a single female squad captain under the lieutenant, making the entire room full of males. Although the nation of Leon support equality, no male was a saint, and they would not be able to suppress their natural urges, especially against a beauty like her. Naturally, these standards were only based on her body figure, since there was still lingering dirt and blood on her skin and face.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Alice quickly buttoned up her uniform and walked out of the tent with a cold expression, but her face was bright red. She quickly made her way to the women¡¯s bathroom to take a shower and change into her casual clothes. Although equality was prevalent, no one wanted to be ogled by others, and so there was naturally separation in bathrooms, changing rooms etc. You could also get s separate sleeping tent if you requested for it as a woman. Sometime later, Alice walked out of the bathroom, after taking a quick cold shower, and removing all the dirt and blood on her, she even washed her new uniform which had been stained with the blood from her skin, before wearing her T-shirt and pants. Naturally, this T-shirt was not the same that Jack knew, it had a thread instead of buttons, and was made of an extremely thin layer of white cotton very loose and baggy around Alice¡¯s figure. She was also wearing another layer of clothing under this T-shirt to prevent the extra weight she was carrying from coming in the way. During the previous battle, she had also done the same, which was actually how all females with a lot of extra baggage wear clothes. This piece of cloth was invented a few decades ago by some unknown girl in some remote town to prevent her own baggage from coming in the way while farming, and this cloth became a hit throughout the nation. Jack would simply call it a pre-historic bra. But he was not one to peep on those who he saved, especially after he went through the enlightenment process. Her pats were just black cotton pants which fit tightly around her legs, making her whole outfit in-line with the general fashion trend of non-noble women. Upon entering the tent once more, she noticed that most of the men were still there, acting as though nothing had happened. She walked up to her bed and places her bath items inside her bag, while walking outside to put het uniform for drying. This uniform was not meant to be worn in battle, but it was a form of formalwear for soldiers above the level of ordinary soldiers. Jon and William met up with Alice once they were done with changing and the three then set out for Fort Asser to enjoy a day of rest. On the other hand, Jack received a shock. There was an unexpected guest outside the black-space where he existed. Jack, God of the system For the first time since he arrived here, Jack could sense something other than his own existence, and the two mortals in the world below him who he was supporting. He quickly tried to scan around him, only to realise that he was not in an empty void, but in a cage. A cage formed from some immeasurably strong force. And beyond the cage was an empty void, just like what is inside the enormous cage spanning miles in every direction. Outside the cage, he found one oddity. It was a being made of pure energy. Looking closer, it was made up of the same stiff that CP, exp, and himself. As soon as Jack noticed the being, the being seemed to become aware of the ginormous cage which was invisible suddenly appearing. The creature of energy, which looked like a sword with hands and legs, shuddered as it felt an enormous pressure descend upon it. Instinctively, it decided to stop moving, not saying a word. Jack noticed this, and understood somehow that ¡®that man¡¯ had put him in the cage, and the cage had ¡®that man¡¯s¡¯ power within. Since ¡®that man¡¯ was a being beyond comprehension of an ascended being such as himself, Jack understood why the creature was shuddering in fear. As soon as he realised the strength coming from the cage, even Jack felt like shuddering. However, he could not, since he was not even a being of energy, but simply some loose clumps of energy held together using ¡®that man¡¯s¡¯ power. A long time passed, and the creature had still yet to recover from his instinctive fear towards the cage. Jack decided to speak first. ¡°Who are you?¡± Although Jack spoke in a normal voice, to the sword creature, it was as though someone had exploded a nuclear bomb in his ear, as one fear overtook another.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. His initial fear of the power of the cage was still there, but was now overpowered with another fear. ¡®The power of the cage. It is definitely enough to destroy my divinity, along with the divinity of all of Ares¡¯ sub-deities a million times over. Then what about the being inside? Just how strong would it be to need so much strength to seal it?¡¯ This though covered the sword¡¯s mind when he was pulled out of his stupor by Jack once again. ¡°I will only ask once more, who are you?¡± Jack was slightly irritated by the sword who was staring off into the distance after hearing his question. However, to the sword, it sounded like the low rumbling that comes before the eruption of a volcano. Quickly rushing to answer, the sword said, ¡°Mighty being, I am the sword god Sparta, a sub-deity of the mighty god of war, Ares. Humble apologies for disturbing your presence. If you will allow me to leave, I will be gone fore-¡± However, Jack interrupted as he finally understood the situation. ¡°So, Ares sent you? Is it because of the little one I helped?¡± The Sword god, Sparta, was clearly startled at the question, but quickly recovered and stated hurriedly. ¡°Yes, mighty being! I was sent over to investigate.¡± ¡°Alright¡± Jack absent-mindedly spoke as his mind wandered off to a different place. ¡®Gods? Ares the god of war? Sparta the god of swords? Since when was I used to referring to gods on a first name basis? But wait, Sparta is made up of the same substance as me? Then am I a god too? Jack the god? But what would I be the god of?¡¯ At this very moment, the same ethereal voice Jack had been speaking casually with a few times before spoke. However, both Jack and Sparta felt the enormous pressure that came with it. Before the voice actually even spoke, Sparta had already created a ground in the void using some of the divinity he was made up of and was prostrating himself onto it. Sparta had already realised that this being was one of the Quaternity of creation. Only such an existence could have this much pressure on other gods; who were basically the owners of the mortal planes. And he was sure from the voice, that it was not one of the two angels, but one of the two overlords! And the male one at that, the strongest existence in all of creation! [You are Jack, God of the system] This was not a message to Jack like before, but a declaration which reverberated throughout all of creation within the myriad planes. All creatures, be it bacteria or gods were witness to the birth of a new god from the powers of the strongest existence, it was the birth of Jack, as the god of the system. Supreme Gods [Some of your restrictions have been removed] Said the that same ethereal voice in his head, preventing the kowtowing Sparta from hearing. Jack heard this and finally realised that ¡®that man¡¯ had removed a lot of his restrictions. Although he was still stuck in the cage, his viewpoint was no longer limited to just the two mortals who he had helped, but to most of the world. He could even see some other planes shining like stars off in the distance. However, he was still stuck in the cage. But he was thankful for that, since being out in the open meant that he could be crushed like a bug by any of the gods, or creatures able to survive in the void. Naturally, most major cities, and church headquarters were obscured from his view, likely due to the other gods who had their divinity spread over those regions due to their followers. Jack had come up with some theories about how divinity and faith worked by now. For most gods, they would require believers from the mortal planes to believe in their existence. Through this belief, the gods would collect divinity. In order to prevent the mortals from forgetting about their gods, or changing faiths, the gods would create churches in the mortal planes and recruit popes, bishops, priests, cardinals, and chosen ones. Jack still wasn¡¯t sure if there were other methods, but he could figure this much out from the experiences of Alice and Mason. However, at this moment, the pressure exerted by ¡®that man¡¯ disappeared, replaced by a grave silence. Sparta did not dare to move for a whole hour before he slowly raised his head, utter terror plastered over his face. At this moment, more beings made of divinity appeared in the distance, clearly separated into groups. There were a total of 12 beings, and looking from their sizes, one could clearly see that 10 of them were much larger and denser than their counterparts. Jack could not do much else besides waiting for them to arrive, and that is what he did. Sometime later, the beings finally arrived, and Jack could see that just like Sparta, each of them were gods, most likely sub gods of some strong deities.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Sparta had noticed them also, and had already rushed over to one of the god¡¯s sides. This particular god was a spear with hands and legs, and a face, just like Sparta. Being sub-deities of Ares, they were rather hot-blooded and the spear was the first to speak out of all the other gods, who were all in awe of the mighty glimmering cage. ¡°I am Dorata, God of Spears, and sub-deity of the mighty war god; Ares.¡± ¡°Hmm. Take care of that little one I helped some time ago.¡± Spoke Jack in a casual tone. Naturally, Jack could not be so casual with those he has helped. He was only putting up a front to seem stronger than what he actually was. Since most of the gods saw him as someone brought by the strongest overlord in existence, he had to act the part. Hearing these words, the calm face of Dorata twisted greatly as he understood that Jack was belittling him. However, before he could go into a rage, a much more powerful voice echoes through the void. This voice was nowhere near the power of ¡®that man¡¯, but was still stronger than all these gods present here combined. ¡°Dorata¡­ Do not forget why you were sent here.¡± Dorata¡¯s body stiffened as he remembered his mission. While he was recovering, the other, larger gods spoke up one after the other, while the smaller gods remained silent. ¡°Mighty God of the System, this humble servant of the God of Water, Poseidon sends his regards and welcomes you to the realm of gods¡± ¡°The God of Death, Anubis, is congratulating you on becoming a god.¡± ¡°The Keeper of Hell, Hades¡­¡± ¡°The Mighty Sun, Ra¡­¡± ¡°The God of War, Ares¡­¡± ¡°Mother of Earth and land, Gaea¡­¡± ¡°Kukuku, Sun Wukong sends his regards from the Lord of Nirvana, Buddha¡± ¡°Fortuna, Lady Luck¡­¡± ¡°Minerva, the god of Wisdom¡­¡± The 9 gods had each sent a representative, and by their names, and referring to his memories from Earth, he could generally put these gods onto groups of similar origins. However, this put Jack into a dilemma, why were all these gods known back on Earth, including their origin story? But that was something to think of later. ¡°Should I assume you are in groups of your own?¡± he spoke in a solemn voice. All the sub-deities looked at each other with suspicion. ¡®Who told him?¡¯ were their thoughts. These gods were not sent all the way here just to say hi to a new god. New gods were born, and died infinite times every mortal year, and the supreme gods would not waste their time on a newly born god. The reason they were here was due to the interference of ¡®that man¡¯, the strongest overlord in existence. They wanted to make sure he was not an evil or fallen god, or worse, a devil, and if he passed the requirements, they were to try and pull him into their pantheons. Poseidon, Ares, and Hades were part of the Olympic Pantheon. Ra and Anubis were part of the Egyptian Pantheon. Gaea was technically the creator of the Olympic pantheon, however, she, along with Buddha, were not part of any pantheon. Lastly, Fortuna and Minerva are part of the Roman Pantheon. What was even more confusing to Jack was that many gods were missing from the respective pantheons. Example Zeus was not there in the Olympic Pantheon. The Egyptian and Roman Pantheons were also missing a large number of gods who should have been there. ¡®What is going on?¡¯ Jack thought to himself. Version 1.1 Update Information Although Jack was confused at the changes in the original pantheon formatting, he did not bring it up. He just spent some time to idly chat with the few sub-deities of the 9 Supreme gods. ¡°So, will you join the Olympus Pantheon?¡± Suddenly, a question out of nowhere put all talk to a stop as silence reigned once more. This was the reason why all the gods here were present. They all wanted to bring in ¡®God of the System¡¯ to their own pantheon. All eyes were glued to the darkness within the cage. All the gods were still wary of the creature within the cage created by the strongest and oldest being in existence, especially since they could not even see the being in question, only hearing his voice. ¡°No.¡± Jack stated calmly before continuing. ¡°I will not be joining any pantheon. Nor do I have the intention of becoming hostile with any pantheon unless provoked first. The rest is up to your imagination.¡± The gods broke out into mind-to-mind conversations, which for some reason Jack could hear a little, so it felt like he was the principal of a school, and all the children had broken out into whispers upon a change in school rules. Jack waited for some time before adding, ¡°Let me inform you, that this cage created by ¡®that man¡¯ cannot hold me forever.¡± He was not lying. This cage had been built by ¡®that man¡¯ was not meant to hold him in the first place. It was likely to protect him. And just like before, its restrictions would be slowly lifted with time. All the gods present froze. No one had ever called the existence above all ¡®that man¡¯. Instead of a lack of knowledge on the position of that being, the gods took it as a sign that showed the superior status of the existence within the cage. ¡®Perhaps he is one of the Quaternity?¡¯ This thought raced through the minds of the gods and sub-deities present. ¡°Later~¡± At this moment, Jack spoke as he willed for his cage to disappear from the views of the gods. After ¡®Than man¡¯ had removed some restrictions, he could also control the cage to some extent.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. The gods looked up in shock as the cage began to dematerialise from existence. The cage, which was larger than half the prime-plane where most gods had their headquarters, vanished just like that. The power within the cage, and all signs of it vanished from existence, leaving a dumbfounded crowd of gods. Back on the prime-plane, Mason had been released from his temporary captivity. It was a direct order from Sparta, the sub-deity of Ares, to Priest Arth. Mason felt relieved. He currently had no negative status effects on him, and felt much better. As it was displayed on his status before, he had been afflicted by ¡®Infection¡¯ which could not be healed with [Basic Healing Lv 2]. Now that he had gone through the entire process in the church of War, he was now in tip-top condition, excluding his missing leg. However, he had just received a new quest for this. ============== Survival Quest One cannot be effective in combat with a missing leg. It will greatly hinder movement speed. Go to the Capital of the Kingdom of Bard, Ferdin, from your current location, Darb, a small town near the border. Task: Embark of the week-long journey to the capital of your kingdom ad fins the best craftsman in the kingdom. Note: Ensure you have enough supplies for the journey. ============== Along with the mission, he also received a notification which actually shocked him. ============== System Version 1.1 Update Information Little one, This is Jack, the God of Systems, and your benefactor. I am here to inform you of certain facts. Best of wishes, God of the System =============== This notification was sent to both Alice, and Mason, to inform them of certain important factors about the system. Naturally, Alice¡¯s was slightly different; omitting the parts about debt. Southern continent Jack was satisfied that not only had he come up with the rules to his system, he had also begun with his favourite activity, System creation, management, and updating. And now, he had an almost unlimited number of options from the CP shop which ¡®that man¡¯ had graciously provided. Jack now understood that this was technically a system created for himself, and was therefore a method of limiting himself. But he did not care. A system in any form has two aspects. Fast growth rates, for anything, and clear limitations. For his own systems, the limitations were exp, while the fast growth rate was the levels. For the CP chop, the limitation was CP, and the growth was the nearly unlimited things he could gain from the shop. Therefore, all he needed to do to break the limitation was to collect a lot of it, and the only way to do this was to make his followers kill more red names, in order to gain more exp. The system he had created was clearly a money-making -ahem, exp and CP making machine. He would get his followers to kill red names, pulling all the energy within the creature to himself in the form of exp. He would then send back around 3/4th of the exp to the players, while keeping the rest for himself in the form of CP. Currently, he had a debt with the CP shop of 10CP, which would be fulfilled by Mason later on. He had also collected around 13CP from Alice alone, which was enough for him to begin his expansion of followers. The option to buy on credit had disappeared, and now everything had to be bought upfront for each follower. Thankfully, those 4 skills from before did not change in cost. Since the next cheapest skill was 20 CP roughly 200 exp, and only started from Lv 1, Jack could not by them, not could any of his followers. All he could do was find a new follower and bless them with the debt which Mason was currently carrying, since providing the system to a new follower required 1 CP.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. After sending the Version update, Jack set his eyes onto finding a new follower, to increase his cash- ahem, CP inflow, which was the only way to both increase his divinity as a god, and get access to better and higher classed skills. At this moment, Jack had the entire prime-plane to choose from, and he couldn¡¯t go to other planes wince it would take too long to reach there while inside the cage. He had also come to a realisation. Why search for followers in the traditional method of preaching and attracting followers? Why not just save people who are about to die, and make them firm believers in me? Not that I need their faith, since it is hard to feel any while in this cage, but it would be hard to get others to become the follower of an unknown god and accept his blessing just by preaching. ¡­ In the Prime-plane, in a desolate wasteland, where nothing grew, and the land was covered in tall sand-dunes with no water in sight for miles in any direction. This was the Southern Continent. A place too desolate for humans to populate. This had led to the unbridled growth of monsters and beasts in this continent. As time passed, these beasts evolved and formed cultures of their own, and became known and non-humans, or beast-folk. They lived in tribes based on their races, and survived of the scruffs off of their necks. Barely managing to find enough food and water to survive each day, and fighting terribly powerful monster, these Beast-folk were slowly waning out of existence. The initially prosperous Beast-man nation had been destroyed and split into tribes, which were dwindling with time. Furthermore, since most gods were human gods, they chose to stick with the humans. If they accepted the faith of these non-humans, their divinity would be damaged, slowly corrupting them and finally turning them into a fallen god. This led to the southern continent, separated from the central and Eastern Continents by the terribly dangerous Southern Sea, being completely isolated from all human gods, and most other gods. With their civilisation simply falling apart a few hundred years ago due to an unknown disaster, their tribes swindled like a flickering candle in a dust-storm. In such a desolate land, a lone creature was wandering he dunes unsteadily. Draped in a black cloak which blew to the side from the wind, the lonely figure of the creature trudged across the everchanging and never-ending dunes of the Southern continent. Adventure The figure walked across the burning sand under the glaring sun. Its throat completely parched, and its fat nowhere to be seen. Through the black haggard cloak, one could see a skinny non-human, clearly a feline-type. It had not much flesh remaining, mainly bones, and burnt fur of unknown colour. Its listless eyes stared into the void as it slowly collapsed, and fell down from atop the dune it was trying to cross. Tumbling down in the sand, the non-human landed on his back as he stared into the bright sky, unable to move much. At this moment, a window popped up. ============== Do you wish to live? ============== Back in the Central continent, Mason was on his way to the capital of the Bard kingdom. With the meagre savings he had, he rented a seat in a caravan of the ¡®RedForce Company¡¯, the largest and most successful merchant company in all of the Bard kingdom, holding a tight grasp over the financial system of the kingdom. Naturally, that was excluding the royal family itself. Along the way, Mason had dozed off at some point. There was not much on him beside the wolf skin, which he kept on himself after completely washing it clean using river water near the town gate. Other than the wolfskin, Mason also had a few copper with him from the sale of the items he had scavenged from the wolf. All the different nations had their own types of currency, however, every nation allowed for barter between each other, which, along with the wills of the gods, made every nation stick to a simple standard.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. 1 gold = 20 silver = 20 copper And although the engravings on these coins from each nation were different, their sizes were the same, the currency from one nation could be used in any nation other than the deserted Southern Continent, and the Mysterious Northern Continent. Naturally, most countries had their own upper limits to this system for their nobles and royalties, with crystal and even platinum coins. Some rich countries even kept diamond coins, but this information was nothing but rumours to Mason. He simply had too little for anyone to rob from, not to mention that this was a RedForce caravan, and stealing from a client of their meant facing the wrath of the entire RedForce company. Suddenly, the caravan had stopped and the driver was yelling in a calm tone. ¡°Dear clients, do no panic. Some disturbances have appeared. Do not worry, we, The RedForce, will take care of them.¡± The way the driver was speaking showed that he had spoken this very line uncountable times and by now his lips were moving faster than his brain could comprehend. Everyone in the caravan became slightly nervous, but did not rush out. They headed the instructions of the driver and waited calmly. Mason was awoken by the driver¡¯s squeaky voice and blinked a few times before stretching. It was currently 3:42 am Local time, according to the system. After the system update, a clock had appeared on the top left of the screen, which made a lot of things easier for Mason. Seeing the nervous tension in the air, Mason readied his knife he had with him. He currently did not have any money for a sword, and even if he had one, using it with a missing leg would only put him more off-balance. ¡°It¡¯s just goblins!¡± yelled a loud and booming voice. Mason stuck his head out the front of the carriage along with the other people, only to see nothing but the back of a middle-aged man. Realising it was the driver casually sitting on the front of the carriage, still holding onto the reigns of the ropes to the horses, Mason struggled a little and finally got his head through the crows of fellow travellers inside the carriage and got a clear picture of the ¡®obstacle¡¯ the driver was talking about. In front of Mason, was a handful of knights, numbering around 5, as they stood their ground against a sea of 30 or so goblins, and a taller goblin among them, which roughly amounted to the same height as the average human male. Looking closer at the names above the battling sides Mason noticed the clear disparity in level. Bang Bang [Human George Bas] [Lv 8] [Human ¡­ ] [Lv 9] Among the 5 knights in almost full body armour, Mason saw a particularly high level. [Human Fort Night] [Lv ??] Up in the dimensional void, a part of Jack¡¯s consciousness noticed the name, making Jack feel irritated as he mumbled to himself. ¡®Such useless trash. How can a more useless name exist? Oh right! There is another! Sakur* from N*ruto! Kakaka. Equally useless pieces of trash¡¯ Back in Mason¡¯s view, he notices the levels of all the goblins were pathetically low. Compared to the knights in full body armour. [Goblin Gobru] [Lv 4] [Goblin Gobra] [Lv 6] And then there was the larger goblin. [Hobgoblin Hobta] [Lv ??] Mason also notices that the burly man with [??] level and the hobgoblin with [??] level were not participating in the battle, but were just staring at each other. The other goblins were being massacred by the rest of the 5-man squad. Just as Mason was wondering on what to do, a notification popped up on his interface. ================= Survival Quest: Goblin encounter On your way to the capital, you have encountered a small-scale tribe of goblins led by a hobgoblin. Help your escorts to deal with the goblins.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Goblins killed: 0/1 Reward: None, since this is a survival quest, and not a direct quest ================= Looking at the quest, Mason thought of something quickly. ¡®Even though there is no reward from the quest, I get exp from killing the goblins, which are all red!¡¯ Thinking this far, Mason raised his finger and aimed it at one of the goblins in the back. *Baang* A resounding gunshot sound echoed in the battlefield, stunning everyone present, and pulling the two [Lv ??] creatures out of their ¡®glare off¡¯. The people around Mason in the carriage were holding their hearing in shock, and had retreated many steps back. Just as the goblin that Mason had aimed at fell back as a corpse with nothing between the shoulders and the legs, missing the entirety of its stomach, another goblin which was right behind it and was crouching, down, had most of its body blown away. Along with the two goblins, the empty ground behind them had a deep line engraved into it, spraying dirt everywhere. Seeing the scene, Mason was rather shocked. ¡®The spell worked at this distance as well?¡¯ Mason was currently around 10 meters away from the goblins he had killed, and looking at the trail behind them, it lasted for around 20 meters in total distance. What shocked Mason even more was that the power of the spell was even higher than the one he had used against the white wolf, which had taken 2 shots to kill. At this moment, a notification popped up. ============== Note: The spell has increased in power and range due to your improved state of mind and body. All magic improves when the mind is calm, and the body is well. ============== Seeing this notification, Mason understood the reason for the increased power. He also understood an underlaying principle. The path of a mage is one of calmness, logic, and control over enemies and oneself. One of the guards, who had just had a portion of his goblins cleared out turned around for a second and yelled, ¡°Did you launch that magic, respected Mage?¡± Unconsciously, Mason nodded and said ¡°I can do it only one more time.¡± ¡°Alright! Please use it on the hobgoblin as soon as you can!¡± said the man as he turned back to massacre the incoming goblins who flooded in to fill the gap. Mason looked over at the hobgoblin who also coincidentally turned his gaze away from the [Lv ??] Fort Night. Mason raised his hand towards the hobgoblin calmly, which was nearly 13 meters away from his location. Realising the impending danger, the hobgoblin raised its large wooden club in front of its face, to protect its head and brain. However, little did it know that Mason¡¯s aim was his heart, and not his face. *Baang* Another resounding bang echoed in the battlefield. Massacre A large hole is carved into the chest of the hobgoblin, allowing Mason to see the mountains behind the hobgoblin. Green blood sprayed out the 1-foot diameter hole in the hobgoblin. Although Mason expected it, the power of his [Wind Bullet Lv 3] greatly varied depending on his state of mind and body, and apparently, he was in a great mood right now. Even more so after hitting the Hobgoblin. The Lv ?? Fort Night made his move at this point in time, completely finishing off the hobgoblin with one clean swing of his sword, slicing off his head, along with the few fingers that came in the way. Mason received a notification at this time. [Wind Bullet Lv 3 has levelled up to Lv 4] [You have killed Lv ?? Hobgoblin Hobta] [You have gained experience] [The experience gained had been taken to repay the debt] [Your debt had been repaid] [The excess exp has been inputted into the system for your level] =============== You can now level up. Do you wish to level up? Exp will be used up, which can be used to buy skills. Levelling up will refill all your HP and MP. =============== Reading these messages, Mason was surprised and he accepted the level up, since his [Basic Wind Bullet Lv4] was currently more than enough, especially now that it had reached Level 4. Mason did not bother with how it had changed with the new level, but instead focussed on his free 2 stat points. Without hesitation, he put them into Mana, and immediately felt his mana reserves increase. Grinning slightly, Mason looked back at the battlefield, which still had tens of goblins, and decided to used his [Basic Wind Bullet Lv 4] four more times to get as much exp out of this chance encounter as he could.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. However, he noticed a subtle change in the wind bullets. After the level up, he could not adjust the size and intensity of it. The maximum size and damage had increased slightly from last the previous level, which was good and all, but now he could greatly reduce both enough to make the bullet the size of a grain of rice, instead of the size of his head, and could reduce the damage from obliteration to pierce through. Reducing the size and damage greatly reduced the mana cost, and made it so that he could launch nearly 16 of these wind-grains until his mana ran out. However, doing this greatly reduced the accuracy. It was basically the difference between hitting a moving object with a splash damage cannon, and hitting the same moving target with a hand-gun. Mason decided at this moment that he needed a new skill, and as he launched a barrage of tiny grain sized Wind bullets towards the tens of goblins. Due to the large number of goblins, he barely missed, but he knew he needed a particular skill. Up in the dimensional void, Jack had read Mason¡¯s mind and was searching for the skill, while Mason received countless exp notifications for killing the zombies. One he was out of mana, Mason shouted, ¡°I¡¯m out!¡± Before sitting back into the carriage and opening his status. ============== Survivor¡¯s System V 1.1 Name: Mason Gates Age: 19 Level: 1 (43/100) Class: None Sub-class 1: None Sub-class 2: None Titles: None Current state: Disabled (Missing Leg), Exited ---------------- Strength: 1(3) Vitality: 2(4) Stamina: 2(3) Toughness: 1(1) Dexterity: 0(2) Sense: 2(2) Mana: 4(4) Aura: 1(1) Stat points: 0 ---------------- Skills Basic Wind Bullet Lv 4 (16/400) Basic Healing Lv 2 (122/200) Basic Woodcutting Lv 1(4/100) Basic Cooking Lv 1(2/100) Basic Running Lv1(50/100) ============== While Mason was admiring his killing spree, Jack had found the skill Mason wanted. ============== Basic Aim Lv 0 (0/100) CP: 20 ============== Jack did not bother too much with this, and just sent Mason the cost. Mason, who was wondering how much his personality had changed from being a timid fellow who chopped wood, to becoming a cruel mage who went on goblin massacres, received the cost of 200 and got thinking. ¡®I should put some money into the bank. I need to slowly collect 200 exp while levelling at the same time. Having Basic aim with the ability to only shoot 4 full-power Wind bullets is useless. At least with being able to shoot 6 full-power Wind Bullets will allow me to overwhelm the opponent with numbers. But this also won¡¯t work with very fast opponents, so I need the aim.¡¯ Mason thought for a bit and simply decided to wait until he had 100 exp, and then putt all the excess exp, which would have gone to waste if he didn¡¯t level up, into the bank, and then level up once he had enough to buy the skill, or if he needed the mana or hp refill. Suddenly, Mason realised just how useful the bank was, and so he made a mental note, ¡°Save as much as possible into the bank.¡± Idiotic moronic shithead While Alice had just finished her day off with Jon and William, Mason was taking a break after the fight with the goblins. Although he was not tired, he did not have any mana left, and with his 4 mana stats, it would take him nearly 5 minutes to recover each mana stat. According to the God of the System, this recovery time would increase exponentially along with every 5 mana stats. While Mason was having dinner with Fort Night and the rest of the nights, who had already become close to him not only because he was a respected mage, but had also helped them to defeat the goblins, Jack, the god of the system was focusing on something else. Currently, Jack had nearly 25 CP, out of which he had spent 20 CP on gaining a new skill [Basic Water Bullet] which he had graciously given to the new member of his player following, adding him onto the debt group, which now had no-one other than himself. ============== Welcome to The Survivor¡¯s system Version 1.1 ============== ============== Due to the inability of your body to survive, you have been granted [Basic Water Bullet Lv 1] on a debit basis. You will be unable to level up until you repay the debt, or I; the God of the System, decided otherwise. Go forth and survive, live, and defeat your enemies¡­ ============== ============== Survivor¡¯s System V 1.1 Name: Heron Ravenclaw Age: 32 Level: 0 (0/100) Class: NoneThe story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Sub-class 1: None Sub-class 2: None Titles: None Current state: Dehydrated, Starving ---------------- Strength: 2(7) Vitality: 2(5) Stamina: 0(6) Toughness: 7(8) Dexterity: 0(6) Sense: 2(2) Mana: 1(1) Aura: 1(1) Stat Points: 0 ---------------- Skills Basic Water Bullet Lv 1 (0/100) Basic Claw Strike Lv 2 (0/200) Basic Dash Lv 3 (0/300) ============== Jack was rather satisfied with the new addition he had created. Although Heron¡¯s current state was beyond pathetic, his stats and skills showed that he was actually rather strong. He would at the very least be able to wipe the floor with the current Alice and current Mason by just relying on the strength of his body and its speed. He would just ram him massive 8-foot body into Alice and crush her under his immense weight of a few hundred kg. [1] On the other hand, Heron could just keep his distance from Mason until Mason expended at least 2 of his 4 Wind bullets, and then just dash into Mason killing him instantly since Mason would not be able to move away. And after the skills given to him by Jack, Heron was undoubtedly the strongest of Jack¡¯s players. The person is question, Heron, was utterly baffled by the number of messages. As he was scrolling in his mind, he came across something amazing. His ¡®arts¡¯ were declared to be skills and displayed, along with the skill he was lent. It was this very skill which intrigued him. ¡®Water bullet huh?¡¯ He though to himself as he followed the imprinted steps to perform the skill from his mind. However, just as he finally managed to curl his furry fingers into the shape of required, he turned and pointed his hand, which was trembling from to having enough energy to hold its own weight, into his mouth. [YOU IDIOTIC!! MORONIC SHITHEAD!!] ¡®Ah!¡¯ That voice startled Heron completely, and he stopped in his actions. [That skill will blow off you head if you use it directly! Focus on the power of the skill and reduce it to the minimum you can. Then bring out a container of water and shoot it in there just in case you forget to keep the control over your power, and your head is not blown off for no reason!] This was the voice of Jack, directly transmitted to Heron using the system. Although Jack could put a halt to all the skills of Heron, and completely kill him instantly since he had accepted his powers, he still decided to explain this to Heron just in case the idiot decided to use the skill when Jack wasn¡¯t looking. Hearing this, Heron was speechless, not that he could speak with his parched throat in the first place. [1] just for those who feel this is wrong. Firstly, I will not use the American system, and will always use metric system, except when saying ¡®For miles on end¡¯, and similar stuff. Secondly, a normal African male lion weighs 190 kg on average, to an 8ft lionman who can stand on two feet and so needs more muscles, should weight more. Also, I refuse to use the post-chapter and pre-chapter author notes, and will be posting author''s notes here. No reasoning to it. It is what is is. 1 week While Heron was finally gaining some water to drink after being thirsty for days and was gulping down his first sips of water under the blistering afternoon sun, Alice had already prepared to go to sleep in the commander tent. It was a little awkward, since none of the commanders other than William and Jon knew her, and she too did not know anyone else, so everyone was just silent for a while before they all went to sleep. The next morning, was the day everyone would begin training to prepare for their departure in the next few days. Waking up early thanks to the alarm feature in the in-built clock, Alice quickly packed up her thinks and tidied her bed before leaving the tent in silence to begin her training. This was the normal routine she used to follow earlier as well, but that was just a habit, and she would miss out on many occasions. But now, she had received a Survival quest from the God of Systems. ============== Survival Quest Fitness is essential to one¡¯s lifestyle, especially those training in physical combat and aura. Task: Wake up at 5:30, take a jog for 10 km, take a 2-minute break before doing 100 push-ups, and100 crunches. Completion: Wake up at 5:30 Jog (0.1/ 10km) 2 min break (0/ 2mins) Push-ups (0/ 100) Crunches (0/100) Reward: A possible increase in strength, stamina, dexterity, vitality or toughness ============== Since she had been given this quest, she would do it. Whether the chance was even 0.1, it was effectively a free stat point for doing what she usually did. In reality however, it was not a free stat point, but it was just a method for her to improve her physique, and thereby automatically increase her stats. There was not consumption of CP or exp involved in this process. Nearly 1 hour later, Alice had finally completed all the morning training, and was now returning to get her new clothes to wear after she would take a shower, since her current clothes were covered in sweat and sticking to her body.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Inside the tent, the other captains were still waking up, and barely caught a glimpse of her before she took her clothes and showering materials and disappeared from the tent. Naturally, there were no showers in the sent, but clean water was provided in buckets to be used. Twenty minutes later, Alice arrived at the tent to find it completely empty. Confused, she walked out in her fresh training clothes, and found the answer after looking towards the training grounds, which was a little further away from the temporary camp. She looked around and soon spotted a group of people who were not doing anything, recognising them as her squad as she went over to train them. Meanwhile, Jack had already decided to let those two players enjoy themselves for the time being. He had also given the same survival quest to Mason, with many differences. Jack did not have to jog or do push ups, but he had to instead meditate for at least 1 hours every day. Jack knew this was a useless action, but it would make Mason feel like he was moving towards a particular goal. And on top of that, who knows? Jack had simply told Mason to sit still in a comfortable position and think about nothing for 2 hours every day. And it might even be useful like the ones Jack had read about in all the comics back on Earth. Currently, Jack had nearly no CP left after he used it all to create another system for Heron, and giving him the 20CP skill. Now, Jack was just chilling in his cage of nothingness, thinking about what to do now. ¡®I could just go around randomly helping people who are about to die, expending a lot of CP each time to bring them back into fighting condition. But as the process suggested, that would waste a lot of CP.¡¯ Jack began contemplating and time passed incredibly fast. To Jack himself, it was but a moment since he had gone through the hell like eternity before being destroyed and reconstructed. To the people on the prime-plane, a week had already passed. Jack finally came to a realisation. He needed to create a church just like all the other gods which would establish its own reputation and attract followers from everywhere who would receive his blessings and turn into his Cp making machines- ahem, players. ¡®But to do that, I need to find a suitable candidate who is good at crowd control instead of only fighting.¡¯ With such intents, Jack god searching on the prim-plane for such a person. At this moment, Alice and her squad, who had finally completely accepted her as their captain after being beaten innumerable times in combat, even when they all grouped up on their captain, were departing their temporary base. Simply put, Alice¡¯s current power was greater than her whole squad combined. Furthermore, they could not linger over the death of their original captain forever. This was war, and things like death were as common as the flies that invaded the battlefields in swarms. The Leon Kingdom was finally beginning its retaliation against the Kingdom of Roland, stating from this frontline. In another part of the world, Heron the beastkin was still wandering in the sand dunes. However, he had already gained 4 levels in this one week, by killing off one of the sand-beasts which was trying to hunt him. Sand beast were giant worm-like creatures with large spinning razor sharp teeth inside its circular mouths which are meant to crush any obstacles in its way as it burrows through the hot sand and kills its exhausted prey. The creatures were on average at level 6, and the one Heron had killed was level 9. Naturally, Jack had very graciously stolen half of the exp and converted it to CP. Now, he had around 40 CP. With this much CP, Jack could create a whole new type of system for his chosen one to build his church. At this moment, Mason had finally arrived outside the gates of Ferdin, the capital of the kingdom of Bard. Survival Quest ¡°We have arrived!¡± shouted the carriage driver. Everyone present let out sighs of relief. Thankfully, after the goblin tribe attack, no more surprises occurred throughout the rest of the trip, and the group reached safely. Fort Night, the captain of the guard, patted Mason on the back and said in a slightly respectful manner, as though he was speaking to an equal, even though Mason himself was still, at least 10 levels below the man. ¡°We will meet again, Mason the Mage.¡± Although the two were unlikely to ever meet again, it was still a wise decision to make good ties with a mage, especially one this young. It was widely known, that mages grew their power by meditating to increase their thinking capacity as well as mana, and by spending years to learn spells. Once a mage-apprentice could successfully cast even a single spell, he would be considered as a certified Mage of the lowest rank; Inferior mage. Naturally, the young man standing up using a cane he had brough with him was definitely at least one rank above this lowest rank of mages; and Intermediate Mage who can successively caste normal spells, and once in a while could caste mid-tier spells. Mages of the intermediate rank were usually in their early forties since it usually took this much dedication to the profession to reach the rank. However, this young man was at most 19 years of age, and was already at this level. Fort Night knew that he would accomplish many things in the future, and knowing each other would definitely come in handy one day. ¡°Alright. Also, do you mind if I ask you where the best blacksmith in Bard stays?¡± ¡°Ah! You must be referring to Sir Campbell! Did you come all the way to the capital to meet him without knowing even who he was? Doesn¡¯t matter now. He lives in the castle. I doubt you will be able to meet him unless you have the ability or authority to enter the castle, since there is a long line of nobles and important figures waiting to meet him, and I suppose it would take years before you would be able to meet him.¡± Mason¡¯s face froze instantly. How was he supposed to clear the quest without finding the main objective of the quest?The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Ah, but you might be able to see him!¡± ¡°How!?¡± ¡°Well, you will only be able to see him from a distance, but there is a competition coming up in 2 days¡¯ or something. I¡¯m not sure about the details, but it is a competition declared by the king. The competition will be split into two categories, based on age for those below and above 20 years. And each of the categories will have sub-competitions like smithing, dancing, warfare-strategy, etc, but the main focus will be on combat. Everything is allowed except poison, and killing the opponent. And Not only the king, but even most of his trusted subordinates including The Lion Tamala, Sir Wint, and Sir Campbell, will be present for the main competition.¡± Fort Night next began to ramble on about The Lion Tamala¡¯s bravery when faced with a thousand enemies alone, and Sir Wint¡¯s absolutely unimaginable military strategy prowess and wit. He also said a few lines about how great Sir Campbell was and how each of his crafted items were sold at incredibly high prices, just as they reached the city cates of Ferdin, the capital of Bard. ¡°Ah! The RedForce!¡± the soldiers guarding the gate quickly recognised the most widely known symbol in the Kingdom of Bard other than the Royal Family¡¯s insignia, and stiffened his back. ¡°We will have to inspect the carriages; I hope you do not mind.¡± ¡°Sure, but bring a healer here quickly! I have a few men were injures, to cure them of diseases, poisons and infections them while you check the carriages.¡± ¡°Certainly.¡± The Man quickly rushed in and called for the resident healer, a priest from the church of War, a follower of the sub-deity Sparta, the God of Swords. He was a frail man with sunken cheeks and dark circles under his eyes. His skin was not pale, but rather it as slightly dark, indicating that he was of foreign lineage, most likely from the South of the Central continent. The man looked around lazily before huffing and then moving on to caste [Lesser Cures] and [Neutralize Poisons] on everyone one by one. When he finally reached Mason, although he said he was fine at first, he allowed the man to cure his body. However, a certain message popped up in him mind as soon as the man started. ============= Notice! Someone is trying to insert an unknown poison into your mana. Beginning Self-protection procedures The poison has been confined and is being concentrated The concentrated poison is being collected and analysed This is an unknown type of poison For a one time offer, you can exchange this type of poison for exp Offer: 20 exp ============= ============= Survival Quest Act as if nothing is wrong and get into the capital. Then proceed with the previous Survival Quest as though nothing has happened. More updates will be given if need be. No reward Quest failure: Death by City Guards ============ SPU Mason read through the message for a moment, before accepting it. He had learned one thing, and that was that Survival quests were never to be ignored. Allowing the skinny looking man to ¡®heal¡¯ him with some sort of mana poison, Mason waited until it was over and looked at the first notification. Reading through it, he agreed and sold the poison to Jack. For him, it was basically free treatment for poison and free exp for doing literally nothing. With that done, and the carts checked, the people were allowed to enter Ferdin. On the other hand, Jack happily received the poison. Although he was a god, he had technically just been born, and although he could see through most things with his vision, he could not replicate it just by looking at something. Instead, he would need to study it. However, he could not study it while keeping watch over his players. Looking back at the rate at which Heron was killing off monsters and collecting exp for him, Jack was pretty sure he would reach level 5 in no time, which would give him a shit-tonne of exp. Therefore, Jack went to the ¡°Wishlist¡± part of his CP shop. While his players were doing more or less nothing, he had spent some time going through the CP shop, and since he was a god, his speed was rather fast. By now, if he had been browsing through every single item ever bought by or sold by amazon, he would have gone through it a thousand times already. And yet, he had only gone through 0.234 % of the entire CP shop according to the progress bar. However, he had already det his eyes on certain things for when he received enough CP. He quickly looked through it and found it a few items above the cheapest items on his wish list. =============== Would you like to purchase the item [Spare Processing Unit (SPU)]?Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. =============== Without hesitation, Luke clicked on the purchase button, and suddenly remembered the impulse buying he used to do back when he was human. =============== Spare Processing Unit (SPU) This is a unit with the capabilities to process information at nearly the same speed as an inferior god such as yourself. It can be changed in appearance, and does not cost CP to maintain. This item will establish a connection with you upon purchase, and can send information to you through that channel if required. This channel can also be used as a more efficient method of converting exp to CP when the item is placed within the mortal world, with the rate changing to 80 exp = 1 CP, from the initial 100 exp = 1 CP. ============== Jack looked at the information he had read multiple times already and grinned widely. HE had already spent all his CP on this singular item, even taking some from the banks of Mason and Alice. He decided to return it later. Instead of focussing on his debt, he turned his attention to his latest purchase. The reason for buying this item was mainly its exchange rate capabilities. Although 20 exp might not seem like a lot, imagine what would happen when some of his players reached a high level like 40 or even 50? How much ex would he gain, especially since he had planned the system to increase its exp require to level up every 5 levels. Anyway, there was a more cost-efficient way to achieve this conversion ratio, however this item had more functions, including it being a spare brain for himself, and an AI. Since it had a chinking ability, Jack intended to make it a sort of half-sentient creature, linked to himself so that he could assume control whenever he wished. Furthermore, since he could change the SPU¡¯s appearance, why not make it a human? And why not make it the ¡®pope¡¯ of his church? Now all he needed to do was to find someone of power within some literal god-forsaken nation, and insert his pope, and religion there. And the best part about sending his SPU down to the prime plane? The SPU could handle most missions, levelling and other activities, while he just had to sit back, relax, and fix certain issues which the SPU could not handle. Furthermore, the SPU could also buy things required for the players since it was connected to Jack, which left Jack free to plan for the future and save more desperate people. ¡®But first, the person of power in a god-forsaken nation¡­¡¯ Jack thought to himself, as he began to scour the places, he could look at through all the divinity blocking most of the nations and their cities, while holding the ball of light called the SPU next to him. Any god looking at him at this moment would think, ¡®This inferior god cannot even form a true body for himself¡¯. But no one could since he was still in the cage created by ¡®That man¡¯. Poison While Jack was searching for a nation to kick-start his church, Alice and the army had already been moving toward the next battlefield. Since the terrain was a forest, the army had planned to split up into squads, with the squad leaders acting as guides. While Alice had been trying to study the map, she was given by the lieutenant, a notification suddenly had popped up. ================= Would you like to purchase the skill [Basic Map Reading Lv 0] This skill will come with an in built map system based on the maps you have read so far, and will display your real time location. Cost: 200 exp ================ She did not have enough experience, but she would have enough when she levelled up, and that was he goal. As long as she would find something to kill within the forest during her upcoming journey, she would be able to level up. That is why currently she was looking at the map with intense focus to try and figure out where she was. But the truth was that she was so excited at getting the option to buy a new skill that she did not pay attention to the instructions given to her before they set off. All in all, she was lost until she would find a few beasts to kill and level up.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°We are lost are we not?¡± ¡°Shh! The captain might hear you!¡± Hushed whispers were running wild between the squad members, who were now looking up to and fearing Alice as their true squad leader. ¡°Tch. Come on guys, we will be moving this way.¡± Alice said while moving in a certain direction. A brief moment later, she was already moving in a direction that was slightly to the right from where she was initially moving. While Alice was in search of prey to level up, and hopefully figure out where she was, Heron was busy farming monsters right and left, trying to find some resemblance of civilisation. He had been stranded in the dessert head for nearly 2 weeks now, and was getting really frustrated. Although he could eat most of the monsters he killed, they tasted like shit. Some of the stuff was even considered poison, and the system had to intervene and save him. ¡°Ack! When will I be able to get out of here?!¡± While poor old Heron was suffering from frustration, and Alice was as lost as, well, Alice could be, Mason had finally entered Ferdin. He purposely did not do any suspicious actions due to the quest, and was instead chatting away with Fort Night [1]. ¡°So, is there an inn which is good to stay in? Not too expensive, since my finances are a little tight for the moment.¡± ¡°Hmm.¡± Fortnight took a moment to think before saying. ¡°If you want a cheap inn, why not go to ¡®Red Inn¡¯. It is the inn all of us RedForce folk used the most often, and it is likely you will see at least some members of the Red Force Mercenary there, especially since it is part of the RedForce.¡± ¡°Hmm, alright then.¡± Mason agreed to stay at Red Inn, since it would most definitely be safer than normal inns. Somehow, none of the members of RedForce notices the poison being injected into them. ¡®I wonder why they look just fine and dandy?¡¯ [1] If there is one thing I regret; it is the name right here as a joke. I feel so Cringey whenever I type this, and my fingers just slow down as though they are weighed down by the tonnes of cringeness emanating from the single name. Cayden While Mason found the inn, paid the fees for 2 nights, and went to bed after the long and exhausting journey, Jack was doing his own thing. After spending roughly a few hours trying to locate a country which did not have any god, he found several such nations. However, most of them were too underpopulated to even be called a nation, which reduced the nation¡¯s appeal for the all gods, since divinity for them was gained through the long term ¡®faith¡¯ of the people under them. However, among all of these nations, there was a single one which was different, it had a sufficient population to occupy the space it currently occupied, and some more, however, the problem was that the nation itself was too poor. The pathetically poor economic status of the people caused many to devolve into stealing and robbery, and such petty crimes could be seen everywhere. Furthermore, the nobles themselves were not that much better off either, with the King himself living a life similar to the lowest of nobles in other established countries like Bard and Leon. The country itself was located in the central continent, which was the largest of all the 4 continents, and had a bit too much space. In fact, it had so much space that nations hardly ever got into conflicts over land, and just used as much as they pleased, since the amount of land between each nation was extremely huge. This also made it rather difficult to conquer other kingdoms, even if they let down their gates and welcomes the invaders like guests, since the invaders would have to return to their own kingdom sooner or later, and the knights of the kingdoms were not bandits which only invaded for wealth. They invaded for wealth and land! However, this particular kingdom had none of the above. It was small enough to be considered a minor noble¡¯s fief in Bard, which was one of the largest kingdoms in the central continent. And its people were piss-poor. Everyone just maintained their distance from this dump of a nation called, ¡°Cayden¡±. Betraying its name, the nation itself was basically on the verge of collapse, especially now that the king was on the verge of death from some unknown poison. The country itself did not have any gods supporting it. Normal priests of other gods would not be able to cure the poison, and hiring a high priest or higher used too much money, which they did not poses. Not to mention that people of such standing would not stain their shoes to come all the way to the dump called ¡°Cayden.¡± Jack finally came to a decision, and a plan rolled out in his head. Late at night, when the moon was high in the sky, the bedroom of the king was occupied by 2 children, one of 14 years of age, and the other 12 years old. Both their faces were drawn, with marks of unwhipped tears lingering on their cheeks as they sat on chairs next to a large bed with s single man on it. This was the current king of Cayden, Ken August.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. At 31 years old, he was considered at the prime of his life. However, some sort of poison had injured him a few months ago, and the nation itself was not rich enough for the treatment of their king. Furthermore, no noble would waste their precious money on a dying person, and would rather much hold onto it until the next king was decided. At this moment, the children suddenly fell asleep, and the king¡¯s eyes opened, but only to reveal faint light coming out of them. The king himself was looking at something completely different. He was in a land above land itself, in the sky! Surrounded by clouds, a gentle radiance emitted from the clear sky above, with no glaring sun in his face. [So, you are Ken?] A voice reverberated throughout the entire heavens, making Ken tremble slightly. Looking around, Keon saw nobody. However, all of a sudden, the clouds pulled together to form an ethereal being, not a man, nor a beast. Ken realised something at this moment, ¡®This place is not my kingdom, but the kingdom of a god!¡¯ [Very perceptive of you. But I did not pull you here to waste time. I will get straight to the point. I have taken a liking to you and your kingdom. I will be building my church out from your nation, with the headquarters remaining there.] [However, I cannot do that when the king is about to die. I¡¯ll be sending my pope to you soon, and he is able to directly communicate with me if the need arises. Don¡¯t bother me with useless stuff. My pope will handle everything.] ¡®Huh~¡¯ Ken¡¯s mind was blank for a while before he realised what was happening. The mighty god in front of him was going to save his life, and was planning on building their church in his kingdom. Although this could have been some devil, or fallen god, it did not seem like that for now, and even if it was, what did that matter. He was already on death¡¯s door, what more could happen to him?! And if it was truly a mighty god, then he would be blessed, and be forever remembered as the one who ushered in a god¡¯s faith into the decaying nation of Cayden. [Before you ask, I am the god of Systems. Alright, if that is al, I will send you back now.] ¡°Wait! I mean, may I have the opportunity to ask a question?¡± [One] ¡°Yes! Mighty god of Systems, might I ask why you fancy our nation?¡± [Tch. Such nonsense. My pope will answer it for you. Leave now!] Suddenly, Ken felt the world around him collapse, and his ability to move his limbs was once again taken away from him as the light in his eyes faded. His children woke up slowly and he felt no change. He was once again stuck in the body of a dying man with no changes. ¡®Was I hallucinating?¡¯ However, at this moment, an enormous pillar of bright blue light descended from the sky punching a hole straight through the castle until it reached the floor with the king in it. This frightened all the guards, well at least the handful present, and they immediately entered the room to find a perfectly cylindrical hole through all the floor starting from the ceiling, which was quickly closing up as the floor healed themselves? At the centre of the entire drama was a figure dressed in white robes that would even be used in combat. The figure slowly stood up from his landing position on kneeling on the ground with one knee in the famous superhero landing, and spoke in a monotone voice. ¡°I am the pope of the God of Systems. SPU.¡± Ken As the dust and debris were settling down, and as the holes in the floors of the castle above the king¡¯s chambers closed up as though nothing happened, a single man was let standing at the epicentre of the chaos. ¡°I am the pope of the Church of Systems, assigned to this kingdom, SPU.¡± Silence reigned in the room for a few moments, when Ken, who witnessed the entire event in utter shock moved. ¡°Let him-¡± *Cough**Cough**Cough* [1] The two children were alarmed at the actions of their near-death father and rushed to push him back into a sleeping position to prevent him from straining his internal injuries any more. Suddenly, the man wearing white robes, and a white hood began to shine. His long clothes shifted and changed into a modern suit which Jack remembered from his time on earth, with a few modifications. The suite was pure white, and came with a white top hat. It had a black tie, and had 1 line made of crystals on the left shoulder. Lastly, he had a plain looking black mask on his face, covering all of his face from the chin to the hairline, leaving only two slits for eyes, where two gleaming eyes could be seen. The eyes were incredibly terrifying, and anyone looking into them instantly fainted, which included 2 of the guards. ¡°Do not look into my eyes or else that will happen.¡± Said the pope as he pointed his finger towards one of the fainted soldiers, and the rest of the soldiers within the room instantly looked away. Naturally, there were some persistent ones and curious ones who tried, and fainted just like the previous two.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. While this was happening, the pope materialised a wooden cane, which was actually not made of anything like wood, but it was ¡®SPU¡¯ itself, just like the rest of the clothes, mask, hat and body. The point of connection between SPU and Jack was his eyes, since Jack felt it would be cooler like that, along with the superhero entrance, and the random changing of clothes and dialogues. Once all the changes were complete, SPU moved and his figure vanished instantly, shocking everyone present. The next instant, it reappeared behind the two princes as though he was a phantom. Out of shock, the two princes jumped back, however, they did not move away from their father, the king, facing the unknown man while trying to protect their father behind them. Ken, who was lying in bed, unable to move from all the pain coursing through his body felt an immense sense of joy well up in his heart as he say the two children he had raised without their mother. ¡°Fufu~ Do not worry little ones, for God is looking down upon you and your father. I am not hear to harm him. So, move-or-I-will-move-you-¡± SPU¡¯s tone took a sudden dip at the end, sending shivers down the spines of everyone present. Technically, SPU was just as strong as any of the other god¡¯s chosen ones, who were basically the strongest mortals. Naturally, there existed those who surpassed mortality and reached the extraordinary realm, becoming as strong as inferior gods, without the dependency on faith. However, there were no such being in this run-down kingdom, which basically made SPU the strongest being in the entire kingdom since no other gods bothered with this kingdom. Looking at each other for a moment, the two kids moved to the side, still keeping a vigilant eye on the man dressed in a white suit and black mask. ¡°Well done little ones! Now watch God¡¯s grace.¡± As he spoke, SPU raised his right palm which was holding the walking stick, and lightly touched Ken¡¯s forehead before retracting it. =============== Welcome to the Overlord¡¯s System =============== [1] If hear this irl, imma bounce faster than flash. I swear, COVID will haunt me until the day I die. And I will also remember the insane gift it gave me to remain at home for almost an entire year. Well, the vaccine is coming very soon, so I hope everyone gets well soon. Please stay indoors till then, and take care of yourselves. Bardington Cup Two days passed in a flash, and today was the day that the Bardington Cup finally began. Mason had heard a lot about this competition at the Red Inn. It was a competition held once every 5 years, and The Lion Tamala, Sir Wint, Sir Campbell, as well as the king of Bard, His Majesty Alexander Bard II, would all be present for the 5 days of competition. This was basically the most famous tournament in the entire central continent as the most prestigious competition. Today was the first day of the competition, however it was the preliminaries and therefore the king and his entourage would not be present today. Therefore, all Mason needed to do was to win everything today and keep winning until he caught the attention of Sir Campbell, the best blacksmith in Bard, and most likely one of the top ten in the entire central continent. ¡°I would like to register for the combat division for those below the age of 20.¡± ¡°Name?¡± ¡°Mason Gates.¡± ¡°Age?¡± ¡°19.¡± ¡°Proof of identity?¡±Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. ¡°Here.¡± Mason handed over the identification his parents had gotten for him, when he was just born, through the church of the god of war, Ares. Reading through the bronze coper bar stamped with the seal of the Church of War, along with the name and date of birth of Mason. ¡°Ok. Occupation?¡± ¡°Mage¡± The receptionist¡¯s hand suddenly stopped, and many gazes fixated on Mason, who tried his best to remain unfazed, but was still put under some pressure from the intense gazes landing on him. The receptionist looked up a Mason¡¯s face for a while before shrugging and writing it down while mumbling. ¡°I doubt you could be anything else. With one leg missing, normal combat would be useless.¡± Writing some more things on the paper, Mason went through the rest of the registration successfully, until the last part where she asked for his nickname. Mason began to think, but just as he was about to speak, a notification popped up. ============ Instead of using your name as a nickname, chose a cooler name you idiot. Something other than the Great Mason! ============ Mason¡¯s face flushed red as he began to second guess his naming skills, which were praised by everyone in his town. A few moments later, he had decided his name. ¡°Wind Bender¡± ============ Pathetic by the standards of this world¡­ ============ ¡®But not bad if you were on Earth. Sigh¡­ that was truly a good cartoon.¡¯ Jack murmured to himself as he turned his concentration back towards his SPU, which at this point he was using as his own body to enjoy the world in first person instead of god mode. Naturally, he could still sense everything from his players while controlling SPU, since his body was still a god. It was like he was playing an RPG game in first person, while being able to look away for a while and the character would auto-run based on your decisions so far. Today was also co-incidentally the day that King Ken had called for all the nobles in Cayden, and Jack wanted to be there to enjoy the moment his plans finally began taking fruition. Fiasco in the Throne Room ¡°Have you heard the rumours?¡± ¡°What rumours?¡± ¡°They say that a tall pillar of blue light descended upon the castle two days ago.¡± ¡°Yes, and they say that it was some sort of divine radiance which healed the king!¡± ¡°What? Seriously?¡± ¡°Yes! One of the guards who worked here saw the light!¡± The meeting hall in the palace was large enough to occupy nearly a thousand people, and was built in Cayden¡¯s glory days. However, there were only about 300 people present, 100 of which were soldiers to maintain order, and the rest were nobles. Since Cayden was not a very large nation, two days of riding from any part of Cayden would allow them to reach here with a few extra hours to spare, even counting breaks along the journey. The total number of nobles within Cayden was precisely 201, which meant that more or less every noble had arrived after receiving the king¡¯s declaration of every noble within Cayden to get to the royal palace in 2 days¡¯ time. ¡°Could this be revenge for not helping him while he was dying?¡± ¡°Tch. Who would make an enemy of every single noble of Cayden for something like death? Such an action would disrupt the stability, which is already tipping over the edge, and cause the nobles to revolt and sparking an internal war, destroying what little we have as a nation.¡± ¡°The king should also know this. So, what will he do?¡± ¡°His majesty the king of Cayden, Ken August, has arrived!¡± yelled out the announcer before disappearing into the soldiers as though he didn¡¯t exist. All the nobles turned silent as the doors and the entrance opened and the king walked out in his red robes. Behind him were two children, of 12 and 14 years each, and behind them was a man wearing white clothes, a white wooden cane, a white top hat, and a black mask covering his face. This time, he had his eyes shut to prevent anyone from fainting on the spot. Naturally, Jack could still see everything even if his eyes were shut, and was moving rather fluidly, which was confusing for the nobles present. ¡®Who was this man?¡¯ ¡®What is his relation with the king?¡¯ Their questions did not remain for long as they were more shocked at the appearance of the king. His sunken cheekbones had become full of life once again. His slouched posture which had been clucking more and more had been pulled upright with his chest puffing out pridefully. His whitening hair from the poison had been returned to their initial golden lustre, and his listless eyes had once again regained vitality.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. His whole being was exuding the pride of a lion who had been re-awakened. The pride of a king. Ken August went ahead and sat at the throne placed at the end of the long room, while his two sons sat on either side of him. The mysterious man casually walked up the stairs to the throne. He walked up to the left side of the king, and moved a little more to the side since the second prince was seated there. Once he had moved a meter away from the prince, he raised his staff and hit the marble on the ground, which began to morph and formed a throne made out of marble, just a little smaller than the king¡¯s, and most definitely larger than the princes¡¯ thrones. This action stunned every single noble present and angered many of them. ¡°You!¡± But before one of the angry nobles could say anything, King Ken raised his right hand, silencing his. ¡°Are you not going to greet your king?¡± he spoke with a calmness which innerved many of the nobles present. Realising the breach of courtesy and mannerism, the nobles hastily bowed down to a various angles depending on their status. Currently there were 2 dukes present, who merely nodded slightly and greeted the king with words. Following that were the Counts, who were one level of nobility lower than Dukes. These nobles had to bend their waist down to 60 degrees and greet the king without looking straight at the king. The Viscounts also had to bend down to a similar degree, but needed to remain in that bent position until the king told them to rise. The same restriction remained for Barons as well, who had to kneel down on the ground with one leg. ¡°Rise¡± The king spoke in a slightly milder voice than before. ¡°I will get straight to the point since we have a lot of work to do. Yes. The rumours are true. I had been poisoned and was dying. Last night, I was on the verge of death, when I received a revelation.¡± ¡°The God of Systems had decided to help Cayden and he started this off by completely healing me. As a show of trust, he also sent over his Pope, Espeeu.¡± Said the king as he moved his hand towards the calmly seated SPU. Hearing this, many of the nobles understood the position of the unknown man in white called Espeeu. Not only had he saved the king¡¯s life, he was also the pope of a church. Just the latter fat alone made him more important than any of the members present other than His majesty the king, and therefore allowed him to assume the position of second only to the king. ¡°There is also something a lot more important than my life to be announced right now.¡± Suddenly, the curtain tension which had been briefly lifted descended onto the room once more as everyone waited for the king to speak. ¡°Henceforth¡­ The kingdom of Cayden shall have a state religion, not forcefully, but voluntarily. We shall follow the mighty God of Systems. This will be the turning point in the history of this decaying nation. I will also appoint Pope Espeeu as the royal advisor, who, if anything happens to me, will hold power over the kingdom until one of my sons becomes capable enough to inherit the throne.¡± As soon as Ken finished speaking, SPU stood up abruptly. ¡°Not that that is over with, I would like to clear the field and pull out some unwanted weeds you majesty.¡± Without waiting for an answer, Jack moved instantly, and appeared behind a noble and picked him up by the neck, before disappearing and picking up another and throwing them both onto the ground before the king, before moving once more. In total, 14 nobles were pulled into the centre of the hall in an open space between the nobles and the stairs to the throne. They were all lying motionless, but were still breathing. Jack had just dislocated all their limbs and instantly healed it, giving them immeasurable pain without doing any visible or lasting harm to them. The 14 nobles were yelling out in agony in front of the astonished and frightened crown. ¡°God declares them to be treasonous! They shall be sentences to death.¡± Purging ¡°The Lord has declared these rats as treasonous, and shall be sentences to death.¡± Shouted SPU in an unnaturally loud voice for the normally calm SPU. ¡°What nonsense are you spouting! How could you call nobles ¡®rats¡¯ let along sentence them to death!¡± Many angry shouts came from the surrounding nobles, however, none of them dared to directly confront SPU with their guards or their own bodies. They had all seen SPU¡¯s power, which was along equal to that of the peak of mortality, not to mention his status as the pope of a god. Nobody wanted to become enemies with a god who offered a helping hand to their nation in their time of need. SPU nodded as calmness seemed to return to his body and spoke. ¡°Fufu~ How can I be so silly. These respectable nobles will want proof and evidence, not direct judgment form the lord. Although He won¡¯t be too pleased with the long wait and suspicions thrown at Him, He won¡¯t mind it if Cayden becomes more peaceful in the future.¡± ¡°Alright then, let me inform you guys about something.¡± ¡°There was indeed poison within His majesty King Ken, and I was the one who removes it. However, it was not my power, but the Lord¡¯s. Furthermore, I also requested the lord to analyse the poison down to its very core, and the lord sent me a revelation.¡± ¡°This poison was not man made, nor made in nature. Do you know what that means?¡± Hushed whispers began to spread in the room as people began to realise the implications of this. Ken August spoke first, ¡°Could it be?¡± ¡°Yes. The poison was the work of divinity. And not just any divinity, corrupted divinity. The poison is the work of a fallen god!¡± ¡°Please do not look into my eyes for a moment please.¡± SPU stated to everyone in the room. Most of the people turned away after the king supported him, but were still looking at the nobles on the ground, and any other part of SPU. At this moment, SPU opened his eyes, and Jack sent 1 CP through SPU¡¯s eyes, creating a dazzling blue brilliance which washed over the 14 nobles on the ground.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. In front of the eyes of the surrounding nobles, the nobles on the ground were completely unharmed, once the light faded, however, one could see there was an extra eye on the foreheads, and each of their palms, oozing a black liquid. SPU looked over at it and scoffed. ¡°And this fallen god has lost most of his corrupted divinity, and is close to falling out of the extraordinary realm. He is basically powerless, and had put all his hopes on these nobles to bring back his faith to the prime plane so he can regain his divinity.¡± ¡°Now, can I execute them?¡± questioned SPU as he closed his eyes once more and looked over towards the nobles and then the king and princes. ¡°Yes¡± said the king. ¡°Thank you. But before that.¡± SPU looked over towards the princes who were frightened by the mysterious person¡¯s gaze, but calmed down after realising he had shut his eyes. ¡°I doubt this is something to be watched by these younglings. Although one of them will be the heir in the future, it is much too soon for them to lose their innocence.¡± SPU disappeared, and reappeared behind the two children, who had already stood up from their mini-thrones and moved to their father¡¯s side. ¡°Come on now, let¡¯s bring you little fellows outside for a moment. And now promise me to close you ears and not to move from your place until you father or I come. Do not go with anyone else, is that understood?¡± ¡°Y-Yes!¡± replied the older of the two ¡°Good fellow!¡± Make sure to stick with your brother, I will be back in a few seconds. With that, the door was closed and SPU disappeared, leaving the two children outside, reappearing next to the pile of nobles who were slowly beginning to stand up. Jack gave up control to SPU to see its combat effectiveness. Since it was basically his own brain, just slightly weaker, its combat power should be incredibly high. And things went just like Jack predicted it would go. SPU brutally obliterated all the enemies and made sure to prevent any of the corrupted divinity, blood or flesh from hitting him or the other humans present, and collected it all in the centre. At this point, Jack decided to try something. SPU picked up a small part of the corrupted flesh using a cloth he took from one of the dumbfounded nobles, and tried to do something. A moment later, all the divinity from the piece of flesh was gone, reappearing within SPU as pure CP, which he sent over to Jack. ¡°Haha! It works! I can steal divinity from even corrupted gods and convert it into CP.¡± Jack sincerely thanked ¡®That Man¡¯ for the CP shop before instructing SPU to absorb all the exp within the 14 nobles, which took a while, since SPU or any other human touching the corruption directly would lead to them becoming possessed by the fallen god, or in the case of SPU, starting the process of Jack turning into a fallen god. With all of the exp going directly to Jack, through the discounted figure after he had sent SPU to the prime plane, and the additional exp, or divinity stored within the 14 nobles by the fallen god, Jack had stockpiled nearly 40 CP, of which 10CP he used to return to the banks of each of his players. This purging he had done for the nobles of Cayden was rather profitable. I am Wind Bender, not Air Bender!! After all the divinity had been pulled out of the blood, flesh, and bones, SPU spoke. ¡°Phew! Done. All of this is no longer corrupted. You can dispose of this as you see fit. But I will have to burden you all with the task of hunting down, I mean searching and escorting the families and friends of these people to me. I must check if they too have been infected. If they have been, they will be taken care of by me, and if they are not, then you people are free to do whatever you want.¡± Next, SPU gave a short bow to all the nobles with an heir of dignity that none of them had seen from the casual man, and walked over to the tired king and stood behind him. ========== Your majesty. I believe it should be alright to allow your children to enter now. Although they should not see the bloodshed, seeing blood and flesh should not be a problem. ========== The king thought for some time, and thought in his mind, ¡°No. Let them be. A few more years at least. Not until they are adults.¡± ========== I believe you are too kind to your children. It will lead them to becoming too kind-hearted, and in the end will be betrayed by others. ========== ¡°Sigh, this was a promise I made to their mother. On her deathbed, she made me swear to allow them to live their childhood normally.¡± ========== Sigh. Alright then. But you will have to give them the lord¡¯s blessing as soon as possible in case something happens to them. With the lord¡¯s blessing, they can survive even on their own if tossed into a forest dull of beasts. Anyway, I believe it is time to address the nobles?Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. ========== ¡°Yes.¡± Ken nodded and looked up from his pondering state. Over the past two days, the king had gotten closer to SPU, and was already considering to actually use SPU as an aid and advisor rather than just giving him the position for namesake. Although it seemed like SPU was standing behind the king, in reality they were having a conversation. Instead of calling it a conversation, it was more of SPU reading Ken¡¯s mind since he had the system, and SPU replying on the system. SPU was basically Jack, and Jack was SPU, so when Jack left SPU in auto-pilot as well, it could control the system. ¡°Now that that is all taken care off. I hereby declare that all of the family members and friends of the deceased must be checked by advisor-¡± ¡°Ahem. Your majesty?¡± coughed SPU. ¡°Right. Must be checked by pope Espeeu. Furthermore, I will hereby declare that we will be rebuilding Cayden. I no longer wish to waste my life as a useless king. From this moment forward, we will move to rewrite the fate written for us!¡± While Cayden was beginning its revolution, Mason was conduction a revolution of his own. More precisely, he was not doing anything except beating people, but he began to develop some followers as he won battle after battle. The story of a young hero being wounded in battle against an overbearing opponent, going off to train in the mountains, and now returning to take revenge, and the story of the young lad who was horrifically trampled on by others after losing his leg, did not give up, and after facing all odds was able to learn magic and stood up on his own foot were spreading like wildfire. ¡°Air Bender!¡± ¡°Air Bender!¡± ¡°Air Bender!¡± As he defeated more enemies in the preliminaries, his fights, more and more people began to follow him. Cheers began to reverberate in the auditorium for him, gathering more and more people. Everyone wanted to see a dark horse. An underdog who came from similar backgrounds as them. No one wanted to see spoiled brats from rich houses or the disciples of famous magicians battling it out. Furthermore, since he used only a single mana point to create multiple low power bullets and attacked the enemy¡¯s week points without causing to serious of an injury or death, he was also regaining all his mana used in the nearly 30 mins long breaks between matched. All he did was stand using the crutch he had made from tree wood back in the old town of Darb near the border, and eliminate the opponent before they could do anything. It all started when the commentator turned his attention from the likely winners to a new dark horse that seemed appear. ¡°Another one bites the dust to Air Bender, Mason!¡± ¡°Hey, I am Wind Bender-¡± ¡°Air Bender!¡± ¡°Air Bender!¡± And so, the heroic tale of the dark horse Air Bender, Mason began. Chat room ============= Overlord¡¯s System Name: Ken August Age: 31 Ruling State: Cayden Level: 0 (0/100) Class: None Titles: King of Cayden Current state: Tired ---------------- Strength: 3(3) Vitality: 2(2) Stamina: 3(3) Toughness: 2(2) Dexterity: 2(2) Sense: 2(2) Mana: 1(1) Aura: 1(1) Stat Points: 0 ---------------- Skills Basic Management Lv 1(0/100) Basic Charisma Lv 1(0/100) ============== ============== Note: There exist other players other than you, however their systems are different from yours. Just like how you can see names of people above their heads, the other players can also see the names and measure hostility based on the colour, with red meaning enemies, and green meaning friendly, while yellow is neutral. Furthermore, another colour exists which is white, meaning they are fellow players. Try not to harm each other as much as possible. Your system is different to the other players, who merely need to slaughter enemies and gain exp to level up or buy things from me. Although you will gain exp for killing, you have a much faster method of earning exp. You can offer items and products to me, and I will convert them into exp, after which you can use the exp to buy things you wish to buy from me. If you are searching for a specific item in the shop, it will take longer, but you are free to browse the shop.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Exp collected to the max which would allow you to level up, will fill the amount of exo you can hold, and so you will not gain more exp unless you get rid of the exp you currently have. To do that, you can either level up which will give you a skill point, or sent it to you account held by me, which you can withdraw at any time. You will receive three types of quests. One if overlord¡¯s quest, which will be quests related to building up your nation. This will not have rewards since I am not the one giving you the quest, but your nation will grow if you complete those quests. The second are Survival quests which you must always follow or else you might die. This too will not carry any rewards. The third type are the direct quests I give you and they will have rewards for completing them. ============== ============== Version Update 1.2 New features:
  • You can contact other players through the ¡®chat¡¯ function.
  • For now, the chat function is limited to a group chat with every single player on it.
  • You can now buy and sell items through the ¡®trade¡¯ function.
  • This function will allow players to trade between each other using exp
Will release in 00:09:59 Enjoy! (¨R-¨Q) ============== While Ken was looking through the version update, Mason had just finished all his battles of the day, easily advancing to the official start of the tournament the next day, and was also reading the message. On the other hand, Alice, who had finally completed killing off another deer and finally accumulating enough exp to buy the map reading skill was also standing in a daze reading the new notification, along with Heron, who was reading it while battling a monster, the last one he needed to evolve to level 5. Alice quickly decided to set up camp for the night while Heron finished off the monster, he was battling with his water bullet. Mason just returned to the Red Inn with quite the sum of money he got from betting on himself every round. Naturally, as he became more famous, more people began betting on him to the point where he no longer earned much for every match one, since there was hardly anyone betting against him. With a few silver in hand, Mason entered the inn and bought another room for a night, and went to his room after having the fastest dinner of his life. ============= Time remaining 00:00 ============= ============= Chat room Administrator: Hey guys, it¡¯s me, your friendly down to earth God of Systems. Here is the chat box for you to chat among each other. Naturally, this costs exp. Fr every hour you spend on the chat, be it reading or typing, 5 exp is taken. This is accumulative, so don¡¯t try to leave just before 1 hour and return, it won¡¯t reset your account. Moderator: Hello. This is SPU, the pope of the Church of the God of Systems. Some people call me Espeeu, but my real name is SPU. I will handle the chat box in the Lord¡¯s absence, along with the Trading function. Furthermore, all non-important notification will be posted here and will be pinned until you read through them. Now then, please do introduce yourselves. ============ However, no one spoke for quite some time, before Alice lost her calm and posted. ============ Please enter a unique username before you enter the chat: ------------- ============ Alice took some time before deciding to hide her family name since it might cause her identity to be leaked. Especially if someone was from the central continent ============ Chat Room Alice: Tch. Fine. If no one is going to speak then I¡¯ll go first. I am Alice from the Leon Kingdom of the Western continent. M: I am Mason from the Bard kingdom of the central continent. Heron: I am Heron from the Southern Continent Ken: I am Ken, the king of Cayden in the central continent Moderator: Just to inform you players. The lord has decided to set up his church in Cayden, with it being the main Centrepoint of all players. Currently, even I am there. However, it is not developed enough for sufficient living accommodations, and so you should focus on growing stronger before coming here. When the time comes, the Lord will give each of you the necessary direct quests to reach Cayden. ============= SPU army? After an awkward silence on the chat room once everyone finally introduced themselves, the players closed the chat room. Everyone had their own work to do, and no one could laze around on the Chat Room for now. Mason went to bed early so he could get up much earlier the next day in order to warm up his body, while Heron went back to his long and almost everlasting journey to find civilisation. Alice bought the mapping skill and finally opened it, only to have her jaw drop from shock. ¡°Why the heel are we 5 days away from the location we were supposed to go to, when it should have taken 2 days¡¯ time to reach it from the temporary camp?!?!?!¡± After calming down, she went ahead and explained the situation to her squad, who wore also shocked, not at how bad their leader was at directions, but at the fact that she was able to accurately pinpoint their current location on the map. Still, she could still be completely lost, but that sis not matter. It would be better if they took longer to reach the location, although they might get punished for dereliction of duty, at least their chances of dying in combat would reduce the longer they stayed away from the battlefield. While Alice began the long walk to war, a five-day journey, Ken finally began his development plans. And to begin it, he started it off by converting all the nobles present to follow the god of Systems. Although reluctant at first, one of the nobles, Duke Verdun agreed to convert as a show of loyalty to the king. SPU nodded and appeared in front of the Duke and tapped his head with the stick, forcing the system onto the aged man, without the need for Jack to ask whether he wanted to use the system.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. A few moments later, the old man¡¯s eyes glowed slightly blue before returning and he stood rooted to his spot as he stared into nothingness. Whispers started to spread among the nobles as they began to think the old man was under some spell. However, the next moment, the old man began crying as his whole body shuddered in its spot. ¡°My god! This is incredible!¡± ¡°Fufu~ The Lord is naturally generous to those who are faithful to him.¡± The Duke nodded as he turned around and walked back to the crowd of nobles. Seeing this scene, a few more nobles decided to convert, and a chain reaction followed. ============= Welcome to the System¡¯s System ============ For the nobles, he did not give them the chat room yet, since he wanted to make some changed to the chat room and give it as a new update. But that would have to wait for a few more hours since he had to create many other types of segregations within the chat room for the different casts of society. For now, they simply received a Survivor¡¯s system, which he would later upgrade to his in progress ¡®Lord¡¯s System¡¯. Once by one everyone joined his faith, although, the faith itself would not help him at all, since his being was built on the premise of CP and exp instead of the faith and divinity that the other gods used. ¡°Why don¡¯t all of you rest up for the night, and we will meet in the morning for something special.¡± Said the king, which intrigued the nobles and they all clambered their way to the lower floors of the palace as they took up a random room with a bed. ¡°I will now bring in the two princes.¡± Stated SPU as he disappeared, a moment later the door opened. The two princes entered, following SPU, finally entered the room, which had already been cleaned of all the blood and gore that was present. ¡°Alright then, how about we enjoy a cup of late-night tea before heading to bed?¡± The group of four entered the kitchen which was on the same floor and sat at the dining table while waiting for the cook to bring food. ¡°You Majesty¡± ¡°You can drop the pretences when we are alone. I know you are only treating us like this is because you wish to use the royal family.¡± ¡°That is true.¡± ¡°But I also know that as long as the Lord wishes to use Cayden as his headquarters, Cayden will only grow.¡± ¡°That is true as well¡± ¡°Then go ahead. Say what you wish to speak.¡± ¡°You should get some trust-worthy subordinates.¡± ¡°Hmm¡± Ken nodded. ¡°Let me sug-¡± however, SPU realised something and instantly sent all the information over to Jack to allow him to handle the situation. ¡°What!! I can only have one SPU? Why is there a stock limit!? What will happen to my SPU army dreams?!¡± Jack exclaimed in his divine cage. Perfect Advisor SPU! ¡°Espeeu?¡± Ken questioned as he did not hear SPU completing his statement and looked up, only to notice the blue glow coming out of the closed eyes of the fellow. ¡°Kids! Don¡¯t look at him. In case he opens his eyes!¡± ¡°Yes Father!¡± ¡°Yes!¡± All the guards present, as well as the king, butler, princes, and the waiters closed their own eyes and patiently waited. A few moments later, SPU¡¯s voice rang out. ¡°I apologize. The Lord was contemplating something. It is fine now.¡± Hearing this, everyone let out a sigh of relief before continuing as though nothing had happened. ¡°As I was saying, Ken, you should get mote subordinates. And I¡¯m not talking about the butler behind you. I¡¯m talking about real subordinates capable of things other than taking care of you, no offence butler-nim.¡± ¡°None taken.¡± Replied the butler in an equally calm voice as he bowed and moved further away from the conversation. ¡°Hmm¡­but you could tell me all of this through that.¡± ¡°Yes, but it takes a lot of effort. Speaking is easier. Furthermore, since your children do not have the blessing, they would miss out on this opportunity to understand politics and nation building.¡± Ken was stunned for a moment before realising. The reason SPU was so eager to teach his children was to ensure the continuity of the royal family, and thereby the kingdom of Cayden.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. ¡°Anyway, in order to get such people, we need to hire people, and in order to do that, we need to improve the living condition of Cayden, so that people are no longer looking for how they can survive the next day, but are looking towards the future. I hope you kids are paying attention because this will be extremely useful in the future.¡± ¡°Yes!¡± ¡°Yes uncle SPU¡± ¡°Naturally, we cannot do this in just one day, and will take a long time.¡± Ken simply nodded, as the children were eagerly listening. ¡°We should first start with the capital itself, since that is basically the image of the entire kingdom, and as far as I can see, it is in a pathetic state. To solve this, you have two options. Do you know what that might me?¡± SPU looked over towards the children, who were shocked at the sudden question, but later began thinking. ¡°Send people to clean up the capital?¡± asked the 14-year-old first Prince James ¡°Yes, and who would you send?¡± SPU focused his gaze on the 12-year-old Norman. A little while later, Josh thought up of something in that little brain of his and spoke. ¡°The Guards?¡± ¡°Yes! Well done! Now, that is exactly the first option you have. Send the guards to clean up the capital from both bad people, as well as literal filth. However, there are a few problems with this. Cleaning filth is not the guards¡¯ job. Another problem is that we barely have enough guards to protect this palace. So now what do we do?¡± This time, SPU looked over at the king, who began pondering, before reading the king¡¯s mind through the system and nodding. ¡°Yes. Your thinking is completely correct. We could hire more people, but as you thought, we do not have the funds to support such a mass recruiting.¡± ¡°So then?¡± Asked James, the more enthusiastic of the two princes. ¡°We think of an easier alternative. Remember children, if there is a wall blocking you, break through it. If you are too weak to break through it with brute force, find an easier method. Just go around it! In this case, the solution is with the lord.¡± SPU spoke as he pointed upwards, and continued explaining his plans. And thus, began the long-lasting tradition of having political, geographical, scientific, faith related, and all other subjects needed to raise and maintain a nation, lectures and discussions with nearly perfect advisor SPU. A tradition which lasted many generations into the future. Version update and Training method Just as Alice was in the middle of slumber, and the first rays of dawn arrived in the central and southern continents, Jack sent a system notification to all those who were players. ============ Version 1.3 Update The Chat room has been modified. A Ranking system has been created. People will be divided into Tiers based on their ranking in society, as well as within the faith.
  1. SPU, is the highest rank among all those within and without my church. He receives the rank of ¡®Pope¡¯.
  2. Below the pope exists the ¡®Cardinal¡¯ rank and will be handed out, and replaced by SPU or me. These people will receive the ¡®Executioner system¡¯.
  3. Those who are the kings of nations have received the ¡®Overlord system¡¯, and will be given the ¡®King¡¯ title, which is the highest rank among those who have not completely joined the church. The ¡®King¡¯ rank is equal to the ¡®Cardinal¡¯ rank.
  4. All nobles, from the dukes, Counts, Viscounts, and finally Barons will all receive the ¡®Lord system¡¯, and will receive a title based on their rank of nobility.
  5. Those who have been players since the initial release of the systems, will receive a special rank called ¡°Beta Players¡±. This title is a unique rank title which in most cases is equal to the ¡°Duke¡± rank, with most benefits related to the rank missing other than authority over those below the rank.
  6. For the commoners, there are a few choices:
    1. All normal people who receive my blessing will become normal players with no rank
    2. Those who join the church itself, will begin the journey from the rank of Priest, to Bishop, to Arch-Bishop, and finally to Cardinal. Naturally, the selection for ranks above Bishop will be handles by SPU.
    3. Others can also choose the path of ¡®True Players¡¯. In order to receive this rank, you need to rapidly increase your level as fast as you can. Those who reach level 30 will receive this rank, which is equal to a Baron¡¯s rank. From here, at level 60 you will receive the rank of ¡®Amateur Player¡¯, followed by ¡®Semi-professional Player¡¯ at level 120. More ranks will be updated when the need arises.
Other than ranks, the Chat Room has also been updated. Based on your current rank, you will be assigned to a private chat with all those of your rank. There is also the ¡®General Chat¡¯ to speak with anyone from any rank. Further updates will come when the need arises.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Enjoy! (>3<) And remember; don¡¯t spam, or use offensive behaviour. SPU is always watching¡­ ============ With this job finally done, Jack stretched his non-existent hands, and prepared for a large harvest of CP soon. Back in Ferdin, the capital of Bard, Mason had awoken and was preparing to get some meditation done for the day, hopefully gaining something from it this time. It had become a routine for him to wake up early, spend 2 hours trying to meditate, and hope for something good. Although, he has been completely unsuccessful in gaining any stat increases, he was at least able to calm is him greatly after going this, which greatly boosted his magic power and efficiency. ¡®It doesn¡¯t matter whether I win the tournament or not, all I need to do is be noticed by the blacksmith and my quest should be complete.¡¯ Mason though that he could skip a little bit since the quest only told him to meet the blacksmith, which should be completed if both of them looked over at each other at the same time. Thinking this far, Mason cleared his mind for the first time. Up until now, he had had worries regarding his chances to live, worries regarding money, worries regarding completing the quest, worries about his own future. But for the first time, he was able to completely clear his mind of all thoughts and emotions. Who knew when, but Mason¡¯s mind reached a state of complete peace? Jack looked over with interest after SPU told him about Mason¡¯s actions, and was utterly stunned. ¡®Isn¡¯t this similar to my enlightenment? No, it is similar in that you achieve inner-peace in both, but they are vastly different.¡¯ If Mason¡¯s peace was a dust particle, then Jack¡¯s enlightenment was the entire multiverse. However, the fact remained that Mason had already begun walking the path of enlightenment. When Mason opened his eyes, he was shocked to see two notification on his status. One was the version update, which surprised him, but what was truly shocking was the second one. ================ You have received 1 Mana stat point ================ ================ Congratulations on creating a new Mana Training method. Method Name: Path to Enlightenment Effect: 20% chance of receiving 1 Mana stat point every 2 hours spent on meditation Note: This training method will remain exclusive to Player Mason Gates since it was you who created it. You can also sell the training method to other players on the trading platform for exp. Intellectual property rights will be upheld, and those who purchase your method will not be able to transfer, or sell it to others. You can also choose to keep it with you. After some time passed, I will purchase the rights of the training method from you to give it to other players. This ¡®time period¡¯ will be exactly 4 years from this day. ============== ¡®Huh? So it finally worked? And I have a training method.¡¯ Divine Punishment? While Mason was having breakfast in before heading to the arena at the heart of the capital, the kingdom of Cayden had begun its revolution. Posters with this were put up throughout the capital¡­ ============== His Majesty Ken August has called for an audience. Everyone is invited. ============== Nothing much was written, and this was a strategy by SPU to attract the curiosity of people, without making them feel forced to come. Soon enough, nearly a thousand people had gathered at the worn-down centre of the capital, where a temporary stage had been bult of some wooden boxes and barrels. Naturally, a small part of the entire stage was actually built sturdily, which was the path the speaker would use. The rest was just for show. Soon, a figure walked up on stage and began speaking. ¡°I¡¯m sure I do not need to introduce myself. I am Ken August, the ruler of this kingdom. As you all might had experienced by now, the kingdom is not is an ¡®appealing¡¯ state of affairs¡­.¡± The king¡¯s speech went on for some more time before he got to the main point [1] ¡°However, all of that changes from this day forward. I would like to introduce someone.¡± Ken said as he pointed to his left, where a pan seemed to materialise instantly. This man was wearing rather fashionable white clothes, with a black mask, white top hat, and a wooden cane which seemed to be as light as a feather. The man gave a slight bow to the audience and introduced himself. ¡°Hello. I am the lord¡¯s humble servant and pope of the church of the God of Systems, as well as the advisor to his Highness Ken.¡± Silence reined in the area as everyone stared at the man for a while. Suddenly, one man seemed to understand something as he whispered to the person next to him, while stealing the man¡¯s wallet. ¡°Is he the pope of a god? Does that mean Cayden will finally have a religion?¡± Whispers continued to spread as the man who spoke first opened the wallet, which was basically just a cloth bag, only to find a few rocks in it, with absolutely no money.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it The man who received the whisper snatched back the now empty bag and snickered at the first man. [2] However, this episode of failed thievery did not stop the flow of the information. ¡°Hmph, if this guy is a pope, then I am god.¡± Said one certain person, which caused an intense reaction from SPU. ¡°Blasphemy-¡± SPU¡¯s voice turned ice cold as his figure instantly vanished, before reappearing back on the stage, with the man¡¯s neck in his hands, struggling to breath while flailing his arms like a madman. ¡°Argh! Kuak! Kuhuakh!¡± ¡°How dare you slander the name of the lord!¡± At this point, SPU threw the man into the air, and was about to smite the very atoms of the man form existence for slandering his-lord, and by extension, himself, however, he suddenly stopped as his eyes became even more mysterious than they were before. This was the sign that Jack was taking control. The angry expression became calm, and an air of mystery surrounded the man in white. Most people, who had closed their eyes and were awaiting the gruesome scene soon realised nothing happened and opened their eyes and noticed the changes in the man on white. Soon, a blue divine brilliance began emanating from the heavens, which was recognised by most people in the world, even though they had never experienced it themselves. The people felt it from their very existences. This was the divine descent of a god. ¡°Little one. You should learn to control yourself. One should control yourself until you unravel the complete truth before taking action. Patience is a virtue,¡± spoke not the man in white, but the blue divine radiance from within the man in white, as the one who was about to be obliterated was returned to the crowd completely unscathed. The blue light engulfed the man in white and formed a much taller man, nearly 3 meters tall, wrapped in a simple cloth long enough to cover the entire body and form a hood. Also had a blue screen floating in its hand. This was the image Jack had thought himself to look like, by taking inspiration from how the other gods looked, and built his own image off of them The image of god should be noble without being extravagant, and most importantly, should be unique and represent one¡¯s own domain of existence. Naturally, Jack had added the fact that he was a human into the image, unlike the images of Sparta and the other gods. ¡°I do not wish to force anyone to do anything. However, I can see a dormant ember within each of you. I can sense a desire within you, a desire to not stagnate. A desire to move forward. A desire to be remembered. However, you cannot do so because of your living conditions.¡± ¡°I came here not to force you. Do not misunderstand. I do not help people. I merely show them the path to achieve their goals. Reaching that point is up to you to work to that point.¡± ¡°That is all¡± With that, the divine brilliance emanating from the man in white, along with the entire being made of blue light retracted back into the sky, leaving a kneeling audience. Every single human, animal and other creatures were bowing down to SPU. Even the king could not help but kneel slightly at the magnificence of a true god. When he had previously met Jack, the king had not felt any pressure at all, just the realisation that he was talking directly to a god. However, this time around, Jack had used 1 CP, which was basically divinity, to display his might to the people, without making them feel frightened or hurt. [1] Nah. That ain¡¯t true. I just could not think up of what lines someone of a half-dilapidated kingdom would tell his ¡®oh so chique¡¯ subjects. [2] Lol, we have the king of trolls here. Heron finds people Jack sighed in relief after he saved the day. ¡®Damnit it! SPU! How could you try and kill people just before trying to willingly try to join the church!¡¯ ¡®But still¡­¡¯ Jac had discovered something more interest this time. He could switch to an almost enlightened state if he wished to do so, and switch back to being little ol¡¯ Jack. Back when he was descending, he felt like his normal self would not fit the image of a god, and do not only had a created a fake self-image, but also tried to change his method of thinking and speaking, and it somehow worked. Although he could not reach the full enlightenment he had reached in the white space, but it was close. But I have a feeling I should avoid that state for as much time as possible, and try and remain in my own state. In an unimaginably distant location, where light and darkness, matter and anti-matter met, and reality itself converged into a single point, an existence looked over at Jack and nodded. [It seems this one is doing well. He should reach the peak of his plane in a few hundred years. Not bad. I¡¯ll let him grow for a while before coming to check up on him again. Now the, let¡¯s move onto the other ¡®Enlightened.¡¯] This being was none other than ¡®That Man¡¯ as Jack called him. An existence above all, a being with no name nor rank. In the meantime, Mason had finally completed the opening ceremony and now the matched were going to begin. However, instead of being nervous or excited like the other participants in his age bracket, Mason was depressed. He had made eye contact with Sir Campbell multiple time through the course of the opening ceremony; however, the quest notification never came up. Now, all he could do was to win everything for the chance to meet the king and his aides, which included Sir Campbell. While Mason was crying over the tough 3 days of competition to come, Heron was being chocked by something completely unrelated. He found trails in the sand! One should know that footsteps do not last more than a few hours in sand, and sometimes can even disappear within minutes! And this could only mean one thing. There were other non-humans nearby! And looking at the footprints, he could see that they had domesticated some peaceful monsters, and were also wearing some sort of shoes, which meant that they had a civilisation!Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Heron spent a minute to carefully examine the footprints and deduced the direction they were moving in, so that he does not walk in the opposite direction to the people who made the footprints. And then he ran. Not like a human, but like the beastman he was. No all fours. This was not only more efficient when it came to travelling distance, speed, and energy consumed, but it was also more comfortable. Even while fighting the nearly infinite types of monsters within the sand, Heron was more comfortable if he was on all fours. The problem with that was that he would not be able to used his spear, and would have to resort to his teach and claws to inflict damage. Running at nearly his full speed, Heron finally spotted a group of living beings in the distance. However, he suddenly stopped as he noticed something. They had a single monster under their control, and a total of 3 people were riding the monster that was double of Heron in terms of size. Around the single beast, 4 other beastman were walking on the ground. However, they had chains around their necks and hands, and their nails had been filed down to nearly nothingness, which would take at least another year or two to grow back. ¡®Tch. Slave traders.¡¯ Heron clicked his tongue, but did not act, and just slowly approached the group that was setting up camp to prepare for a lunch break. As he approached, he recognised that all the people here were all of the Panther tribe, a rather large tribe, which could compete with his own Lion tribe that was at the peak of the Southern continent in terms of military power. At this point, the two slave traders atop the beast notices a huge creature wrapped in black clothes approaching. It was at least double their won size and was carrying a spear on its back that was nearly triple their height. One of the slave traders picked up his daggers and prepared for combat while the other pulled out his longsword and jumped off the beast while shouting. ¡°Who are you! What do you want. Leave now!¡± Heron stopped. ¡®What kind of questioning was that supposed to be?¡¯ ¡°I need directions.¡± ¡°To where? Leave now or else we will attack.¡± Heron was starting to get ticked of by the manner of speech, but controlled his nerves and answered. ¡°Anywhere. I am lost you fool! Can you not see? I have no rations nor any money. There is no point in fighting me, and I will gain nothing in fighting you. Just tell me where the nearest city, town, village, or settlement is. I will manage the rest and leave you guys.¡± However, just as he finished speaking, the one with throwing dagger who was still on the beast began to throw his daggers at Heron one by one. ================ Survival Quest Activated- Slave Traders Description: Fools! These guys are complete fool! Unfathomable fools! Task: Just kill them Reward: None =============== Just as heron finished dodging the daggers which were only as long as his own finger, he received one notification after another. =============== Sigh~ Do not forget to leave one alive, but just enough to speak and nothing else. Make sure to find the path to reach where you want to go through him. SO DO NOT KILL BOTH! =============== Jack had to give instructions to Heron like this, since he wasn¡¯t the brightest of beastmen. Although his fighting tactics, hunting skills, and strength were undoubtedly still the highest among his players, he was a little slow for most other things. Heron鈥檚 nonsense Heron sighed as he just charged into the one with the longsword and kicked the sword away before breaking both his arms. He purposely did not kill him, and instead broke one of his legs as well, making the man instantly collapse onto the ground, before leaping into the air to arrive atop the monster. He did not waster time with this one, since he was the one who attacked without speaking, and just very cleanly ripped off the head of the opponent with his bare hands, and threw the corpse over the edge. Then he looked around to make sure no more red names were floating around, before jumping off the monster an landing next to the panther that was laying on the sand in excruciating pain. ¡°Hey, now tell me where a city is and I will not kill you. Although I may look like this, I am still a Ravenclaw. I do not break my word.¡± The panther looked astonished at the name of the beastkin in front of him. ¡®What bullsh*t! You should have told me earlier that you were a Ravenclaw. I would have happily taken you anywhere you wanted. Why would you hide this you fool!¡¯ The man groaned inwardly as he tried to control the pain in his body. Suddenly, all the pain in his body left him as he stared up at Heron in shock. His hands and leg healed enough for it no not hurt him. ¡°I told you I wouldn¡¯t kill ya.¡± Heron shrugged as he admired the mazing capabilities of the new [Basic Healing Lv 2] he had bought from the shop a while ago. The only problem was, he did not have the chance to use it up till now, since the monsters around him no longer hurt him, while old scars did not heal. Furthermore, why would he heal his own food and give them the chance to escape? ¡°I will heal you fully once I recover enough mana, so till then just tell me where to go.¡± The man on the ground nodded in utter shock as he lifted his hand as much as he could and pointed in a direction. ¡°Alright. Then, we will go there.¡± Heron picked up the man and placed him on top of the monster before stopping to think or a moment. ¡®What to do with the slave?¡¯ ============== Survival Quest- Don¡¯t use your brains Task: Free the slaves and give them some water and food from the storage carried by the monster. Give them only a little, since you need the rest.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Reward: Hopefully someone will give you some sense ============== Jack did not know since when, but he was becoming more companionate to those who did not do anything to or for him, and was becoming crueller for those who went against him. Heron read through the notification and nodded. ¡®The God of Systems is truly intelligent. Such a marvellous plan!¡¯ Heron sighed in amazement and walked over to each of the slaves and broke all their restraints. He gave them some supplies and said in a righteous tone, ¡°You all are now free to go. Enjoy your lives from now on.¡± However, silence reigned. No cheers were heard from the ex-slaves, and no-one moved an inch. Heron just shrugged and sat on the driver¡¯s seat on top of the monster¡¯s head and whipped the rope. This made the monster stand up and begin to move. Suddenly, on the slaves gathered up their courage and finally spoke. ¡°Sir! We do not have lives to go back to!¡± Heron frowned as he stopped the beast and looked back. The panther paused for a bit before continuing, ¡°Sir! We were all part of the same village a few days north of here. However, a catastrophe struck us when a tide of skeletons attacks our village nearly killing everyone. What few managed to survive were whipped up by the man on the manta-beast that you were just riding. This is all that remains of our village, and we were all stamped by the mark of a slave.¡± The man said as he tore his shirt to reveal a still healing scar across his chest, in the words slave. ¡°No matter where we go, as long as someone spots this, we will be dragged to the nearest slave traders and sold once more.¡± Heron looked at them in slight confusion. ¡°Just run a-¡± ============= Quest¡ª Forget it! From now on, just repeat what I say!!! Idiot! ============= ¡°I see. So, you guys wish to follow me for the time being?¡± ¡°Yes!¡± ¡°Hmm. Alright. But I will require you to follow the same faith I do.¡± ¡°F- Faith?!¡± This statement greatly startled the beastmen, as they all instantly became more wary against Heron. It was widely known that no gods could accept the faith of beastmen, only fallen gods and devils could, from which the latter could only sign contracts. ¡°Do not misunderstand. My lord is not a fallen god nor is he a devil. He is a god of unimaginable powers which no other god can compare to.¡± ¡°You do not trust me, right? Well then, let me tell you something. I have been wandering the dessert for many days, and I have not found any water yet. How do you think I survive till now?¡± ¡°¡­¡± Heron followed Jack¡¯s instructions and pointed his finger upward and launched a water bullet at half power, which was something he learned to do when he levelled up the skill. ¡°This!!!¡± The beastmen all retreated many steps back as utter and complete disbelief filled their faces. ¡®How was Magic being used by a beastman?¡¯ ¡°This is the power my lord has bestowed upon me, and will do on you as well if you join his faith.¡± While Jack finally received another large following, his CP reserves were already drying out, since it took CP to make a system for each person, and the people in Cayden were also joining his religion. To prevent himself from looking like a weak god, Jack just created a limit on the number of people SPU could accept to 5. And to make up for the CP lost, he made SPU do some night time hunting within the capital itself. Although SPU could not level up, he could still convert exp to CP and send it to Jack. ¡®Soon. Soon my investments will grow and provide me with enough CP to live lavishly. Maybe I can even construct a permanent body.¡¯ With that over, Jack got to work sorting through all the options in the CP store, while making SPU manage Heron¡¯s nonsense. The Tales of SPU Back in the kingdom of Bard, Mason had just finished his third and last fight of the day, and was resting in the room provided to him by the organisers of the tournament; the kingdom itself. ¡°Pyu!¡± A white furry nose pushed out of his clothes as he sat down, followed by two immeasurably small and soft paws, before the rest of the body came out. It was the baby wolf Mason had picked up from the wolf he killed. Although it seemed like a twisted thing to do, Mason himself felt it was something he had to do to honour a creature that had a life-and-death battle with him. The little thing liked to stay inside Mason¡¯s clothes for most of the day, and would only come out when Mason had settled down for a time of resting. For this reason, Mason had stitched a small pocket on the inside of his rather ragged clothes to fit the creature that was only a little larger than his palm. ¡°Sigh~ I wonder how many people I will have to beat to make him meet me. I don¡¯t want to waste so much time winning the competition for the chance to meet him. While Mason was sighing in indignation at the unfair quest, Alice was still nearly 2 says away from the designated location, Heron had begun his journey to civilisation, with his 5 new companions, 4 of which were the slaves that were walking on the ground, and one of them was a female slave who was being ¡®pleasuring¡¯ the two slave traders. On the other hand, SPU had just completed the daily quota of believers, and returned to the palace to sort things out. His current job was to get Cayden on track to becoming a flourishing nation, rather than its current state of being an absolute dump. To accomplish this, he needed people, and to do that, he simply added more people to the faith in the God of Systems. And that is exactly what he did, and gave them missions to manage for themselves. Naturally, they did not receive the survivor¡¯s system with had basically unlimited growth potential and cost 2 CP each, but received the Citizen¡¯s system which cost only 1 CP per 2 people. However, it limited the people in method of levelling based on their innate profession.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Blacksmith would level up by creating weapons and items and selling them to either other players, or God, both of which would give Jack exp, only the latter would allow Jack to pull the effort the creator put into it as exp, while throwing back the metal dust back to the blacksmith who could re-use it for more weapons, while selling it to others would give the creator a one-time exp boost. This applied for all other innate professions which cannot be changed. Jack did not want to spend loads of exp in getting unlimited skills for his people. Instead, he would have them focus on the few skills they could buy based on their profession, and level those up. This way, instead of having mediocre allrounders who could do everything, but at the same time, not anything, and could be whipped clean by a single super-strong enemy, he would build a nation of highly specialised individuals who would work together as a whole nation, and utterly decimate enemies. And that was a plan for the future. SPU currently had to get the orders of the state in check, and the most important job was finding worthy prey- ahem, wanted criminals, and other scum. These were to be used a temporary sources of CP will his investments began to bring up returns. Every night, SPU went on his ¡®Late night walks¡¯ and killed off around 20 people within 2 minutes, before returning as though nothing happened. And the next morning, news of 20 gangsters, wanted criminals, and scum of society like thieves were found dead. Naturally, SPU did not intend to completely eradicate the scum of society, but just intended to get them in line. And in order to do this, he allowed a few of his killings to be seen by the normal public, who only saw this as divine punishment, while the underbelly of Cayden began to fear the existence known as Espeeu. Time flew by, and a day and a half passed in this manner. Heron was still on his journey, while Alice was still a day from her designated location. SPU continued to hire people into the religion, while making living in Cayden better as time passed, by firstly ridding people of the fear of being robbed or murdered the very next day. On the other hand, Mason was preparing to battle the finals of the tournament. Explosion! ¡°His Majesty as freed up time in order for you to have an audience with him before the finals.¡± Spoke the voice of a man who entered the room. Mason looked over and realised his identity. Over the past few days, he was researching all the major nobles in order not to mistaken them for other people. ¡°Duke, Desmon Bard!¡± This was the current head of the Bard branch family that started with the brother of the previous king becoming the duke. The duke¡¯s son took over the position later on, but somehow vanished many years later, along with his eldest daughter, leaving the current head of the family for the 20-year-old Desmon. ¡°Tch. Doesn¡¯t matter. The king instructed me to inform you. Now move you a*s.¡± ¡®Wow, talk about grumpy.¡¯ Mason thought to himself as he stood up and picked up his crutched and began walking behind Desmon, who was already walking a little ahead. ¡°Walk faster you fo-¡± Desmon turned back to reprimand Mason for walking too slowly when he actually noticed it. Up until now, Desmon had no interest in the tournament and had never seen it even once, and so he did not know. ¡®Oh¡­ So he was actually missing a¡­¡¯ Desmon reprimanded himself in his mind, but did not apologize. Although not even the king respected him as a duke, and sent him on errand missions like this one, which was to be completed by soldiers and servants, Desmond still had the pride of a noble. Soon they arrived at the room where the king, and his close aides were waiting for the tournament to start. ¡®Will I finally complete the quest? Then I can just leave? I heard my opponent was just as strong as me, if not stronger. Even the one I faced in the semi-finals was plenty strong. I had to use the wind bullet at full power to knock him out through all that aura.¡¯ Mason thought to himself as he entered the building.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Inside, the king of Bard, His Majesty Alexander Bard II, was seated on a throne, similar to the one he sat on through the rest of the tournament days. To his right were The Lion Tamala and Sir Wint, and to his left was Sir Campbell. A few steps in front of the group of middle-aged men, was a single child and a soldier behind him. This was Mason¡¯s opponent; Don. He had no surname since he was an orphan since birth, with his mother dying while giving birth to him. ¡°Good to see you both here healthy. I just called you here to say that I do not wish to see bloodshed this day. Do not try to kill each other. Just beat the other person without harming them.¡± ¡°Your highness¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Replied both Mason and Don respectively, clearly showing the difference in mannerism. ¡°Alright. Go forth and have fun.¡± Just as Alexander Bard finished speaking, Mason stood up and bowed to the king before looking towards Sir Campbell. ¡°Sir Campbell!¡± ¡°Yes?¡± At this moment, Meson received a quest completion notification as well as a new quest. ============ Survival Quest-Request Make the request to the greatest blacksmith in Bard, Sir Campbell to build you a prosthetic leg Reward: None ============ Mason read through this and realised that the god of systems was actually making him do all of this for himself only, and not to benefit the god. ¡°Could I please make a request?¡± Campbell looked over at the king who nodded and said, ¡°Go on.¡± ¡°Could you build me a prosthetic leg?¡± It was at this moment Campbell came to a sudden realisation, along with everyone else in the room. Campbell remembered all the times the young man looked over at him even in the middle of matches. This young man called Mason did not come to the tournament to win, to gain money, or to gain fame. He came here with a single goal in mind, and that was to meet Sir Campbell and ask him for the prosthetic leg. ¡°Haha! I will reward this dedication of yours! I will make it for you!¡± Laughed the slightly short, but rather built man. ¡°Thank you!¡± Mason bowed even deeper than when he was to the king, but no one had time to fault Mason, since at this very moment, loud explosions occurred in the stadium, and all over the capital, and screams and shouts drowned the entire capital. ================ Survival Quest-Escape!! Run! Take Desmond Bard, Don, and Campbell, and anyone else who wished to follow you, and run out of the capital. Take a carriage and a few horses, and run to the east. Don¡¯t worry about food. That can be bought on mass with exp. Water cannot be bought, but water should be easily discoverable in the forest. Task: RUN you moron! Don¡¯t spend time reading this!! I will show you the way! ================= RedForce! Mason did not waste any time and shouted loudly. ¡°Someone is attacking! We need to run!¡± The captain of the royal guards, who follows the king everywhere, was nowhere to be found, along with most of the royal guards. Only a handful of soldiers were present in the room, and Alexander¡¯s close aides The Lion Tamala and Sir Wint understood what was going on. It was betrayal, and treason. Sir Campbell was just shocked and remained in his position. ¡°Sir Campbell, if you intend on making that leg for me, I need you alive do I not? Then please follow me. We need to leave the capital as soon as possible. Same goes for you, Duke Desmon, as well as you Don.¡± Alexander, Tamala, and Wint, all turned their gazes towards Mason, thinking the same thing. ¡®Is he involved in this?¡¯ However, Mason received a new notification and followed its contents. ¡°I am not involved in this. My lord has told me some people are rebelling against the king. And they are not weak people, almost on par with the royal family. Furthermore, they have a lot of nobles supporting them, and only a handful of nobles are still loyal. He said it is the RedForce.¡± Understanding struck like lightening as the colour drained from the king¡¯s face, while Tamala clenched his teach. Wint began pondering about their next course of action.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°I know a way to escape. My lord just informed me.¡± ¡°Just before we do anything else, just who is ¡®you lord¡¯?¡± ¡°Naturally, he is the mighty God of Systems!¡± Mason followed the script set up by Jack. ¡®God of Systems? Doesn¡¯t sound like a god of old. Must be a new god. He doesn¡¯t sound like a fallen god, nor a devil. It should be fine for now.¡¯ Though Wint. ¡°He told me to tell you all that he has already greeted A- ahem, the God of War some time back, along with the other 9 supreme gods who all sent their sub-deities to witness my lord¡¯s birth. He also made a deal with The God of war just now apparently!¡± ¡°¡­¡± Wint, Tamala, Alexander, Desmon, and the 2 guards present were al utterly shocked. ¡®What kind of birth would require the presence of such might beings?!¡¯ ¡°Stop wasting time. All those who wish to die, remain here. All those wishing to live, follow me.¡± ¡°Wait-¡± shouted Don as he, and the two guards spouted mouthfuls of blood. ¡°Damn it! I forgot! That priest from the church of the War God, he poisoned all entrants¡¯ mana! Wait! What if he was not a priest from the war god, but from some evil deity, or fallen god, and was hired by RedForce?!¡± Without thinking, Mason rushed to Don and told him to prey to his god, and accept his blessing, while shouting the other fallen soldiers to do the same. In the verge of death, they accepted their ¡®Sub-player¡¯ systems, which Jack had given to the slaves that Heron had brought into the faith, before extracting and collecting the strange mana poison in his divine kingdom. ¡°Anyone else about to die mid-journey? Just pray to my lord, hopefully he hears you and gives you his blessing. I will leave you behind if you do not.¡± Without a shred of further hesitation after seeing the recovering Don and guards, Desmon prayed to the God of systems but received a different notification. ============= Huh? So, it was you? Anyway, do you wish to join the church of Systems? Note: You sister is alive, and has fled to another continent. You cannot meet her now, but you will get to talk with her, and I¡¯ll make her meet you soon enough. ============= Incredible line-up Some time ago, in the void above the primary plane, Sparta arrived to where Jack was last seen, and was frantically searching for Jack. At this point in time, Jack allowed the cage to be seen, and appeared before Sparta, the god of swords, who looked exactly like a sword with legs and arms, straight out of a cartoon. ¡°God of Systems!¡± Sparta bowed slightly, enough for a greeting and some respect, but not too much. ¡°What it is?¡± ¡°That¡­¡± After some contemplations, Sparta spilled the beans, which was actually his job in the first place. ¡°Some people have rebelled against the kingdom of Bard. Even many members among the church have betrayed Lord Ares, and although they paid the price through their lives, the damage was still done.¡± ¡°I see. So that is why your church members were poisoning the people who entered the kingdom. Alright. How about I make a deal with you? I will save the king, his close aids, not sure what their names were, but it was 2 of them plus that Campbell fellow, and that duke Desmon. One of my follows was participating in the tournament, and is currently in a meeting with those people. I¡¯ll bring them out of the capital safely, but where should I bring them?¡± ¡°This!¡± Sparta¡¯s face brightened as he passed on this message to Ares. A little while later, an incomprehensible pressure descended upon the area where the cage was. However, Jack was completed unfazed. Not only had he gone though that ¡®enlightenment¡¯ but had also met some of strongest figures in exitance itself. A mere Ares was not enough to intimidate him, at least not while he was within the cage. Ares suddenly appeared in Spart¡¯s place, most likely through some position swapping technique. Ares had a human form unlike all the other gods he had seen so far. He also had many weapons pilled on his back, and Jack could see 3 empty spots. Through this, Jack understood Ares looked up at the towering cage, which was not emanating any feeling of pressure, but was in fact giving off a feeling of contained power. A restraining sense of oppression which even stifled him, one of the 9 Supreme gods! ¡°Thank you for the offer. I am currently lacking human pawns to defeat the enemies, who are about as strong as my forces, at least within the capital itself.¡±Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. ¡°Keke. It is only natural to seek allies. Once I break free from this place, I will need someone to take the stage with!¡± Jack spoke in a rather raspy voice for a god. Ares understood the underlying message. The existence personally sealed by the strongest Overlord in all of existence, was offering a partnership to him. Why would he not take such an opportunity. After all, all the 9 supreme gods knew that they had all reached a bottleneck in terms of growth. There was a barrier that was preventing them from going to the next stage of growth, and holding them back at the level of gods. This might be the only opportunity to form a relation with a being that might allow them to breath the limit. Ares nodded. ¡°The entire Bard kingdom is supposed to be for my followers. My temples exist everywhere, but most of them do not have enough man-power to hold of the entire assault of RedForce. But I do have one secret location. Just tell your follower to bring everyone East as soon as they exit the capital.¡± ¡°I can do that, but I need to dee than to bring them out?¡± ¡°Ah! I¡¯ll give you access to Bard for 2 days prime plane time.¡± Ares agreed without hesitation. ¡°Well then, to a healthy partnership¡± Jon said, and Ares nodded back and they reached an agreement. A short-term deal, which might grow into a long-term partnership if it works out. And that is how they got to the current state of things. Jack had also secretly made SPU go all out on his hunting for CP. Although he wanted to hold back and use the scum of society for his own benefits later on, what more benefits could there be than using the CP to complete a mission for Ares, and come into a partnership with him? Jack was basically controlling Mason¡¯s every move, and clearing a path for the others to follow. In fact, he was even making use of Tamala to take out enemies of too high of a fighting power for him to realistically take down in one hit. The levels of the people present lay bare for Jack and Mason to see, and they made their plans of action based on those levels. [Human- Berserker Tamala Darg] [Lv ??] [Human- Strategist Wint Seaford] [Lv ??] [Human- King Alexander Bard] [Lv 10] [Player- Knight Desmon Bard] [Lv 0] [Player- Mage Don] [Lv 0] ¡­ For those who were not players, Jack made the system approximate their fighting power and put them at levels. However, for players themselves, their fighting power, be it however high it may be, they would all start at level 0. In reality, Desmon had ?? level fighting power, while Don had equal fighting power to Alexander. Mason had some confidence in being able to take down any one from his group is they were in a one on one situation only because of his extremely over-powered magic. However, there were many ways to avoid this spell of his, which the Lv ?? Hobgoblin did not employ, including basic dodging skills, allowing Mason to kill it. Anyway, with such a line-up of one extremely powerful Berserker, a much weaker, but still considerably powerful knight, two rather powerful mages, and some extra baggage, namely the king Alexander, And the wise strategist, with a high level for his high intellect, but negligible combat prowess Wint, nothing could stand in their way. Except of course strong individuals nearing the extraordinary realm, or a huge mob of mobs. First Church of Ares Within a few hours, the group managed to leave the capital unharmed. Naturally, they had to use the sewers as their route of escape, since all the main gates and secret passages were already manned with enemies. Naturally, even the sewers had enemies, however, getting rid of 20 enemies underground was far easier than getting rid of 50 people, possibly more above ground. Covered in a not-so-insignificant amount of human waste, the group exited the sewers, and found themselves near a river. ¡°Thankfully, the kingdom had recently made changes to the ever-expanding city and replanned the sewers into rivers to reduce the work needed by the waste disposal department of the capital.¡± The king sighed in relief as he remembered a report, he had so casually signed helped him this much. After washing up the gang needed new clothes, but everyone¡¯s clothes were drenched in human waste. Deciding to ditch the clothes, Mason question, ¡°Can I buy some clothes?¡± while looking into the air. ¡°From wh-¡± Wint was just about to retort when clothed appeared out of nowhere in Mason¡¯s hands. ¡°Tch. Used up 60 exp! You guys better give me back my half a level later on!¡± Mason turned to the group of naked men and growled as he threw them their clothes, which somehow fit everyone present to some extent. He had asked on the trade platform for normal clothes, and someone sent him this within moments of him asking. Exp was a precious commodity after all!If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°Alright. Although the original plan of getting a cart and busting out of the capital failed, we still got out. Now all we need to do is get to the location The God of War specified. Only problem is¡­¡± ¡°He only told us to go east¡­¡± continued Desmon, who also received the system, and had got over the shock of his sister, Alice being alive. ¡°Well, not that we can do much about it. I suggest we follow the gods¡¯ instructions.¡± Wint asked. ¡°Anything it fine¡± Grunted Tamara. ¡°We will also have to clean up our tracks while moving to reduce the chances of being caught.¡± Said Don in his rather soft voice. ¡°Alright then! Let¡¯s get moving. Don, try and use your magic, to cover the footprints and broken branches. Tamara, stay in the front, but try your best not to crush too many branches. The rest stay in the middle, and try to only step in each other¡¯s footsteps, to reduce the work on Don.¡± The group slowly made their way through the forest while trying to keep their presences hidden as much as possible, and a day of travelling passed by. ¡°So? Are you going to send someone to pick them up? Or are they going to teleport the rest of the distance?¡± Jack asked the tiny ball of divinity left outside the cage as a means of communication between Ares ad Jack. ¡°Neither¡± Just as Ares spoke, the group passed through some sort of barrier, which cut off the view Jack had. Shocked, Jack entered through Mason and the other peoples¡¯ visions, noticing the astonishment on their faces as well. In front of them was a cathedral nearly 200 meters tall! A sight to worship. Suddenly, several cloaked figures appeared before the group, and disappeared within a flash. However, all those with systems was completely horrified. Above their head were some truly disturbing words. [Battle Droid-Human] [Lv ??] [Very dangerous. Just run if you can.] And these words were written in bright red, as though one could see the blood dripping from the names. However, a normal human with words that were strangely leaning towards green. ¡°Welcome! Thank fully you made it safely! Welcome to the First Church of Ares.¡± Ally and divine Mark ¡°Sigh~ So it was RedForce after all¡± sighed Alexander after listening to the explanation from the cardinal of the church of war. After a half a day of resting at the temple, the group was briefed on the actual situation. ¡°So, what now?¡± Mason asked in a calm tone as though it didn¡¯t affect him, which was actually true only for a single person in the entire room, and that was himself. ¡°Nothing much. The Church of Ares will recall our forces and eradicate the RedForce¡± replied the person with the most power in the entire room, even more than the king of Bard, the pope of the Church of Ares. Being the pope, Ares decided to not give him any name, and just called him pope, and Jack actually understood why he would do that. Over the countless years of being the god of war, remembering names of people is only dragging yourself down. Although it won¡¯t affect you when some people die, when the number exponentially increases over thousands of years, certain effects would begin to appear. Naturally, Jack himself was more or less free of this, not only because he was just reborn as an immortal god, but also because he had gone through that ¡®enlightenment.¡¯ Or at least he hoped so. ¡°Here¡± Jack send some coordinates to Ares through the ball. This was the coordinates to Cayden. ¡°This¡­¡± ¡°Since you showed me your ¡®first church¡¯ which should be your headquarters I assume, I should also show equal sincerity. This is my first church.¡± ¡°Where?¡± Ares asked as all he could see was a rotten kingdom. ¡°It is¡­ all of it.¡± ¡°All?¡± ¡°The entire kingdom.¡± ¡°¡­¡± ¡°At least, it will be soon. For now, the capital of the kingdom is becoming my church, and will slowly expand into everyone in the entire kingdom.¡± ¡°Some ambition you got there.¡± ¡°Naturally, a being of my status can settle for a church as small as a single building.¡±You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Although Ares felt like Jack was hiding something from him, he still felt satisfied with the sincerity his latest ally was showing to him. They had come into contact by accident, and by showing their most meaningful church, the two gods had finally come to an official agreement. ¡°I¡¯ll make Mason sign a deal with someone from your church, representing our two churches.¡± ¡°Alright.¡± Ares nodded from inside his divine kingdom and closed the connection with the God of Systems. At this point, Mason received a notification, while one of the cardinals in the room received a revelation in their own unique way. In the middle of the conversation between the pope and king Alexander, Mason and the high-ranking cardinal stood up, which startled many of the people present. However, the pope¡¯s displeased expression intently changed as he heard the cardinal¡¯s whispers. The pope turned his gaze to the sky and muttered under his breath. ¡°Thank you for your guidance¡­ but you could have contacted me directly my lord¡­¡± After muttering for a while, he god the cardinal to get him some paper and ink, before writing down a contract of allies, right in front of the king¡¯s astonished eyes. Before the king could do anything, the pope had already signed it. However, Mason refused the pen, and instead cut his own finger using the knife he always carries around, and wrote down using his own blood, [1] ¡°Mason¡± Followed by an incomprehensible symbol which looked like infinite triangles interlocked with each other in a complex maze of simplicity. While mason was written with only his blood, the symbol was written by Jack as he forced exp from Mason into his blood and onto the paper. The symbol that appeared was his own godly mark. All gods had their own marks, which represented their authority over a domain of reality and existence. Ares¡¯ mark was a throne made of innumerable weapons, and the pope had used Ares¡¯ divinity somehow without using his blood. Jack¡¯s own divine mark was actually not exactly the same as what had appeared on the paper. His mark was actually an infinite sided triangle. A mark that existed, yet did not exist, and was something that although was given to him by ¡®That Man¡¯, it was not made by him. However due to the existence of the cage, only this much could be sent to the prime plane. In fact, it was better this way. It was well known that the closer to non-existence one¡¯s mark was, the greater the god¡¯s domain¡¯s power. War itself was actually a greatly limiting domain, and therefore a throne of nearly infinite weapons was very much possible. However, due to the nature of humans, who had conquered most of the known prime plane, this domain had grown to unimaginable lengths. In essence, Ares had brute forces his way to the spot of Supreme God through sheer numbers instead of quality of the domain under his influence. On the other hand, Jack¡¯s true mark was basically bordering reality itself, making it one of the top marks between all the gods. Therefore, having a pattern of triangles being formed was in a sense a form of protection ¡®That Man¡¯ had given him, to prevent other gods from noticing his potential and trying to destroy him early on. [1] I seriously don¡¯t get how all those anime character bite their own thumbs to perform jitsu¡¯s or to transform into titans. I mean I tried it, but it hurts too much before My teeth even leave marks on the skin! Lol. Cutting using a knife makes so much more sense. Battle and plans While all of this was going on with Mason and Jack, Alice was finally just around an hour of walking away from the designated location. However, in the durance, she noticed large bellows on smoke rising into the air, not from the likes of bon-fires but from burning man-made items. ¡°Be careful from now on. I think enemies are nearby.¡± Alice spoke to her team quietly as they all got into formation and prepared for a surprise attack while slowing down their forward movement. However, no surprises happened along the way, much to Alice¡¯s relief. The location the Leon army had chosen was a clearing in the forest a few kilometres into enemy territory. Right now, Alice was at the edge of this clearing observing from within the trees. After some observing, Alice leapt off the tree and arrived amongst her squad. ¡°Everything is burnt. All the tents, food, everything it completely burnt. Whatever isn¡¯t burnt yet is currently on fire making the smoke. However, I only saw barely 2 bodies, which means that either the enemies took prisoners, or most people survived by running away.¡± Hearing this, many people heaved sigh of relief. As long as the battalion was alive, everything could be solved. ¡°For now, we need to figure out where the enemy¡¯s camps are, and look there. If there is no one as captives, then it means our battalion survived. Since we won¡¯t be able to find them by wandering in the forest, we will just move to another battalion¡¯s location. I know a one of them is a few days north of here. But if we find our battalion as captives, we will need to do something about the situation them. But before we do any of that, we should observe the battlefield first.¡± All the squad members nodded and entered the clearing with their weapons raised. Since the battalion was to assemble at the assembly point, the lieutenant thought it would be better to transport things like shields, metal armour for the more skilled people, and other heavy items on horseback. This way, the soldiers would have less to carry and would be more efficient in terms of travelling.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. This however, made it so that no one in Alice¡¯s squad had shields or other defensive equipment, only carrying a normal sword. Slowly, the group proceeded to walk across the burnt land and noticed a few things. The mud was covered in chaotic footsteps. After spending some time analysis, the direction or motion and dept of the footprints to see the acceleration people put into walking, Alice was able to analyse something. ¡°I don¡¯t know how to analyse footprints, do any of you?¡± ¡°Yes Ma¡¯am!¡± ¡°Alright then Charles. Try and figure out what happened.¡± ¡°Yes!¡± Charles walked around the battlefield for quite some time, before finally coming up with a response. ¡°This was the camp our side had set up. However, the information must have been leaked by someone, since a large number of Rolandian soldiers, nearly 1.5 times our number, were waiting in ambush completely encircling our troops. They most likely attacked in the night since no one would use torched in daylight, in which case the camp should not have burnt down.¡± ¡°I can also see most of the organised footsteps moving in one direction, which means the victor of the battle moved in that direction. Although there are some people who escaped in the opposite direction, almost 80% of the troops stationed here were captured alive and moved along with the victors.¡± ¡°So it is likely they are at the camps of the enemy?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Good. Then we will follow the footsteps, but not directly. We will move from the side and follow the general direction while checking the footprints every now and then.¡± Alice spoke in her ¡®This is final, no arguments¡¯ voice, and the squad members did not object and moved according to plan. On the other hand, in the southern continent, Heron was still on his journey to civilisation. However, instead of the lonely figure from before, he seemed to have grown close with the slaves, who were now all players. Naturally, they all had received the sub-system which gave Heron some amount of control over their actions. This was to prevent betrayals, especially against one of his strongest players, not considering his rather unique pope SPU. Fire! Mason was having the time of his life living in the lap of luxury as sir Campbell completed a personal request from him. ¡°Could you please craft a leg for me?¡± ¡°Leg? Aha! Wait! So, this is the reason you were intending on winning the tournament? To get me to build you a leg?¡± ¡°Yes. It takes too long to wait normally.¡± ¡°Why not have someone else make it?¡± ¡°My Lord has told me to make the best blacksmith in Bard craft it, and so I needed you.¡± ¡°I see.¡± While Campbell was busy crafting within the blacksmith of the central church of Ares, Alice had followed the tracks left behind by the enemies, and arrived at a temporary settlement. ¡°Alright squad, listen up, I want each and every one of you to remain as silent as possible. We will split up and circle scout out their camp for a while, and meet up right here as soon as you are done. Try to find out where the prisoners are, and after that return here and wait for everybody else. If no one returns in 2 sun position (hours used by Leon kingdom military), then you will abandon us and return to Leon as quickly as possible and tell them everything.¡± ¡°Yes Ma¡¯am!¡± ¡°Shut it you fools!¡± ¡°yes ma¡¯am~¡± ¡°Good, now go.¡±Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. As everyone spilt up and began to quietly scout the enemy camp, Alice also moved out. Her mission was actually slightly different. While all her group members were finding the number of enemies, and if possible then her friends, she was searching for the enemy¡¯s strength. Mainly in terms of levels. For her, it was rather easy, just look above the heads of enemies, and read the number at the end. [Lv 10] [Lv 7] [Lv 13] [Lv¡­ Almost an hour later, she finally found the green names, and stopped in her position and followed the green name and searched around it, to find only red names. However, the red names were escorting the green name into a building. ¡®Then that should be where the prisoners are kept¡¯ However, Alice just waited for the red names, and waited some more time. And time did not disappoint her, she saw a different green name leaving the same building with the red names. This was most likely the prison, and the place she had to get to. She returned to where her squad had planned to meet up and waited there while sorting out her thoughts. ¡®I saw quite a few Lv 10 and above this time. I guess the last battle was just the Rolandians sending in their cannon fodder to tire up out. Or was it to give us a false sense of victory and make us recklessly charge into enemy territory like now? Either way. This battalion is the real deal, unlike our weak unorganised army, the Rolandians have placed, although not their elites, but their fully trained soldiers at the least. And God of Systems alone knows how many elites were hidden within the buildings.¡¯ ¡®Damn it! I came all the way to this continent in search for the perpetrators behind the conspiracy against my family, only to get stuck at this point? No! I need to think rationally. It is simply impossible to kill our way in, but simple sneaking and rescuing our battalion in will not work either, especially in their war conditions. Everyone would be on high alert and would not simply miss people sneaking into their highly guarded base.¡¯ While Alice was thinking, all of her squad members returned, with gloomy expressions on their faces. Most likely, they had also realised their current situations. However, while the enemies were lighting bonfires to prepare light for the night, Alice received an incredible idea from out of nowhere. ¡°Fire!¡± Naturally, this idea did not appear out of nowhere, but it was Jack¡¯s idea which he sent over to her. Heron, Heron. Tch, Tch While Alice was explaining her plan to everyone in her squad, Heron was still on his seemingly never-ending journey through nothingness. Thankfully, he had a direction to follow, which was the direction the slavers were moving towards. However, he did not have any idea on how long it would take. He, and his group of sub-players, were already around four sand-storms into the journey, and they had yet to find a single sign of civilisation. Suddenly, a sand beast appeared out of nowhere. Unfortunately, this was not a juvenile like all the other sand beasts Heron had killed, and so was about 10 times the strength of the ones he killed. Sand beasts were different from the normal monsters living within this unforgiving desert. Sand beasts were incredibly dangerous creatures which would keep any beastman on their toes for days after even hearing the roar of one such creature. Heron looked up at the towering cross between an armoured earthworm, and a shark, a wide grin appearing on his face. ¡°Haha! I was getting very irritated just now. You came at the perfect timing! Come on you maggo-¡± However, before he could complete his sentence, the Sand beast rushed him, pummelling him into the sand, while burrowing down to follow Heron¡¯s body. Thankfully, he had already gotten off the tamed beast, or else it would have definitely died. ¡°Hey! Do you think boss died?¡± ¡°Fufu! What an interesting way to die.¡± ¡°Kekeke. Died while badmouthing a sand beast right in front of it.¡± Just while the former slaves, now sub-slaves were giggling about Heron¡¯s fate, loud clashed emanated from under their feet, causing the sand to shift, and sucking them into the sand.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Thankfully, after about a minute of this, the vibrating stopped, and all the ex-slaves let out sighs of relief as the sand stopped just blow their thighs. However, the next moment. Large part of the sand exploded into the air as Heron flew out, dragging the corpse of a sand beast in one hand. The sight was quite amusing, resembling a rat dragging the corpse of a giant anaconda. Suddenly, a notification flew towards Heron mid-air, causing his incredibly slow-motion jump to falter and causing his to fall face first into the sand, with the sand beast¡¯s body falling on top of him. After some effort, he finally struggled out and got the sand out of his ears, nose and mouth, and finally got to reading the notification. =============== You have enough exp to level up to level 5. Do you wish to use it now? ============== Sighing to himself, Heron selected the level up so that he could put the stat points into strength and aura once more. However, before he could do that, another notification came up. ============== Congratulations on reaching level 5!! At this level you get to choose a class. Your current options are listed below. Remember! YOU CANNOT CHANGE IT!! REMEMBER THIS!! DID YOU UNDERSTAND? NO! REMEMBER! YOU CANNOT GO BACK ONCE YOU CHOSE! SO, THINK FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE! Your future classes will depend on this. Your options are listed below: 1] Warrior (Hint: This one is useful) 2] Mage (Why are you reading this?) 3] Priest (HEY!! USE YOUR BRAINS IF YOU HAD ANY! NEVERMIND! I WILL USE MINE! JUST GO AND CLICK ON OPTION 1! DO NOT USE YOUR MIND AT ALL YOU FOOL!) ============== Heron felt like the God of systems was trying to tell him that he was not capable of the simple process of choosing an option. ¡®I¡¯ll show you that I can!¡¯ And Heron therefore began his contemplation on which option to pick. The length of this contemplation was unknown even to Jack himself, who would have already gone bald by now if he had any hair from pulling them out. Sighing in indignation, Jack surrendered to fate and gave up on Heron for the time being. Although he could force Heron to pick Warrior, he would not be much a good god of systems, then would he? He would become the systems from those ¡®crappy¡¯ games which are so restrictive in anything that people drop the games due to the limits on them. Jack simply turned his interest elsewhere, where Alice was currently carrying out her own plan. Approval rating It had been quite a few hours since Alice¡¯s squad had arrived, and they went to sleep in the night without a bonfire, since the enemies would have spotted them if they did. This left the temperature rather frigid for most of the people here, where you could already see one¡¯s own breath. Early in the morning, the group returned to the work they had left off in the night. It was gathering the leaves of a certain type of tree. This particular plant grew all around the Western Continent, and its main use was in creating smoke signals. There plants would be easily lit on fire, and would create large amounts of non-toxic black smoke that would be seen for miles away. Naturally, they would not be used for signals. Alice had noticed that the wind was not strong, but was definitely moving. She would be suing this wind to deliver a blinding layer of smoke into the enemy camp so that she could infiltrate and rescue the prisoners within the confusion. ¡°Ma¡¯am~ If I may?¡± ¡°Go ahead.¡± ¡°Why don¡¯t we use the Locosara Visser? It can make the smoke poisonous as well, and although it might not do too much at first, and nothing at all to the stronger individuals, it would definitely render most of the men in the enemy battalion unable to fight.¡± ¡°But that would also make our people unable to fight. But that is right! We do not need them to fight, just run. And once we bring them out of the enemy camp, would could administer the antidotes!¡± Everyone on the team had been given a brief course on poisons and antidotes by the Leon kingdom. ¡°Alright. 2 of you will begin the search for the antidote ingredients and will begin the process of creating the antidote for a whole battalion. 4 of you will go in search for the Locosara Visser, and begin making an odourless poison from this to prevent the enemy from becoming on guard. We need to make it seem like one of their careless soldiers accidentally caught the forest on fire, resulting in the smoke. The rest of you search for the leaves to create the smoke itself. We need a lot, and I need this to be complete by the end of the day! We will take action at night time.¡±Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. ¡°But we will also not be able to see¡± one of her squad members questioned. ¡°Do not worry about that. Although I will not be able to see the enemies, I will be able to guide up to the building where your battalion is held. Also, make sure to inject the antidote before we go in to prevent becoming useless deadweight. It takes about 4 minutes for the poison to take effect. After 2 minutes of the smoke being released, we will go in. Is that clear?¡± ¡°Yes ma¡¯am.¡± While Alice was busy collecting leaves for her smokescreen, Ken had been building his nation steadily. While SPU was helping him delegate people and bringing in more of the capital¡¯s population into the church of systems, as well as having night time lessons with the two princes in the presence of the king, Ken himself was also busy. Jack had given him the ¡®Overlord system¡¯, which actually felt like a lot more power and authority to Ken than being the king of the nation itself had been for years! In just a few days¡¯ time, the investments Jack had put into the common folk of the capital began to pay off as they began to earn him exp at a rather stable rate. This allowed SPU to now go on his ¡®night-time expeditions¡¯ any longer, and allow the legend of the Masked Protector to spread throughout both the citizens of the capital and its rotten underbelly. Ken looked through his status and quests. ============= Overlord¡¯s System Name: Ken August Age: 31 Ruling State: Cayden Level: 2 (23/100) Class: None Titles: King of Cayden Current state: Tired ---------------- Strength: 3(3) Vitality: 2(2) Stamina: 3(3) Toughness: 2(2) Dexterity: 2(2) Sense: 2(2) Mana: 1(1) Aura: 1(1) Stat Points: 2 ---------------- Skills Basic Management Lv 1(70/100) Basic Charisma Lv 1(10/100) ============== ============== Overlord Quest- Capital Just develop your capital. Make it acceptable as a proper city at the very least. Tasks: 1] Bring in half the people of the capital into the church of Systems (55/130,000) 2] Increase basic literacy to 50% (0.001/100) [Hint: Education can be provided to system players, at the cost of exp.] 3] Create a stable water supply in the capital (Aqueduct system) 4] Create a sewer system in the capital 5] Secure food for citizens 6] Increase the citizen approval of yourself in the capital to 10% (-50/10) ============= ¡®Sigh, after so many days, my approval rating is still at negative 50¡­¡¯ Ken thought to himself. Silent Night Ken was busy trying to make the capital a proper city in which his approval was at least at 10%. He wasn¡¯t even sure of how approval could be negative. Were dead people also not approving of him? However, fussing over something like this was not useful, and so Ken continued his efforts of rebuilding Cayden¡¯s capital. In the Western continent, where land was small and all countries shared borders with each other, Alice had finally made her preparations. Looking around, she pulled out the twin blades she had decided to use as her weapons, and nodded to her team members, who nodded back to her and began lighting the piled of leaved they had collected and drenched in poison on fire. Since each of them had already taken the antidote, It would not affect them. ¡®Spread the fire.¡¯ Alice whispered to he squad who began the next step of the plan to spread the fire in all directions to make it seem like a real forest fire instead of something man-made. Quickly, the wind picked up the fire and spread it over a large area, just as Alice had planned. ¡°Disperse quick, and stay hidden no matter what happens alright? If something happens to me, just retreat back to Leon, just keep going in that direction until you come across a village and find your way from there, and report everything to Leon. Got it?¡± ¡°Yes Ma¡¯am.¡± Although they listened to their squad leader, there were by no means any feelings of loyalty strong enough that would make them sacrifice their lives for her. With the orders given, Alice also backed away from the rapidly spreading fire, and waited for a while for the smoke to settle through the enemy camp. This did not take too much time, and Alice then tied a black cloth around her face and charged in. Silently avoiding sticks and stones on the ground, Alice entered the base without alerting anyone, since most people were pre-occupied with the smoke. The camp itself was actually a village that had been taken over by the Roland Kingdom¡¯s army as a strategic location within Roland¡¯s borders.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Using the clearly visible red markers, Alice cleverly avoided enemies and slowly made her way to the house with the battalion. The poisonous smoke would last for about 10 minutes in total, since once the leaves they had collected fully burnt up, only normal smoke from the trees would be left. However, that smoke would simply rise into the sky like a pillar instead of spreading in many directions like leaves. This was the reason why Leon Kingdom used them as signals, since the smoke remained below the treeline, and travelled for kilometres while remaining there. The colour of the smoke would give them messages, and the direction it came from would give them the location of the soldiers that sent the message, without alerting the enemy of the friendly soldier¡¯s locations. Therefore, Alice only had as much time as the leaves she had collected lasted. Now, she had around 7 minutes left, and time was running low. However, she did not rush into the building and instead waited for a while until a soldier with keys came over to check on the prisoners and make sure they had not escaped, along with 4 other soldiers. Alice simply waited in the shadows, her black clothes masked by darkness as she observed them and followed behind them. They soon arrived at the first cell, where nearly 20 Leon soldiers were simply sitting dejectedly, with all hope lost. However, they soon noticed Alice who was following behind the Rolandians, and almost reacted since they could recognise Rattling death, who was no longer rattling. Thankfully Alice¡¯s quick and signals made them shut up and sit back down without reacting much. ¡®I¡¯ll be back¡¯ Alice followed the Rolandian soldiers and they checked all the cells, and Alice had already memories which keys were used for which cell door. Now, all she needed was the keys themselves. Waiting for the soldiers to let their guards down, Alice acted, picking off one enemy at a time while remaining in the shadows. ¡°Kkkukk¡± Before the soldier she chose could react in any way, his head and neck had a dagger each, piercing completely through the skull and neck, before being dragged away, all in almost an instant. Within a few instants, Alice had killed off a level 10 soldier as if it was nothing. This in fact did give her a tonne of exp since she was not even level 5 yet. However, she did not stop there, and killed off each one of the soldiers one by one starting from the ones at the back and making her way to the leader of the group, and the one who had the keys. *Thud* The leader¡¯s corpse fell to the ground spewing blood, and Alice took this corpse and put it in the shadows of the lamps in the building. This scene sent shivers through the spines of many of the people present here. The rattlesnake had grown past its rattling, becoming a far more deadly viper, hidden in plain sight under the cover of darkness, always poised for a deadly strike. And so the rumour of Rattling Death transformed into the legend of the Silent Night. Escape With the keys in hand, Alice got to work and began to free everyone. However, of the nearly 200 strong battalion, there were only about 70 people present here, and only 50 of which were capable of fighting. The rest had either grievous wounds or had their hands injured or tortured. Reality finally struck Alice as she realised something. Looking at the shoe marks, around 6 -7 people were able to escape from the camp, and since she was many days late, almost all of the 200 soldiers should have been present at the camp. However, only 50 capable soldiers were found. That could only mean two things. ¡°Hey, are there any more survivors?¡± Alice hesitantly asked some of the soldiers who were freeing the other soldiers and preparing for exiting the building. The soldier¡¯s relieved expression suddenly turned gloomy as he spoke slowly. ¡°The Rolandians killed them all before setting their bodies on fire. Nothing was left of them except ashes.¡± Suddenly, Alice remembered the ashes littered throughout their own destroyed camp, and could almost feel the souls of her dead comrades within that soil. However, before she could venture further in that direction, a notification came up. ============ Survival Quest- Escape You have located the survivors of the disaster at the base camp. However, you must escape before time runs out.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Task: Escape the enemy camp within the time limit Time limit: 2 mins Task 2: flee to the nearest friendly camp to the north. Mission reward: Increased Merits with the Leon kingdom. Increased awe from Leon soldiers. Increased fear from Roland soldiers. Mission failure: Death ============ Jack had been observing her after giving up on Heron for the time being, and so had decided to reinvigorate her spirits. Although he wanted her to understand the truth of war, she still needed to get out of her current predicament before that. ¡®Damnit! Only 2 mins left¡¯ ¡°Alright! Everyone, listen up. I have created a smokescreen throughout the entire enemy camp, and I have missed in some Locosara Visser making it poisonous. So I need everyone to find some cloth and cover your noses and mouths. We have already prepared enough antidote for all of you, but we need to get out of this place first. All those capable of fighting please grab anything you find and be prepared. Although I wish to sneak out, I doubt things will go according to plan. Anyway, the moment you meet enemies numbering more than 2, everyone will disperse and escape the camp on their own. The rendezvous point is the closest Leon camp up north. Everyone got that?¡± A few people nodded, but most stayed quiet. Not only because the person in front of them was just a squad captain, many ranks below themselves, but her plan might as well be saying she was deserting those who were injured and could not fight. ¡°Right. I know there are a lot of people above me in rank, if you do not wish to follow my order, so be it. But I do not care. You can talk about rank all you want, but it won¡¯t be of much use if you die here now would it? Anyway, I will be taking the lead, those who wish to follow me can do so. The rest can just sit around waiting to be publicly executed in Roland. Enjoy you time here guys.¡± With those words, Alice equipped her daggers once more and began to walk to the door. Just before she opened it, she looked back to see how many wished to follow her, and how many were complete arrogant fools. To her surprise, everyone capable of walking was behind her, and those who were not were being helped by others. ¡°Good then, let¡¯s get out of here!¡± she whispered as she opened the door. Stronger A few minutes later, Alice''s squad realised that the leaves were all completely burnt and that a smoke screen was disappearing. Fearing the worst, they all made preparations to leave everything and run for their lives. However, a silhouette suddenly became visible through the smoke, which made all the squad members even more on alert, preparing to run the second they confirmed it was not their leader. However, they all led their guards down as they saw the familiar black scarf on the soldier''s face. It was squad captain! Following her, more and more silhouettes became visible and they were also recognised as more Leon soldiers numbering around 40. Alice reached the group and signalled them to move as well, following behind the group of 40 Leon soldiers, while trying their best to cover up the footsteps, and add extra footsteps in all directions to throw the enemy off their target. This was also part of Alice''s plan to allow he rescued soldiers to escape. They did not stop till they were around a kilometre away. Once they reached this point, everyone took a break while Alice and her squad quickly distributed the antidote to the poison. The had to wait till now because the people who took the antidote had to rest for at least 10 minutes before they can move again, or else the antidote will collect at the muscles, and although it would cure the effects of the poison, it would remain within the muscles, causing severe long-term effects. 20 minutes, later, everyone had taken the antidote and were ready to depart. Alice walked up to the group of 4 soldiers who were technically above her in rank, but were still listening to her orders. Naturally, she did not want to take command since it might lead her into a difficult position later on when the crisis was completely over. "Hey guys. Listen, I just want to say that I don''t intend to take advantage of this situation to take control over the soldiers. Just thought that it would be better to inform you. Just a little bit longer. We should be arriving at a village in a few hours'' time, and from there you guys can take charge. We also need to treat the wounded, so we will have to do as much as we can at the village. Just informing you that although my and my squad tried our best, we will not be able to throw off those Rolandians for too long, so we cannot stay at the village for long. Maybe an hour or so. Then we have to keep moving north until we reach the Leon Forward command." Alice gave out her whole plan and even made some lines on the ground with a stick to show exactly what the plan was, before looking up at the superior officers.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. However, contrary to her expectations of fuming superiors, she received a few nods, and a few looks of admiration. Among them, was the lieutenant who had given Alice her squad, who was smiling with a satisfied grin as though saying, ''I knew it. I caught a diamond in the rough.'' Seeing this familiar face, Alice suddenly remembered about Jon and William, the squad captains of the 23rd and 27th squads. Standing up suddenly, she quickly scanned the 40 survivors from the camp, who were shaven down to that number by a few surprise attacks from the enemies while escaping. However, she could not see their faces, not anyone from their squads. A feeling of loss pervaded her mind and body as aura began to leak from her body. This was a feeling of loss Alice was far to familiar with. A feeling of loss which stemmed from losing someone that had meaning in our life. A feeling of losing the few things which held together her world. She had already been through this before, when she was told that her mother, and her unborn little sister, died during childbirth. She had felt it again when she received the news that her brother and father, the last remaining members of her family had died in battle. And her it was again. Why was it following her? What had she done wrong? Why were all the people close to her dying off one by one? She wasn''t even that close with Jon and William, and yet they were gone. Just like that. Why was only her life so miserable? The aura that was being released by her was pitch black in colour, and was casing immense fear within the people present, including the 4 lieutenants. The aura she was releasing was the aura she had gained through the system. However, it was not being activated using the system, but through pure emotion alone. Her body was reacting to her state of mind and releasing her aura without her conscious effort, and this black aura was slowly spreading. Being an easily visible force compared to mana, the soldiers around her immediately saw the black aura and retreated, including the lieutenants, all afraid of Alice losing control and attacking them wantonly. However, at this very moment, blue radiance fell from the sky onto Alice. Only visible to the 2 lieutenants of considerable level compared to the other lieutenants and soldiers, a hand descended wrapped within the light. The hand moved at a seemingly slow speed, however, it was moving so fast that time itself on the Prime Plane was slowing down, as the hand moved closer and closer to Alice. The pale blue hand with blue sparks and divinity within fell upon Alice, but did not smash into her from above, but slowed down and landed softly on her head, before sliding down to her chin, and raising it into the sky. The black eyes slowly cleared as the black aura also vanished, her eyes returning from the eyes of a ruthless killer to the eyes of a little girls who had everything taken away from her. [Those two are dead, and you cannot change reality. Stop trying to fight the world. Instead, make the world work for you.] With those words, the divine radiance vanished, along with the divine hand and voice, leaving a crying mess of Alice on the ground, curled up into a ball. Up in the void above the prime plane, Jack sighed. Although he could have told her about her brother, he needed her to become mentally stronger before something like that. He knew that becoming physically stronger is only half the journey. Only with a strong mentality can one truly become powerful. Legendary Equipment Back in the battlefield, Alice remained in a dazed state for a while longer until someone gathered up the courage to approach her. This instantly caused many reactions within Alice, the strongest of which was hostility. However, no aura was released by her this time, nor did she directly attack the one who approached her. Instead, she just glared at him with such intensity that he stopped completely in his tracks, scared that she would attack him. The red eyes that were still holding lingering tears looked not like that of a predator, but that of a prey who had given up on life, and was prepared to fight to the death. Such a beast was far more dangerous than a predator only hunting for food. However, Alice turned away and spoke softly. "We need to leave. They should have noticed a deity''s descent and should be rushing here." With this much, Alice stood up and dusted off her clothes and began walking once more. A lonely figure walking a midst the dark trees of the night. The other soldiers took a little longer, but soon understood what Alice was talking about and began moving once more. Their current positioning should have been revealed to the enemies who were following them. Back in the Southern Continent, Heron was getting increasingly frustrated. He simply could not think of which occupation to choose. The reason being, eh wasn''t sure which one would be better for him. "Ack! I give up!!!" With that, he randomly pointed at one of the three options with his eyes closed. =========== You have chosen Warrior as your class. Modifications to the body will now commence. You will lose consciousness during this period. Time remaining: 59 min 59 seconds =========== While Heron was busy losing consciousness, Mason was finally done with his part of the job, and now he had finally received his long-awaited reward for the series of quests that brought him to the capital of Bard, Ferdin, meet the greatest blacksmith in Bard, and save his life. In this process, he had even saved some other side-character''s lives like the king of Bard, Alexander, Duke Desmon and Don. "I present, although not remotely close to my finest works, it is still incredible, a prosthetic leg with some rather useful tricks." Campbell finally lifted the red cloth symbolising Ares, and revealed an exquisitely crafted metal leg. With its all black shiny exterior, and stylish looks, one might mistake this for a piece of legendary equipment. However, upon analysing it, Mason''s bright expression soured slightly. ========== Unique Equipment- Nameless A good-looking piece of metal with some hidden features that could prove useful for someone of high society, and completely useless for true survival purposes. A rather okay-ish build by the greatest blacksmith in Bard.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Rank- Unique Quality- A+ Durability- 60/60 Additional effects- None Note- This is too useless to be used as is. The Gd of systems is dissatisfied with this and therefore gives you the option to use exp to buy an ''Equipment randomiser''. This item will randomly improve the equipment of choice, and costs 3000 exp. Note, a loan has been offered to fill in the cost of purchase. =========== Mason read through the description as his face soured even more, leaving the people in the room slightly awkward. Not only Alexander the king of Bard, but also Tamal, Wint, Don, Desmon, and the nameless Pope of Ares, all knew that this leg was incredibly sub-par for Campbell''s prowess in blacksmithing and metallurgy. However, the problem lied with the facilities within the church. Ares was not the god of blacksmithing, and so the church, especially the main headquarters kept barely any such tools, resulting in this mess of an equipment. Even Campbell himself was rather irritated by this lack of equipment, mumbling about it while waiting for Mason''s reaction. However, Mason suddenly yelled, startling everyone. "Damnit! Fine! I will take on the loan! Just make this piece of chit into something good please!" Suddenly, blue divine radiance emanated from Mason''s eyes and engulfed the leg completely and shining for nearly 2 minutes more before retracting into Mason''s eyes and disappearing. Since Ares had signed the alliance with Jack, the two could use more authority within each other''s territories. Once Jack''s divinity retracted, all the people present revealed utterly shocked expressions. The leg had completely transformed. Turning from all black to white with streaks of varied shades of blue, glowing with divinity within. The structure had also changed, now leaning more towards an elegant look with more curves than straight lines. =========== Legendary Equipment- Grace An incredible piece of equipment crafted by the best craftsman in Bard and improved personally by the god of systems. The improvements include removal of useless features, and addition of useful features. Rank- Legendary Quality- S- Durability- 200/200 Additional effects- 1. Self-repairing: This item regenerates Durability over time. As long as a single shard of this item remains with the user, it can regenerate given time and mana. 2. Soul Bound: This item is soul bound to Beta-player Mason and cannot be stolen or borrowed by others 3. Mana-Efficiency I: This item increases the user''s mana efficiency, reducing the cost of all spells by half and casting time by 10% 4. This item has additional effects unknown to even the god of systems Note: Huh¡­ it seems the randomiser worked better than expected. So much so that it had effects out of my domain of understanding. Anyway, enjoy this gift, and make sure to survive. Yours truly, God of Systems. ============ Although he was initially angry at the debt he had accumulated once more, Mason''s jaw dropped wide open as his eyes were almost bulging out of their sockets as he and those capable of doing so, read the description of the item. The only one other than Jack''s players capable of understanding the workings of this item, the nameless pope and Campbell were also shocked. Campbell was utterly shocked at how the god of systems utterly discarded almost all his hidden features, and also at the incredible new features. Some of which even a god himself could not read, forget a mortal dwarf like himself. However, the pope was just shocked at something different. ''He truly is a chosen one.'' Thought the pope as he remembered his lord''s oracle. [Support the chosen on of the God of Systems until he no longer needs it. Also, make sure to completely destroy all of RedForce and their related nobles. Not one must remain alive.] In another corner of the Central continent, SPU stood up from his daily lessons with the two princes and spoke. "The lord had given me order. I am required to complete this task. We shall continue lessons after dinner. Go now little ones, I have been summoned." With those words, SPU vanished from his place, leaving two slightly confused children in the room. "The God of systems must have given uncle Espeeu a mission." "That must be the case." Nodding, the two children decided to follow their uncle''s wishes and called for dinner. Princes and Heron While the two princes James and Norman went and had dinner, SPU flashed across the capital city, appearing in all the squares and open spaces, along with all the bars and other gathering spots within the capital. A few minutes of rapid movement later, his task had been completed, and he simply returned back to the castle and waited for the children to complete their dinner before he continued their lessons. Their lessons continued till late in the night until they fell asleep, after which SPU simply carried them to their rooms and put them to bed before appearing beside the king. "The lord had made his decision?" "Yes. It shall be named Chengyu." "Very well." "There is something else." "What is it?" "The kids¡­ they are learning quickly. However¡­" "However, the more they learn, the more they understand about the world. And the more they understand, the clearer their position about themselves being brothers becomes. Right?" "Yes. It won''t be much longer, but the two are already beginning to distance themselves. Soon, brotherly love will convert into rivalry, and soon into hatred. Although you made a promise, it would be wise to convert them before it is too late. You also need to make a decision on who will become the crown prince, and let the other sibling become a duke. This decision needs to be made before James'' coming of age ceremony in a year''s time when he turns 15." Ken remained silent after hearing SPU''s words, deeply contemplating what to do. That night was a sleepless one for Ken, the king of Cayden. The next morning, the residents of the capital received news from word of mouth and witnessing the posters themselves. All those who had converted also received this very message directly confirming its authenticity. The capital of Cayden had been renamed to Chengyu. Although this might not seem like much to the ordinary folk, most of the smarter people, or those holding influence and money within Cayden understood one thing, the influence of the Church of systems over Cayden was already at a point where it could freely control the king. And it was not going to stop there. It''s first target was the capital, and it had all intentions of spreading outward to take over Cayden. However, they did not have a say in this matter, since not only were all the nobility completely supporting this action, but the very fact that a true deity was behind everything made them shudder in their boots.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Along with this notification, another notification had been sent. The church of Systems would stop taking in people. However, existing members could bring in more members by using 200 exp. From this amount, 100 exp would naturally be used by Jack as commission. But the people did not need to know that it took only 1 CP to make an ordinary system for ordinary players. This did confuse some, but also made sense to others. In most churches, popes were not responsible for bringing in followers, the ordinary followers of the religion were tasked with that task. While news was spreading, Heron, who had woken up almost 8 hours ago, and went back to sleep seeing that it was night, finally woke up and opened his status. ============== Survivor''s System V 1.1 Name: Horen Ravenclaw Age: 32 Level: 5 (0/500) Class: Priest Sub-class 1: None Sub-class 2: None Titles: None Current state: Half-Asleep ---------------- Strength: 10(10) Vitality: 20(20) Stamina: 10(10) Toughness: 10(10) Dexterity: 10(10) Sense: 5(5) Mana: 20(20) Aura: 10(10) Stat Points: 0 ---------------- Skills Basic Water Bullet Lv 2 (60/100) [Uses Mana] Basic Claw Strike Lv 2 (190/200) [Uses Aura] Basic Dash Lv 4 (120/400) [Uses Stamina] Basic Healing Lv 3 (0/300) [Uses Mana] (Heals one''s self) Basic Recovery Lv 1 (0/100) [Uses Mana] (Recover''s one''s own stamina) Basic Holy Aura Lv 1 (0/100) [Uses Aura] (AoE buff for friendly troops) Basic Lesser Healing Lv 1 (0/100) [Uses Mana or Aura] (Heals others'' minor injuries) Basic Greater Healing Lv 1 (0/100) [Uses Mana or Aura] (Heals others'' major injuries except loss of limbs or organs) ============== ============== Note: Stats have been adjusted to suit the chosen class. A debt of 2000 exp has been incurred for the same. In addition, from level 5 onwards, the exp required to level up increases by 100 per level, including a 400 exp increase at level 5. ============== "Phew!" Heron exclaimed as he read everything. ''Yup, I became stronger! If I can heal myself while fighting, then wouldn''t be unkillable? Kakaka, let''s see how those b*stard beasts think of me now! But wait! Debt? 2000 exp! That means I''ll be stuck at Level 5 for a long time? No! I just have to kill more sand beasts! Nothing more!'' With this logic in mind, Heron finally stood upright and stretched a little in preparation for the long days of killing sand beasts ahead him. However, Jack was stunned beyond anything he could have imagined. He was so shocked, that even a god such as himself momentarily stopped functioning from utter disbelief. At first, Jack had thought about stopping Heron from taking something else, but decided to see how things played out. Jack was disappointed when Heron had taken priest, however after digging into Heron''s mind for a while and finding out the reason for his actions, Jack was stupefied. ''This hunk of boorish meat actually thought about something for once in his life¡­'' Main Storyline Quest A few days passed, and Alice''s group was only about a day from the nearest friendly camp. However, there were already signs of the enemy approaching from behind. Judging by the camp fires they lit, the enemy would catch up to them in about half a day. To solve this, Alice, and her superiors came to a decision. They would travel in a straight line for a few hours, before slitting up completely, rushing off in random direction to reduce the chances of the enemy catching them. This way, the enemy would also have to split up to search for them, which would make confrontations easier. If the enemy did not split up, then barely a handful of people would be sacrificed based on luck, so that the rest of the people could escape. After explaining the entire plan to the soldiers, Alice turned away from the sucken expressions of the soldiers. Since she was taking the leading role in the escape, she needed to eb the one to bear the hatred of the soldiers for making such a decision. "Move out!" The escaping soldiers began moving once more, and a few hours later, the mostly healed soldiers split up from a large and conspicuous group to scattered grains of sand in a forest of leaves, nearly impossible to find normally. While everyone ran in all directions for about an hour before turning to the north and all heading towards the friendly base, one person stayed behind. This person had also run in a random direction for an hour, but had stopped there. This person was Alice. ''This¡­ Is this how I wish to be remembered? The coward that ran away from her home, from her kingdom, from her continent, and nor from the enemy who was responsible for the deaths of her family?'' ''NO! I must kill them! I must kill them all!'' ============= Main Storyline Quest- RevengeFind this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! The flames of revenge burn from deep within your soul. Having had everything in life taken from you, you feel insignificant. Unable to stop the tides of fate, you feel helpless. However, you never let go of the sparks of revenge that lingered within you. The time has come for those sparks to ignite into a blazing inferno that will take your enemy by storm. Task: Destroy Roland, and kill the king and his immediate family. Reward: Your brother Desmon Note: Although you wish to kill all of your enemies, they are far too strong as of now. A suggestion would be to escape for now and build up your strength. ============= Alice skipped through everything and glued her eyes to the reward. ''M- M- My brother¡­'' Her angry expression turned dazed and turbid for a while longer as her entire world was toppled upside down. ''So, the god of systems could revive people as well¡­'' This one statement explained everything, and her eyes returned to normality, before turning red once more, this time with anger, hatred, and most importantly, eagerness and longing for what had once been taken away from her. ''For my brother, I will kill all those Rolandians! I swear in the name of my late father Leonard Bard!'' Completely ignoring the note at the end of the quest notification, Alice turned around and sprinted only for another notification to pop up. ============= Although you wish to kill all of your enemies, they are far too strong as of now. A suggestion would be to escape for now and build up your strength. ============= ============= Although you wish to kill all of your enemies, they are far too strong as of now. A suggestion would be to escape for now and build up your strength. ============= ============= Although you wish to kill all of your enemies, they are far too strong as of now. A suggestion would be to escape for now and build up your strength. ============= After almost completely blocking her vision, Alice finally decided that it was better to not ignore the God of systems, since he was a god after all. But how could she ignore the enemies charging towards her? How could she ignore the enemies directly responsible to taking way her friends? ============= Tch! Go ahead then. But make sure you pick them off one at a time, and never go anywhere near the two strong ones in their group. They will instantly kill you off with no resistance from you. The rest is up to you. ~God of Systems ============= With the plan in mind, Alice set off to kill Rolandians just like she had in the previous battlefield. Unwanted Visit Around an hour into the march, the leader of the camp felt something wrong as he noticed that the grouped footsteps all split up into random directions. Telling his group to stop, he got off his horse and observed the footsteps a little closer and realised what must have happened. ''Damn it! They split up!'' The leader of the camp kicked the dirt in frustration as he turned around to seek advice from the emissary of the Roland Royal family who had been sent here to take care of the war efforts. Surrounded by 2 incredibly powerful individuals, a young man was seated in a carriage made of exquisite iron-wood, being pulled by a lather large war-horse. "My prince," kneeled the leader of the camp and continued, "It appears those Leon scum have split up to preserve their lives like vulgar rats. Should we split up and search for them? Although this would be faster, it might also lead to more casualties on our side. On the other hand, if we continue to move together, we would miss out on quite the handful of rats, but we would be able to get a large number of them without putting too many lives on the line. How might your highness'' keen insight judge this situation?" The young boy of about 18 years of age thought for a while before speaking softly. "Their group recently had a divine descent at this location, which means they too have someone who is blessed by a god like myself. We cannot miss out on the opportunity like this. It doesn''t matter on how many people are used, but find me the one blessed by a god, dead or alive. Split up and go find him, the one with the blessing. And while you are at it, kill all from Leon. We have all the information we need already. All I need is the blessed one. This will be my sacrifice to the almighty Lord of the Hunt, Orion. May the odds be ever in our favour." As soon as the 13th prince of Roland''s Royal family spoke those words and made some hand gestures related to the god he believes in, the two insanely powerful men on either side of him simultaneously spoke and made the same hand gestures of extending their index, middle and ring fingers, kissing them before raising them into the air,The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. "May the od be ever in our favour~" At this very moment, although Jack could not see anything about the three men, he could very much see their actions, just barely, but enough to comprehend their words and see their actions. He almost died of utter disbelief. ''Just how much did this world copy from Earth? Now we have a god called Orion, oh my what an original name, and his sign is this? Seriously? Why not just say that I am a god and out of ideas, why not copy from Earth''s entertainment industry.'' However, at this very moment, a voice Jack clearly remembered rang in his head. It was a voice he would never be able to forget. A voice which had haunted his subconscious even as a god. [Keke~ It seems my replacement is enjoying himself hear?] Jack''s mind went blank as the memories That man had almost covered up with Jack''s humanity began to resurface and push the humanity down into the depths of his subconscious. [Hey now. Do not worry. I do not intend on going against ''His'' wishes. I''m just here to relieve my boredom, since I have another few millennia to go before I am set free once more. Plus, any actual action I take will be directly opposed by that foolish brother of mine. Might as well chat with you for a while before moving on to the others ''He'' rebuilt.] [To answer your question. No, this plane is not ''copying'' the plane you originated from. All planes are essentially made simultaneously, which does tend to leave duplicities within their fundamental ******** laws. Oh my, you seem to not be able to understand this yet. Well, anyway, it seems I should wait a while longer. My brother should be coming here soon to pull my presence back to that prison. I''ll be back in a few years, or not? Who knows?] With that, the presence from within Jack''s mind began to retreat, just as another equally powerful presence entered. [Sigh, Meta*ron is getting increasing frustrated after having so many of his replacement experiments being thrown the void. Anyway, I need to get him back now, I will be leaving little one. Hopefully you survive to grow stronger one day. Don''t forget me when and if that happens, I am Luc*fer, the one and only~] With that, the second presence leapt out of Jack''s mind and sped towards the first presence before entangling it and tugging it off. In reality, that had had an insanely long conversation in a language which Jack could not even hear, forget comprehend, and had decided it was better to return to the prison before She went after them. This left Jack in utter shock and horror, as well as confusion. ''What the hell¡­'' was the only thing that came to his mind as he let SPU take over handling all his systems for a while to calm down and understand what just happened. Massacre and Traitor While Jack was going into a godly retreat to regain his humanity and sanity, Alice had finally begun her hunt. The enemy had split up in search for Leon Kingdom''s Soldiers, which gave her a tonne of freedom. Especially since her mapping skill displayed the 2 particularly strong individuals rather evidently in red so deep it almost looked black. In reality, she could not use this function at the level the skill was at currently, however, Jack had made an exception for those two individuals in order to keep his beta players alive. For the time being, the map would display the strong individuals very clearly, allowing her to simple avoid them. Furthermore, being able to see nametags from 20 m in any direction made it incredibly easy to spot enemies, and help out friendlies. After saving one of the Leon soldiers, Alice picked up the dead body and dragged it away to somewhere unknown and tossing it over a cliff to prevent the Roland soldiers who were still alive from discovering what was actually going on. Soon, she received the level up notification and finally became level 5, and got another notification which she temporarily put aside and instead focussed on her retreat. By now, she had mostly vented her anger, and had nearly whipped out all the soldiers on the field. If she wasted any more time trying to pick out the last few remaining ones, the enemy would actually notice that many of their soldiers were missing and send out the strong individuals to scour the field. Based on how the god of systems did not want her to even meet them, they should be a lot stronger than her. Due to the level up, she had regained all her stamina that she had lost killing off enemies many levels above her own by silently ambushing them and attacking their vitals before they could react over the past hour or so. Now, al she had to do was run and try and reach the camp as soon as possible, since the camp they were going towards was a forward base of command and not a temporary camp like what their own camp was.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. ''After the rest we got at the village, most of the soldiers we rescued should be able to run for quite some time. Even the injured ones should be able to move since we got some herbal pain-killers from the village. Thankfully we didn''t have to kill any of the villagers to get what we needed since they cooperated with his just fine. But the problem still remains that the injured ones will not be able to make it to the forward base of command in one go. They will have to take many rests, and enemy might catch up.'' ''Sigh. Nothing I can do about it. People will definitely die. I tried my best and was able to help the escape. Now survival is up to their will and luck.'' At this moment, Alice noticed a red nametag in the distance, instantly becoming alert and removing her daggers while slowly approaching. Since the two almost black dots were still in their original positions, this was not the insanely strong people, and if she attacked properly, her ambush should be successful as always. However, what she did not expect was that the enemy was with a green nametag. Thinking it was a hostage situation, Alice thought of many different possibilities and closed in slowly while staying low and close to the ground. Soon, she could see the situation from behind a tree about 3 meters away from the enemy. But the actual situation shocked her. The enemy was on a horse, and was leaning forward to listen to the words of the friendly. At this distance, Alice''s improved senses could pick up their conversation. "Is it true?" "Yes. I am telling you. The one who had the divine descent was a young female who goes by the name of Alice. She is the squad leader on squad 25, I think. This is the squad that rescued us from your camp. There! I told you everything. Now will you let me go? Forget letting me go, just don''t kill me! I will join the Roland army! But please don''t kill me! I have no one left in this world anyways. It is only me. At least let me live a full life!" The nametag of the person at his words began to change from green to yellow, and then to slightly orange. Alice made her move now while the enemy had his guard down and cleanly pierced the enemy''s through with one dagger, and heart with the other, both from behind. Blood spurted everywhere even on the now-not-so-friendly soldier. The already blood covered Alice pulled out her daggers from the corpse before throwing it over the horse and onto the ground, before taking a seat on the horse herself. Having had been taught how to ride a horse in her childhood, Alice quickly took control of the horse and moved closer to the stunned traitor. Although Alice felt like killing the traitor, for some reason, she restrained herself. Instead of chopping his head off, she reached out a hand to the soldier, "Are you coming, traitor?" Reporting and Spells Riding on the horse, Alice''s speed was at least doubled, which meant that she reached the friendly command centre within around 2 hours of non-stop riding. While she was fine, the one sitting behind her was not. Although he was back to a bright green colour, his face was somehow matching that colour. *BLUUUUURG* Along the way, the chap was leaving a trail of incredibly putrid vomit. Thankfully, his stomach had been emptied out after the first few vomits, and not nothing but saliva and stomach juices were coming out. "Halt!" yelled a voice from inside the tall walls of the forward base of command. Along with that, multiple arrowheads, and magic attacks pointed towards Alice and the traitor on the horse. "State your identity or die!" Since this forward command was within enemy territory, all guards at the top of the gates were on guard. The scouts in the area had already notices this group of two people on a horse, but since it was only two people with one of them seemingly incapacitated, and none of their mana signatures being too high, the scouts did not stop them and just reported the situation to the base before Alice even arrived, especially since the two were wearing, although bloody, Leon uniforms. "Alice! Alice Bard. Squad captain of the 21th squad." While saying this, Alice looked over her shoulder and scoffed. "Next time when expunging information, at least make sure you have the correct information. Well, in fact, don''t, since the only information you give is to the enemy. Just do what you have been doing so far, it will mess up the enemy''s plans." Alice then raised her badge and smiled amiably at the lieutenant standing on the tall wooden walls. ¡­ A few minutes later, she was inside a tent full of those at or above lieutenant rank individuals. Around 12 lieutenants, each having around a single battalion¡­ just thinking about the number of soldiers present at this forward command base made Alice feel secure. Furthermore, in front of her was the Deputy-General and the General of this entire army. The Leon kingdom did not have a single army, but had 6 official armies, each with around 5000 soldiers. Naturally, each of these armies had a general, who was the highest level of command for the entire army, and who reported directly to the royal family. Since the Leon kingdom did not allow its aristocrats to have armies, all the armies were maintained by the Royal Family. This also put the generals at an incredibly high standing of power in the kingdom, one that could take on the wealth and influence of a Dukedom on their own military power. Although nobles were not allowed to maintain armies, they could still hire guards and always found other loopholes to exploit, and most Dukes had a rough estimate of 3000 official ''guards'' and ''hired personnel''. Since Generals could command around 5000 soldiers, they could easily crush the disorganised ''personnel'' of even the dukes. Naturally, this was the reason why all of the 5 dues had already secretly partnered with one of the 6 generals of the armies.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. The person in front of Alice was one of the non-allied generals, and one of the oldest generals still maintaining his army; Sir Merlin Von Snide. "Tell me the situation briefly." He spoke in a rough yet majestic voice that carried a sense of power and authority with it. "We were ambushed." "¡­" "Elaborate more¡­" "I had arrived late due to getting lost in the forest along the route to the assembly point of the temporary base camp. When my squad and I arrived, the entire base had already been burnt to ashes. Inside the camp I found footsteps of people and horses, and assumed it was the enemy''s. Following them, I reached a Rolandian camp where I found a total of around 40 survivors from the entire battalion. Using smoke and some poison mixed in, I was able to successfully escape with most of them, after which we decided to move to the north as fast as possible to reach here. However, the enemies had somehow recovered their ranks from the poison faster than expected and around a day''s walk from here we realised that the enemy would catch up to us in half a day. We decided to split up and rely on luck to escape till here. However, I realised something. I realised that the enemy had not cleared their ranks of the poison, just suppressing it with drugs and forcing the soldiers to fight. This made them much weaker than what they normally would be and so I took the chance to kill them. I think I killed around 30 of them before escaping since there were 2 incredibly strong enemies with someone who seemed rather important to Roland. Along the way, I found an enemy with a horse and killed him to get this horse, and picked up this fellow here along the way. And that is how we reached here." For some reason, Alice did not reveal the fact that the man next to her who seemed to have become as small and insignificant as an ant among elephants, was a traitor. Seeing that Alice was done, the man heaved a sigh of relief and suddenly realised something. "You forgot to mention the divine descent!" "Divine Descent!?" hearing the man''s words, everyone in the room suddenly sat up straight from their long expressions. Alice glared at the man for a moment, thinking about whether or not to reveal his true identity, but then saw the satisfied expression on his face and realised something. ''This traitor¡­ he is thinking of increasing my rank in the army by bringing in my blessings?'' Shaking her head at the pure intentions she had uncovered; Alice spoke once more. "Yes. Along the way, I realised that two of my friends, squad captains the both of them, had perished along with most of their squads." While speaking, her eyes turned red and she clenched her fists. "I lost control of my emotions and just as I was about to harm the survivors with the unintentional aura I was releasing, my lord descended and helped my look to the future." Suddenly, Alice''s red eyes calmed down slightly as she looked to the general''s left in surprise only to see another equally shocked face. ''This guy tried to put a really strong calming spell on me, enough to almost put a normal human to sleep! Do magicians casually toss out spells like that?'' she looked at the deputy general that used the spell. ''Her magic resistance is so high that none of my previous spells even registered to her, and I had to use a rank 2 spell which should have knocked a normal human out cold!'' Traitor Markus and Direct Mission "So¡­ Who is your Lord?" "The God of Systems, the bringer of salvation, Jack." "God of systems¡­" "Anyway, before that, more of the people I rescued should be coming. However, I''m sure some Rolandians might try to disguise as us and try to enter the forward base of command. You should be prepared for it." Alice spoke as bluntly as before, leaving all the people in the room including the deputy-general in confusion. ''Does this squad captain want to be promoted for her deeds or demoted for not being able to flatter the general'' However, the general smiled at the bluntness. ''Hehe. Finally, someone as blunt as you my son.'' Merlin spoke as he looked over at his deputy in the prime of his life, his son Morgan Von Snide. "Well done soldier. You and your squad will be rewarded later on. For now, we need to prepare for the arrivals of injured soldiers. Dismissed." With that, Alice lifted up the traitor who was hiding behind her and walked out, leaving the lieutenants stunned. ''Isn''t he the same height as her, why did he seem so much smaller while being carried by her on her shoulder?'' However, they did not get to ask this question as Alice was already long gone. ¡­ In a private tent reserved for herself, Alice sat cross-legged in her uniform pants and shirt while looking over at the traitor in front of her. "So, what is your name, traitor?"Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. "S- Stop calling me that!" "Then give me a name, traitor." "Tch. I am Markus" "Just Markus?" "Yep. That is what everyone calls me at the orphanage." "Ah, I see¡­" Silence reigned in the tent as Alice thought about why she did not rat him out. The reason was simple. She saw herself within him. All alone in this crazy world. Cast out into the unforgiving reality of having no one to rely on. However, in her last moments, she had found someone to rely on. It was the God of systems who had extended a hand to her in such times. Shouldn''t it be her responsibility to reach out to others in the same way? With this thinking, Alice spoke. "Alright then, Traitor Markus, how about you join my squad?" While Markus was being shocked by the proposal, Mason was meditating in a room the church or War had graciously offered to him, with ''Grace'' attached to his leg. Suddenly, he received two notifications at once. ================ You have received 1 Mana stat point from training in Mana Training method: Path to Enlightenment ================ ================ Direct Mission Go with Duke Desmon and support him in his dukedom. Bring Don along with you and train him as well. Leave behind those soldiers who converted to my church. I have plans for them. Time Limit: Unknown Mission priority- B+ Mission reward: 2000 exp. Improved relations with Duke Desmon, Don, as well as the Leon kingdom. Note: Mission priority shows how important each direct from the God of Systems is. The higher this rating, the more important it is. Even when conducting an existing Direct quest, a new direct quest of higher rating is to be acted upon immediately. =============== Mason read through his first notification and had a slight smile. ''After 8 hours of training, it finally decided to give me another mana stat point!'' However, after reading the second notification, his face became serious. This was the first direct mission he had ever received, and it was naturally his obligation to follow the direct mission from the being that had saved his life on multiple occasions and gave him the abilities to survive and grow stronger. It could even be said that the God of Systems was the one responsible for what he was now. Nodding internally, Mason jumped out of bed, now even more energetic than what he was before his leg got cut off due to the increased stats and ''Grace'' which felt like a true leg to begin with. "Let''s do this!" [1] [1] For some reason, I felt like writing "NIKE!" but then remembered that it does not exist in this world¡­. Or does it?! This is my world to begin with¡­. So Yknot? Lol. Note: The above is just some random internal monologue I conduct while writing novels. I do this a lot. Peace! Half a month Half a month passed by in a flash¡­ Now, the policy that Jack had come up with for the people of Chengyu, the capital of Cayden had taken effect. The ability to join the religion had become a symbol of prestige and honour. The people who were not part of it were now working hard to cover the expenses from the ones who were already part of the faith, completely removing all expenses from Jack''s reserves for bringing in more people, and was now in fact further benefitting him since he was getting half of the exp in the form of CP. Almost 75% of the people in Chengyu had already converted, and the nobles he had brought into his religion on the first day of establishing his religion had also taken action and were recruiting people within their own territories. This had accomplished the objective of creating a rather significantly large amount of constant CP revenue. Since half of any action or activity regarding exp would be going to himself, CP was no longer a problem. Unlike the successful Cayden project, the completely useless Heron was still lost in the dessert. Jack, who had already recovered from his mid-existence crisis after listening to the words of [Meta*ron] and [Luc*fer], had even thought of using a significant amount of his CP reserves to buy a teleportation scroll from the CP shop. However, he realised something about Heron. He had an ''air'' to him which was attracting people to follow him, even though the simple action of walking through the desert. His companions, mainly consisting of slaves, had already expanded to 36 people including, stranded merchants, more slaves heading to the same location, and travellers who were exploring the wild desert. Although he was stupid¡­well, much worse than just stupid, both his luck, charisma, and sheer strength allowed him to rope in 36 beast-folk from different tribes, as his sub-users, who were effectively his subordinates as acknowledged by the system. In the Western Continent where Alice was, the war between Leon and Roland was now in full swing. Unlike the Centra continent with enough space to accommodate hundreds of kingdoms with enough unoccupied space to have another hundred more, the Western continent was in a completely opposite situation. The lang would be barely enough to hold around 50 nations, border to border, if they were the average size of those in the central continent. However, in this incredibly small continent, nearly 75 nations were packed in together.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Land. The basic necessity for everything. Resources, humans, wealth, power, everything came from land. And this land is what was lacking in the Western continent. Scarcity of something is what leads to conflicts, and scarcity of land in any world is bound to lead to wars. That is why every year during spring, many conflicts would arise across all borders. And every few years, major conflicts would result in complete shifts in the power of the continent. An example was Roland. It was currently a considerably large nation, and could be considered within the top 15 in the entire continent. However, this nation was originally not even a nation around 100 years ago! It was formed after a rich merchant family overthrew the king of an already existing nation and took ever the nation under the name of Roland. On the other hand, Leon was a nation with a long history of matriarchs, and even had a goddess supporting them. Although they were much smaller in terms of land occupied than the newly formed Roland, they had a much longer history, and had firmly rooted themselves at the corner of the continent with a strong army and many chosen ones by the goddess. However, there hasn''t been a new chosen one within the Leon kingdom for the past 60 years, and the last one is at her deathbed. This was the reason why Roland saw the opportunity and began it wars with Leon, slowly taking up more and more of its land over nearly 6 years of continuous wars. Alice looked outside the training grounds and sighed as she recalled the events of around half a month ago. "Lieutenant Alice!" Traitor Markus saluted his superior before approaching her and speaking. "Orders from General Von Snide!" Alice accepted the letter and opened it reading the orders thoroughly. "Finally¡­" "Finally what?" questioned Markus as he saw the satisfied expression on Alice''s face. "Deployment orders!" While Markus was fearing deployment, Alice''s mind was somewhere else. ''Just wait for me brother. I will destroy Roland completely and bring you back. Even if it means I will become the slave to the God of Systems!'' With this resolution in mind, Alice got her battalion to gather up and gave her order. Two weeks of recovery was long enough for those who had the will to continue fighting. And for those who it was not, would be sent back to Leon as ''honourably discharged from military service due to mental of physical injury.'' In her new battalion, there were two existences which she had not seen so far in any battle. They were a priest from the Church of the Moon, and a battle mage at Rank 2, who were both specifically assigned to her for the mission she was going to complete with her battalion. On the other hand, Mason had completely integrated himself into life at the Duke''s estate. The Capital Mason, who had received the mission to tag along with Desmon Bard, the 23 year old Duke, and bring Don along with him to the Duke''s estate in his Dukedom, was feeling like exp was just falling into his lap as he enjoyed in luxury. It had taken the group around a week to travel to the Dukedom''s largest city, one that was near the southern border of Bard. Back when he first arrived at the palace-like mansion in the centre of the city, he, along with the silent Don were completely dumfounded. "Waa~" It was also Mason''s first time seeing the usually indifferent Don letting out any sort of emotion, or any sort of sounds in general! "Haha! Don''t need to be so shocked. This is where you kids will be living for the time being. Don''t worry, you will be my guests for your time in the estate, so just enjoy." Since the system had given him benefits as well, Desmon did not reject the two, especially since one of them was directly responsible for him being alive today, and the other one was following behind the one that saved his life. However, for the past week, Mason and Don, had done absolutely nothing. They were just resting in their rooms, whiling away time by eating, sleeping, and just shilling with each other. In this time, Mason had realised that Don was, although rather reserved, still a kid of age 15, just barely considered an adult in some nations. Since he had not sent a lot of time with kids his age due to having to work to survive, Mason was not sure what to do with Don. However, Don and mason did get along just fine discussing about the system, and playing rather enjoyable games that Don came up with. The most interesting game was a game called "Chess".A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Today was just another one of those days where Mason and Don were playing an extremely challenging game of chess mage from hardened dirt that Don had pulled in from the grounds outside the window using his speciality of Earth magic, and mason carved into the shapes Don wanted using wind bullets. Don could roughly control and shape Earth, and he could even harden it to hold its shape. However, the shapes he wanted were too detailed to make using simple Earth magic, and So Mason had to lend a hand as well. Naturally, it had taken almost 3 days to create the dirt ''chess set'' during which Don had taught Mason the rules and had practiced in theory. However, on this day, someone knocked on the door. "May I enter?" "Sure" The door opened and a maid entered with the head butler before bowing and retreating from the duo''s vision. "The lord has requested your presence." "Desmon? Sure" Mason shrugged, while Don just nodded. As the two left the room, the butler took another glance at the chess set that the two were using and his eyes almost seemed to sparkle in interest. However, he turned away and followed the two who were following the maid to Desmon''s study. "So, how has your stay been here?" "Good." Mason said with seemingly no signs of etiquette, which he had naturally never learnt in his life as a commoner orphan. "¡­" Don did not even speak and just nodded along with Mason. "Haha, good. I will be heading out for a few weeks so tell the butler if you have anything you need to get done." Desmon did not mind the lack of proper conduct as he spoke. However, Mason suddenly recalled something even more important. The mission had told him to help out Desmon, not to loaf around in the mansion! "Is it for business related to the Dukedom?" "Yes¡­ why?" "Done and I will come with you." "¡­" Don simply nodded to whatever Mason said as though he was a robot, while looking slightly down so that his rather long and messy brown hair would cover his golden eyes. "Why?" A strange emotion flickered past Desmon''s blue eyes, almost as though he already knew the answer. "The Lord told us to." "¡­" Don just nodded along. "¡­ Alright." Desmon waved them away while continuing, "Go and clean up. Cut your hair and have a bath or whatever. Get some good clothes and prepare to leave in two days." "Where are we going?" Mason asked just before being pushed out of the room by the head butler who was intending on getting their measurements to make the clothes as soon as possible. "Ferdin, the Capital of course." Desmon Two days later, Desmon entered the carriage that was waiting for him, surrounded by knights whose levels he could now see, through Jack''s system. Inside the carriage were two impeccably dressed children a few years younger than himself. One was the brown-haired Mason, while the other was the black-haired Don. "Good Morning, Sir Desmon." Mason spoke while the butler was closing the carriage door behind Desmon, while Don simply nodded behind Mason. "Yes, it is indeed a fair morning." Desmon ignored the lack of etiquette and sat down before motioning for the driver to start their journey to the capital. Over the past few days, Desmon had regained control over his territory, which was slightly affected by the activities in the capital. He had then proceeded to weed out all the hidden RedForce troops and spies in his territory with incredibly efficiency due to the system he had been given, where he could see red names signifying enemies or hostiles and friendlies are green. Those who were neutral were blue. Initially, Jack had made the colour blue for players, but he felt like it was better to make neutral NPs (Non-Players) blue. For players, he would also put blue, however, he would put [Player], [Beta-player], [Lord Player], etc before the name of said individual. With this system in hand, Desmon had instantly converted 2 of his 4 elite knights to the faith and made them scout out the territory with their troops and kill or capture all enemies. Using the cleaning of RedForce as an excuse, Desmon had spent exactly 9 days to completely clear his entire territory of all enemies to himself, which included spies from other nobles which he could not touch for certain legal reasons. However, he did not take the system lightly at all, and had kept most of his troops and servants out of the system just in case. Desmon was someone like that, always cautious about things. Even all those years ago, he had felt something was brewing within his territory and had secretly constructed escape routes for himself and his family. However, in the process of escaping with his family, Desmon''s father had suddenly vanished. And within moments of the sudden disappearance, an unusual gas had filled up the entire escape tunnel. In the confusion his senses were facing from not being able to see anything, his hand had slipped and his sister vanished as well, though not like the almost dematerialisation of his father.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Somehow, he had managed to escape the death trap within his father''s mansion and met up with the four guards who were still loyal to the Bard household. Those four men were now the guard captains of the entire dukedom. However, unlike that terrifying incident which had destroyed his already broken family, the incident at the capital was completely unexpected, since he had yet to build proper connections and sources of information within the capital. And even if he did, it would not have made much of a difference wince even the king, whose territory the incident occurred in did not know about it. The only reason Desmon, and Don were still alive was due to Mason. The king would have been protected by his most loyal subordinate The Lion Tamala, while Sir Wint would device a method for the king to escape safely and Sir Campbell would tag along with the king, possibly giving his life to save the king. However, Desmon did not have such capable and loyal subordinates in the capital. The only subordinates who were even comparably capable, were his 4 trusted knights who were not present in the capital at the time, since they were taking care of the territory for their lord. That is why, once again, he had left behind those four to take care of his territory, since the two who he had converted to the System, were better in combat and military strategies, while the other two were, although weaker than the previous two, were still at Lv 21. However, these two were rather capable when it came to logistics and managing a territory as the lord. For his safety, he had brought along quite a few soldiers and a few mages as well, who were at average Lv 13, the strongest being at Lv 18. Any stronger than that would be considered a High Mage and would be treated as national treasures not due to their personal strength, but due to their formidable prowess when it comes to making magic tools and research in various fields. In most kingdoms within the Central and Western continents, such High mages were the core of the industrial and magical innovations, and usually had their own magic towers built for them, with many weaker mages working for them. By giving them more benefits that what they would get at a renowned magic tower, Desmon was able to retain these 7 mages, with 3 of them being left in his territory for safety of the region, and for them to continue their research into magic tools, spells, and their own progression into high mage. And in addition to that, Desmon had the unusually strong Mason and Don by his side just in case things went south. With this much preparation, Desmon set out for the noble meeting that the royal family had called for after regaining control of the capital with the help of the Church of the War God Ares. Limit breaker While Desmon was making his way to the capital, Jack was busy with his own thing. "Ares, I will be using you for some time." "Huh?" "I will need you to kill something for me." "What is it?" "A fallen god" "¡­" "Don''t worry. I will temporarily give you the power where the corrupted divinity will not affect you." "¡­" "And this god should be incredibly weak." "Alright, but how will you find it?" "This¡­" An orb of blue radiance flew out of the cage Jack was in and landed on Ares'' hand. The radiance then melted away revealing a box with some rather complicated symbols, similar to the ones on the cage. Along with that, Jack sent over a bit of his authority to Ares, which manifested in the form of a new system =========== Supreme God''s System Name: Ares Authority: War and ConflictIf you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Lv: 200 (max) Temporary Authority Transfer: Immunity to Corrupted Divinity =========== ''So even if I tried, I cannot increase the level of Ares, since he is a supreme god¡­'' "The box is called the ''Lost Arc Tracer'', and it is very precious. It will allow you to find the fallen god, and maybe some others also. Kill and bring them to me." Are flinched slightly at the authoritative tone Jack was using but then remembered that Jack was a mighty being that The one who must not be named had personally sealed and appointed as a god. Nodding, Ares took the item which had cost Jack nearly 200 CP, and the system which had cost Jack 20 CP, the payment for which Jack had secretly used the savings of his depositors, and left, following the directions given by the cube. The one Jack had sent Ares after was the same god that had tried to take over Cayden. And within the divinity of the dying fallen god, Jack had felt another fallen God''s divinity mixed in, who also seemed to be incredibly weak. The reason Ares had agreed to this mission was due to the favour he owed Jack, along with the fact that he was sure that Jack would give him something good in return. And that was not wrong. While Ares was hunting for fallen gods with his true body, Jack''s full attention was placed on a single item in the CP shop. The stock for this item was 5, and it was the one thing that Ares would do anything for. ============= CP Shop Limit breaker (Breaks the limitations placed upon an existence due to its flawed conceptualisation and creation. Fixed the flaws and allows said existence to transcend the limit on its level.) Price: 10,000,000,000,000 CP (10 trillion CP = 1 quadrillion exp) ============= He had already found this item before he had even thought about calling Ares over. Putting the insane cost, which could only be collected over time aside, Jack thought that this would be the best item for someone like Ares, who had used brute strength and unparalleled might to reach the pinnacle of existence. Jack also reached out to the communication divinity that Ares had left here when the he had first visited and spoke into it. "I have something that will allow you to grow further. However, I need a crazy amount of divinity to unseal it. For this, I will require you to go on hunting expeditions like this often, and wait for a long time for me to accumulate enough to get it." With that much, Jack closed the communication before the utterly shocked Ares could say anything, and looked down at his believers in the prime plain. Nix A week went by in a flash, and Desmon had finally arrived at the capital. Even before he could bet through to gates, multiple guards surrounded the carriage, ignoring the mages and soldiers around it, with their weapons drawn. "I am sorry, but we need to inspect this carriage." And leader of the guards stood in front of the carriage as he spoke with a certain amount of fear mixed into the stiff voice. "You-" However, before one of the soldiers could lash out, Mason had already leapt out of the carriage, with Don in tow as he walked briskly towards the captain, who was around 2 heads taller than himself, and nearly 4 heads taller than Don. "This is Duke Bard''s carriage. He is inside. This is Don, and I am Mason, the finalists of the tournament held a few weeks ago, who could not complete the tournament due to the explosions. I still need to complete my audience with the king. Are you going to hold me up?" Mason did not mince any words and straight away mentioned a tonne of important names and positions which he had connections with including the king. Naturally, there was no need to bring in the church of war into such a thing, since some cards would be best left hidden until needed. Don behind Mason simply nodded and stared at the leader as though he was scum that belonged in the gutters of the slums. "This¡­" Th captain was stunned for quite some time, in which time Mason Fired a few wind bullets into the air and scared off the other guards while speaking with quite a bit of killing intent. "M.O.V.E" The guards moved back instinctively and the carriage proceeded forward before the leader could come back to his senses.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Back in the carriage, Desmon asked Mason, "Why?" "Why did I do that?" Desmon simple nodded with some amount of curiosity. They could have just allowed those guards to inspect the carriage and then keep moving. There was no need to create so much of a scene. It would just delay then my at most an hour. "You are older than me. Think about it yourself. Just let me give you a clue. That leader was scared of something." "Scared?" "¡­" ''Scared¡­Could it be?'' As soon as Desmon''s face brightened from understanding something, Mason spoke up. "You got that right. The fear he was feeling is the same when as the fear you feel when you are doing something you should not do, and might get caught." "Hmm" "So, tell me, do you have enemies within the capital that might want to wrongly accuse you of something, or simply drag you away from your mini-army of soldiers and mages to kill you?" "Hmm. And to do that, they could simply tell one of the soldiers to put something within my carriage during the inspection, and later to ''find'' that something, thus accusing me of some sort of crime." "Yes, they you would be pulled away from your escorts within the interrogation rooms, and could be easily killed, or tortured for something." Desmon''s face darkened as he thought about the trembling hands and sweaty face of the leader, and his right-hand man. "That should be pretty accurate." "Keke, my instincts are pretty good. But it was not me who found this out." As mason said that, he pulled out the little wolf within his fur pocket and pointed. "This little fellow here told me." "Told you?" "Well, it cannot speak. But when we were stopped, it started growling, the same way it was growling just before RedForce did that bullsh*t they did in the capital. It was also growling when that priest from the church of War had tried to poison me while entering the capital." "I see, it is a rather interesting cub. What is its name?" "That¡­ I don''t know yet." "Then name it!" "Hmm, how about Wolfy?" "Grrrrr" After getting an angry growl from the wolf cub, Mason coughed once and thought for some more time. Time kept moving and Mason suddenly jumped up only to hit his head on the carriage ceiling, just as the carriage was nearing Desmon''s mansion within the capital. "How about Nix?" "Woof!" Hearing a cute little sound instead of the assuring bark of a wolf, Desmon''s stoic expression softened a little as he looked at Mason who was tickling the white wolf in his hands. Efficiency improvement In the void, Ares returned to Jack with the corpse of 2 lesser fallen deities, along with somethings he was dragging behind him. "I have completed this task. For some reason, the cube led me to these two gods, and three divine kingdoms. I found them in the process of consuming the third kingdom, so I assume that the dead god was the one you were searching for." "Doesn''t matter. You did good." Calculations ushed through Jack''s godly mind. Although the clock speed of the human brain might only be 100Hz, it''s actual processing speed was still incredibly fast due to how massively parallel it''s logic was. However, Jack''s thought process had even exceeded the possibilities of mortality after being given the powers of a god by ''That man'', which had initially put him at a level slightly below the lowest level of gods. To put this into perspective, the average processing speed of the human brain was 60 bits per second. Jack, on the other hand had a processing speed that easily exceeded 10 Terabyts per microsecond. ''With this, I should be able to get that item.'' Jack though in his mind as he began accepting all the CP points, what all the gods of this plane called ''divinity''. It was actually corrupted divinity, which was still corrupted until just before it entered the cage, at which point it turned into something incomprehensible to Ares right in front of his eyes and vanished into the cage. "Alright. Pass me the cube, and head back for now. I will inform you if I need anything." Ares simply nodded and vanished, leaving behind the two complete, and 1 half destroyed divine kingdoms.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Jack first noticed that divinity was leaking from the broken kingdom, and so simply sucked up the whole thing since it was at a point beyond recovering. As for the other two, he just left them next to his cage since he knew how expensive these things were. The Divine kingdom of a lesser god would cost him around 10,000 CP. Although not as ridiculous as the item he needed to get for Ares, it was still a rather large sum of CP. However, Jack ignored that and was more focused on something else. He opened his CP shop and directly went to the item he had found within some time back. ============= CP Conversion Efficiency Improves the conversion rate for CP from 80 exp to 40 exp The effectiveness of this item will reduce after each use. This item cannot affect the conversion of divinity. Cost: 1000 CP ============ Although the cost was incredible, the effect was equally incredibly. It would not give him to many immediate benefits; however, it would increase the amount of CP he got from his followers by a factor of 2! Naturally, he would also reduce the costs of everything for his players as he called them, not by a lot, only by 1/10th. For this he would wait for a good time to release a new version update, and inform his players about the permanent discount on everything. For now, he would just enjoy the doubled income for some time. Although he should have been calling his followers as ''followers'', ''worshipers'', ''believers'', or even ''users'', Jack quite liked the name players since the systems he had designed all his life were only for games, and only players used them. However, with the thought of the various games he had produced in his rather insignificant lifespan of a mortal human, Jack remembered a particular game regarding the evolution of a monster from one of the lowest ranks to the highest rank. With a new target in mind, Jack began his search for a beta-player once more, since he did not have to manage much of what his players were doing in the mortal plane due to the existence of SPU. "Now this is the life of a rich man whose money makes more money on its own without him having to do anything. Well, CP makes CP¡­" Jack was feeling incredibly happy that he had actually purchased SPU from the CP shop at such an early stage in his growth. Just thinking about it made him feel like it was an incredibly useful decision, which had made many things progress incredibly smoothly. Meeting commences? Back in the capital of Bard, Desmon, Mason and the 15-year-old Don had already spent a whole night at Desmon''s estate within the capital, and were now departing for the royal palace. "People sure work fast" Mason commented. "Hmm?" Desmond looked over at Mason from enjoying the view of the capital. "Well, almost a month ago, everything was nearly demolished with houses burnt, buildings collapsed, and dead bodies everywhere. But now, it has been completely restored in such a short amount of time. Even the citizens seem like nothing happened at all." Mason marvelled at the scene, with some suspicions that he did not speak out loud. "Hmm, It seems the church of Ares helped out a lot in rebuilding the capital." Desmon nodded as he understood what Mason was trying to subtly say. At this point, he could not help but marvel at the understanding portrayed by Mason. At first, Mason had seemed like someone that came from some rural countryside of the kingdom, and after some investigation, it turned out that Mason was just that, and so was Don. How Don became a mage was unknown, however, Desmon understood that Mason had become one likely due to The God of Systems after he was nearly killed by a wolf beast. ''Anyway, most mages need to be much more intelligent as compared to normal humans of their age'' Desmon replied to his own curiosity and put the matter aside. "Duke Desmon Bard of the Bard dukedom has arrived." The steward announced Desmon''s appearance before opening the doors of the palace. A young man at the age of 21 walked in with 2 even younger children following behind with an open mouth.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Mason''s entire view was covered by things that seemed to be glowing, nearly blinding him by the brilliance. If the hut he had been living in up till now was a spark, then Duke Desmon''s mansion in the capital was a hand-held torch on a stick, and the mansion at the dukedom was a bonfire. However, this palace was on a league of its own. ''A sun¡­'' that was the only thought going through Mason''s mind. However, he and don were quickly pulled out of their daze after some hostile gazes landed on them, and Nix began to move around uncomfortably in his sleep within Mason''s clothes. Mason did not shy away from the hostile looks, and instead turned directly to the people responsible and stared back at them until they looked away with a smirk on his face. Desmon walked up to a noble and greeted him with a noble''s bow. "Greeting Duke Harmen Bard." "Greetings Duke Desmon Bard." Although the two of them had the same names, they were related by so little blood that it could be considered non-existent. Duke Harlem''s branch of the Bard family had split from royalty a long time ago, nearly a hundred years before Desmon''s branch was created. However, Harlem was one of the few people who actually cared about Desmon other than the king, and treated him like his own nephew, and Desmon treated Harlem like his own uncle. Harlem was the one who had supported Desmon to regain all his lands and title after his father and sister mysteriously vanished that day. On normal days, they would refer to each other as uncle Harlem and Little Desmon, but since this was an official meeting, they could only follow the noble etiquette and greet each other formally. "How have you been Duke?" "Impeccably. What about you Duke Desmon?" "Rather sufficiently" To Mason, this conversation was already beyond his understanding, and so he took the silent Don to the side and handed him a plate of food before taking one himself, and moving to one side of the hall. Here, Mason leisurely rested his back at the wall behind him and causally ate his food, with the much shorter Don to his left, also mimicking him and eating the food. Both Don and Mason had received a good mount of training in terms of mannerism of the nobles so as not to go against the noble''s etiquette and embarrass Desmon at the meeting. After a few more guests came in, the steward finally announced. "The King of Bard, His Majesty Alexander Bard II, arrives!" Skeleton Karlos? While Jack was searching for a creature which was completely different from humans and beastkin, he came across something rather odd. The prime plane was divided into 5 continents, however, he could only see 3 of them, Western, Central, and Southern, from which only the Southern was completely clear to him, while the Central and Western continents had divinity from other gods obscuring his vision. Yet, he could at least see most places without incredibly high population densities, as well as the immediate surroundings of his players. However, he could not see anything of the other two continents; Northern and Eastern. The entire continents had been completely obscured by fog. If the populated places of believers of other gods was like trying to see something far away when you have a number without the specs, the Northern and Eastern continents were completely blocked. The easter continent had a layer of white fog covering it completely from his eyes like someone putting a thin almost translucent piece of cloth in front of your eyes. On the other hand, the northern continent had a black fog covering it completely, as if someone had just gone ahead and censored it from existence. However, within this black fog, a tiny, almost non-existent speck of shape and colour was being formed slowly. Jack could see it slowly. It was a life being born. Jack did not waste any more time and sent over a system, directly integrating it with the life-form skipping the ''option'' part since it hadn''t been born yet and could not make such decision yet. At this moment, Jack nearly jumped from his position within the cage from utter shock and disbelief as he noticed the truth about the creature yet to be born. A few minutes ago, deep underground within the cave of a certain forest, a creature was both being born, and dying at the same time. It was a human that was struggling to hold onto life after it and his companions had been ambushed by another group of humans. "Die!" A yell sounded from behind the human on the ground as a sword pierced his heart and ended his life. The group of humans slowly walked across the battlefield and killed off all the survivors and before moving along to another place. A while later an unknown soul entered the body of the human that had been killed, and the body began to vibrate violently. It was at this moment that Jack had sent over his system into this unborn existence. However, the dead continued to violently thrash around like it was having a seizure for a few more minutes before settling down.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Suddenly, all the flesh just melted away from the body, leaving behind an intact white skeleton in its place, with faint blue light emanating from its empty eyes. However, it did not move for a long while. The inside of its mind was in a mess. ''Where am I? What happened to me? Why can''t I move? Why can''t I feel my body? Why can''t I see? What is happening?'' Jack noticed that there was an external soul that had taken over a dead body and been converted into some sort of undead. Seeing the confusion in its mind, Jack decided to help out a little bit. Although the little soul could not see, it had a direct connection to its soul through the system Jack had given it, and it could see the system menu within his own soul. ============ Welcome to the Survivor''s system ============ ============ I am Jack, the God of Systems. Although I am usually very busy, I am currently free, so I thought I would help out a lost little soul like yourself. ============ ''You? What? God of Systems? Where am I? am I in some sort of practical joke television show?'' Although the little soul that had taken over the dead body was just rambling on, his words caused a great deal of shock to Jack. He was now sure that this soul was not from this world, since as a god, he could see that the very laws of this world were rejecting this soul. ''Wait!'' suddenly the soul remembered something as his thoughts completely halted for a few moments. ''I died¡­'' ============ How? ============ ''I was on my way back home from work with my co-worker. On the way, we had reached a fork in the road and went in opposite direction after greeting each other a good night''s rest since our homes were in opposite directions.'' ''A while later, an extremely loud and terrifying explosion sounded from a little distance from my home, scaring everyone at home including my wife and child.'' ''Alarms were ringing and sirens were buzzing, and in the commotion, someone ran into my house with a huge sword like thing. I think I had seen it somewhere. Maybe it was a machete? Anyway, that f*cker went ahead to chop off my hand in one fell swoop, and proceeded to¡­'' At this moment, the soul stopped speaking as though in shock, disbelief and anger. Jack could feel all of these emotions and simply waited for the fragile human soul to recover before continuing. ============ So, you died? ============ ''Yes.'' ============ What is your name? ============ ''Karlos¡­ Karlos Grey'' Jack just stayed quiet for some time. ============ Hey there Karlos¡­ It is me¡­Jack¡­ ============ ''Huh? Wait Jack?!!!!'' [I think it would be better for me to talk with you directly like this instead of thought the system interface. Yes, it me Jack. The one and only. Unfortunately, not in the flesh.] ''¡­'' Karlos was shocked for a long time. Not only had he died, and been reborn into some sort of vegetative state, but his co-worker who he had just been with a while ago also seemed to be in this place, calling himself the God of systems. Reality ''So, let me get this straight. You opened the door to your house, and then exploded along with the entire house. And that must be the explosion I heard. Then your soul was transported to a white space where you suffered for an eternity before reaching some sort of enlightenment. However, the being no.1 that put you through that torture had a superior being no.2 who did not want you to replace that being no.1 in its punishment. Therefore, it threw you across the void like a baseball. The sheer speed of movement was destroying your enlightened soul with time, until you were finally killed¡­ again. However, the superior being no.2 had an even superior being no.3 who put you back together along with some ''humanity'' added into the m ix like a bloody witch making a potion with your soul. ''That Man'' then threw you to a new world full of gods and other races, and declared you the god of systems?'' [Well yes. That pretty much sums it up.] ''But that makes a problem. I just died back on Earth, like a second ago or something. I just entered a black space, but then moved a different black space which is where you are talking to me.'' [I mean, those ''beings'' were strong enough to completely reconstruct myself, so, time travel and bending time should not be too much of a problem I suppose.] ''True'' [Also, this is not a black space, it''s a skeleton] ''skeleton?'' [I suppose that this is your body for now. A dead body to be exact. You are now an undead.] ''Hmm'' Karlos had already become numb to nonsense like this, even though it was likely to be reality. It was still nonsense! [I have done some calculations; it should take another 1 hour until your soul fully assimilates with your body. Only at that point will you be able to move around. I''ll tell you about your current situation now, but before that, I need to ask you something really important.] [The person whose body you are controlling was a human called Maximus. So, what do you want to be called as? Since you are starting a new life anyways, you need to decide on your name. Maximus, Karlos, or something completely different. Chose before you fully assimilate with your body. I''ll leave you to yourself for some time. Think about it for some time and tell me.]If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. With that, Jack''s divine voice stopped speaking to Karlos'' soul and waited silently while quickly planning things. ''SPU can manage everything. He can contact me if anything actually happens.'' With s simple thought, he had sent over a few instructions to SPU, and decided to put all his focus onto Karlos, and allowing him to survive in the black mist land called the northern continent. ''I have decided Jack. Come out quick! Don''t leave me here alone!!'' [Why fear when I am here] ''Yes, yes. You are good at impersonating All Might.'' [Why thank you! Now, you name?] ''Karlos.'' [¡­Alright] ''You aren''t going to ask me why?'' [Why should I? You decided it! So, I let you stick with it. In fact, it is better this way. Your naming sense was too strange anyways.] ''Hey! My naming sense is godlier than your existence! There was a reason why they hired me as the ''Chief Naming Sergeant''.'' [Anyway~ You are now in a new world. The setting would be¡­ a cross between AS#2, WQ#43, and S1.] ''Hmm¡­ I see. Gods and legendary beings huh. And churches for the gods, while legendary beings are as strong as gods? What about the geography and nations?'' [Well, this world has 5 continents divided by a body of water that covers everything. The central continent is like a circle, with the Western continent being extremely close to it like a segment of a circle. The distance is not a lot, about the width of Italy. The southern continent is like a spike sticking out of the central continent, about the same distance away as the western.] [Then come the two continents that I cannot clearly see even as a god. Unfortunately, you are in one of these; the Northern continent. I can''t see anything here except you for reasons I do not know. The northern continent is separate by an ocean full of super-powerful monsters and creatures which normal humans cannot cross. The distance might be the same as with the other continents, but not too many people have successfully crossed over, and those that have, have never returned to the other continents.] [Last comes the Eastern continent, which is so far away from the other three, that most humans do not even know of its existence.] [That is about it.] ''Just great. I get reincarnated, like I always wanted. However, my entire family was butchered in front of me before I too was killed for that to happen. Feeling completely lost, I entered the new world as the weakest of my species, which too is an undead at that. The one hope was that my friend Jack also got reincarnated, but as a god. However, he is completely useless at anything I want to do. I feel like Thanos and Kazuma at the same time!''[1] [Hey, you know I can hear you right? And I am much stronger than anything you can imagine. So, don''t worry, I will make sure you grow properly.] [1] I felt like adding, I won, but at what cost to this, but stopped myself. Also, for those who do not get it, Kazuma is also reincarnated with a useless goddess by his side who can only make tiny water fountains as a magic trick. Emily and unknown mob noble Back in the capital of Bard, all the nobles gathered to greet the king, and officially begin the meeting. "Greeting to all the nobles who have made it here. I have called upon all of you to inform you about a few things. Recently, certain heretics wanted to overthrow the royal family and take over the nation. They did in fact seize the capital for a few days. However, we have already taken the situation under control with the help of the church of Ares. The heretics have been¡­ ''CLEANSED''. Certain noble families have also taken their fair share in this matter along with certain priests from the church itself. All parties involved have also been ''CLEANSED'', and stability should return to the kingdom of Bard. This meeting is for mourning the dead, and in celebration of a peaceful and prosperous future." As the king''s speech finished, he walked into the crowds of noble circles, and began to make small talk with them, as dictated by noble etiquette. While Mason and Don were enjoying their food in the nobliest manner possible, the noticed a female aristocrat walking towards Duke Desmon with the intention of making conversation with him. She was a rather beautiful young lady around the age of 17, with long and slightly curly light brown hair and a rather exquisite physique. She looked like the perfect match for the now 22-year-old Duke Desmon. Seeing this, Mason smiled as he thought to himself. ''She would match for him¡­'' Suddenly, Don pulled on his sleeve, which made Mason look away from the lady moving towards Desmon, and look at Don, who did not speak with food in his mouth, and just pointed discretely at a certain noble. Mason followed the finger and noticed a 25-year-old noble who was staring daggers at Desmon. Mason understood a few things within moments. This man was most likely a jealous suiter of that lady. Turning towards Desmon, Mason noticed that the two had a rather amicable relation, and seemed to be happy to be in each other''s presences. Mason understood another thing. This noble was angry at Desmon for getting to be with the young lady. Mason had a certain feeling that this noble with short black hair was going to cause some sort of problem with Desmon. "Let''s move closer to Sir Desmon." Mason whispered in Don''s ear, after which the two of them put down their plates and moved swiftly, but slow enough to not stand out, along the walls and around the entire banquet hall and finally arrived behind the food table where Desmon and the lady were standing.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. However, they just waited behind a pillar, staring outside the window in front of them, taking a few glances at the black haired noble, and any other possible threats. After a few minutes, Don and Mason notices the black-haired noble giving signals to some other people in the hall, who began to slowly move closer to Desmon without anyone noticing. Naturally, if anyone was to specifically look for this sort of change, like Mason and Don, they would have noticed this as well. As soon as the men were around 3 people away from Desmon, Mason pulled Don and quietly moved in between the men and Desmon without having the lady or Desmon notice this. "Oh, noble sirs, what can this humble servant help you with? Would you like some of the refreshments placed on the tables behind me? Shall I prepare some for you noble sirs?" The 4 men were stunned by the sudden interruption to their actions. They did not know what to say to someone who was offering to serve them as a waiter. Normally if someone had dared to block the path of a noble snob, like in most novels, the noble would arrogantly scream at them and reprimand then for blocking the path of a noble. Naturally, Mason had been taught about certain situation by the butler, who seemed to be incredibly knowledgeable about crisis that may arise at a noble''s banquet. He had given a long list of scenarios, and an even longer list of solutions for them. Such a situation was somehow included within the list, which Mason had spent a really long time to memorise. It had finally come in handy. Following the instructions, he asked if he could be of service to the nobles instead of blocking their way, preventing them from taking any action against him, and disrupt any plan that required timing. Naturally, the black-haired man had not noticed his minions being stalled by Mason and Don, and proceeded with his plan of eliminating any suitors of young lady Emily. He approached slowly, and silently spilled some water on the ground where Desmon was, making sure no one had noticed. His plan was simply to the point it was rather childish, but it had always proven useful almost in every single case. He would spill water, and when the suitor would take a single step in any direction, he would slip and fall. At that point in time, his minions would come and escort the fallen noble to the guest room with the excuse of saving the noble some face.[1] However, contrary to his expectations, the young man in front of him simply took a step backwards which somehow complete dodged the water on the floor. This was actually a complete coincidence that Desmon had done since he wanted to pull out a drink for himself and Miss Emily from the waiter behind him. With the drinks in hand, he turned around to miss Emily who could be considered his fianc¨¦ since just before his Family vanished, she was about to be engaged to him. Naturally, that process had taken a temporary stop when the incident occurred, during which point the black-haired noble had taken a fancy to miss Emily, without the knowledge of the existence of Desmon, nor his previous relation with Emily. Furthermore, Emily was already pretty close with Desmon from before the engagement proposal, and so she walked towards Desmon as he turned to face her. *Swish* Her heels slipped on the water and she stumbled towards Desmon out of the blue. [1]Yes, I used it. I did it! Face slapping and saving face have entered the chat. Chaos Heron Emily stumbled and crashed into Desmon, who was equally as shocked. Thankfully, his build was large enough to completely stop lady Emily''s momentum without falling over with her. Shocked for some time, Emily, Desmon, the black-haired mob noble, and a few others who noticed what had happened did not move or speak. A few seconds later, Emily realised what happened and her face began to slowly turn red as she was held up by Desmon. "Lady Emily. Are you all right? Did you injure yourself? Your face is red. Are you feeling unwell?" While Desmon was bombarding Lady Emily with queries of concern, and noticed the water and got angry, calling the steward responsible for the banquet. "You. Make sure no water is ever spilled again." He said coldly as he pointed at the water before escorting lady Emily to one of the guest rooms to rest. "And call for a doctor." Desmon left the steward with those words in cold sweat as he, and Emily''s parents followed her to the guest room, leaving behind a shocked Black-haired noble, and even more shocked minions. Mason and Don also gave way to the minions at this point and vanished in the crowd of nobles, following closely behind Desmon. On the other hand, Heron finally found something. It was something other than just sand. His eyes sparkled as his grin widened. In the distant horizon, a mountain could be seen. According to his sub-players, the slave base was built within a cave on the mountain.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. ''Finally, Mountain!'' Jack had heard this thought within Heron''s mind, since although SPU was managing everything, he still wanted to keep contact with his players. [Don''t be happy for the mountain! You fool, be happy for finding the enemies. And don''t be too happy. Any illegal group that has survived for a long time and has its reached across most of the Southern Continent, must have a lot of strong people. Be prepared! Make sure you make all the weak sub-players, who might be too young, too old, or unable to fight, stay behind and wait. Take only the strong and go forth!] ''Hmm, yes, we must charge'' "Alright everyone! Prepare for battle. We charge now!" [This fool. Even beastmen cannot maintain a charge for the distance that would take half a day of walking. Most of them will die from exhaustion before you even reach!] "CHAAAAAARGEEEE" Just as Jack decided to give up and return his attention to Karlos, Heron did something unbelievable for a person of his mental capacity. [Basic Holy Aura Lv 1] was activated and the stamina, speed, strength, as well as the vitality of everyone who was charging with Heron was buffed and increased by a whole level. This skill was an AoE skill which would affect all friendly troops. Naturally, it would consume some of his Aura, but not too much. Especially since the people here were not too many, and were of rather ow levels, which put very little strain on his aura reserves. Naturally, none of this was within Heron''s calculations. In fact, he did not have any calculations to begin with. Even worse, was that Heron hadn''t even intentionally activated the skill, but it activated on its own due to Heron''s sheer will do make every charge. Jack was completely speechless by this point and finally gave up. Whatever Heron did from now on was already beyond his understanding of fate and luck. Although he could forcibly change Heron''s actions, he did not want to do this. After all, this stupidity, along with the even more stupid luck that somehow constantly surrounded Heron was what made him Heron. Sighing, Jack turned his attention back to Karlos and decided to buy a few skills for him which would be beneficial for him. Skeleton Build [Alright. I have set up your build and chosen most of the important skills required to survive. I''ll give you 2000 extra exp to use for any other skills you wish to buy, or to simply level yourself up. Remember, although you are my friend, this is already a big favour I am doing to you. You still need to repay all the exp I have given to you.] [Current pending exp: 20000] [You can pay this any time before you chose your first class at level 5. Unless the situation requires it, I will not make exceptions. I will be watching over you for now, since I have someone else to take care of my other players. Come one now, quickly chose your options for the 2000 exp before you fully take control of the body, and move from this location as soon as you do take over the skeleton. Waiting in such a place would only mean trouble.] [Naturally, take some necessary gear from the dead people and leave them be.] Although Karlos was a close friend, Jack was no longer the same Jack that lived a satisfactory life back on earth. He had gone through something worse than hell to arrive here, which had changed him, even after ''That Man'' had put some of his personality and humanity back together. ''Alright'' Karlos spent another 14 minutes to finally decide and bought a skill, and then spent the rest on levelling up to Lv 4. Instantly. Naturally, his stats as a skeleton were incredibly low to begin with, so his level 5 would not even be comparable to a level 2 average human being.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ============== Survivor''s System V 1.3 Name: Karlos Grey Age: 0 (39) Level: 4 (99/100) Class: None Sub-class 1: None Sub-class 2: None Titles: None Current state: Unknown ---------------- Strength: 4(4) Vitality: 2(2) Stamina: Infinite(Infinite) Toughness: 0(0) Dexterity: 1(1) Sense: 1(1) Mana: 2(2) Aura: 1(1) Stat Points: 8 ---------------- Skills Basic Earth Bullet Lv 1 (0/100) [Uses Mana] Basic Dash Lv 1 (0/100) [Uses Stamina] Basic Healing Lv 1 (0/100) [Uses Mana] (Heals one''s self) Basic Defence Lv 1 (0/100) [Uses Stamina + Mana/Aura] (Trades one''s Mana/Aura + Stamina at a ratio of 1:10 to negate damage of a certain level depending on the lv of the skill) Basic Presence Hide Lv 1 (0/100) [Uses Stamina] (Hide''s one''s presence by concealing signs of life, aura and mana) ============== Jack had Obviously noticed the insanely broken stats possessed by Karlos, which were both good in terms of the stamina, and completely shit in terms of the rest. Therefore, he had chose the most suitable skills he could afford that used Stamina, without using too much of Aura and Mana to achieve effects. Naturally, Karlos was not satisfied, as he knew that everyone needed a hidden trump card to survive, not just regular old defence, stealth, and healing. He wanted a strong attack, and that is why Jack had given him the option to look at the option that he could by for 2000 exp. Naturally, he did not cheat Karlos of exp points, and so Karlos was able to see the true prices of the items. In Jack''s mind, Karlos was still someone he trusted quite a bit, and so had given him a few privileges. Karlos was finally satisfied with his character build despite the limitations of his race, and was not just waiting to take over the body. Banquet and Heron II Back in the banquet hall, Desmon had left Emily in the guest room along with her parents, and re-entered the banquet hall, where he met the strange gaze of a certain group. Mason, Don and Desmon all three simultaneously looked over, which was quite eerie. It was that same black-haired noble who had planned everything. Mason had already told the entire situation to Desmon by now, and he understood everything. Without hesitation, Desmon walked briskly towards the black-haired noble, followed closely by Mason and the little Don, who looked around the age of 16, but was actually only 11. Desmon walked up to the face of the noble and just stared at him for a while until the noble began to speak first. "You! How dare you insult a noble such as me!" For some reason, the man had forgotten that almost everyone present were either nobles or guards, and they were dressed rather distinctly to avoid such a confusion. Nobles were to wear flashy clothes made of expensive, or expensive looking materials, while guards and escorts were meant to wear plain black and or white clothes. Mason was also following this rule, and was wearing dull white clothes, including his shoes and tier, while Don was in all black. Mason''s own silver-grey hair went well with the white clothes, while Don''s now trimmed and combed medium-length brown hair somehow matched his black clothing. Desmon simply ignored the man and looked around for someone else. This infuriated the black-haired noble even more as he began to yell louder than before, veins bulging from his neck and his white face slowly turning red.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Desmon did not bother one bit, as Mason was blocking the bits of food and saliva flying him way using an extremely controlled wind bullet, as he himself locked onto a man that was already trying to hide himself from existence. Seeing this cowering man, Desmon called out with a smile. "Marquise Able!" The crowd who was beginning to gather around Desmon all turned their eyes to the man who seemed to be becoming smaller in size by the second. "Duke Desmon¡­" the man spoke in a shaky and soft voice; however, the black-haired man heard his father''s words extremely clearly. He instantly stopped speaking as his face froze in place. Colour draining faster than it was gathering a few moments before from his face as he came to a realisation on who the young man he offended truly was. "D- D- D- Duke!" He quickly bowed his head in apology as the matter was resolved just like that, since Desmon could not bother with idiots like them. He just wanted the noble world to know that he was finally back, and standing up for himself. The last time they had seen him, he was being ordered around by the king, following the instructions like a unsatisfied little brat. However, the way he had resolved this issue was not for the black-haired man, but actually for all the nobles around to see. It was a statement. The king and Duke Harmen exchanged looks as they began to smile unnoticeable under their long beard in satisfaction. ''The kid has finally decided to grow up¡­'' Was the thought in both their minds. Back in the southern continent, the leader of the slave traders noticed something odd. It was a huge cloud of sand rushing towards them. This would not have been odd normally, but this cloud was too small to be a natural sandstorm, and there were some figures running inside, and in front of the cloud. The problem was, that these figures had been maintaining their speed, which was equal to his own full speed, for nearly 3 hours, and were rushing straight for them. What kind of nonsensical logic was that? Even he could only maintain his top speed in bursts for a few seconds at a time. Just who was coming to attack him? Undead God The leader of the slave trader was a quick-witted beastman. Anyone wanting to survive in this kind of environment needed to have this quality or else they would simply die. Nothing more to it. He quickly thought things through ad came a decision. The speed at which the enemy was charging at was better than his own, and there were so many of them. The possibility of his ragtag group of slaver winning against this force was almost zero. He yelled loud enough for everyone to hear, prepare for enemy attack! As soon as he did this, everyone stook up and prepared their battle gear and went out the cave they were in, forming a defensive line. Once everyone was out, the leader took a few incredibly important things from all his loot and documents, and left the rest, including the slavers, and ran. He ran in the opposite direction to Heron. His plan was to use his slavers as a distraction for long enough that he can make his escape. Within around an hour, of the leader''s quick escape, Heron arrived at the foot of the mountain, and charged in. "Hey, where is the leader?" Suddenly, someone questioned from within the slavers. Hearing this, everyone quickly looked around for their only moral and actual support in this fight. However, he was nowhere to be seen. This cause complete confusion within the enemy, and some smarter ones even directly began to run away. When Heron finally reached the top of the mountain where the entrance to the base that was hidden within the mountain itself, what met him was a bunch of 40 slavers, kneeling on the ground in surrender. Confusion was plastered across his face as his troops slowly made it up the mountain, and also noticed this sight, before rejoicing, and chanting Heron''s name.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. "Heron! Heron! Heron! Heron!" And thus, began the Legacy of Heron, the brave warrior whose very name can make the enemy surrender. In the northern continent, Jack noticed all of Heron''s actions and simply sighed before putting back his attention to Karlos. He was currently in that very forest that he was reincarnated into. Since his stamina was unlimited, he could keep walking forever, however, his speed was pathetically low. Especially with the leather armour, knight''s shield and sword that he had equipped. Everything was slowing him down to the speed of an old man walking, even though he could keep this speed up forever. Thankfully, all he had to do was follow the tracks from where these people came from, and he would sooner or later arrive at the origin of the dead people. However, at this point, Jack suddenly intervened in his plan. [What will you do once you arrive? Speak to them? How? Wave to them in greetings? As a skeleton? Don''t make me laugh. And kill them? You? Lol] ''What do you want me to do then?'' [Naturally, head in the opposite direction, and kill those who attacked these men. Take revenge for your body. That way, you will naturally make enemies and friends, which will progress your new life story] ''But I don''t want to progress my story.'' [What is it that you want to do then?] ''I want to become a Lich. An Archlich at that. Any self-respecting undead will want to become this.''[1] [Sigh, you and your names. However, since you are the only undead, I have, you get to name your own future classes and species alright? But only your own. Now hurry up and kill something to earn exp. Not only do you have to increase than ungodly mana, but you also have to increase your strength and movement speed. So just kill lots, and you will have enough. Just make sure to not get into too much trouble, since no matter how much I try, it will be incredibly hard for me to come and help you. Unless I spend all my exp, I will not be able to help you. And I am sure you do not want to know how much exp that would be. You would have to slave on forever until your consciousness fades from existence, and then some to repay that debt.] ''Alright, alright. Jack, stop showing off. Just you wait. I won''t stop at Archlich. I will climb to become an Undead God and strangle you to death for this!'' [Keke! I''ll be waiting then.] A momentary pause later, the two burst out into inter-consciousness laughter. [1] Credits for this to one to the commenters. Whoever it was, please make yourself known. Thank you for the idea. ALSO, CHECK OUT MY NEW NOVEL GUYS!!!!!! I MUST ADMIT IT HAS THE BEST WRITING STYLE OF ALL MY NOVELS. ALTHOUGH THE START IS SLOW, THINGS SPEED UP AFTER A FEW CHAPTERS. https://www.webnovel.com/book/the-epoch-of-magic_19306807006106705 READ IT ON THIS LINK^ PLEASE READ IT THANKS IT SHOULD HAVE 4 CHAPTERS BY NOW Let the Hunt begin While Karlos was having dreams in his own mind, Alice was finally reaching her target. Being Lieutenant Alice, the leader of her very own battalion, Alice she had been given a mission. And that was to penetrate enemy lines and cause as much damage as possible without having many casualties herself. Since she herself was a lot more skilled at combat that strategy, and even more at noble etiquette which would be of little use to her, she was trying to come up with a plan to complete her mission. For this reason, she had called over all the squad captains, and they were all discussing on tactics. Suddenly, a word along with its description, and a signing off at the end saying [You welcome, God of Systems] popped up inside her head. Reading through it, she truly felt thankful to the god of Systems for this, and for the first time in the entire meeting, spoke up. "Guerrilla Warfare." All the gazes turned from the arguments they were having on tactics turned towards their normally silent Lieutenant. "I have decided. The one who causes the most damage while suffering the least casualties will become my second in command, a vice-lieutenant." "Also, to help you out, let me give you some advice. Use Guerrilla Warfare. What is it? Simple. It is a form of war where you give up on things like valour, bravery, and the likes, and focus solely on acting like a coward. Poisoning the enemy''s water, burning food, directly killing them while they are travelling. All of these are part of this type of warfare. The more creative you are, the more kills you can get. However, remember, I have people within and without your squads to keep the kill count, and fatalities on your side as well. No need to try and lie. Also, at the end of this mission, you will all discuss the tactics you used with each other. Remember, do not die, and if you are bound to die anyway, still do not die. Kill all the enemies, or run away, just return alive."The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. With those words, she sent off all the captains and waited for a few hours before calling her informants. These were a group of 40 soldiers she had coaxed into becoming her informants, which also included those from her previous squad. "Maintain kill counts for each squad. Maintain records of conflicts between and within squads. Help them out if you can in times of need without putting your life on the line. Remember, do not die. And remember, you families are waiting for you back at home. The families of others are also waiting at home. Try to bring back as many alive, rather than sacrificing yourself to take revenge on a few dead people." With that, all of them left silently in the dead of night within the temporary camp they had created. The next morning, Alice saw off her entire battalion to battle after hammering all the different enemy camps, friendly camps, and escape routes into every single soldier. After every one of them had left, she went back into the camp, took her spear and twin daggers, some food and other essentials, and also ran into the wilderness between their temporary camp which was now completely empty, and the enemies. While running swiftly with light steps, Alice mumbled extremely softly, "Let the hunt begin¡­" READ MY NEW NOVEL!!!!!!!! https://www.webnovel.com/book/the-epoch-of-magic_19306807006106705 I SAID READ IT!^^^^^^^ Intention to kill While the noble''s meeting in Bard had come to its end and everyone was returning home, late at night around the time of 10 pm. In the southern continent, where it had already become late night, Heron was seated on the seat of the slave trader leader, enjoying some meat as all the people following him were having a celebratory feast for taking revenge for some, and coming out alive for others. In the northern continent, Karlos had begun his long walk to mass genocide of the enemies, while in the Western continent, Alice was already in the process of the same. *Slash* Blood spurted onto the leaves in the forest as the last one of the groups of 4 that Alice had encountered lost their lives without being able to make a single sound. Naturally, she made it her mission to pick up to tags of each enemy soldier. Now that she had collected 20 tags, she went to a great hiding spot to hide away from pursuers and dug a hole in the ground, before burying the tags within. She could not bring along so many tags with her. Although the rattling sound was quite intimidating, it would give her location away too easily, which went against her fighting style which she had built over a lot of practice and battles. The fact that the ''Rogue'' Class was given to her also further enhanced this fighting style of silently killing the enemies with minimal frontal combat. Alice herself, did not feel any guilt at killing enemy soldiers, and unknown to herself, there was a cruel smile creeping up on her face as she buried the tags and moved to her next location. Although people could collect tags just like Alice, the risk in doing so for normal soldiers was just too great. While bending down, they expose their backs to any potential enemy attacks, and that was why Alice had put people in charge of maintaining kill counts. Naturally, if the soldiers were able to bring back enemy tags, they would be able to exchange that for merits, allowing them to apply for higher ranks.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Alice''s next target was clear. She was going to enter the enemy camp directly. She had received 3 new skills from her class upgrade before she received this mission. Due to the class upgrade, she was put into debt which prevented her from levelling up or buy any more skills. Therefore, she just spent her time grinding away at the skills she received from the new class. One of them was [Basic Danger Detection Lv 0] which she had levelled to Lv 2, since there was not much danger in the camp, and [Basic Inspection Lv 0] which she had somehow managed to grind all the way to Lv 5 by using it on anything and everything. Another skill was [Basic Stealth lv 0], which she had levelled up by sneaking around the camp to Lv 2. The reason this skill did not level up faster was because it used mana to keep active, and only if she remained hidden for a certain amount of tie at a go would the system consider it as exp for the skill. Her main objective for this mission, although officially was to deal as much damage as possible, in reality it was to clear all her debt of nearly 5000 exp, enough to level her up to Lv 10 and then some, all gone down the drain. However, such a mission was in fact perfect for this objective, since she had nearly full freedom to kill anyone she wished to. She quickly stripped one of the enemy soldiers and put on his armour. Although it was rather big, it somehow managed to fit her, since although er figure was quite feminine and rather appealing, she still had a lot of muscle and her build was rather large for a woman. [1] With this, she took his tag, and instead of ripping one of the two metal tags on his neck to take back, she carefully untied the rope and put it around her own neck. She then moved on to wash off the blood from a nearby stream before covering the clothes and armour in dirt. Lastly, she put on her helmet and a cloth bandana on her face to cover her rather feminine face. With this set, she moved towards the direction from where the enemies came, heading straight for the camp with murderous intentions. [1] No offence to anyone. Infiltration The morning soon turned to night, and Alice finally arrived at the enemy camp. Activating [Basic Danger Detection Lv 2], she checked the camp for anything that would make her feel danger. Thankfully, she found no such thing. Sighing in delight, she moved closer, and as she did so, she began acting like she was haggard, and running for her life. Once she was close enough to the camp, she began yelling, "Enemy attack! Enemy Attack! Save me!" Soon, she heard clanking sounds of swords and shields, as well as metal and leather armours clashing against each other, and a row of soldiers poured out from inside the slightly fortified camp. Fires were also light around the camp, lighting up the haggard figure of a lone soldier returning back the camp after having fought, and escaping, just barely saving his life. "Report!" "Tom, Reporting from Squad 12 of the battalion! Our Squad 12 was patrolling the area 2 kilometres to the north, when we were ambushed by enemies. Seeing the number of enemies, our squad leader sent me over to report the situation at the cost of his live to slow the enemies so I could make it. Please save my squad captain! Please." As the soldier said that, Tears began rolling down from his face as he kneeled and put his head on the ground. He was literally begging the other soldiers in the camp to save his captain. Seeing this scene, the soldiers were stunned for a moment, before their eyes turned red from anger. The leader of this camp also had his eyes turn red. He could see that this soldier was not willing to leave the battlefield, however, he had been ordered to do so by his captain, and had returned back without stopping for even a break along the way, running all the way back to the camp to get support for his captain and team members who were fighting with all their might.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. "Men! Prepare yourselves! We will set out in half an incense stick! [1]" Hearing this, Alice smiled while her head was bowed, the fake tears she had created by using the aroma of a fruit she had found when she had just left the base. This fruit''s aroma had a certain property to create tears for humans around it.[2] Half an incense stick was approximately an hour according to the time system that The God of Systems had given Alice, who simple remained kneeling, crying her heard out. Naturally, it was all faked. After the long period of time she had spent training, her emotions had already calmed down, resembling a calm and peaceful lake, compared to the raging river that was there before, continuously searching for its source. The few soldiers who were riled up took this poor fellow and sent him to the infirmary, where Alice spent the 30 minutes resting in a room. However, around 5 minutes before the entire squad left, the doctor had unexpectedly come into the room to remove the poor fellows armour so he could rest more easily. It was actually a rule that while you were in the battlefield, all soldiers were to wear their armour, at least the most basic leather armour in case of enemy surprise attacks. However, the leader of this camp had made an exception for the poor fellow who had run all the way back and begged them to save his friends. Alice was shocked and realised that her acting was so good that it in fact backfired on her! The doctor spent a few minutes slowly unbuckling the armour so as not to wake up the soldier, however, as soon as he fully opened the armour, he was stunned. *Boing* As soon as the chest armour was removed after he had removed the leather boots, the doctor noticed that this fellow was not a fellow man, but a woman. Unlike the Leon kingdom, where equality of women had existed due to the influence of the goddess, the Roland kingdom had no such practice. To them, women belonged at the house while the man was superior in every way. However, the poor doctor did not get time to do anything, as a powerful and swift strike landed straight onto his Adam''s apple, making him unable to do anything but choke inwardly while leaving himself defenceless to Alice. Naturally, Alice did not waste this chance and instantly struck out with her bare fists at various locations on the doctor''s body, breaking all his limbs before finally breaking his neck by twisting her legs that were tightening like a snake around his neck. *Snap* Soon, a doctor left the room where Alice was, while the poor soldier remained on the floor of the room, his armour placed back onto him. Only this time, the sleeping soldier was the dead body of the doctor, and the armour was present to cover the wounds Alice had inflicted in it, while the doctor who left was Alice. [1] Keep your head out of the gutter. I said incense, not anything else. What were you thinking I said? [2] Damned onion ninjas Killing By now, nearly 80% of all the soldiers within the base had already left, heading 2 km to the north. This was not a long distance that would make it seem unbelievable for Alice to cover, but was just long enough to give alive at least an hour''s time since almost 200 soldiers travelling in the forest with full armour would naturally slow them down greatly, and possibly even 2 hours if the leader was stupid and instead of releasing the truth he would send out his troops to search for the non-existent soldiers. Therefore, Alice had all the time she needed to clean up the remaining combatants, and finish off the nearly 150 non-combatants within the camp. Nearly half an hour later, the entire base had been filled with blood, however, not a enemy made a sound. Alice naturally did not leave the tags, and after collecting the nearly 50 soldier tags and the 150 non-combatant tags, she left the camp, also heading north, following behind the troops in different clothing as before with a new tag around her neck reading Fern. After 20 minutes of quick and silent walking, she found the soldiers split up into groups of 5, spread out in every direction. Jack, who had taken the time to look over for a second, was stunned at the sheer amount of luck this Alice girl had. ''Did Heron''s insane luck spread over to her?'' He thought o himself before turning his attention back to Karlos. While Alice began her mass decimation of enemies and picking up their loot, which was only their tag, as though she was taking a trophy of victory each time, Karlos was nearing a settlement.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. ''So now what?'' He asked Jack in his mind. [What else? Kill them. Kill as many as you can before stronger people arrive, then run away! What else?] ''So- I actually¡­'' [Hey! Stop day dreaming! You can''t even sleep of dream! Why are you zoning out then? Focus on the task! Just like you used to say, ignore everything and focus your all onto the process!] ''Hmph. Stop using my lines against me'' [Ack. I feel like I will die from cringe if I use your lines again] ''How can a god die?'' [¡­Apparently, they can¡­] ''What?!'' [Well, as you know, Gods rely on something known as divinity. Their followers believe in them, and their faith is transmitted to the gods and converted to divine power. If you take away those believers, the god dies. Naturally, even after all their believers are killed, the god will still remain alive depending on his Divine energy stores, and as long as it can gain a following again, it will live on.] [Naturally, I am different. But the concept remains the same. Without my ''users'' or as I like to call them ''players'', I would not be able to collect much Exp, which would therefore limit my existence to what it is now.] ''Alright! Alright! I get it. You are a god. Stop making things so complicated! Damn it! The world is so unfair!'' [This is not that same world we were in before. Therefore, you should say the worlds are so unfair] ''Ack.'' Karlos finally came to the decision to ignore this half god and half human-like Jack, and instead put all his focus onto killing. The first target, was naturally a little kid he found, running after a butterfly-like tiny creature towards the forest, somehow exactly where Karlos was. As soon as she was out of the sight of the villagers, without a sound, she was killed in complete silence. [This is how horror movies start] Jack commented as he was watching the full thing from the viewpoint of the ''creature'' that killed a little innocent girl. Killing more? [You have killed Lv 0 Child] [Ps. How could you?] [Would you like to merge with the soul of the victim?] ''Merge?'' [Yeah. I also just got to know you could do this. Apparently, the soul should automatically merge with you, but due to being a believer of this great being, you have been given the choice to not absorb it. Haha!] ''Is there any benefit in absorbing it? Is there any benefit in not absorbing it?'' [So apparently, absorbing it will increase your mana by 1 unconditionally. As for not absorbing it, well, nothing. You will gain nothing. However, there is a side effect that is when you absorb a soul, you must go through the entire life of the soul within an instant, which may possibly be traumatising¡­] ''Haha! Trauma? What bullsh*t is that! What could be more traumatising that what I went through, and yet, I am still here am I not? Haha'' [Foreshadowing¡­] Jack mumbled to himself. ''What was that?'' [What? How can you possibly hear me? I am a god! I was just mumbling about how forward looking your perspective on life is!] ''Alright. I chose to absorb it!'' [Sure] After a moment, Karlos suddenly felt a throbbing pain in his brain, even though his current body did not have a brain. Memories flashed by his mind just like before he was about to die back on earth, before he finally regained consciousness. [Good, good. Now, go forth my valiant steed and kill them all] ''Who is your steed huh? B*tch, come down in front of me and I will show you who is the boss!''The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. [Haha, if I come down there, the entire world will try to spit me back out. Naturally, If I spend exp, I would be able to maintain my power here, and I should at least be able to last long enough to beat you''re a*s. Haha! Should I? Naturally, I will add onto your debt.] ''¡­'' Karlos decided to ignore Jack once more and just spent his time wandering around the jungle around the village, slowly killing away the people within. A week passed just like that, and Karlos'' mana had grown enough for him to just directly barge into the village, and kill everyone using [Earth Bullet Lv 3], [Basic Dash Lv 4], [Basic Defence Lv 2], as well as [Basic Presence Hide Lv 5], successfully clearing the entire village in one fell swoop. ============== Survivor''s System V 1.3 Name: Karlos Grey Age: 3 weeks (39) Level: 4 (99/100) Class: None Sub-class 1: None Sub-class 2: None Titles: None Current state: Unknown ---------------- Strength: 5(5) Vitality: 3(3) Stamina: Infinite(Infinite) Toughness: 4(4) Dexterity: 3(3) Sense: 1(1) Mana: 34(34) Aura: 1(1) Stat Points: 0 ---------------- Skills Basic Earth Bullet Lv 3 (91/300) [Uses Mana] Basic Dash Lv 4 (12/400) [Uses Stamina] Basic Healing Lv 1 (56/100) [Uses Mana] (Heals one''s self) Basic Defence Lv 2 (51/200) [Uses Stamina + Mana/Aura] (Trades one''s Mana/Aura + Stamina at a ratio of 1:10 to negate damage of a certain level depending on the lv of the skill) Basic Presence Hide Lv 5 (231/500) [Uses Stamina] (Hide''s one''s presence by concealing signs of life, aura and mana) ============== Naturally, all the exp he earned went directly to Jack for repaying his loan. Furthermore, he had only killed 25 villagers, including children and the likes. However, before he went for the all for one attack, he had practiced his skills a lot on things like wildlife, which also gave him a few souls, but it was not as powerful as human souls, making him need 4 animal souls to give him 1 mana point. Unlike the other [Bullet] attacks, the Earth bullet was a bit too small, just barely making it the size of a grain of sand, and as the levels increase, it had grown to the size of a nail. This was naturally not enough to one shot people, much made him need a lot more shots to kill someone. Thankfully, Karlos understood how to use it effectively, and only used this to blind the enemies or strip them, while using his sword to deal the finishing blow. Naturally, in exchange for this small size the earth bullet travelled double the speed of all the other skills, and had a range double to that of the other skills. With this arsenal, Karlos finally completed clearing his first village. Join my discord server Join it now! Right now! https://discord.gg/bp5v6xHMqb https://discord.gg/bp5v6xHMqb https://discord.gg/bp5v6xHMqb https://discord.gg/bp5v6xHMqb https://discord.gg/bp5v6xHMqb Why are you screaming? However, what Karlos had realised in this time of exterminating the village, was that not a single person was an actual able-bodied youth. Not a single one of those who had attacks Karlos'' original body were present, even though their footsteps clearly showed that they had come here. Clearly, the group had only stayed at the village for a short amount of time before leaving. After searching for a little while, Karlos actually found footsteps of a large number of people leaving the village. Normally, Jack could be of help in situations like these, zooming out and looking at the situation from his ''God'' perspective. However, what frustrated Jack the most was that in this Northern Continent, he could not see anything. The only perspective he could see anything was from the first-person viewpoint of Karlos. As soon as he zoomed out, everything would become blurry and a mysterious and thick fog would cover the entire continent. Jack had a strange feeling every time he looked at this fog. It was slightly similar to the fog created in small places where the other gods'' had a lot of believers. However, it felt different to that fog. That fog was former from the belief of believers and followers accumulating into a barrier of sorts against the prying of other gods. By now, even his Kingdom of Cayden had begun forming a thin layer of fog. Naturally, this Fog was created from the believers of his own religion, and therefore was completely see-through for him, but not the same for the other gods. On the other hand, the fog that surrounded the entirety of the Northern continent, was unusual. It was not like the fog of believers, nor like any other fog. It was unbelievably thick, and contained a sort of stagnant feeling which made Jack feel like he remembered this energy somewhere. However, no matter what he tried, he could not remember where.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. He even bought a memory reclamation device from the CP shop to try and get it to remember, but nonetheless, it failed. This fog gave Jack the sense of something that went against nature. It was similar to his own existence; however, his power was not rejected by the world. On the contrary, this fog seemed to be fighting with the world itself. It felt like the fog and the world were stuck in a stalemate. The Fog could not move beyond the northern continent due to the power of the world stopping it, at the same time, this fog felt like a sticky substance which did not seem to want to get off the world. No matter what the world did, it could not get the fog out. Due to his curiosity, Jack decided to allow Karlos to follow the footsteps to continue his quest towards revenge for the body he took over as a sort of repayment for the one whose body it was, and instead called up the only other god he had friendly relations with which did not seem like they were faked. "Yes? Is the item ready?" "Tch, the only thing you can think of is that. Seriously, let me just inform you that I will mostly be unable to get it in the near future. I will have to break free of this deal, and at the very least, I would need to reach you level as a god. Then I might have a possibility of gaining that item for you." "Then what it is?" Ares spoke with slight dissatisfaction, but at the same time he understood the God of System''s situation and did not cause troubles with someone who had even opened up his base on the prime plane. In essence, the core location of a God''s location was the strongest place for developed gods like Ares who had been around for hundreds of thousands of years. However, for a God who had just recently settled down, despite how strong they themselves might be, their core location for believers was essentially their weakest point. As long as a strong enough force could attack that location, the new god would no longer have enough faith to grow, and might even slowly dissipate. "I wanted to ask about that Northern Continent" "NORTHERN CONTINENT!" Shock, Anger, and slight hints of fury could be heard in Ares'' voice as he exclaimed. "Why are you screaming?" Troublemakers "Why are you screaming?" "Ahem" Ares was clearly taken aback for a moment before giving a few dry coughs while calming down. "So, can you tell me what the matter with this place is?" "Since you were not originally part of this plane, it is understandable that you do not know." "Then stop dawdling and explain it to me." "Alright, Alright. This world, as 5 continents as you should already know." As Ares spoke through the little bit of Divinity he had left with Jack, he stopped in the middle for a moment. "Let me send over some Divinity to show you rather than explaining it." Jack just nodded and allowed a thread of divinity to enter the cage, which instantly transformed into a three-dimensional, hovering model of the prime plane with its 5 continents. However, there was something different. The Northern Continent did not have any black fog on it, and the eastern continent did not have any whit fog on it. Suddenly remembering the Eastern continent, Jack spoke before the presentation could progress any further. "Oh yes, since you are at it, also explain the Eastern continent." "Alright" Ares said casually as the image began to change. The image zoomed out of the continent, and came to the point which Jack could see everything from currently within his cage. He could see the prime plane as a ball of see-through glass which was incredibly thick, with many other smaller balls of opaque glass revolving around it like planets to a star. These smaller ones were clearly divine kingdoms of all the gods. Suddenly, a beam of black and white light were intertwined with each other appeared in the distance, moving at a speed that horrified Jack. He clearly knew that this was the speed similar to the speed that his soul had been sent flying into the void as it broke apart slowly. However, these two black and white lights did not seem to be affected by the speed at all. In fact, it could be seen that the two were actually locked in an intense clash.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. The white energy was clearly trying to escape, a strong force of destruction emanating from it. On the other hand, the black force was clearly trying to stop the white force, a strong force of restriction continuously cancelling out the white force. Thus, the two were stuck at a stalemate. Unknowingly, while the two were clashing, they flew by the prime plane, just missing it my a few thousand kilometres. However, from the viewpoint that Jack was seeing this at, that distance was nearly non-existent compared to the sheer size of the black and white energies. The prime plane looking like a tiny ant compared to the truly gigantic energies. As the two flew by, everything in their path was destroyed. Naturally, the white energy did not want this small amount of destruction, but an incomprehensibly large amount of destruction, and the black energy was clearly trying to stop it with everything it had. Although the prime plane was not destroyed, a small, tiny, almost microscopic, comparatively to the whole, amount of energy from the two energy beings, and flew into the prime plane. The thick wall of glass that is supposed to stop gods from entering without using their divinity created from faith, was as thin as paper against the two energies, which unstoppably slammed into the continents. Thankfully, the black energy of restriction fell into the northern continent, and the white energy of destruction fell into the eastern continent. The two energy rapidly spread and took over the entire continent within seconds, forming the fogs, killing any gods who had connections with the two places. However, the world itself moved for the first time since the creation of life on this plane, and it suppressed the energy from growing any more. It tried to remove the two energies, but unable to do so, it could only maintain its suppression. "And that is what happened." Ares spoke with a sigh. At that time, the gods, who called themselves the guardians and rulers of the prime plane, were unable to do anything. Many of them instantly dying, vanishing from existence to the two powers. At the time, all gods, including Ares, could only feel small compared to the two great and mighty beings whose level of existence was just as incomprehensible as the great Overlord that created everything. "It''s those two!" Jack exclaimed softly, however, to Ares, these words were like thunder. ''What? This fellow knows the two energies?'' However, a few moments, later, this indeed did seem reasonable, since the mighty being that created everything had personally announced the God of System''s existence. At this moment, unknowingly, the admiration, shock, fear, and loyalty of Ares towards this being sealed personally by the creation overlord who created everything grew much more. On the other hand, Jack''s soul trembled imperceptibly. It was indeed that [Meta*ron] and [Luc*fer], who had tortured his soul, and fought over him, before tossing him aside to that greater being who was an overlord. These two angels, who even came over to bully him a while ago. And it seemed like it was their past time to go around causing trouble everywhere, killing planes like they were ants. ''However, those planes are quite possibly even smaller and weaker than ants to those two angels from the quaternity of creation.'' Jack Mused to himself as he sighed.