《Gamer》 Chapter 1 Part 1 Returning to the upscale condo he was living in, 19-year-old Gregory Jeffrey Drake looked through the mail he had received. There were multiple checks, a bank statement, and the bills he had to pay. At his parents¡¯ requests, Gregory had started business school, learning about the benefits of owning realty and how to use the stock market. Even though they forced the business school, they had given him a sizeable sum to get him started when he turned 18. They were wealthy, but forced him to make his own way with the money they had given him. Already, he had started making money on the money they gave him. These actions on their behalf had not stopped him from being his own person though. Gregory, an avid gamer before his parents had made him fend for himself, continued his excessive gaming whenever the chance arose. To say he only enjoyed gaming would not be true, but it was one of his favorite extra-curricular activities. His high-rise condo¡¯s entertainment room was filled with various games. There was a cabinet full of board and card games, a large entertainment stand with a 70¡± HD LED TV, there were also a variety of consoles, including an NES, the original and new remake, all of the PS line systems, the SEGA Genesis, and the XBOX consoles. Some other blatantly obvious things were the large table in the middle of the room, which had a D&D board built into it, not to mention the rotating top, and the computer in the corner of the room. The computer was a custom-built desktop, with a corsair graphite series 760T case, an Intel i7-6900K processor, dual GTX-1080SLI GPUs, an ASUS Rampage V Extreme motherboard, and a Corsair AX1500i power supply. This setup came complete with an ASUS MG28UQ monitor for intense gaming. Even the average person could tell gaming was not just a passion but a way of life for Greg. In addition to this, Gregory also veered off from his parents¡¯ wishes in regard to his schooling. They wanted him to just pursue a business education, while he preferred also going for a mathematics degree. Still, so long as he continued his business degree, they wouldn¡¯t argue with it. His natural skill in mathematics was due to his skills at problem solving, and being able to quickly think through different scenarios effectively. His minors were in accounting and computer science. Gregory would be starting his sixth year in school, aiming for his Master¡¯s degrees. He was currently in his summer break for school, and basically had all summer to relax and be away from most responsibilities for a time. Gregory¡¯s personal assets were several homes near schools in the Milwaukee and Madison areas of Wisconsin, and a vast stock portfolio. His annual income was already nearly a million, but required some daily time dealing with the stock market. In fact, he made a side-business of trading stocks for other people, with a 15% of net pay for his services. This was before the condo he owned, worth roughly 1.5 million, and situated in Milwaukee. The commute for him was long, but it was something he knew there would be with a Milwaukee home going to the University of Wisconsin ¨C Madison. Gregory¡¯s appearance was the topic of controversy at the middle and high school he attended. Being pure white, with midnight black streaks, his hair was always thought to have been dyed, or bleached, by the teachers. He styled his hair in a short spiky look, the thickness making it hard to see his scalp even though it was so short on the sides and back. His body was slim, but he had enough muscle for everyday activities. He had a decent tan, mostly from walks and biking in the area. Greg also had a well-proportioned body, though his head was slightly larger than the average person¡¯s. Gregory sat down calmly in the chair he had in front of the TV, imagining what life would be like as a game. There would be a combination of magic and technology as it stood currently, though he wondered which would be more powerful. Still though, he doubted the authenticity of that kind of world. It would be too fantastical, a place that every gamer and fantasy lover could only dream of. He had just gotten a new game, one based on a dungeons and dragons world, but with added skills, unknown but very high attribute/status caps, anda few other systems that Dungeons and Dragons lacked. After a few hours of playing this new game, a message in the game wassent to him, much like a notification, that gave him a yes/no question.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Do you want to take your game to the next level? (Unique Instance)
YES NO
After answering yes, the game fizzed out and the system turned itself off. Gregory tried turning it back on, but the on indication on the controller kept blinking instead of turning the system on. He got up intent on finding out why the system wouldn''t turn on, but had a fainting spell and fell to the ground. It seems that he was out for just a minute, and then he shot back awake. He moved rapidly toward the bathroom, checking himself in the mirror, but was shocked to see an identifier above his head. The identifier was a semi-transparent black color with white lettering, and it read ¡°Gregory Jeffrey Drake - Level 1.¡± He looked in awe and shock at what he saw, and wondered if this was real or not. There was one thing though that got to him, everything seemed too normal for it to be a dream. Greg remembered having dreamt magical dreams before, and all of them were mystical, this was already too normal to be something like that. He was about to turn to head to the door, when he saw a window that looked like the identifier window pop up in his field of vision.
Accept the Tutorial Quest?
YES NO
Gregory hesitated, then thought to himself ¡®Of course I should accept, there could be rewards, and if this is really real, it would probably help to have a grasp on what everything is. So, yes¡¯ as he started to move, the YES light blinked, and the window vanished. ¡®So, it is thought activated, not just touch activated, that could really save some time and curious looks when using it outside.¡¯ Another window popped up shortly thereafter, notifying him of his first task.
Open the Status Window
¡®Status Window?¡¯ At that moment, the window appeared in his vision, a mostly opaque white color, with black lettering.
Name Gregory Jeffrey Drake
Age 19
Level 1
Class N/A
Unique Class Gamer
Race Human
Title N/A
CON 13
STR 6
AGI 11
INT 20
WIS 70
PER 50
LUK MAX
Passive Skills Life in a Game, Passive Luck
Traits N/A
Feats N/A
Once again, the notification window appeared in view, alerting him to the next step of the quest.
Open the Inventory
¡®Inventory¡¯, and just like that, the window once again appeared in view, slightly over the top and skewed down and to the right of the status window. It was also an almost completely opaque white, with black cells for the squares where items would likely be stored. ¡®Status Window,¡¯ and the status window left Greg¡¯s field of view, centering the inventory. It was an empty 7x7 window, except that it said $100,000 in the bottom left corner. ¡®Looks like the system gave me some money too, but I will probably need to spend it in cash format. Money normally doesn¡¯t just magically show up, and unless it is stored offshore people will wonder where I got it from.¡¯ Another two notification windows appeared, popping up to let him know something.
You have made a wise insight into the inventory menu, +2 WIS.
Store an item to move on in the tutorial.
Gregory grabbed his toothbrush, and touched it to the inventory window, watching it basically swallow the item into the first open square at the topmost left spot. ¡®Amazing, I wonder if I feel the weight of items in this inventory, or if it acts as a portable hole in that it really doesn¡¯t have any weight. Chapter 1 Part 2 Mentally dismissing the windows, another popped into view, another notification window to update him on quest progress.
Must you really question everything? STORE A BIGGER ITEM TO MOVE ON!
¡®Definitely not a game, at least not one I could imagine. No computer I have ever encountered has attitude, and that is what I¡¯d imagine a game to be played on.¡¯
YEAH, I¡¯M NOT A COMPUTER, JUST MAKING THINGS AS SEAMLESS AS POSSIBLE FOR YOU! AUGHH!
¡®Sorry, didn¡¯t mean to offend you¡­ right, store a heavier item to move on.¡¯ Gregory scanned the area before moving into the kitchen and lifting one of the chairs up to the inventory. To his surprise, it absorbed the item, but adding no weight as he had originally hypothesized. Again, a notification window appeared, notifying him of something.
You are behind everybody else now, thank you very much. Just open your skills.
At this point, laughter filled Gregory¡¯s head, not just from one source, but from at least ten. In a laughing, almost joking tone, a voice filled his head. ¡®Should you survive this¡­¡¯ Pausing, it returned to a more serious tone of voice, ¡®you will receive the FTH attribute, normally preserved exclusively for Paladins and Clerics. You will soon find out why this is all happening, along with everybody else when you are ready.¡¯ The voices vanished, except for the new ding to let him know of his ongoing quest notification. ¡®Skills,¡¯ and the window opened, revealing the two he already knew he had and a ¡°Riftwalker¡± skill.
Life in a Game
Type Passive
A gamer¡¯s mind is on another plane, immune to any effects on it. A gamer¡¯s body cannot permanently die, just respawn you at the latest save point. Downsides? When did you last save?
Passive Luck
Type Passive
The universe secretly works in your favor, but push your luck and everything can go in reverse.
Riftwalker
Type Active
Cost 10M, 10S
Use the rifts to travel between the game world and reality. You can return at any time by using riftwalker to get the riftwalk out of there.
Any other questions of me before moving on?
¡®What do the different stats do?¡¯
A good question at least.
CON
Increases life energy, improving stamina and health. This has half effect on the pools of health and stamina, but also completely governs health regen. Also, improves natural resistance to diseases and poisons that would otherwise affect your body.
STR
The amount of weight you can carry, how powerful physical attacks with medium to large close-range weapons are, and determines half of your health pool. Determines the amount of natural protection the body possesses, due to the strength of muscles and body parts acting as a determiner for how strong the body is. Determines the power of acrobatics as well, how far you can jump or move yourself with them.
AGI
How fast you are, from fine movement reflexes to overall speed, governs half of your stamina pool, and the stamina regen rate. This also governs the gracefulness of acrobatics, and how easily you can avoid damage from falls. Finally, damage done with small weapons and bows are increased with this stat.
INT
How intelligent a person is, determines memory and speed of thought. Governs a person¡¯s mana pool and how powerful their magic is. The more potent a person¡¯s magic, the more a shield can absorb, and the more a damaging spell can do damage.
WIS
Determines the ability to understand complexities. What is learned with intelligence, is applied to other areas with wisdom. Determines the rate at which Mana recovers.
PER
Increases the rate at which the world is understood and viewed at. Ability to find irregularities and inconsistencies in the world, such as traps and secret areas. The higher this is, the easier it is to find those inconsistencies, and tell whether they would be a beneficial or harmful irregularity.
¡®Know all this about my status window, what does my unique class mean about me?¡¯
Unique Class Gamer
A gamer is a person who has a love for games. As a class, the gamer is not constrained to one class, just like a true gamer is not constrained to one character. They are also not constrained to just the skills of their classes, and can pick up the skills of other unique classes. To gain these skills though, they must be able to understand how a skill works when used and what the skills do when used. One downside, is that this unique class has no true skills of its own, and will often be weaker compared to other unique classes until it has mimicked a few, or mastered at least one.
¡®My unique class is strong then, but means I must do immense training to make up the difference between others and myself. From the wording, it seems as if even having and using multiple later level standard classes couldn¡¯t overcome the benefit of a strong unique class. It also seems to be so, even if their standard classes skills are at an earlier level and they know how to use their unique classes skills well. Just leveling up will not be enough to protect me from potential threats that other people could attempt to put me in.¡¯
For the understanding and insight into how your class works, you have been granted 2 WIS.
¡®Interesting, it seems that everything is very game-like. It also rewards me for observations and other actions that are dictated by my skills. With that reasoning, I could more easily level up STR and AGI with training, than if I were to level them up with status points.
I don¡¯t plan on killing you anymore, but there are a few things we need to go over before you can move on.
Traits
Traits can be picked every five levels. They give small, specific bonuses to varying areas, the number of traits is near limitless, as the number of areas you can have improved are near limitless, and can also have different bonuses for the same area. There are unique traits that can be obtained, and will be automatically granted when obtained.
Feats
Gained for an accomplishment, basically the achievement system from a video game. These give bonuses to different areas as well, depending on how they were obtained. These bonuses can be very small, or a little larger, depending on the average difficulty of obtainability, and how unique they are.
Titles
Gained for meeting certain requirements, they grant small bonuses, usually to damage against certain monsters or to other specific actions, only works for the equipped title.
Feat ¡°The Wise One¡± obtained for having the highest WIS at the end of the informational tutorial.
Feat ¡°Perceptive¡± obtained for having the highest PER at the end of the informational tutorial.
Feat ¡°Lucky¡± obtained for having the highest LUK at the end of the informational tutorial.
¡®Informational, does that mean the tutorial is only partially completed? What if I want to know more?¡¯This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
You can always use the windows to get information, I am only here for the informational portion of the tutorial quest.
Gregory was teleported to a location in a large medieval looking city, and realized that it was likely one of the locations in Realm of Heroes, the video game he was playing when this started. There were some significant differences though, in Realm of Heroes, the cities were all pristine. This city was crumbling, many buildings had significant erosion, while some had completely toppled, and others were obviously just rebuilt. While many of them would probably use the appearance to think it was Realm of Heroes; Gregory knew that wherever they were, Realm of Heroes was designed to look like a ¡°perfect¡± version of this place. ¡°Many of you are likely wondering where you are. This planet is called Tirax Barden, it is a place filled with magic, the magic which is seeping into your world through the rifts, and by which you all gained the abilities you have. In case you haven¡¯t already guessed, there are monsters in this world, and while you are here the riftwalk magic will protect you. Getting within 5% of your max health will auto-teleport you to your own world, unless you choose to stay here. Know though, that if you die here, you will die. This is real, and even though magic exists, it will not save you if you are not careful. Also, since you are all here now, let me update your status windows to include the Health, Stamina, and Mana denotations. You are all truly something more than human now, so know that you will be the first line of defense for humanity when the two worlds have merged after the rifts have covered the entire planet. By the way, only you can travel between rifts, nothing from this side is capable, and no other regular humans can. Outside this area are sheep, deer, and boars. You can kill them for experience, or return to your home world. Either way, ¡®Earth¡¯ is in danger. The rifts will grow in size, and once they all meet, these two worlds will merge and become one. All the creatures and life from this world will transfer over to yours, while you will keep just about everything else from your world. This does mean that many of your cities will probably be somewhat destroyed, especially since the fauna from this world will be transferred over as well. Once the transfer has finished, everybody from your world will be as you are now, but they will not have the luxury to train themselves on weaker creatures to grow stronger, they will be fighting whatever is around them.¡± ¡®Status Window¡¯
Name Gregory Jeffrey Drake
Age 19
Level 1
Class N/A
UniqueClass Gamer
Race Human
Title N/A
Health 104/104
Stamina 134/134
Mana 220/220
CON 13
STR 6
AGI 11
INT 20
WIS 81
PER 55
FTH 10
LUK MAX
Passive Skills Life in a Game, Passive Luck
Feats The Wise One, Perceptive, Lucky
Traits N/A
¡°To make things more interesting, you are all also capable of viewing the strongest person in each stat. To bring this up, simply think of the title of the stat, and then Rankings. That will show the top 10 in every individual stat. Otherwise, Overall Rankings will show the top 10 overall. You can use these to figure out who to team up with, or simply as a way of knowing where you stand in the grand scheme of things. Now, before you all get started with hunting the local wildlife, know that they are limited, and also that your world will not take care of itself while you are here. I¡¯d recommend heading back to get affairs in order before returning here. Of course, some of you will not need to, but for those that do, I¡¯d recommend getting it done. Well, it is your life, and your world that is at risk. Take care, and do what you can to protect them.¡± When this being stopped talking, many of the others around Gregory panicked, heading back to their families, jobs, and other responsibilities. ¡®If they take the time to do things over there, they will fall behind us, and need to go out further to hunt. The question is, how do we hunt with what we have? Is our money good here, do they give us free weapons? Maybe a money exchange is possible¡­¡¯ ¡°By the way, for those of you still here, please select a class, out of those available based on your stats anyways.¡± Gregory saw a window appear before him, it listed six magical classes, and three classes in what seemed to be an agility area. Looking through them, Gregory noticed two that seemed to stand out above the rest. There was a wizard and sorcerer class, and Gregory checked the info on each one. From what he saw in the information, the wizard used elemental magic, while the sorcerer had access to raw magical energy for attacks. Both had the same stat focuses, of which were INT and WIS, but the wizard focused on WIS, while the sorcerer focused on INT. Gregory decided that he had to pick the wizard, it fit best with him, and seemed it would allow him to grow strongest fastest. After having picked the class, he could feel information rushing his mind, and the clothes on him transformed. He was now wearing a blue elementalist robe set, was wielding a wooden staff, had a dagger on his side, and had full knowledge of a flare, bolt, and slice spell. ¡°As you may have guessed, whoever left early didn¡¯t get to pick a class. This is intentional, they will instead be granted one upon returning that best fits their base abilities. You may wonder why that is any different from what you had. Well, we take more into account than offense when considering a class, we also take defense heavily into account. This means that you were able to pick out of all the classes we would have possibly considered for you, instead of being granted a class that we feel best keeps you safe. Now, get out there, and get hunting.¡± Gregory started running, while at the same time opening his inventory. It seemed his normal clothes were there, so there was nothing to really worry about. He just had to fight to grow stronger until this area was cleared. When Gregory got outside the city, he saw a massive field, filled with exactly what the voice had told them they¡¯d find. Gregory began channeling his slice and flare spell, he could feel the energies building up in him, and then he threw them together in front of him and toward a group of sheep. What happened was far more than he could have imagined though. When the two spells collided, they created a massive fire that was rushing toward that area. In just a moment, the entire area he had intended to attack was in flames, the sheep and deer in that area were running wildly, before they died inside the small inferno. Another window appeared before him as notification to another one of the benefits of this magic.
Looting of these corpses is optional, do you wish to do so now?
Yes No
Would you like to activate auto-loot? It will loot all opponents until the inventory is full.
Yes No
You have gained two levels, status has been improved, and stat points awarded.
Multi-Casting has gained 83% toward Level 1
As people killed their first opponent, many stopped, and Gregory was no exception. A window appeared to everybody, letting them know that the tutorial was completed.
The tutorial has been completed, you are now ready to go out hunting on your own, for you are now on your own. Good luck to you all.
For those of you with FTH, you can still get ahold of us, now go on and hunt.
Chapter 2 Part 1 After accepting the ¡°windows¡± he had seen, Gregory seemed to ¡°wake up¡± as if from sleep on the floor.
I know, I told you all that you would spend time in this realm when over in the realm you were just in, but that is only after this moment. Now, you must find a rift and walk to it if you want to get back to the other world. You will be drawn to the nearest rift, so get there if you want to become stronger.
For going above 75 WIS, you have gained additional information on the abilities you possess. Updated areas include Stat Information and the ability to see skills that you have progress toward obtaining.
¡®Stat Information¡¯
Updated information will show now.
WIS
Determines the ability to understand complexities. What is learned with intelligence, is applied to other areas with wisdom. Determines the rate at which Mana recovers. Higher wisdom gives more information on the mechanics of how things work with the new world you have. Every 25 WIS increases stat growth by 1 point, up to 10 every level. You currently gain 8 stat points every level.
¡®Stat Information, Feat List¡¯
The Wise One
You have 10% increased WIS for having the highest WIS.
Perceptive
You have 10% increased PER for having the highest PER.
Lucky
You have 10% increased LUK for having the highest LUK, you have an extra 10% chance for things to work out for you due to having MAX LUK.
¡®Feat List, Skill List¡¯
Life in a Game
Type Passive
A gamer¡¯s mind is on another plane, immune to any effects on it. A gamer¡¯s body cannot permanently die, just respawn you at the latest save point. Downsides? When did you last save?
Passive Luck
Type Passive
The universe secretly works in your favor, but push your luck and everything can go in reverse.
Riftwalker
Type Active
Cost 10S, 10M
Use the rifts to travel between the game world and reality. You can return at any time by using riftwalker to get the riftwalk out of there.
Flare
Type Active
Level Novice 2(29%)
Cost 10M
Create a small sphere of fire, it will move toward the target location once released. The longer the gathering time, the stronger it gets.
Bolt
Type Active
Level Novice 1(0%)
Cost 10M
Create a small blast of electricity, it will flow toward the target location. Power increases with gathering time.
Slice
Type Active
Level Novice 2(29%)
Cost 10M
Create a thin blade of wind, moves quickly toward the target location. Longer gathering time will increase the power.
Identify
Type Active
Level Novice 1(0%)
Cost N/A
See the information of the world around you. The higher the level, the more you will find out. Previous knowledge can influence what is seen through this as well.
Multi-Cast
Level 0(83%)
Financier
Level 0(97%)
¡®Skill List, Status Window¡¯
Name Gregory Jeffrey Drake
Age 19
Level 3
Class Wizard
Unique Class Gamer
Race Human
Title N/A
Health 123/123
Stamina 156/156
Mana 260/260
CON 13
STR 6
AGI 11
INT 20
WIS 81
PER 55
FTH 10
LUK MAX
Passive Skills Life in a Game, Passive Luck
Feats The Wise One, Perceptive, Lucky
Traits N/A
Unspent Stat Points 16
Unspent Trait Points 1
¡®Learn Trait¡¯ What appeared before him though, was a list of thousands of traits. There were traits for different stats to increase their level, though some required another trait to obtain. Other traits had the effect of giving a small boost that status, the ability to increase health, stamina, and mana. Some traits gave very small resistances to damage. Other traits were there to make people look better, allowing them to basically be new people. Then, there was a small group of traits, three of them, that would increase stat points gained on level-up.
Trained
One extra Stat point every 3rd level.
Educated
One extra stat point every 2nd level. Requires and replaces Trained.
Boosted
One extra stat point every level. Requires and replaces Educated.
As he picked trained, there was an additional point added to his unspent stat points. ¡®Add unspent points to WIS.¡¯ As he thought this, a window appeared in his vision, letting him know something.
WIS has reached or surpassed 100, you have reached one of the requirements for the Library of the Ancient Ones.
Reverse Engineer passive skill has been granted for reaching 100 WIS.
¡®Reverse Engineer Details¡¯
Reverse Engineer
Type Passive
Through dismantling, your understanding allows you to use what you have learned. This is restricted to what is possible with you and your class.
¡®Seems I can really grow stronger with this, especially if I can figure out how other¡¯s skills and classes work using this skill. What does it mean by dismantling though? It is impossible to dismantle a class or skill, which means it would be almost useless for me to ever use this skill. Perhaps dismantling is broader term than that. Perhaps it is using the word as a synonym for taking apart, which would mean I would just need to completely understand how an ability is used. If that is the case, perhaps I could create my own spells in the elements of fire, lightning, and wind. It would also mean I need to see what other people are doing, and see if I can get an understanding of it. Still, better head out and find that rift. I can feel a pull toward it.¡¯ Gregory changed his clothes to something more comfortable. He removed his suit, putting on a pair of loose black cotton pants, a black cloth belt with a stainless-steel buckle, a white performance shirt with a collar that went to the top of his neck and sleeves that came half-way down his forearms, a loose black cotton jacket with a collar that reached a little above the performance shirts collar, and pair of white athletic shoes. Heading out now, Gregory decided to walk instead of use his car to go out. He had nothing here to worry about, since the entirety of his payments were set up on automatic withdrawal, he had money coming in from rent and the stock market directly to his bank account, with only a few random checks ever coming to him. Many other people likely had to do some work to get themselves prepared to leave, Gregory just wanted to change before he left. As he neared where the rift should be, he saw people jumping from a two-story building toward where the rift should be. Of course, the four-story building on the other side would be easier to reach it from, but then even the dumpster they had moved wouldn¡¯t break their fall enough to prevent broken legs. Gregory dismissed this fear though. He wasn¡¯t going to waste time trying to reach it. He went into the four-story building, and felt the rift to be on the same level as the third story of the building once he got there. Getting to the top of the building, Gregory looked down at where the rift would be below him. ¡°Now or Never.¡± Moving toward the center of the building, Gregory got a start so that he would pass through where the rift should be. As he entered the rift, he felt as if he was weightless for a moment, before he found himself standing on an open field. In the field were hordes of sheep, deer, and boars. ¡®Inventory¡¯ Removing the robes and boots from there, Gregory took off his own shoes, putting on the wizard boots, and then the robes, sash, and hat. He also removed the staff from the inventory, and then closed the inventory. ¡®Let¡¯s see if I can replicate what I did earlier, fire and wind. I need to combine them at some point away from me, and make sure to keep the mana¡¯s separate and distinct inside my body.¡¯ As he recast what he had done earlier, it resulted in a small explosion at his location, bringing his health down to 73. ¡®One more time, focus, I did it before I can do it again. Please work¡¯ As he did it again, the spells flew out from his hands, combining before reaching the area where the deer were. Once again, it created a small inferno across the ground, killing the deer in the area. This time though, it killed more animals and he still gained two more levels.
You have gained the skill Multi-Casting.
You have gained the skill Flame Engulfment.
You have gained two levels, 18 Stat Points gained, Status has been improved.
You have gained the Title Coward.
You have gained a Trait point.
¡®Dismiss windows, view Flame Engulfment and Multi-Casing details. Learn Trait Educated¡¯
Flame Engulfment
Type Active
Level Novice 1(0%)
Cost 30M-200M
Covers a target area in a strong flame. The target area can be larger or smaller depending on the wishes of the user.
Multi-Casting
Type Passive
Level Novice 1(35%)
Can cast 2 skills at the same time, using up to 10% of the body¡¯s mana with perfect success.
Gregory grinned viewing these, he was getting visibly stronger, and it seemed that flame engulfment would be a good way to kill these sheep, deer, and boars in a very quick way. ¡®Flame Engulfment¡¯ The flames multiplied, he had cast it at max mana use, and it was visibly cooking all the creatures as they were dying. When others arrived, using the same way Gregory had to get here, they looked in shock at the flaming field that lay before them. All the potential experience they could have gained was gone, all to one person to boot.
You have gained a level, 9 Stat points acquired, Status has been improved.
¡¯23 stat points to WIS¡¯
You have gained 2 levels, 21 stat points acquired, Status has been improved.
You have gained a level, 11 stat points acquired, Status has been improved.
Single-handedly clearing an area has granted you a level, 10 stat points gained, Trait point gained, Status has been improved.
You have obtained the title Super Coward
For reaching level 10, you can no longer gain experience from killing non-hostile creatures.
All these people looked in horror at what lay before them. They had no chance at using easy leveling anymore, one person had removed that chance from them all. They knew they could have used the other building to get here sooner, but they refused to even consider it until whoever this was had done it. They thought there would be plenty of chance to level up, but it seemed that this person was a strong magic user. ¡®Learn Trait Boosted, Stat Points Remaining, Title List¡¯
Unspent Stat Points 48
Coward
The killing of non-hostile creatures has granted you the title coward, you coward.
Super Coward
The mass massacre of non-hostiles has granted you notoriety as a Super Coward.
¡®Close all windows, 23 points to WIS¡¯A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Gregory began walking, but was huffing every step of the way. He was very annoyed; the titles were mocking him. On top of that, the others were upset that they had lost the chance to even train themselves, all because the first person in was ¡°too strong¡± for them to kill any of the starting creatures. They didn¡¯t want to end up roasted trying to fight Gregory either. Gregory though was walking into a wood, one that called out and frightened at the same time. In his current state though, he was too focused to think about that. He just wanted to find a way to lose the coward titles. They didn¡¯t seem to give any bonuses, and would in fact cause him notoriety as one to prey upon the weak. What Gregory missed as he walked though, was that there were sets of worried eyes following him. He was walking into a forest of ents, and straight toward a young dark ent. Even though they were nowhere near as strong as a full-grown ent, young ents were still not weak. An ent was only weak to heat, and even then only after its water reserves were used up. There was a moan, a long dark moan, from what sounded to be a male voice. Gregory started running for it, but then saw nothing except for a lone tree where he thought the voice came from. At that point, the tree started moving, moving a limb to hit Gregory. He barely dodged, rolling on the ground to escape the attack. He used flare, in combination with slice, but even that hardly damaged the creature. He kept on using it though, while simultaneously doing what he could to avoid getting killed. On the seventh cast together, the ent finally showed some damage, it started panting as if being dried up. At the same time though, his excitement led to him getting slammed by the creature, and he took what felt like a log swung at his chest. Instead of using flare with slice again, Gregory used Flare with Bolt this time. The attack did visible damage, and there was smoke seeping from the ents mouth. It seemed the lightning caused a piercing injury to the ent due to its dryness, and the fire had gotten inside. If he could just stay away now, he may be able to win while keeping it dry. Of course, he was running between small areas when possible, but he also had to make sure it couldn¡¯t rejuvenate itself, so Gregory was stuck being less safe than he wanted to be. He again performed a combination of flare and slice, trying to keep the ent dry to prevent it from getting rid of the fire inside. At this point, the creature was roaring at him. It had gone insane, and wanted him dead. It was also leaking moisture at the feet, keeping Gregory casting while running to prevent it from healing. As he ran, he fell over a log, the ent slamming him with one arm. He could feel that it had done some damage to him. His leg felt like it had been hit by a falling log, not to mention that he had visibly done substantial damage to the robe he was wearing. Gregory was nearly out of mana now, but knew that his last chance would be another combination of flare and bolt aimed at the creature¡¯s head. As he cast the spell, the ent raised its arm and pulled its body back. Just before the ent could bring its arm forward though, Gregory¡¯s attack pierced its head, causing it to fall backward.
For killing a creature double or more your level, minimum 10+ levels above you, you have obtained the feat Kingslayer.
You have gained the title Fearless for beating a creature 10+ levels above you.
Coward and Super Coward titles have been removed for your bravery.
You have gained 5 levels, 55 stat points, a trait point, and your status has been improved.
You have gained 2 levels, 22 stat points, and your status has been improved for such a feat of power.
Special Item Dark Lifegem obtained for killing a dark ent.
¡®Kingslayer details¡¯
Kingslayer
Only a few kingslayers exist, they are those that have single-handedly taken out a being much stronger than themselves. For accomplishing such an impossible feat, they are obviously stronger than their level suggests. They have +5 to all final stat values.
¡®In my case, I was luckier, I don¡¯t think I was stronger. I am probably wiser though too, which may have helped.¡¯ Gregory left the forest, limping out of it as quickly as he could to prevent himself from having to fight another ent. When he finally made it out, he saw that the field was empty, they must have walked further to try to find some other enemies. Or, there was a run-down city in the distance, perhaps they went that way for help. It was hard to tell, it had been some time since he had entered the woods, and the area was hilly. They could have made it to the city, or be behind a hill on the way. Any other direction, and they could be behind any number of hills trying to find something to hunt. Gregory decided to go toward the city though, it was the best chance at finding information about this world, and find out where he may be able to go to fight other creatures. As he headed toward the city, Gregory saw a mountain of wolf corpses on the way, he also saw the group of people he had left behind when he headed toward the forest. Now though, they seemed to be much stronger. Looking at them carefully, Gregory tried to figure out what their specialties were. There were about four people there. One more than he had seen on the building earlier trying to get in. One was a sorcerer, one a cleric, and the other two were wearing armor and wielding medium to heavy weapons. Since they seemed to be stronger now, Gregory decided to check the rankings, trying to determine how much of a threat they would be. Viewing the rankings for stats, he saw that he was on top of the WIS and PER charts by quite a margin. After him, the numbers for WIS and PER were 31 and 15 respectively. In LUK, the stats were varying, though the next highest was 173. Viewing STR, AGI, and CON though, Gregory knew that this group probably had some of those. The highest had achieved 109 in STR, and there were a few others with 100s as well. In AGI and CON, the highest were a 49 and 72 respectively. The next highest numbers in these though were only in the upper teens, which were still good, but nowhere near frightening. FTH surprised Gregory though, there was another MAX there, which to Gregory represented a threat. For INT, the highest was a 115, followed by a few 70s, and then Gregory¡¯s 25, which was followed by upper teens in the stat. The rankings also didn¡¯t show the name next to the stat, only what it was. This was probably for personal protection, so some people weren¡¯t made more of a target for parties or being attacked. ¡¯37 points to PER, 35 points to INT, 12 points to CON, 14 points to AGI, 4 points to STR¡¯
100 PER has been reached, you have reached a second requirement for Library of the Ancient Ones.
For reaching 100+ in PER, the skill Observant has been granted.
¡®Observant details¡¯
Observant
Type Passive
The user can make out anything they can see. This could be as broad as seeing the fine details in body movement, to the flow of mana and how it comes together. This ability improves the eyesight to the degree that they can view how mana is controlled and even the smallest movements in muscle.
¡®I can use it with Reverse Engineer. If I can see, or feel everything, I can figure out how it works and learn to use it myself. This is a really amazing ability to have, I should definitely work on getting into a group now. I am strongest when I can be as diverse as possible, so I need to train with others to gain new skills and abilities.¡¯ Gregory had decided to get closer to that group, trying to see if he could learn anything from them. For the most part, they were too far away, but there were a couple of skills he could see well enough to get the idea of. Healing and Mana Bolt were the spells he had seen used, healing was visibly something not just mana, so he shaded his mana with his FTH, and he could feel it lighten. Eventually, the mana had the same color as the mana he had seen used for the heal spell. Once it got to that color, Gregory was mixing larger portions, and instead of releasing it out of the hand, used it internally to heal himself. He could feel his leg mending itself, as well as all the smaller cuts and bruises mending themselves. It was a slow process, but he could feel it working. After about two minutes, the damage had all repaired itself and he could move normally again.
The skill Self-Healing has been learned through experimentation.
Self-Healing
Type Active
Level Novice 1(0%)
Cost 30M, 10S
Mana is transformed to give it healing properties, and then kept within the caster to be distributed. This spell can heal almost any wound, but takes a variable amount of time depending on the injury.
Healing
Type Active
Level Novice 1(0%)
Cost 20M, 10S
Mana is transformed to give it healing properties, and then released into a target through the hands by touch. This spell can heal almost any wound, but takes a variable amount of time depending on the injury.
It seemed that it had also given him the healing skill, but not the cleric class, which probably meant there were other skills to that class. On the other hand, he also wanted to attempt conventional mana. He took from his energy pool, and then started channeling that straight to his hand in the form of a bolt. At the same time, he was channeling mana, while spiraling it, into a sphere in the other hand. Before long, both spells took form and shape in his hands. ¡®I can definitely use this to make them think I am a Sorcerer.¡¯
You have learned three(3) new skills.
Mana Bolt
Type Active
Level Novice 1(0%)
Cost 10M
Mana is formed as an arrow in the hand, which can then be fired from the hand at higher speeds than a sphere due to the size and shape in comparison to most other forms. This form is for optimal piercing power and is a piercing magical attack.
Mana Sphere
Type Active
Level Novice 1(0%)
Cost 15M
Mana is given the shape of a sphere, with a rotation on it to improve explosive power. This attack most causes magical concussive damage.
Mana Manipulation
Type Active
Level Novice 1(0%)
Cost VAR
Mana can be controlled by the caster to form their own spells. Must use their imagination to create spells, and the power can only be limited by imagination and the personal limitations of the caster.
For learning all the spells associated with a Sorcerer, you have unlocked a new class.
For overusing and abusing luck, Massive Luck Curse has been added to you. It will last 24 Hrs.
When he checked his LUK after that, he saw that it was the same as normal, but with a 110 in parentheses. It seemed he still had good luck, but nowhere near enough to do anything stupid like had just happened with the ent. He also knew that he wouldn¡¯t survive 24 hours as he currently was out here, at least not alone anyways. He walked to the opposite side of the forest that he had entered, and then was heading toward the party that he believed to be the one he had left behind earlier that day. As he neared them, the one that he could tell was the highest level amongst them paused, and then looked toward Gregory. As Gregory neared, he began walking toward Gregory as well. This man was probably in his 40s, gray streaking the black on his head, and his bear was totally black. He was tanned, and with a strong frame, and probably a little over six feet tall. He was wearing a suit of thin plate armor made of what looked to be iron, with a medium sized iron round shield, and what was probably an iron war axe as well. ¡±What kind of skills do you have? We could always use another magic wielder though.¡± ¡°I am a Sorcerer, I mainly use the raw form of magic and manipulate it to my desires.¡± ¡±Good, we almost thought you were a wizard. There was a wizard I thought looked like you from the back, but he was a freaking coward. That guy wouldn¡¯t have robes as destroyed as yours. Anyways, he took a whole load of sheep, deer, and boar for himself. I bet he is weaker than us now though. The wolves we killed were way stronger, and really boosted us quickly as a whole party. How about you join us though, it would be a good way for you to grow stronger without having to worry about a powerful creature coming and attacking you alone¡± ¡®I see what he does, he uses words to influence people. He is good at it too, and probably could have organized all these people. I wonder if he has a unique class, though I guess the only way to know for sure would be to ask him. If I ask him though, he would likely find out I have one as well.¡¯ ¡°I¡¯ll join the party, it couldn¡¯t be a bad thing to feel safe with all these dangers around. Especially with people as strong as you have described. Makes me feel like I will die if I get caught out alone.¡± ¡±You probably would lad, you probably would.¡± Gregory walked toward the party, introducing himself. ¡°Hello, my name is Gregory, what about you all?¡± From behind him, came the voice of the man he had just talked to. ¡±They aren¡¯t using their regular names, opting for more fantasy names instead. I am Sean though, you can feel free to call me by my name. I am of the knight class, which is I think why I have a full suit of armor.¡± Pointing to the other people in the group, he rested first upon the cleric and sorcerer. ¡°They are the twins, they call themselves Dynamite and Backup, Dynamite is the sorcerer, and Backup is the cleric. They are presumably in their thirties, but both make their money off of game championships.¡± Moving his hand to the other warrior, he stopped again. ¡±She calls herself Maki, though that could be her real name. She is of the Berserker class, which seems to be a heavy armored barbarian class from what I can figure out. I know most people didn¡¯t have full suits of heavy armor, so I am guessing it was only the Knights, Berserkers, and possibly Paladins that got the heavy armor. Maki wields two different weapons, a giant axe, or the two handed sword she is wielding right now.¡± Chapter 2 Part 2 I am removing auto-loot, since this is supposed to be more realistic than purely game-like. _____________________________ After Sean had introduced everybody, Gregory made mental notes of their names and classes. He already knew Dynamite was a sorcerer due to the class he gained from learning his magic, but he didn¡¯t know for certain that backup was a cleric, that Maki was a Berserker, or about Sean being a Knight. Knowing this information now, it was possible for him to work on gaining the other classes he was missing, but he would need to find out every skill and spell they knew, at least those associated with having the class. Gregory took a seat now that he knew everything about everybody else. He could smell that they had some meat cooking, probably from one of the wolves they had killed. Gregory knew that the sheep, boar, or deer meat would probably have been better, but he hadn¡¯t collected any of it. Despite being rather skeptical of the meat, Gregory found it to be surprisingly better on a near empty stomach than eating nothing. Everybody was fairly quiet now, they didn¡¯t know each other very well, and Gregory was working on understanding how the whole sets of screens worked, what they actually meant. Gregory was about to get ready to get some sleep, until Sean made a suggestion. ¡°Why don¡¯t you take the watch tonight Gregory? It will help open everybody up to you a bit more. Just make sure to wake us if you see anything that you can¡¯t take care of.¡± Gregory was debating a reply and trying to get out of this, but decided that it would be the perfect time to practice learning some new sorcerer spells. ¡°So, only if there is something I can¡¯t take care of then? I will take care of it.¡± He headed out to the edge of the area where camp had been set up, and then sat down to take the watch. As they fell asleep, he decided to try using identify on them. To his shock, it actually worked, but only to a small degree. It hid their name, level, and stats, showing only their title, health, stamina, mana, and any special status they had. Once all their screens said sleep, Gregory decided to start some training. He worked on modifications for the spells he already had. First, he knew from using them earlier, that they moved slower than some other spells. They weren¡¯t slow, but they were liable to miss if from long distances, or if there was a linear or exponential growth in regard to stats. He practiced placing a small amount of mana into a visual target, and then firing the blasts at an angle away from the targets. As he had hoped, the attacks homed in on the targets, hitting the trees he had marked with his mana. It also let him know that two new spells had been created. On top of these two, Gregory had also experimented with altering the shape, size, and nature of the attacks. He had altered the mana sphere to expand, absorbing mana along the way, to grow larger and explode in a blast of mana after the center hit a target. He transformed the bolt into a large javelin, with greater power, and some spin to it for added speed. Having made these, Gregory got the messages for them. The costs on the homing spells were not much more, but the larger more powerful spells were ridiculously more. He pulled up his full status screen just to get a view of everything he had right now.
Name Gregory Jeffrey Drake
Age 19
Level 17(27%)
Class Wizard, Sorcerer
Unique Class Gamer
Race Human
Title Fearless
Health 765/765
Stamina 1020/1020
Mana 2040/2040
CON 30
STR 15
AGI 30
INT 60
WIS 155
PER 100
FTH 15
LUK MAX
Passive Skills Life in a Game, Passive Luck, Reverse Engineer, Observant
Feats The Wise One, Perceptive, Lucky, Kingslayer
Traits Trained, Educated, Boosted
Active Skills
Riftwalker N/A[10M,10S]
Flare Novice 9(23%)[10M]
Bolt Novice3(37%)[10M]
Slice Novice 8(46%)[10M]
Identify Novice 1(97%)[N/A]
Healing Novice 1(0%)[20M,10S]
Self-Healing Novice 1(0%)[30M,10S]
Mana Bolt Novice 1(0%)[10M]
Mana Sphere Novice 1(0%)[15M]
Mana Manipulation Novice 2(73%)[VARM]
Homing Mana Sphere Novice 1(0%)[75M]
Homing Mana Bolt Novice 1(0%)[50M]
Expanding Explosive Mana Sphere Novice 1(0%)[1000M]
Spiraling Mana Javelin Novice 1(0%)[700M]
Unspent Stat Points 0
Unspent Trait Points 1
Gregory was curious now, wondering what else he could do to become stronger. ¡®Could I make a construct, a clone of myself, with mana? That would be a good way to do a couple of things. I could prevent the rest of the group from thinking I am the same wizard they fought earlier, while simultaneously using it to spar magically. The real question is, what kind of stats would it have?¡¯ The first step he decided was to feel himself out with reverse engineer. Eventually, he thought he had a good understanding of what his body was, down to the smallest details. Using his mana to fill his entire body, as if aiming to print it, he used half of his mana to attempt creating a copy of his body. To his amazement, and joy, Gregory succeeded at this and created a duplicate of himself. Using Identify on his clone did two things; first, it raised his identify to level 2, it also showed that the clone was basically him with lower physical stats. ¡®Makes sense, I made it with pure, raw magic. It would probably have lower physical stats, and the same magical stats. Still, it¡¯ll work for how I want to use it. This¡¯ll give me a chance to see how strong my magic is against other magic and people.¡¯ Gregory sat and waited for a minute, waiting for his and the clone¡¯s mana to restore to maximum before they would spar. Once his mana had reached maximum, Gregory would tell his clone what to do. ¡°I want you to step back 20 steps, and then use a combination of Flare and Bolt. I will counter with the expanding exploding mana sphere, I want to see how the spells work.¡± As they prepared to attack each other, Gregory began to gather the mana for his expanding explosive mana sphere, while the clone gathered mana for flare and bolt. After just a few moments, both launched their attacks. The real Gregory¡¯s spell not only consumed the spells of the clone, but also created such a strong blast, that when only on the edge of the blast the clone was completely destroyed.
Your training plan and creation of a new skill gains you 20 WIS.
For killing a unique enemy, your party gains a level.
Since the enemy was your clone, you gain no experience or level/s.
The sound of the blast, not to mention, the internal blaring caused by the status windows coming up in their sleep shot awake the rest of Gregory¡¯s party. Dynamite and Backup were the first to make a retort about the noise and the inability to get sleep. ¡°What the hell dude, now everybody is awake. What even attacked that so much destruction was caused?¡± The most surprising thing about their retort, was not that they actually held their own opinions, but that they spoke the same thing almost simultaneously and didn¡¯t pick the same class. Maki got up, the giant axe in her hands right now. She looked around intently, trying to find any other enemies that may be around. ¡°You should let me take the watch tomorrow, I have the second highest perception in this world.¡± Sean looked with uneasy awe upon Gregory. ¡°You have some serious skills kid, to be able to fight with something that could cause this damage. Glad you are still okay, don¡¯t go passing us up too quick now.¡± Gregory smirked at all of this. All of them were upset, but they all took their turns. Well, Maki and Sean did anyways, Dynamite and Backup spoke too quickly to even have a retort for them. ¡®Well, seems my clone will be a good way to scope things out. It also effectively doubles my combat power, at least the magical portion of it. After a few minutes, the rest of the group got back to sleep, a light sleep that left one wondering if they were really asleep or not. Gregory decided against any more training, not wanting to make the party suspicious, but he did work on making a magical construct to be used as a place to sleep. It was proving difficult, he needed to make walls, a ceiling, make it large enough for a bed of some kind. Magic was not easy to work with, even with all the INT and WIS he had. Gregory tried altering his mana to make it softer, but then the whole construct ended up flimsy. He tried to make it hard for just the walls, floor, and ceiling, but even the bed felt like a rock. There was no easy way to make it work well for him. Probably a by-product of having massively reduced luck. It was harder for the world to work his way because he had used it so much to get to this point.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! The hours ticked by, seemingly at a snail¡¯s pace, until the sun had finally risen and the rest of the party groggily got up from the ground. Many had a bedroll as a gift from the mysterious beings that set this whole thing in motion, but Gregory wanted to sleep in style. He refused to use the bedroll unless it was his only option. Now that the rest of the party was up, Gregory decided to go find some wood to start another fire. Maki volunteered to come with, and kept a vigilant eye out for any enemies. As they finished finding firewood, Gregory stuck all the remaining wood in his inventory. Maki looked curiously at him. She was intrigued that he was taking all of this so calmly, considering it was a big jump to learn that your planet will be overrun by other creatures. So far, even the wolves would¡¯ve been a problem for most people. Truth be told, Maki would rather have taken all the sheep and deer, being overleveled but unliked than being so afraid of everything. ¡°I honestly think that whoever took all the sheep and deer is probably having a really easy time right now. Most likely, they are probably twice our levels, clearing camps of monsters as if they are sheep and deer, even if he has stopped killing sheep and deer.¡± Gregory felt like blurting that it wasn¡¯t true. That they were barely stronger than she was now, and that she could probably overcome and surpass whoever it was that she saw earlier. However, he knew it would give him away. On top of that, he doubted it to be true. Gregory could learn skills at a highly-increased rate with his reverse engineer, and he was probably the only person that could pick up multiple classes. As he was about to reply, Gregory saw out of the corner of his eye another group of people from what was probably another area on earth. They all looked nervous, and almost entirely out of breath. The sun had only barely risen and whoever these people were had already got themselves in trouble for the day. Perhaps they hadn¡¯t gotten out of yesterday¡¯s troubles, especially in a place like this. Gregory ran over to them, and saw a mob of wolves. There were more than we could count, but was limited to using only sorcery against them because of what Maki knew about him. Taking aim, he made use of his perception and intelligence to quickly deduce the longest path of wolves in the area. ¡®Spiraling Mana Javelin¡¯ Instantly, a pole with a sharp end shot forth from in front of Gregory, running straight through all of the wolves in that line. Even the wolves in the area were frightened of what happened. It was not every day that a human was capable of taking out so many of them alone, and so quickly on top of it.
Your multi-kill of wolves has gained you 2 levels, 22 stat points, and your status has been improved.
It was a fight now, and they weren¡¯t about to let Gregory get away with what he had done. They also bunched up differently, grouping up so that the spiraling mana javelin would not hit nearly as many as the first time. ¡°Mana Bolt¡± It hit one, but the speed was definitely a downfall of the mana bolt. Gregory created another bolt of mana, but put a spin on it as he launched it toward the wolves. He could tell that it had used more of his mana, but it also did way more damage and was far faster. It was still not as powerful as the homing mana bolt, nor as usable in the ways it was, but spiraling mana bolt was a good signature move for him. At this point, Gregory decided to fire the bolts for as many as his mana would allow. With all the wolves dead, and his mana nearly depleted, Gregory collapsed, barely able to keep consciousness. There were notifications going off, but Gregory¡¯s eyes drifted shut and wouldn¡¯t open right now.
The complete depletion of your mana has inflicted Mana Exhaustion. Until your mana is completely replenished, you will be in a highly-weakened state.
Killing an entire pack of wolves alone has granted you the Title ¡°Outnumbered, not Outgunned.¡±
You have gained 2 levels, 22 stat points, a trait point, and your status has been improved.
For clearing a mob, you have gained 3 levels, 33 stat points, and your status has been improved.
Mobs cleared Non-Hostiles, Wolves
Maki was stunned with Gregory, surprised that he had managed to do what they considered risky as a party. For the moment, however, she waited next to him, ensuring that no harm would befall him from the small party next to them, or any other gathering of potentially dangerous creatures.
Levels of all creatures and people are now visible.
At this, Maki eased up when seeing that the other party were all level 1, except for one person at level 2. Gregory on the other hand was at level 24 now, way stronger than these other people were. After roughly six minutes had passed, Gregory awoke to the sight of levels above the heads of everybody in the area. He dismissed the windows as he got up, seeing what they told him and almost glad about the new change. ¡°Give me a moment, I¡¯d like to work on getting what I¡¯ll need from these wolves.¡± He walked over to the wolf corpses, grabbed knife from his inventory, which had been in the starter kit, and started flaying the meat from them. Eventually, he had gained a passive skill, skinning, which allowed him to more effectively skin the animals. He also gained filleting as a skill, which allowed him to better remove meat from bone without bringing along the bone. After he took care of a few more wolves this way, he decided against doing this to all of them. It would take too long and be impractical for him. Gregory walked back over to the group, taking his first real look at it. They didn¡¯t have any armor on, but did wear common clothes for this era. ¡°What are all of your classes?¡± The one person at level 2 took the initiative, being the strongest. ¡°We don¡¯t want to reveal that kind of information, we are at an obvious disadvantage to you already, and would rather not risk ourselves by freely giving up party information. However, as we are also new here we need some help in becoming stronger. In exchange for information, we¡¯d be willing to give you our classes and any unique classes.¡± Gregory made an effort to look quizzically at him, pretending not to know of what he was referring to. ¡°I will take you to Sean, he is our group¡¯s leader.¡± After a pause, Gregory continued. ¡°It should be common knowledge, but putting on your equipment would be a much better way to survive out here. That would be especially true of any physical or ranged fighters. From what I can tell, you gain some proficiency with a weapon and form of attack once you enter even if you don¡¯t know one previously. All the items should be in your inventory.¡± All of them seemed to look distraught, and probably because they had lost or gotten rid of their gear. ¡°We had sold everything when we got here, turns out they were worth a substantial amount. We were kicked out after they found out we were of a different world.¡± Gregory looked at him. It was obvious that all these people had made a fatal mistake, and hadn¡¯t realized until it was too late. ¡°You can¡¯t just go back to Earth? Wouldn¡¯t it be safer for you there?¡± ¡°We can¡¯t go back, unless we go back through a portal. The closest portal is inside that city, which connected us from Chicago. The only other way to get out it would seem would be to almost die, but that could be fatal. We¡¯ve already noticed that we can take actual damage here. A cut is a cut, you bleed, you don¡¯t just lose health. We think it is quite possible to die here, even for us, if you don¡¯t get yourself healed from a wound. We have seen that magic could heal us, but it was too expensive, we couldn¡¯t afford it. We thought we¡¯d sell our goods, head home, and wait until the worlds came crashing together. Unfortunately, we found out that we sold our armors and weapons far more cheaply than we should have, and that they kicked us out of the city after we had finished.¡± Gregory made one final comment before he would lead them back to the party. ¡°You may be able to join our party, we have a healer, and it may be a good way for you to grow stronger without worrying about death. Having no equipment, you will likely be in constant danger. My suggestion would be to find a way to make some makeshift weapons. Perhaps use some of the wolves¡¯ bones as daggers.¡± At his suggestion, the group moved quickly to pick up what they could from the wolves, grabbing bones and stone to use as weapons or to make weapons. After they had gathered up everything they could scavenge, they went to move behind Gregory and Maki, not wanting to put themselves in further danger.
Name Gregory Jeffrey Drake
Age 19
Level 24(16%)
Class Wizard, Sorcerer
Unique Class Gamer
Race Human
Title Fearless, ¡°Outnumbered, not Outgunned¡±
Health 765/765
Stamina 1020/1020
Mana 2040/2040
CON 30
STR 15
AGI 30
INT 60
WIS 177
PER 100
FTH 15
LUK MAX
Passive Skills Life in a Game, Passive Luck, Reverse Engineer, Observant, Skinning, Filleting
Feats The Wise One, Perceptive, Lucky, Kingslayer
Traits Trained, Educated, Boosted
Active Skills
Riftwalker N/A[10M,10S]
Flare Novice 9(23%)[10M]
Bolt Novice3(37%)[10M]
Slice Novice 8(46%)[10M]
Identify Novice 2(17%)[N/A]
Healing Novice 1(0%)[20M,10S]
Self-Healing Novice 1(0%)[30M,10S]
Mana Bolt Novice 1(0%)[10M]
Mana Sphere Novice 1(0%)[15M]
Mana Manipulation Novice 2(73%)[VARM]
Homing Mana Sphere Novice 1(0%)[75M]
Homing Mana Bolt Novice 1(0%)[50M]
Expanding Explosive Mana Sphere Novice 1(0%)[1000M]
Spiraling Mana Javelin Novice 2(19%)[700M]
Spiral Mana Bolt Novice 3(4%)[20M]
Unspent Stat Points 77
Unspent Trait Points 2
Chapter 3 Part 1 Gregory and Maki were leading the party back to their party. It may have been a bigger party than theirs, but it was also a much lower leveled party. It took until about 10 in the morning to make it back to Sean. He was getting impatient, but smiled when he saw the people coming along with Gregory and Maki. At the same time, he was getting even more suspicious of Gregory, and his ability to grow as quickly as he was. Publicly, Sean made a grand show of good will toward the new party. ¡°I am so glad to see that we have some new people here, my name is Sean by the way. It looks like Gregory and Maki found some good people to go along with us. We are aiming to head toward the city, we hope to find food and shelter there. We can maybe even find you some new armor and weapons if yours were lost or stolen.¡± The people that had come along looked nervous, at which point Gregory walked up to Sean and whispered to him the situation. ¡°Seems they had spawned in the city. The armor and weapons we got were apparently quite valuable, but they were ripped off on prices, and then kicked out of the city for not being from here. If we want to make it inside, they will need to be left outside. On the other hand, it may be possible to get some armor for them from traveling caravans or bandits if there are any around here.¡± Sean stroked his beard for only a moment before he continued his speech, adjusting his words to make it fit the new situation. ¡°Well, seems that we will either need to look for bandits, or attack traveling merchants that would have armor to get you guys re-outfitted. By the way, what are the classes that you all have, as well as all your names? I must insist knowing before allowing you to continue on with us.¡± The strongest of the group spoke up, as if blinded by the charisma that Sean held. ¡°My name is John; my class is that of a scout. I am more focused on finding and investigating people and animals and have skills for spotting from long distances, crossing distances at an increased speed, in addition to a skill for seeing through stealth. The two girls¡¯ names are Elizabeth and Danielle, they have the classes of Tracker and Rogue respectively. The tracker class focuses on finding prey from tracks on the ground, or any other trace really, and being able to cover tracks quite well. The rogue class on the other hand is more of a thievery class; it focuses on stealth, being able to cover your presence, and being skilled at sleight of hand. The last three are Joseph or Joe, William or Will, and Robert. Joe is a Summoner, William is a hunter, and Robert is a Soldier. The summoner focuses on summoning spirits which take form once on our plane. The hunter is all about knowing how to survive in the wilderness; they have skills for skinning animals, cutting the meat off cleanly, knowing how to use the bones for various purposes, as well as a bow skill. The soldier class has a weapons proficiency skill, as well as medium armor. Apparently, soldier is a class that knows how to use every weapon, but gains skill experience from them far slower than a specialty fighter. Oh, right, I almost forgot. I have a unique class. I have the Master Scout Unique class as well. It gives me a very strong stealth skill, the ability to see through invisible barriers, and to use the portals of others to find out how many otherwise hidden enemies there may be.¡± Sean smiled when he got this information. Gregory had just made quite the find, a group of people with very strong classes when trained up, and they would be loyal to only him. In the meanwhile, Gregory was shocked at how much information they had just given up freely considering they were saying earlier how they felt disadvantaged already. ¡®Sean must be doing something to them that they do not question his requests. He must have a unique class that offers him access to manipulation skills, since those are what he seems to be using to make everybody trust him without a single question.¡¯ Sean got back in with some speech now, assuring the new members to the group that they would do everything they could to help them all grow. ¡°Well, we can do our best to find a group of non-hostiles, that would probably allow you all to level up a few times and not need to worry about most of the monsters that can attack you here. Probably best to keep going forward, that is the only way to find anything. However, let¡¯s have breakfast first. I am famished.¡± As he said this, Gregory quickly pulled the wood from his inventory, put the wood down where it had been burning over the night, and then waited for them to start it with the lighter they had brought over from our world. To his surprise, Danielle offered to make the breakfast, and was actually really good at cooking the food, despite it all being wolf meat. Before long, she had finished the cooking, and began to divide it up among everybody. Gregory was shocked when he began to eat it. The taste was nothing like what he had tried last night, and was actual quite good. She must have practiced at cooking for quite a long time on earth to be this good at it. Eventually they were all done eating, and Sean was preparing to begin looking for something that these new party members could kill to become stronger. Just then, Gregory caught something out of the corner of his eye. Back-up used a spell of healing magic on his brother for some reason. The only thing was, it was a different spell than the regular heal. Gregory tried to replicate it, using the exact same type of magic as back-up had used. When Gregory pushed his hands against a tree with the magic though, the tree that was almost dead had come back to life as if it¡¯s disease had been cured. Purification has been learned, for learning all the spells associated with a cleric you have unlocked their class. You still have one empty standard class spot, and one empty unique class spot. ¡®Now I am beginning to understand things. It looks like I get a standard class every ten levels, starting with level 0, not counting my original class. It also looks like I can get unique classes as well, though I am not a hundred percent sure how I got it. Probably on the twentieth level, starting at the twentieth level. Which means level 40 will probably have me with another opportunity to get another unique class. The question is, which one would I rather have? Sean¡¯s would allow me to be more persuasive, but John¡¯s is more combat based. I should get John¡¯s first, Sean wouldn¡¯t die unless he was the last one left since his unique class could have most of us protecting him. John on the other hand is much more likely to die from attacks to the party. That decides it, I need to follow around John until I can decipher what gives him his powers.¡¯ Before long, Sean made a self-defense suggestion, but one that helped Gregory immensely. ¡°John, why don¡¯t you use your unique class abilities, I¡¯d like to see how to best use them with our team.¡± Gregory could tell that Sean was watching intently, but only for weaknesses to his abilities. Gregory was looking to see how all his abilities worked. The only problem was, that there were no portals yet, and those were part of his unique class¡¯ powers. Gregory¡¯s Observant and Reverse Engineer were working overtime to figure out how the abilities worked. It was difficult to understand, but it was getting easier to know how they worked as he viewed John using them more. It was about two in the afternoon when Gregory spotted a herd of sheep. It would be the perfect place for the weaker group to train. They would be the only ones gaining experience, and would finally be able to get some levels under their belt. They all began attacking, but only the summoner could use his class specialty to attack. The rest of them were forced to use their fists to try and pummel the sheep to death. As they did though, something incredible happened. They began gaining strength points at breakneck pace.Stolen novel; please report. ¡®Stats can be gained from attacking creatures too then it seems. Especially if you need more to hurt them substantially than you can currently deal.¡¯ Before long, everybody was doing damage, and not just the summoner. By about seven, all the sheep had been defeated, and all of them had made it to level 4. It was also at this time that Gregory got back his luck, and then John found a portal that looked like it was in front of a cave entrance. John ran over, and Gregory made sure to watch carefully. He went through the portal before coming back out. Two things happened at this moment, John made a statement, and a window appeared before Gregory. You have gained access to the Master Scout unique class for learning all of its¡¯ powers. You have learned all the unique classes you have spots for right now. ¡°Alright guys, seems the portal is just here to keep bounce people back, I was able to go through because of my class, but it would have otherwise just stopped me like a regular cliff face.¡± As he said this, Sean made the motion to charge in there, John used his ability to get to the other side of the portal and shut it down through sticking some of his own mana into it. Gregory smiled at his new abilities. He had just gained a new set of powers, and knew that he would only continue growing stronger as time went on. As the group entered this cave, it was obvious that it was a bandit cave. There were small camps set up all over the cave, as well as some loot. As they got further down into the cave, they ran into an enchanted door that was made to repel magic. It had a lock on it, and since it was so heavily protected, seemed like it was where any valuables would be held. Unfortunately, the door wouldn¡¯t be gotten into without the key, which was likely on the head bandit. As they were investigating, a noise came from the opening of the tunnel. Sean made a quick motion for everybody to take cover, and they did just that. Nobody wanted to be out in the open when a large group of potentially dangerous bandits would be coming in. As they got down, hiding behind tents, boxes, crates, and barrels, the group of bandits came into the large open area. A couple were stronger, at level 23 and 21 respectively. The rest of them were between level 12 and 15. There was probably very little that the new recruits to this squad could do, but even Sean could see that the five of them would have a decent chance if Gregory could focus on the two stronger bandits and the rest took care of the weaker bandits. The only thing was though, that the stronger bandits were wearing full helmets, chest plate armor, and the rest was covered in boiled leather. The weaker bandits were only wearing hide and leather armors, and not even boiled leather. Sean knew that he needed a plan, and he had one. From what Maki told him, Gregory had quite the powerful abilities now with his magic. He would probably be able to hurt them through their armor with that spear she had mentioned. Sean pointed to Gregory, then to the two strongest bandits in the group. It was obvious that the intent for Gregory was to fight them while the rest of the group takes care of the weaker bandits. With Dynamite and Back-up for support, it should be possible to defeat all of them in a fight. As Gregory got up with the rest of the original group, the bandits got startled, it was rare to see a group that exuded such confidence in their abilities and skills to defeat their group. Even rarer to see a group that could get in the cave. Being bandits though, they could not pass up a haul. This group was loaded, two of them had full plate armor on, and the others were magic users. The leader of the bandits made a yell, trying to scare the group they were facing in addition to shouting his intention for the group. ¡°Kill the two in armor, keep the mages alive.¡± His reasoning was obvious, any mage was valuable to a city, even if an enemy mage. Their magical energy could be harnessed, and if not, they were a very powerful offensive asset. Gregory though was not going to easily give up. He was forming a sphere of mana in his hands. The size was nothing serious right now, and many of them began laughing. They had heard magic users were dangerous, but this guy seemed harmless. The sphere then released from Gregory¡¯s grasp and began expanding rapidly. The two strongest bandits were the targets, and they couldn¡¯t escape it. As they were hit, the sphere expanded even more, and then exploded in a burst of powerful mana. The two were not dead, but their armor had been shredded, even though it was supposedly enchanted to resist magic. They had also gotten serious bruises and were barely able to stand up after that blast. The rest of the group that was inside the sphere that had exploded were all dead, ripped to pieces from the force of the blast. Even his own group seemed shocked at Gregory now, they knew he was strong, but this was something on an entirely different scale from what they knew he had. Still having barely over half his mana, Gregory began creating spiral mana bolts. They were rushing toward the two bandit leaders, and kept coming until ten had been sent for each of the two leaders. While Gregory had done this, the remainder of the group headed to the door to prevent any bandits from escaping the cave. They didn¡¯t want to have to deal with a larger group of bandits later. To their surprise, Gregory had managed to take care of both the bandit leaders, and probably almost three quarters of the whole group before he quivered from near mana exhaustion. Gregory was on his knees now, looking out at the bandits. Only the quarter that were on the entrance side of the cave had been safe from his attacks, and they were rushing to their deaths at the hands of the rest of the party he was in. Without their armor, the bandit leaders didn¡¯t stand a chance against the spiral mana bolts, and after his expanding explosive mana sphere, their armor had been destroyed. The bandits on the inner side of the cavern also died to his hands, letting forth another large volley of spiral mana bolts to take care of them before they could get to the entrance. He had gotten multiple messages, and then one more message after the rest of the party had just about killed the rest of the bandits. You have gained three levels, 33 stat points, one trait point, and your status has been improved. You have gained two levels, 22 stat points, and your status has been improved. You have gained one level, 11 stat points, one trait point, and your status has been improved. The group checked the remains of the bandits, letting Gregory recover since he seemed to be incredibly exhausted from expending as much mana as he had in such a short time. They found the key on the bandit that was level 23 before death, and then opened the door to the loot room. They found full suits of armor inside, as well as gold and other valuables. All the leather armor they had gotten was given to the newest members of their team, as well as bows, daggers, and other assorted weapons. They wanted to get the group outfitted to their fullest extent. The better outfitted and prepared for battle a group was, the more powerful the overall group was. The small group they had allowed in were all still much weaker, but they were also now fully equipped with weapons and armor again. While it wasn¡¯t as strong as what they probably came in with, it was much better than the nothing they had before. On top of that, even though the original party had not gained experience from any of Gregory¡¯s kills, they had gained substantial experience from the bandits they did kill. At the same time though, they had little concern over it, they knew that Gregory was the only reason they made it out alive in this situation and were highly grateful of that. Sean was the only one in the group that was shocked enough to think it may be worthwhile to change experience to equal Party division. While he knew that less people got experience this way, meaning it was faster to level up if just a couple people participated in the death of whatever was killed. Gregory had gained experience for all the kills it seemed, probably because he was the reason they began running. It also seemed that they had been damaged very slightly from the mana sphere that had been sent flying. The power behind that technique was ridiculous, having ripped apart many of the bandits stuck in the center of it, and even leaving the ones on the edges of the actual sphere mangled beyond recognition. Gregory was still resting to restore his mana. He had his eyes closed, but was trying to consider his options about the stat points he now had. Looking through the top stats again, he noticed that the second highest WIS was now 125, but the second highest was still only in the low 20s. The highest INT now as ridiculous though, having reached 273. It seems the person with the high INT in the first place had discovered the benefit of having high WIS, and got it to the highest benefit point. ¡®What should I do with my points then? I should keep my edge on WIS, it seems to be overall beneficial to my survival. 150 INT would probably be enough to put a powerful bump in my power, but I won¡¯t be the highest no matter what. To top it off, I need to get at least 100 it seems to get into the Library of the Ancients. 150 INT would be icing on the cake, giving me more than twice my current mana, and seriously bumping my ability to deal damage.¡¯ ¡¯53 points to WIS, 90 points to INT¡¯ As he thought this, he received two notifications, both of which had been expected to some degree. For reaching 100+ INT, you have met all the requirements to the Library of the Ancients. For reaching 100+ INT, you have gained the skill Photographic Memory. Photographic Memory Type Passive Allows near permanent and perfect recollection of information acquired through vision. Chapter 3 Part 2 For unlocking the Library of the Ancients, you may access a portal to take you there. Having unlocked the Library of the Ancients, Gregory knew that he would be able to grow much faster now. It seemed that another window had appeared after the other two, letting him know that he would be able to use a portal there whenever he wanted to visit. Before going, he wanted to wait until the rest of the part was asleep. It would be suspicious if he just mysteriously vanished without a trace. Still, the fact that the party was in less need of him was a bonus. It would make it easier to enter the Library of the Ancients and not be putting the others in danger by not being there. Waiting until night time, Gregory spent his time doing little except reading from some scrolls and spell books that had been found in the bandits¡¯ hordes. As the others fell asleep, Sean deciding to keep watch, Gregory carefully called upon the portal that he had supposedly unlocked. The portal opened quickly, and he stepped inside. Was in the exact center of a large building. There was a receptionist present, a younger woman who seemed to be quite bookish from her appearance. The center had only one path leading from it, but he could tell that except for the very inner row, all the shelves were currently bound in heavy chains preventing the removal or reading of the books. Gregory had some questions, so went up to the receptionist desk to find out what he could about this place. ¡°I intend to stay here for quite some time to read, will that be a problem. I am guessing this is probably a very large source of information for people, so was wondering why it seems to empty right now.¡± ¡°You may stay as long as you like, time actually doesn¡¯t flow here, allowing you to basically study for all eternity. However, Intelligence does limit what you can learn. You can only learn as much as your mind has room for. If you study too much, it begins causing madness. As for why it is empty, this place is outside of time, but it is also considered a combat zone. Since you are obviously a new arrival, I will give you the explanation. The library is cut off for one year in the time outside while the new arrivals are around. Basically, you will have a year in time spent outside to study here without others being able to enter. This means that you could basically study forever, but remember that madness can occur. After that, others can once again get in. One other thing though, the center is the culmination of knowledge that requires all three areas of skill. There are also six halls, three combination halls, and three single stat halls. One hall for intelligence based magic and skills, one for wisdom based, and one for perception based. The others are for combinations of two of those. When your stats reach the requirements for that depth of the hall, you will be able to read more books from those halls.¡± Gregory was impressed, he learned more than he expected by just coming here. He would be able to read for a long time and learn multiple spells and skills to improve his power. At the same time, it would reduce his power in the long run. He wouldn¡¯t be able to improve his stats except for natural growth. It is easier to raise stats in the outside world through training, and then heading back here when stats are higher to more easily learn other potentially more powerful spells. That, and he could only learn so many skills and spells from here, and he¡¯d rather learn some that were more helpful to him, than just learning everything. Gregory left for now, and then went to sleep while Sean was on watch. It would be a good way to grow more powerful, but not until he had at least a full plan on what kind of skills would be the most helpful to him. He wanted to be able to know what he wanted before potentially limiting himself. While sleeping, Gregory dreamt of the library, walking down halls that were filled with locked books that required more knowledge and power from him to unlock. He wanted to grow as powerful as he could as quickly as he could to unlock some of the most powerful skills and spells there. He would need to if he had even a hope of surviving once the ban on others was lifted. For now, however, he realized that visiting the town may be the best course of action for him. They may have maps for viewing, and he wanted to find out more about this world. There was also the possibility they¡¯d have some people there he could study under to become more powerful. His individual strength was high now it seemed, especially after having leveled up and gotten as many new stat points as he did. Gregory knew that the bandits he defeated were likely quite strong for people in this area, it was probably why they had as much of a horde as they did, not to mention the fact they had not been defeated until he did so. Gregory needed to go to town though, he needed to find out what was up with this world and why the group that had joined them the other day had been harassed as they were. He made up his mind to head there early in the morning, he needed to learn as much as he could about this world for him to survive here. As the early morning hours came, Gregory snuck out, using his new class abilities to get out without being seen. Getting close to the city, he saw that the gates were just opening. It seemed he had beaten the rush, and he would now be getting into the city. He walked up to the open gate, when the guards stopped him. ¡°What is your business here? We haven¡¯t seen you before, and we don¡¯t let people in without some kind of identification. Do you agree to a cursory scanning of your abilities?¡± Gregory knew that unless he agreed, he wouldn¡¯t be able to get in, so would let them get the information about him. The worst that would happen would be them seeing his full status window, most likely it would just be basic information such as his name, level, class, and any alignment he had since he entered this world. ¡°You may run the cursory scan of my abilities.¡± A level 22 sorcerer showed up and cast a spell on him, what he saw he relayed to the guards. ¡°He is a level 30, human, a wizard, sorcerer, and a cleric, with a chaotic good moral alignment. He should be safe to let in.¡± ¡®Seems he could tell more about me than I had anticipated, but at least he decided I was safe to let in.¡¯ ¡°Alright, you may pass. Enjoy your stay in the city of Magna Porta.¡± For Entering your first city, you may choose between one gathering or crafting life. Picking the first ¡°life¡± will be free, give a small bonus to stats that assist in that life, and grant you a basic kit to get started with that life. You have access to all available lives, pick a broad category. ¡®I have always hated gathering, it requires the most time, and tends to be physically laborious. Crafters are always useful, making items or potions are quite likely a very powerful option. Being a wizard, I¡¯d wear robes, which means that tailoring would be the life I¡¯d want to take. At the same time, I¡¯d use staffs, which would probably be under wood working. However, some staffs are made of metal or bone, and those may be portions of blacksmithing. It is always hard to come to a decision over things, but I need to pick one. Well, best to take a look at the crafting lives.¡¯Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Blacksmith(Metal-Working) - Armorer(Metal) - Weapon-Crafting(Metal) - Jeweler - Bone-Working - Repair(Metal/Bone) Carpenter(Wood-Working) - Ship-Building - Weapon-Crafting(Wood) - Carpentry - Stone-Working - Repair(Wood) Tailor(Cloth-Working) - Armorer(Cloth/Leather) - Repair(Cloth/Leather) - Clothier(Cloth/Leather) - Embroiderer - Metal-Sewing(Metal-Augmentative) It seemed that for Gregory, either Blacksmith or Tailor would be the most beneficial of the skill-sets to take. Most of the higher level staves or weapons for a magic user would likely be made of bone or metal, which meant that it would be useless to take carpenter as a choice. Tailor gave way to the obvious advantages of all the armors for any of the ranged combat choices. Each of the major pathways gave a basic ability to work with the associated product, as well as a set of five skills that could be used to make better gear or whatever else could be made. There was obvious money in blacksmithing and tailoring, while carpentry would definitely be longer period projects. At the same time, all the skills worked together in a way, stone-working could also be used to make weapons of stone, or even roads and buildings that used stone. Also, nearly all furnaces used an abundance of stone in their creation. ¡®I need to pick Tailor, it has all of the important abilities required to make myself stronger, and I don¡¯t think I will be limited to just one. It is probably likely that another can be gained through training under a master in the art.¡¯ Are you sure you want to pick Tailor as your free life? This will be irreversible, learning any new life will require you to study under a master of that life choice. ¡®Yes¡¯ You are now a Tailor, you have been granted the associated skills. Gregory continued into the city, making sure not to attract attention. He could feel the eyes of the guards following him, but hoped they wouldn¡¯t bother for too much longer. Almost is if they could tell what he wanted, they averted their gaze and continued watching the wall. Gregory was looking around feverishly, looking for a place to get a map or read books. ¡®Wait, how come I can understand everybody in this place? Shouldn¡¯t they be speaking a different language? It is almost as if I have been uploaded with the language of this realm, or perhaps all the languages of the people on the planet. Either way, I need to find out what is happening, see if I can figure out how to reverse it, or slow it down. Perhaps I am doomed to failure, but I¡¯d rather look at things positively. I just need to keep trekking to see if I can discover something, anything, about this new place.¡¯ Again, almost as if in answer to his hopes, he walked by a library. Walking up to the door, he opened it. There was a heavy creak as the hinges moved the heavy wood. Inside was the smell of paper, a few old men talking in hushed tones over a table, and an older man behind a counter in the center of the room. Scanning the shelves, he spotted titles such as ¡®A Complete History of the Adventurers Guild¡¯, ¡®The Schools of Magic, and Their Study¡¯, and then a book that really caught his interest ¡®The History of the Mergers, What They Are¡¯. Gregory went over to grab the three books that caught his eye before taking one of the tables in the room. He opened the book about the mergers first. It was written by a number of people, some with fairly normal names, and others with very odd names. While reading the book about the mergers, he learned more than he could have imagined about what was happening. The mergers took place because one of the important sentient races were dying out, and it was causing the world to fail on itself. It threw off the balance of magic, resulting in the magic tearing apart parts of the world most affected by the imbalance in power. It mentioned that the current technology of the world had been around for several thousand years, but had not advanced due to the magic preventing non-magical electricity from being generated and transported. ¡®So, even if I were to try to make modern-day amenities, they would be useless and not work just because of how this world works. Very nice thing to now, means I shouldn¡¯t waste my time with what cannot possibly work.¡¯ More information was coming out, the planets would not straight up merge, but would become larger planet, absorbing the surface area of the new planet, growing enough to accommodate that surface area. It meant that Earth would not be destroyed, but the way of life that people on it expected would. Things such as engineers, mechanics, and many of the other common ¡®crafting lifestyles¡¯ chosen by people on Earth would be obsolete on this planet, just because the basis behind them involved something that didn¡¯t exist on this planet. Another important thing about the people from the mergers, they were always known to grow faster until a year after the merging than a normal being of their species. This was important because at the time of the merger, the original people still left were able to become half-races with other sentient beings. It mentioned that everybody had access to an interface for their daily life, that let them know their own quirks, and how powerful they were, roughly anyway. It did mention that it always changed and added new abilities onto it with each new merger. Advancing as the new merger brought new ways to view the interface. It also mentioned that everybody had viewed being able to save, but it was only possible through save stones. Save stones it seemed were a small clear jewel, which when planted, grew an indestructible crystalline tree that restored a person at their current power at that moment to the world at the point in which they died. It was an extremely rare stone, but one that was highly valued and never sold due to their value. They could be used to live forever, which was something nobody wanted to do without if they had access to something so valuable. Having finished reading it, and gaining the information he needed to about the new world, Gregory decided to move onto the book on the adventurers guild. The book contained a bestiary on the known races of the world, the more sentient races were trolls, humans, elves, dragons, dwarves, gnomes, ogres, orcs, celestials, demons, the faeries, beast-kin, and elementals. It mentioned that all races were able to become half-races, which were a being with abilities mixed between the two races they were made up of. Elementals, dragons, and elves all had powerful magic in common. Celestials, demons, and the faeries were all creatures that couldn¡¯t be killed by common means. Orcs, ogres, and trolls all sported high advantages in close-combat. Beast-kin, dwarves, and gnomes were focused on ranged or physical combat, but which much higher intellects than those of the straight combat races. Humans were a middle ground, they neither excelled nor fell behind in any of the skills. It also gave a brief overview of stats, mentioning that a humans 1000 and a dragons 1000 were not the same. Dragons were known to be creatures of ancient wisdom, knowledge, and strength. Many believed their constitution to be ridiculous, but it was in fact quite the opposite, dragons were very weak without their scales and would easily die to most attacks. They were also very slow without their wings. Elves on the other hand were known for their wisdom and intellect as well, but were also known for speed and grace. They were thought to be stronger, but it was truly just because of their speed that it seemed they could hold more weight. Their stamina was quite large, but again, their health was absolutely horrible compared to most other creatures. This is what made up the balance of this world, and what prevented a one-sided crushing of a particular side in a war. The celestials, faeries, and demons were known to follow a side based on their name. The celestials worked for good, the faeries were neutral, and the demons were evil. The races themselves were also leaning more toward the neutral side, basically humans with an immunity to death by disease and aging. The appearance of a celestial was actually confusing to Gregory at first, they had black feathered wings, horns ranging from white to black, and very pale skin color. Faeries very closely resembled humans, though they had wings like a fairy, and many were a little shorter. Demons had dark black leathery skin, but with white feathery wings and ¡®oh-so-trusting¡¯ eyes. These were all things Gregory would need to study and use for later on in case he ever decided to multi-race. He was the most interested in magic, and there were obvious advantages to the powers of basic immortality. The celestials and dragons intrigued him the most. Either one would give him greater power, one to actual battle power, and one to life in general. Finally he made up his mind, he would see just what the magical classes could offer him. Chapter 4 Part 1 Having studied the book on magical classes, Gregory could hardly believe what he was reading. The three classes had given messages as being available to learn, but Gregory hadn¡¯t wanted to make any rash decisions. All the classes had bonuses; the summoner was able to summon weapons and creatures to their aid, the necromancer could summon the dead to fight on their behalf, though the level of the dead capped at the level of the necromancer¡¯s skill, and the enchanter could use supporting magic and also place permanent buffs on equipment with enough magic being used. With two classes available for learning, it was difficult to choose which way he should lean. Enchanter was an obvious choice, but the other one was something he wasn¡¯t sure about yet. He would leave it open, especially since now he could learn either of the two classes freely. Gregory also read the adventurer¡¯s guild book, and made up his mind to join it. Not only would the membership get him some renown and a chance to work at any branch of the adventurer¡¯s guild, but it would also have all his basic information. It meant that he would be able to get into cities without the need to be checked by a sorcerer first. It would save him time, and also be a good way to get him money in this new world. From what he read of the book, the adventurer¡¯s guild was a long-standing organization that had jobs for any class, as well as a knowledge base that could help almost any class learn something new. Even if they couldn¡¯t necessarily assist in new things, they had good ways of improving the variety that could be used. Leaving the library, Gregory learned the Enchanter class, along with the skills associated with it. You have learned the skill Enchanting. You have learned the skill Stat Buffing. You have learned the skill Defensive Buffing. You have learned the skill Damage Buffing. You have earned the class Enchanter for learning all the appropriate skills. Gregory was tired, the reading had left him drained while wanting more. It was at this moment he noticed a village soldier, one of the inner guards. His level was a startling 53. It was very likely that this man was on a whole other league in comparison to Gregory, and most likely wasn¡¯t the only one here with that kind of power. Gregory found a map store before he noticed an inn, and went inside. What he found left him amazed. This village had a map shop worthy of much praise, even a message went off letting him know what a find this was. You have found a shop with a complete map of the known world. Gregory¡¯s eyes had grown in size at seeing the announcement, but he had barely kept his calm up. He went to look at the price and found it surprisingly cheaper than he had suspected. The cost was 20 gold, which is something he had obtained when killing the two powerful bandits. Not to mention what he had gotten from the split loot in their storeroom. ¡°Would I be able to talk you down from that price for the map? I know how valuable it must be, but it is still quite the sum.¡± The cartographer was an older man, he was noticeably small but seemed like he would be quite fast. He had likely left his exploring days behind him, but had come out with a map that had every location in the known world. His clothes were rather expensive, inlaid with gold threading, and with some very intricate designs on them. His eyes were sunken from tiredness, but he was still quite lively despite the fact that he looked about to fall asleep at any moment. His voice was very energetic, proving that he still had substantial vigor. ¡°I am afraid that is the lowest offer I can give, it is the culmination of my life¡¯s work, the map is probably the most valuable map on the planet. It lists every continent, and isn¡¯t even missing the local names of cities in addition to the common name.¡± Gregory looked slightly despaired, but knew that he had no choice. He opened his inventory and grabbed the 20 gold from it. ¡°Here is the money you need for the map, I really appreciate that I am able to get such an important piece of knowledge.¡± The man quickly took the map from the display, and gave it Gregory after swiping the money from his hand in a very fluid movement. ¡°Enjoy the map, I hope it can help you as much as I enjoyed making it.¡± Gregory was amazed at what happened next, the map vanished giving him a notification. The World Globe has been unlocked, You may see locations and their approximate levels. Gregory didn¡¯t immediately check it, he wanted to wait until he was at an inn, but knew that what he had obtained was incredibly valuable. He walked out of the store, a new jump in his step. He was growing ever stronger, and he would be able to continue to grow stronger with every passing level and gain. He hoped to find an inn and after only a short walk and a brief search had found one. He moved inside quickly and saw that it was also the tavern of the town. Gregory quickly went to the counter and saw that room prices were listed up above. It was thirty silvers a night to stay, and seemed to be a rather decent place. There were two free meals offered a day, and access to one room. He quickly got the barkeeps attention, thirty silvers in his hand. ¡°Can I get a room, here is the money.¡± The barkeep simply nodded, grabbing a key and handing it to Gregory. He mentioned something about food as well, but Gregory had already begun walking toward the room as he wanted to get situated first. He needed to know what else he could learn about this new place. Getting to the room, he noticed that it had some niceties he wasn¡¯t expecting. It was a second floor room, but it had a water pump and the water pump was enchanted to spew hot water with a fire enchantment. Gregory also realized that the whole room was enchanted to give an aura that improved the restoration of health and mana. Reaching out with his newest class, he felt the enchantment on the room and tried to copy it. He was able to, but it turned out to be weaker than the rooms enchantment by a good margin. Gregory went back down the stairs and grabbed some of the food that was there. It was rather plain, just using salt as a seasoning. There was some fish, what looked to be some beef, potatoes, and what looked to probably be wine. Gregory grabbed some fish, a potato, and just a small bit of beef, then put just a little of the wine in a goblet. It might be normal in this place to drink wine at any age, but but he still felt weird about it. He ate quickly before heading back up the stairs, trying to avoid any attention. It wasn¡¯t hard to avoid attention, from the back he appeared to be quite old with his almost totally white hair. Gregory had got a good night sleep, waking up early at the smell of a breakfast. The first thing he did was getting some of the hot water in the large washing basin and then washing himself with the soap. He put on his robes, looking at the tatters they were in. ¡®I need to get these robes repaired, they are bound to fall off if I don¡¯t get them taken care of.¡¯ Heading downstairs, Gregory grabbed himself an egg, some of the ham, and a bread roll. He ate quickly again before he would head out of the city. Now that he had a map of the area, he wanted to get out and learn as much as he could.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Before leaving the city though, Gregory had decided it best to join the adventurer¡¯s guild. He wanted to get his guild member¡¯s card so that he could use it for the multi-purpose of identification in this new world and making money. As he walked, he saw the tell-tale sign of the adventurer¡¯s guild. It was a pair of crossed longswords over a wizard¡¯s staff completely horizontal and a vertical bow underneath the staff. Entering the building, there was nobody at the counter waiting to be seen, they were all picking jobs to do from either senior members or the job board. Heading straight for the counter, Gregory leaned in to ask a question over the noise. ¡°I¡¯d like to join the adventurer¡¯s guild, may I get an application?¡± The man looked at Gregory, arching an eyebrow and trying to make a decision. ¡°Fill in the paperwork, if it is satisfactory, then there will be a mage to determine if the information is accurate and a license will be issued for our guild.¡± Gregory quietly grabbed the paperwork for application and filled it out to the best of his ability. There were sections for name, alignment, class/es, as well as any feats that may have been accomplished. Gregory answered the information fully, and then handed the paperwork back to the clerk at the counter. The clerk himself then cast the spell on Gregory to see if all the information was accurate. He nodded a few times, before performing a small spell on the application, and then moved the pertinent information onto a guild-issued metal license card. The information engraved into the metal, and a full color image of Gregory appeared on it as well so that people would know who it was entering the city. ¡°This will streamline the process of getting into cities and taking adventurer¡¯s guild jobs. It is two gold for the license, can you afford that?¡± Gregory took the money out, and reached for license as it was handed over. The man smiled and settled back in nonchalantly at his seat. Gregory took the license and left for now, he wanted to do some traveling before taking any jobs. He left the city the opposite side he came in from, running to make some distance. He would keep an eye out for any bandit camps, as he never did single-handedly clear one out, and there was always the possibility that he would make extra levels for doing so. ¡®What have I become? I care more about levels than people¡¯s lives, even if they are just the lives of bandits. Just the lives of bandits, who am I to think like that? I am just a person, I should quit killing humans, but I need to get stronger to survive, and bandits kill plenty themselves to get stronger. I don¡¯t think there is anything really wrong with reducing the bandit population.¡¯ Continuing, Gregory saw another cave, this one less concealed than the bandit cave they saw. Moving up to it, Gregory didn¡¯t hear anything and darted inside. Moving all the way in, it seemed that it was a bandit cave, just one without all the extra niceties the first one had. It did however have just as nice a ¡°vault¡± door as the first one did. Once again, Gregory hid around the crates in the area until bandits would come back from their raiding. He actually fell asleep before the bandits got there, and then only woke up when he heard the noise being caused from all the bandits splitting up their spoils. Although, their ¡°spoils¡± included a few helpless women and a child, probably a mother with two daughters and a very young son. Gregory¡¯s anger burned and he cared not anymore that the bandits were people, only that they were people not deserving of human emotion. He stood up, preparing his expanding explosive mana sphere in his right hand to be hurled at the most powerful bandits. He shouted a command to the bandits, wanting to let them know what he wanted. ¡°Let the women and child go, they have no need to killed with the rest of you.¡± The head bandit nodded with a grin and made a motion to let them go. They all thought they¡¯d be be able to catch up with the women and the boy, having no idea that somebody on par with city wizards would be outside of a city. As soon as the innocents left, Gregory activated flame engulfment with his left hand, completely covering the entrance and exit these bandits had while throwing the expanding explosive mana sphere in his right hand. The blast burst forth, rotating, and ripping apart matter in the blast radius. When it exploded, even more bandits fell to it. With their only escape cut off, and nothing to do but trying to kill the magician in front of them, they all started running at Gregory. He performed another expanding explosive mana sphere, taking out another large chunk of them as they were coming at him. The rest were trying to make scarce around the room, but Gregory was firing off spiraling mana bolts and killing bandits as they scattered around the room. Notification had appeared to him while he was doing this. You have gained one level, 11 stat points, and your status has been improved. You have gained two levels, 22 stat points, and your status has been improved. You have gained one level, 11 stat points, and your status has been improved. When the last one standing stood still, Gregory saw the pleading in his eyes to be let go, but also a vicious anger for killing his comrades and knew that he would never truly change. He cast one last spiraling mana bolt, and the man fell to the floor as it passed through him. Gregory began gasping for air, the battle finally taking its toll on him. His knees had struck the dirt heavily, and he could feel the mana flowing into him from around the area. Despite having used much less mana than the last time he felt this way, Gregory was still quite drained from the sheer amount and percentage he had used in such quick succession. His auto-loot had picked up multiple different armors and weapons, as well as a couple keys for the loot room. He looked through everything and was fairly impressed with what he had gotten. It meant he would have some money in the next city he went to. One more notification came up as well when he killed the last bandit. For clearing a mob, you have gained 5 levels, 55 stat points, one trait point, and your status has been improved. Mobs cleared: Non-Hostiles, Wolves, Bandits ¡®I need to work on my wizard skills, the elemental spells could be really helpful if they were more powerful. Flame Engulfment worked, but if they were stronger I don¡¯t think it would have stopped them from passing through it. I need to work on making containing spells, spells that can force people to stay in the area. I also need to work on not draining myself so much. The drawback for casting magic like that is huge. What kind of person am I? I killed a person that had surrendered. Maybe he hadn¡¯t mentally surrendered and would have continued this lifestyle, but he had physically surrendered himself to me and I ended him. What does that make me? Anyways, I should determine how best to allocate my points, probably best to put them into WIS and PER, I need to keep those up to stay strong.¡¯ ¡®13 points to PER, 86 points to WIS¡¯ Once he thought this, Gregory could feel the changes to himself. He had a way better grasp on the magic in the area, and his vision bumped up to be just a little bit better. ¡®Wonder how many people were able to get rid of glasses with just minor boosts to PER, probably quite a few. At the same time, there are probably quite a few people that may have been in hospital beds and are now quite fit with boosts to CON, STR, and AGI. I am really wondering though, where exactly do my physical abilities lie in this new world we are a part of? Magic seems much less used than I had figured it would be, so many people seem to be more focused on weapon based combat than magic-based.¡¯ Upon entering the store-room for the bandit¡¯s treasures, Gregory saw a notification appear before him. Would you like to move ¡®Bandit Treasure Room Loot¡¯ to inventory? ¡®Yes¡¯ ¡®Inventory¡¯ Viewing his inventory, Gregory saw a stack each of cooked sheep, boar, and deer meat with at least thirty of each in the stacks. There was a stack of 13 wolf steaks, and then there was the ¡®Bandit Treasure Room Loot Sack¡¯ in one slot in his inventory. ¡®If I open that loot sack, it will probably have more than I could fit right now in my inventory, I should probably find a way to increase the storage space I have before opening the entire thing. Either that or buy a house, but first I should focus on seeing what I can do to become stronger and better able to handle myself here.¡¯ Leaving the cave, Gregory found the sun near completely set. Only a small sliver of orange remained on the horizon, casting the painted purple and orange sky across the area. Another group was moving close now, Gregory could make out a few warriors, clad in armor that seemed very mix and matched. ¡®They must be natives of this planet, their levels also seem to indicate this. One is level 34, two are level 36, another three are level 37, and there is one of level 39 as well. Even if they are strictly physical in abilities, I doubt I would be able to do anything against them. There are too many at too high a level for me to be able to do anything against them. I will need to rely on my luck, and hope meeting up with them will not prove fatal.¡¯ Moving as quickly as he could, Gregory made his way over to the group of travelers. Their direction indicated that they were heading in the same direction as him, making it an easy choice to travel with them to make his travel easier. On the other hand, would the group want him with them? Would they feel safe with a stranger that is at least as strong as their strongest member from what they can tell? These were questions that while asked personally, were dismissed since Gregory really just wanted to see if he could make his travel any safer. Chapter 4 Part 2 Once Gregory neared the group, they he could tell they weren¡¯t all human. Three of them had visible tails, one was shorter with a bulkier build, two were just very short and were wielding bows, another one had white wings coming from their armor, and the last one looked to be a regular human. Another thing that was blatantly obvious upon getting closer was that five of the seven were female, and the two males were both in the middle level range. Seeing that the group was a potential threat to him, Gregory prepared all of his defenses. He began channeling his magic, drawing in the mana to attack in case they were to attack him. After he got to within ten feet, he could tell that they were all magically attuned, and wondered what their next move would be. ¡®I need to keep vigilant, never know what they might try doing with me. They are all magically attuned, but I can¡¯t quite tell how much so yet. Perhaps this ability to feel mana from other people comes from WIS, yet another unknown secret power it has. Perhaps all abilities have unknown secret powers that become more apparent at higher levels. If that is the case, how much stronger will this get as I level WIS? What kind of powers will I get as I level PER and INT?¡¯ One of the women in the group also spoke up as Gregory got to within ten feet of them. Her voice was gentle, but with volume. It had a certain kindness to it, but also a fierceness that seemed implacable for him. ¡°Who are you, and what are you doing out here? We can tell you aren¡¯t any stronger than we are, and probably even a little weaker than some of us considering you are a human. Of course, if you want to join our group, then you will need to prove your worth as well. Perhaps a show of your adventurer¡¯s guild card?¡± Gregory reached into a pouch he had on his belt, pulling the card from the pouch. He walked closer and then handed it over to the woman that spoke up to ask for it. They all took a turn examining the card carefully, and then gave it back. Again, she spoke up to make another comment. ¡°Seems you have some healing magic, that is always helpful. I would like to know how you have access to so many different forms of magic though. It is very rare to have access to more than a couple, and even then it is usually much later on for humans. What kind of ability do you have that you can use so many abilities?¡± Gregory¡¯s eyes moved slightly as she finished speaking. It was quite obvious that what he had was rare, even if multi-classing did seem possible for other people. Nobody seemed able to have more than a few classes, which also meant that others would be very skeptical of his powers on a whole. Gregory knew he had to say something, so decided he would try telling as much of the truth as he could. His voice came shakily, nervousness over what they might think or do getting the best of them. He knew he couldn¡¯t lie to them, but the truth seemed just as bad in this situation. ¡°I am one of the new arrivals here, it seems that the humans were being off-balanced. I am one of the people they sent here early, probably to prepare us for the rest of the humans to get here. As for my abilities, I just have lots of potential.¡± The woman who had been leading the group gave a small laugh, the rest of the group joining in. The woman then took off her helmet, revealing her identity to some degree. She was a beastkin, she had a wolfish face with rough and thick gray fur covering what would otherwise be visible skin. It was hard to tell her age, especially considering that he had no idea how any of the other races aged in comparison to humans. She again spoke, though some of the fierceness seemed to be gone without the helmet on her head. ¡°No reason to be concerned Gregory. Nobody on this planet has roots that are all originally from this planet anymore. Well, most humans are an exception, but only because their personalities breed arrogance. Also, some of the books they have are woefully inaccurate, aside from actual historical information. Gnomes for example are in the proper bracket, but the bracket should really be considered a hybrid bracket. Gnomes have skill in magic and ranged physical combat due to their skills, they are not primarily physical attackers. We beastkin too, we are skilled in magic as well as close-ranged physical combat. Humans are one of the weaker races, simply because the three races they list as being physically based with higher intelligence are actually hybrid races stronger than them in every way. Well, humans do have the largest potential to merge with other races though. They are however outcast by other humans at that point, so many prefer not to gain the benefits of merging with other races.¡± Gregory was shocked, he couldn¡¯t believe that this woman was so honest with him, more so than any of the humans were, and didn¡¯t even seem to expect anything back. While it does outcast me with humans to merge with another race, it seems that the benefit would far outweigh the negative. Other races wouldn¡¯t look at me with disdain, I¡¯d grow immensely in power, and the drawbacks would likely be small. Gregory responded to this woman with a couple of questions for her. ¡°What are your names, just out of curiosity? You mentioned mixing my race with another race; how would I do that, and which race would you recommend? Being so new here, I really appreciate any information, and I would love to travel along with you to begin growing more powerful.¡± The wolfish woman smiled, she would give their names, but was surprised that this human was so civil and even considered not being a total human. ¡°My name is Elise, the cat-like one of us is named Katherine and goes by Kat quite often, the other of us is named Atlas and is tiger-based. The dwarf¡¯s name is Alfred, the two gnomes¡¯ names are Caitlyn and Tim. The demon¡¯s name is Lily, and the last one is actually a faerie by the name of Aurora. We are going to keep other information about us secret, but that is what we will tell you for now. As for mixing races, one race will bestow upon another race their power. It is a unique process, and one that isn¡¯t always successful. Many have died trying to merge with a race, although humans do have the highest chance of success. As for which race would be best, I¡¯d recommend either an elemental, dragon, or an elf for you with your magical powers. We will let you come with us, but you will need to gain our trust if you wish to learn more about us.¡± Gregory bowed at the chest, responding to the party as humbly as he could. ¡°I appreciate your answers, and know that you gave me information you didn¡¯t need to. By the way, if I were to decide to choose a dragon, what would be the benefits to me?¡± Elise gave a smile before looking to Tim and giving him a nod. The gnome began his answer to Gregory¡¯s question, a much higher-pitched voice coming from the gnome that what would have been expected from a man. ¡°Dragons are considered very strong among the three magical races, they have the highest boost to wisdom, as a dragon¡¯s wisdom is unparalleled. Their scales grant near immunity to physical damage, their bodies are near immune to magic, and their perception is considered incredibly high. Unknown to the general public, Dragons are actually similar to elves in their capabilities when it comes to physical power. Their strength and constitution are very weak, but their speed is actually quite high. Their size though adjusts those to make them harder to tell. It is known by all that a dragon¡¯s constitution is low, as they are easily damaged behind their scales and can die after just a couple of semi-critical strikes without being very old and having gotten their constitution to unbelievable levels. Their strength seems much higher due to their size, but are actually much weaker than even elves if they were both the same size. Their speed is actually higher than an elves, but not by much. Their speed is considered low though, because their strength does not support their size, and that makes it impossible for them to move any faster than a normal creature of that size.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. All the races of magic have some advantage, the elves are the most intelligent and have the largest pool of mana at their disposal. Elementals are immune to physical attacks and magical attacks of their element, making them very powerful. Even gnomes are very strong magically, and only have physical strength as a limitation. Of course, any of the ¡®magical¡¯ races would make us look like an absolute novice in the magical arena due to their natural intelligence and wisdom being so far above our own.¡± Gregory was amazed to learn this information. It meant that he would have even less to consider now, as the races were basically similar to each other. The only real difference for him would be the physical differences and which areas he wanted to be stronger in. Of course, the gnome mentioned one other thing about dragons that he had almost forgot. ¡°I almost forgot, a dragon¡¯s magical power is determined by its wisdom, not by its intelligence, and gain more power from their wisdom in magical power than elves gain from their intelligence. This makes a dragon¡¯s magic the most powerful in the world.¡± As Gregory smiled at this new information, the group could see Gregory¡¯s obsession with power. The blind obsession that drove humans to do horrible things to other beings, waging wars just to eradicate other races that only ended in their own demise. However, it was a different kind of obsession, it was an obsession that led him to be obsessed with gaining true power instead of power through destroying others. He did not hate them because they were different, if anything their group intrigued him and drove him to grow even more. This human worried them, but he also intrigued them almost as much as they intrigued him. His potential was immense, and he didn¡¯t hold onto humanity as other humans did. He was willing to grow stronger even if it meant breaking bonds with the other humans. Humans were so weak, because they were the only race that weren¡¯t able to multi-class until level 50, and even then have no advantage to their abilities in the grand scale. Their only balance was their ability to level faster, but it also came at a price since they were so much weaker in total than any other race. If they were willing to merge with other races, it may not be so bad for them, but they were too arrogant to even consider ¡®soiling¡¯ themselves as they called it. Elise spoke once more to get a general feeling of what Gregory would like to do. ¡°There are a few things we could do. You seem to be set on becoming a part dragon, so perhaps we could head toward the land of the dragons. There are a few trails we¡¯d pass on the way, perhaps those would be a chance for you to show what you can do and gain our trust. We can also give you information about magic, especially some magic that the humans do not know of. There is magic that has long since been lost to time, perhaps one of you will have access to it, and can perhaps teach others how to access it as well.¡± Gregory nodded as she spoke, and then made some small mumblings that couldn¡¯t be understood before a resolved look spread across his face. ¡°Let¡¯s get going then, I can¡¯t afford to let that war that the humans started continue. Even if it means I need to get strong enough to stop it, I will find a way to prevent this imbalance and death from happening again. Let¡¯s head to where the dragons are, I feel like I am being drawn to it in some way.¡± They all nodded before starting to head in a direction almost straight north and away from where the map showed any dragons were at. He was confused, but didn¡¯t say anything. He would see what this group was like before deciding if they were lying or not. That, and he doubted he could get that far on his own anyways, all the maps showed that there were beings in the level 200s around where the dragons were, the direction this group was heading ramped up, but at a pace he could probably make it to with the rest of the group to help him. __________________________________________________________________ As night fell and the rest of the party headed to sleep, Elise and Lily were taking watch duty for the night. They kept an eye on Gregory, Elise listening to him carefully and waiting for him to fall entirely asleep. Once she could tell based on hearing that he was no longer awake, she turned toward Lily who also was watching Gregory suspiciously. ¡°He seems to be rather honest, and I know for a fact that he is not of this world. You can tell by his smell that he is from a different place, he doesn¡¯t have that same scent as the other humans I¡¯ve met do. That, and you can tell that he looks past our outward appearances. He was more intrigued than anything by us, he even gave you glances, and humans consider you the largest abominations.¡± Elise snickered a bit at the last line, knowing it was true and that Lily would do whatever she could to defend herself. Which of course, came almost instantly. Lily¡¯s face was midnight black in color, the same as the rest of the demons. She was rather different from most of her race, far more willing to compromise and much friendlier overall than any others she had ever met of them. Her voice was soft and gentle, much gentler than would be imagined by ones so feared as the demons. ¡°You know that is just because my race likes warmongering. It doesn¡¯t make us evil or abominations to like to fight, especially when they are the ones that started the fighting in the first place. If anything, they should be considered the evil ones for trying to destroy the other races. Also, the demons are not evil and shouldn¡¯t even rightly be called so. Yes, we were made from the evil creatures of this planet, but we have just as much potential for good as anybody else does.¡± She blushed when she saw Elise almost ready to start laughing. Lily knew that Elise had intentionally pushed her to defend herself, and that she often made that argument whenever she got upset about this subject. Lily made another remark before she left it up to Elise to hopefully finish with making her upset. ¡°Yes Elise, you are the queen of the party, you know exactly how to break me down, just like you can break down everybody else. I just wish you would quit being so ¡®human¡¯ about it, and act like one of your own.¡± Elise made a motion of mock insult before they both started laughing amongst themselves. It was almost impossible to imagine a demon and beast-kin getting along so well, but they didn¡¯t know these two if they believe it was truly impossible. The two of them were inseparable, and never truly fought even though they joked together so often. Lily and Elise took another look at Gregory, trying to decide how they should test him. Lily spoke up, knowing that she could give an answer to the question. ¡°We could bring him to the hidden dragon city that we are planning to bring him to, it is easy to get to. There are only level 50 dungeons around it, so we could get him back to his current level quickly enough, and he would keep any class advancement he has. If anything, he would grow stronger. If he truly does accept, we know he isn¡¯t like the other humans. He would be one that would be capable of stopping the war, perhaps not right away, but eventually if he will move to fight. The magical races refuse to fight, and the physical races are all too dumb to know where to swing. They are just as likely to attack us as they are to attack a human. With him, it may finally be possible to bring peace to this world and prevent it from being destroyed again by the greed and anger that corrupts the humans.¡± Elise shook her head. ¡°No, peace can never be truly achieved. We can perhaps keep a balance and not have the planet moved again, but true peace will never be achieved. Also, only if he truly melds with the personality and powers of a dragon will he be able to have their true powers. We should tell him of the ancient magics though, he may be able to learn them eventually. The powers of temporal, spatial, and gravitational magics were lost, erased by the same mages that erased their own existence. They were considered the strongest, but realized that their powers were too great and removed themselves to equal the world. If he learned those powers, then he may be able to stop the war that plagues this world and finally bring enough peace to stop the wars and protect the humans from themselves.¡± Lily looked toward Tim and then back to Elise, wondering if those magics were really right for a human to bear. ¡°You really think a human would be capable of handling those without falling to the greed and lust they bring, they are all weak. Perhaps if he were a dragon I would reconsider, but as he is now I wouldn¡¯t trust him with gaining any powers like those.¡± Chapter 4 Part 3 Gregory woke up refreshed and excited to start the new day. The rest of the group was rather curious about humans, especially since Gregory was far weaker overall than many would suspect for someone of his level. His mental abilities were quite high, but his physical capabilities made him quite vulnerable despite any other skills. It was worth particular notice that except for the demon and faerie, Gregory was weaker in nearly every way than every other member of the group at a base apples to apples comparison. This not only made his physical deficiencies next to the rest noticeable, it made him incredibly at risk in many regular dungeons, or trials as this group called them, because of his weakness. These were things that Gregory realized on a subconscious level, but didn¡¯t realize that it would be so exaggerated. The book in the human city mentioned that the beings were stronger than humans, but they didn¡¯t mention the exact numerical value stronger. It also didn¡¯t mention that the mental aspects were also enhanced over humans, it only mentioned that they had stronger minds than the barely sentient races without mentioning that they were also stronger than humans¡¯ minds. Elise and Lily both looked at Gregory, watching as he made a stretch when he got up. They quickly woke up the rest of the group before leading the way onto the first trial they would need to pass to get to the mountain where the dragons had hidden themselves in. The entrance to this trial was a large forest with multiple winding roads and exits all around the perimeter of the woods. For many it would be near impossible to bypass this place, and even with Gregory¡¯s map he couldn¡¯t figure it out. Luckily, the group he had knew the way to get to the center and the cave system that followed. The forest was a trial by itself, and then the cavern was another trial. By passing both of them, it would be possible to make it into the center of the mountain range without using flight to get there. It was probably the smallest of the dragon realms, but it wouldn¡¯t stop being a safer way to meet dragons if one knew the way. The group hadn¡¯t realized how much of a difference traveling with a human made, until it was midday and they all felt that no progress had been made in getting to where they wanted to be. All of them had forgotten that humans grow much slower than any other race, and they were the one race that hardly ever had bonuses to their stats. So, even though Gregory was the same level as them overall, he was much weaker than them in every way except magic. As they traveled, they ran into various encounters showing Gregory just how weak he really was. They ran into various magically resistant creatures while traveling as well, creatures which would have led Gregory to an early demise should he have tried to travel this way on his own. Perhaps that wasn¡¯t entirely true, but it was true that he would have turned around before making it anywhere near where the dragons were at. He also learned something about the auto-loot that his unique class gave him, which was that it didn¡¯t work when he did the least damage. Gregory also managed to reach level 40, even if only barely, and was able to gain one more unique class and one more regular class. Eventually, Gregory saw something rather intimidating. There was what looked to be a human flying around the field attacking creatures with a combination of abilities that scared him. It seemed he had powers the likes of which he hadn¡¯t yet heard of. Not only was this person disappearing and reappearing in different places, but they were also using magics to create black holes and consume attacks coming for them. Even with Gregory having gained a level, he still felt powerless against whoever this person was. Seeing the rest of his group ready to face this threat steeled Gregory somehow, and he resolved to stay and fight. He tried watching what the person was doing with their magic, but it was too far away to see clearly enough. When they finished clearing the area of creatures, they turned their attention to Elise¡¯s group. They moved quickly, teleporting closer by the second. It was then visible that their level was at 71, but it was also obvious that they were a pure human which seemed to set the rest of Gregory¡¯s group at ease. As the person approached, it became obvious that it was a guy, until he vanished from view. In the next moment, two things happened. The first was that Gregory felt an immense amount of gravity weighing down on him and the group, stifling and almost entirely stopping his movement. The second was that the rest of his group was attacking, but their attacks didn¡¯t seem to reach the person that had attacked them. The person using a bow, and the other using a crossbow had their arrows and bolts aged so much that they vanished before they reached the attacker. The rest of them using magic had their attacks teleported through what looked like a black hole. At the same time, the man attacking them was teleporting around the field and making it look like the group didn¡¯t stand a chance. Of course that wasn¡¯t exactly true, but the extra gravity made it hard for them to react fast enough to avoid his attacks. Trying to attack him back was almost impossible without putting themselves at risk. Gregory felt helpless as he watched the fight unfolding, not even sure how to do anything to help since he couldn¡¯t muster the strength to move. It was at this point that his passive abilities finally gave him something again. He got a notification about a new class having been unlocked. You have unlocked the Arcane Warlock Unique Class due to learning the basics of the class. You have gained access to Spatial Magic. You have gained access to Temporal Magic. You have gained access to Gravity Magic. You have learned the spell Teleportation.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. You have learned the spell Chrono Shift. You have learned the spell Gravitas. ¡®Incredible, it seems that this unique class has really boosted combat potential, but at the same time, that person is still far stronger than I am. Now I need to do what I can to get out of this and try to help the group fight him.¡¯ Gregory used Gravitas on his own location, and felt an immediate drain on his mana reserves. He wondered how this opponent of theirs could keep up the spell like he was, but ignored it. Using all his power, he focused on reversing the force of the gravity on him and the rest of the party by an equal amount to the amount of gravity being applied to them. Immediately, his mana plummeted down, and he nearly collapsed with the cost it placed on him. He wasn¡¯t able to get rid of the gravity the other mage placed on the group, but he had lessened it by about a quarter. Gregory kept the rest of his mana reserved for teleports, just in case whoever this was would attack him. He could feel the constant drain, and could tell that his mana regeneration didn¡¯t even cover the amount that was being used up for the gravitas he was applying. It was not magic that he could keep up, but he could at least perhaps use it long enough to make the other person leave before any danger befell their group. With access to more of their speed, the rest of the party that Gregory was in were able to outspeed the opponent they found themselves facing. After just a minute, this foe that seemed impossible to beat was losing stamina with the requirement to actually dodge in addition to teleporting. He even started attacking Gregory, which is when Gregory used the reserve he was keeping for teleports to stay away from him. Eventually, the man left them just as quickly as he had made himself known. However, the man had done one positive thing for the group, he had given Gregory access to some of the most powerful schools of magic, schools that had been lost to time, and would give Gregory more versatility once he could master them. He also got another luck curse, which was to be expected considering what he had survived and gained. Luck being abused has gained you the Ancient¡¯s Luck Curse. ¡®Ancient¡¯s Luck Curse¡¯ Ancient¡¯s Luck Curse For your luck having been abused so greatly, luck has been halved (720 Hrs.) ¡®Status¡¯ Name Gregory Jeffrey Drake Age 19 Level 40(2%) Class Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, Enchanter Unique Class Gamer, Master Scout, Arcane Warlock Race Human Title Fearless, ¡°Outnumbered, not Outgunned¡± Health 1125/1125 Stamina 1500/1500 Mana 7500/7500 CON 30(25+5) STR 15(10+5) AGI 30(25+5) INT 150(145+5) WIS 330(296+29+5) PER 115(100+10+5) FTH 15(10+5) LUK MAX Passive Skills Life in a Game, Passive Luck, Reverse Engineer, Multi-Casting(N5), Observant, Skinning(N1), Filleting(N1), Barrier Vision, Photographic Memory, Cloth-Working(N1) Armorer(C/L)(N1), Repair(C/L)(N1), Clothier(C/L)(N1), Embroiderer(N1), Metal-Sewing(M-A)(N1) Feats The Wise One, Perceptive, Lucky, Kingslayer Traits Trained, Educated, Boosted Debuffs Ancient¡¯s Luck Curse Active Skills Riftwalker N/A[10M,10S] Flare Novice 9(23%)[10M] Bolt Novice 3(37%)[10M] Slice Novice 8(46%)[10M] Flame Engulfment 3(27%)[20M] Identify Novice 2(17%)[N/A] Healing Novice 1(0%)[20M,10S] Self-Healing Novice 1(0%)[30M,10S] Mana Bolt Novice 1(0%)[10M] Mana Sphere Novice 1(0%)[15M] Mana Manipulation Novice 2(3%)[VARM] Homing Mana Sphere Novice 1(0%)[75M] Homing Mana Bolt Novice 1(0%)[50M] Expanding Explosive Mana Sphere Novice 4(0%)[1000M] Spiraling Mana Javelin Novice 2(19%)[700M] Spiral Mana Bolt Novice 5(4%)[20M] Stealth Intermediate 1(0%) Portal Walker N/A[30M] Enchanting Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Stat Buffing Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Defensive Buffing Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Damage Buffing Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Teleportation Novice 1(15%)[VARM] Chrono Shift Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Gravitas Novice 1(23%)[VARM] Unspent Stat Points 11 Unspent Trait Points 6 As they finished the fight, the rest of the group looked toward Gregory with a bit of curiosity. They were sure that we wasn¡¯t able to use those magics before the fight, but just during the fight, he had gained access to magics that were supposed to have been hidden away for ages. To have gained access to such magics so quickly, and without any formal training, meant that Gregory was likely a prodigy when it came to magic. What he had probably wasn¡¯t just potential, it was most likely an ability that gave him access to more abilities than he was supposed to have. At this point, Elise responded with high curiosity as to what Gregory¡¯s actual ability was. It was obvious that he had a ¡®unique class¡¯ as they were called, the question to them was what the ¡®class¡¯ did. ¡°You gained access to those magics quickly, are you sure you aren¡¯t from this world? Or perhaps, there is more to you than you are letting on. I assure you, we are not intending to harm you, we would just like to know what your true power is. Having somebody like you, a person that is able to grow so quickly, is very intimidating even if you are an ally.¡± Gregory hesitated for a moment before responding back. ¡°You are right, I have a different ability that I had first let on. My true power is that of a ¡®gamer¡¯. I have the ability to gain regular and unique classes based on level, in addition to whatever it is you mentioned I assume. They are powers that have so far given me far more power than I would have thought possible for somebody of my level. However, I have seen people way stronger than me, so I still know that I am not the strongest person that was brought to this planet right away.¡± They all smirked at this, hardly believing that Gregory could be so humble considering he was so strong compared to most humans. Of course, that was another thing. He was only strong compared to most humans, many other races were much stronger than he was and would make him look quite weak in comparison. Elise responded to Gregory¡¯s words with a motivation to get him stronger, stronger to the point that he could go with them and be of true use to their team. ¡°Let¡¯s get you to that mountain then, you are definitely a person that will make the world a better place.¡± Chapter 5 Part 1 The journey was going uneventfully, relatively anyways compared to what the group could handle. Gregory had gained a couple of levels, but even with that could still tell that the group he was in were practically dragging him. For them to be this dedicated to helping him meant one of two things; it was either extremely beneficial for them to have a part dragon in the party, or he really would be useful in some ways with his ability to heal them and not need to pull from their reserves. He was boosting INT every level, and using his newfound mana to grow his strength by putting on enough gravity that he was barely able to walk. There were notifications that he was gaining points in STR, AGI, and CON as they traveled, which made it that much easier to keep walking as they got continuously closer to the dragon¡¯s mountain sanctuary. ¡®It does seem that the new luck curse on me isn¡¯t working, which is a good thing. I will need to make sure to not passively use my luck though, otherwise it might become stronger.¡¯ Inside the cave they were traveling through were numerous side-paths, not to mention multiple invisible paths that couldn¡¯t be seen and had to be gotten into. Some of the invisible paths were in areas that seemed to have traps, needing to get hit by what would be a trap to get into the path. Still, being able to just follow behind the others made things very easy for him. It took no mental effort to follow them, and it was impossible to hit traps if they were going first and making sure to show him there were no traps first. Gregory considered this entire experience since he met this new party a major honor. Not only did he gain huge amounts of knowledge from these people that would have been otherwise unknown to him, but they were doing what they could to make him more powerful as well. They did freely reveal though, that all of them were stronger than him in every way with modifiers, which had made him visibly distressed. The demons, faeries, and celestials all had x5 modifiers to their stats compared to humans. The beastkin, gnomes, and dwarves were a bit more varied. Beastkin had x15 to AGI, with x10 to CON, PER, and STR, and X5 to their WIS and INT. They were also the only ones with natural weapons. Dwarves had x15 to CON and STR, x10 to AGI and INT, and X5 to PER and WIS. Gnomes on the other hand had X15 to AGI only, then had x10 to all other stats except PER, with a x5 to that. Basically, Gregory was much weaker than other races, and would remain that way until he could become one with another race to improve his power. ¡®The curse of the humans, even though they can level faster, their power is so much weaker it is basically a non-factor. Even the man who we met recently, had he not had gravity magic, and enough mana to use it consistently, our group would have been far too much for him to handle. They were all faster, stronger, and definitely more perceptive than he was. On the other hand, I think the bonuses I have to my stats right now are only true until such time as the planets fully connect. The people in this group, even with their massive boosts to power, probably have just about all their stats at a higher point than I do. I do wonder though, why do all the races put modifiers on their stats in comparison to humans? I mean, it makes sense when speaking to me, but it seems almost second nature for them. Unless humans are a base race, and it makes it easier for them to measure off of a base instead of measuring from a point that has a less clean reference point.¡¯ Deep in thought, Gregory almost missed it when a massive creature plummeted to the ground from the ceiling. Its body was at least 50 feet tall, and had muscles that made it look as if they would rip from underneath the beasts skin. Its skin was a sickly dull gray, appearing as if it were stretched too thin to make it cover the entire body. There were thick scars covering the body of this creature, making the already sickly gray skin look like it had gone through whirling blades to get here. The head of the creature was disproportionately small, with three eyes and large sharp tusks protruding from its lower lip. It had long curved claws adorning its hands, with visible jagged edges along them. Instead of legs, it had tentacles keeping it up. It was hard to say how many there were, but they were large and slammed the ground with massive force with every move it made. When the fight between this monster and the group started, Gregory began watching intently. He was looking for any openings to use magic against it, trying to find a way to help beat it. It attacked violently, his team barely managing to avoid attacks that would have likely obliterated them. As it attacked, Gregory saw that it also swung and slammed with the tentacles. It always had at least a third of them on the ground, but often more. When it had less than half, the creature visibly wavered whenever it had to move. It gave Gregory an idea on how to beat it, but it would require teamwork. He called out to one of the people to use a wind attack the next time it had only a third of its tentacles on the ground. During this time, Gregory gathered half of his mana to prepare to use Gravitas against it and hopefully topple it with the combined attack. If they could topple the beast and destroy its eyes, they could likely beat it after that. Before too much time had passed, it had once again brought up two thirds of its tentacles and Gregory used half of his mana to apply pressure to the creature before them. With the added gravity and the wind to knock it over, the beast fell to the ground. The group moved almost before he could even notice them doing anything. It took some time for the monster to get back up. Despite its hulking figure and massive strength, the extra gravity made it impossible for its arms to make up the difference of using its tentacles. However, the extra gravity made it almost impossible to get its tentacles under its body. By the time Gregory had used Gravitas for a minute and the monster got up, it had already been severely damaged. The eyes that adorned this creature were all sliced out slashed leaving it nearly blind. A number of its tentacles had also been lopped off, leaving it with no choice but to attack only with its arms and claws. Even then, the blood it was leaking from its body was having a noticeable effect on the speed it had displayed before falling to the ground. Suddenly, it seemed like it was possible to defeat this beast and make it to where the dragons live. Its speed was slowly dropping and it was definitely losing health. Even the attacks it performed were getting easier for the rest of the group to dodge. They continued fighting, making ground against this massive beast that prevented them from making it to the home of the dragons. It was nearing a quarter health, but the group was getting tired. Despite it being severely weakened from the earlier attack, it was a monstrously powerful foe.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. When it finally hit a quarter of its health, after what seemed to have been an hour of combat, four arms grew out from its body and the swinging of its arms was reinvigorated. Instead of barely being able to keep up, the creature was actually just about catching them now. Had it not been so heavily wounded before, Gregory doubted they could even kill it. Even with its eyes ruined, the creatures other senses had managed to give it enough accuracy to be able to easily get around the sight it had lost. The fight was quickly turning around from Gregory¡¯s group being in the lead, to their group going hugely on defense. Even the tentacles began swinging again, nearly hitting anybody close enough. The claws had even scratched some of them, and there were deep cuts in the armor that some of them were wearing. Just as it looked like the entire group, including Gregory, were going to die, a massive dragon came into the area through a door and absorbed the creature that was attacking them. It was an amazing creature, covered in green and gold scales. Everybody thought this dragon was impressive, but none knew for sure how powerful it was. That was until Gregory saw it restore the creature they had just been fighting as it was before the fight. The dragon turned toward the group, explaining the situation. ¡°This is an ancient golem I keep summoned to keep humans from entering this place. No so far have been able to defeat it, though you have come closer than I have seen anybody come in a long time. That raises the question though, what brings you here? Most people don¡¯t bother coming, and those that do are usually well aware that this place is a very dangerous one to visit. Of course, many say it is the easiest dragon home to gain access to, that is only without the golem that we keep guarding it at all times.¡± ¡®That explains the monster that attacked us, but to think it was created by that dragon makes the dragons even more frightening. How long has this dragon lived? Does its age have something to do with why it is so strong? Does how magically strong it is have something to do with how physically strong the golem is? I have so many questions, but I probably can¡¯t ask all of them. Nor would it make sense to ask all the questions, I have far more important things to think about.¡¯ Elise spoke up in response to the golem, being the de facto leader of the group. ¡°We came because this human wants to become part dragon. We found him alone in the wilderness near human territory, and discovered that he is from a different planet. He says it is called ¡®Earth,¡¯ and that it is home to enough humans to stop our planet from dying. He said that whoever told him what is going on never specified what they were, but did give them very vague information about what was happening. It also seems that whoever brings them here is responsible for humanity¡¯s destructive tendencies. He told us that they mentioned danger and monsters before anything else as far as this world was concerned. If you would be able to help him, we¡¯d really appreciate it. We have traveled with him, and know that he isn¡¯t lying to us. He is also not so foolish as to attack us without provocation and try to cause intentional harm.¡± The dragon looked curiously at Gregory, having never personally met a person born from another planet. Had it not been for Gregory, he likely never would have. Still though, the request was something that proved him legitimate. It was something a human born here would never request, even to gain power, since they were all so incredibly stuck up because of their ability to level up faster as pure humans. Turning to look at Gregory, the dragon decided to really test him with the power that comes from being part dragon. ¡°You know you will be giving up a serious ability to level faster, not to mention that you could die if it doesn¡¯t work. This may be something you understand, but I don¡¯t want you going into this decision blind. I¡¯d really hate to be the cause of a death, even if it is a human death. Choose to become one of us though, and I promise I will do all I can to assist you with it.¡± When he paused, Gregory decided to ponder his words for a moment. What the dragon said was true; he was giving up some things, but he was also gaining power. Even if it risked his life, who was to say he wouldn¡¯t die because he didn¡¯t do it later on. It also seemed that dragons had much longer life spans than humans, meaning that he wouldn¡¯t have to worry about death of old age anytime soon. He wouldn¡¯t be able to go back to Earth like this, but he would be able to survive much more easily on this planet. ¡°I do want to become part dragon, I believe it is the only way for me to survive this new world. I also don¡¯t want to live in fear, and need to forever live in regret of a decision that will only bring me momentary doubt. If I decide not to go through with this, I will only be weaker in the long-run. Leveling will eventually get too hard even if I can get to much higher levels easier. Once I start to plane off on leveling, I will continue to get weaker in comparison to if I were part dragon. I am sure there are even some creatures that are entirely immune to anything a human could do to them, and that would make me being part dragon an even better thing.¡± The dragon was surprised, not once did this human refer to anything as a monster. He gave a logical response to the question, and even admitted that he wasn¡¯t a perfect being. It had proved that he was at least worthy of an audience with somebody that could choose to accept his request. Not to say that he couldn¡¯t accept his request, but he would be banned for accepting the request. Only the head dragon was allowed to accept other races to become part dragon. For a human like this, it was actually quite like the boss would say yes, but policy was policy. ¡°My name is Xano Nox Lux. The name of the dragon who will be deciding the acceptance of your request is Aurum Rex Sanguinus. Now, I wish you the best, and hope you will become a powerful dragon.¡± Chapter 5 Part 2 Xano led the group toward a large building in the center of the city. Elise, and the rest of the group were all marveling at their surroundings. As they continued on, the buildings kept getting more impressive, and they all realized that the buildings were indeed all made from precious metals and stones. These dragons had used their hordes to make this city, and that impressed all of them with how much it was worth. During this time though, Gregory was doing his best to take in the directions. This city was made for dragons, who had in their wisdom built it for those that can fly. It was like a labyrinth, and without a guide the whole group would have been eternally lost in this place without a perfect memory. Even with his wisdom and superb memory with the higher intelligence he had gotten, with the slides they had gone down it would be impossible to make it out of here without a guide. It had taken about three hours to make it to the palace that they saw, and they were even more impressed once they were up close. The gates were made using slabs of platinum, inlaid with jewels as large as a people. The edge of the door was gold, and it had massive golden hinges. The palace was made from gold, platinum, and countless jewels that looked to be the size of dragons. The sheer wealth of these dragons startled Gregory as they stared at the doors. From inside the palace, two massive dragons pushed open the doors, holding onto chains that were made heavily out of a gold alloy with various other metals mixed in to increase strength. Xano then let the group know something that was mostly considered secret knowledge. ¡°There are two types of dragons, the mystic dragons which you all seem to know about and warrior dragons. Warrior dragons are dragons with greatly adjusted stats compared to a mystic dragon. They still have the powerful fire breath, but they don¡¯t have nearly as much wisdom or intelligence. They instead rely on their outstanding physiques to win in combat. They are beings with immense physical powers, and due to their size and magical abilities can even defeat the most powerful physical specific creatures. In fact, it may surprise you to find out that most dragons are warrior dragons, and that we hide their powers so that they are a trump card when attacked. There are actually a few other races you don¡¯t know about, that also fall into this category, though they are entirely incompatible with any flesh and blood race. Ents are one such race, an incredibly powerful race, whose toddlers could send many running and near death without a direct counter to them.¡± As they neared the throne room, a dragon acting as the herald alerted the king to the presence. ¡°A party wishes to see you Lord Aurum, it is led here by Xano. The party has a varied composition, and obviously seem to want a meeting with you.¡± A voice, one that sounded of royal grandeur, sounded from the room before them. ¡°Let them in then, I wish to know their request. It is not everyday that one as prestigious as Xano brings visitors to the castle, especially non-dragon visitors. It must be something very important, or beneficial, if Xano brought them here himself.¡± The herald gave a small bow to the group, and Xano led the group into the throneroom. What awaited them was a floor made of granite, except where large diamonds marked the path to the throne. The walls were made of what appeared to be a gold alloy of some sort for added strength, and the ceiling was made entirely of some kind of magical crystal. The entire place was amazing, and Gregory could hardly believe that such a place could be built. Once they were completely inside the room, Xano went up to the king to make a silent recount of the situation to him. The dragon began laughing, looking directly at Gregory. It seemed there was more to this human than met the eye, he was perhaps even capable of becoming part dragon himself. The king decided to grant the request that it seemed Gregory wanted, but first he would again relay the downsides of what could happen. ¡°Even for a human, the process of becoming part dragon is a very dangerous one. Usually, humans hold a 50% rate of success for becoming half races. For dragons, that is only a 5% chance of success. You will die in 95% of the cases, or 1 in 20. You are a person who seems to genuinely care for humanity, and I¡¯d hate to see you die for something like becoming stronger or to prove that you are not against other races. Even elves have a regular success rate to become one with. From what I¡¯ve heard, only dragons and trolls have a lower rate of success than other races do when merging with humans. It is probably best to merge with an elemental or elf if you are considering becoming a more magically based race. A great part of a dragon¡¯s power is in their size and being completely covered in scales. Being only half-dragon will take away any size advantage, and you will have places without scales. That will make you much weaker, as you will have a massive weakness to any physical combat.¡± Gregory frowned, Xano had told him all this, but to hear it again and in such a somber tone told him that it was definitely realistic. He didn¡¯t want to turn away from his resolve though, he had to persevere and hold by his ideals if he was to change this place. It was an inevitability that the worlds would merge together, but that didn¡¯t mean he couldn¡¯t ignore fear and do what he could to protect people. Even if that meant protecting them from themselves by using power. ¡°Yes, it is a decision I need to go through with. I need to remain firm in my decisions, especially if I am to prevent what the history books seem to unanimously decide is humanity¡¯s hate causing this. Even if it kills me, it is something I must go through with.¡± Gregory displayed a resoluteness that the dragon hadn¡¯t seen in any humans during his lifetime. It was enough to make even him see something new at his age. Well, nearly two thousand years wasn¡¯t that old for a dragon, but he was still older than many dragons around here. The oldest dragons usually lived in isolation, so him being with other dragons at his age was rare. He would not deny the request of this man though, it was one that would help both races if it succeeded, and wouldn¡¯t really hurt anybody if it failed. Dragons didn¡¯t like needless death, so they would do everything in their power to make it successful, but they weren¡¯t going to be especially upset if it didn¡¯t. Aurum let a small laugh escape before he prepared himself to initiate the process. It was a rather simple procedure, but, like he said, the success rate was incredibly low. Aurum gathered his mana, and then directed it toward and into Gregory. This was the first part of the process, the next part was something a bit different and quite strange. Aurum made a cut on his tongue with one of his massive claws, and then let the blood drip into a bowl. Aurum let Gregory know what the blood was for, and it was necessary for him to use it immediately. ¡°You must drink from the bowl, and if it is successful you will awaken part dragon. If it is unsuccessful, you will most likely die from rejection.¡± Gregory did not hesitate to drink the blood, despite the fact that it was going to be dangerous and it seemed slightly wrong. The wrongness was assuaged due to the dragon¡¯s willingness, and the danger was something that he knew about going into it and it was a risk he was willing to take. As he drank the blood, Gregory fell onto his back. The beginning of the changes had knocked him unconscious, and he wasn¡¯t going to be waking up anytime soon.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. ______________________________________________________________________ The rest of the group put up their guards as they weren¡¯t sure what to expect, but it definitely looked like Gregory was in a dangerous condition. He was a new addition to the party, but he was a very good person; this was especially so considering he was a human. Aurum would diffuse their quick actions shortly though. ¡°The transformation process takes a very long time. I needed to use my own mana as a primer for him, and then use my blood as the basis for how to have that primer react. What he is going through right now will take at least a week before he has woken back up, and more than that before he is back into fighting condition. He will be going through an internal struggle, and the most we can do is keep him healthy and strong to help him win the battle and succeed in these changes. Now, if you would all like to go to some rooms, we do have plenty of empty rooms for guests of your size.¡± As they left, showed to some rooms by the gatekeeper outside, Xano glared at Aurum. Instead of rambling off in a rage though, he forced himself cool his head before he would describe how best to keep Gregory alive and himself. ¡°We will need to keep Gregory in perfect physical condition for the best chances at this being successful. We will also need to keep his mana filled all the time. You have read the texts, you know why the success rate is so low, they must face a dragon inside themselves. For him to have not already died is a great sign by itself, but we need to do all we can now to help him succeed.¡± Aurum nodded, knowing that what Xano said was true. Dragons were creatures that stood by their word, and did what they could to help others despite stories. Xano likely promised this human that he would do everything he could to keep him alive, so it would be necessary now for Xano to follow through with that promise since Aurum had granted the request to become part dragon. ¡°Do what you can Xano, you are our most skilled at keeping people at magic so please keep him alive. I¡¯d hate to see one so gifted fall so short of their potential.¡± Xano picked up Gregory, and set him on the back of his neck. It would be the safest place for the boy, and he hoped that Gregory would be able to make it through this and become a ¡®brother¡¯ to the dragons. He was surprised though at how much mana a human could use in such a short time though, Gregory kept consuming massive amounts every second. It showed that the fight with the dragon he was facing, was definitely a magical one. Of course, only Gregory knew what was going on exactly, but Xano had read that a non-dragon creature trying to become part-dragon would face a dragon of whatever kind they would become. It was quite obvious he would be part mystic dragon if he made it out alive, but the colors were something he was curious about as well. Colors of a dragon showed their powers and history, depending on the color. Gold was the color of a powerful royal, while silver was the color of a weak royal. Anything in between those two was a variance of power in royalty. Green was the color of natural wisdom, or wisdom in regards to nature. The ¡®king¡¯ here was mostly gold, with blue and red streaks. Shades of red were representative of power in combat magic, and blue was the color symbolizing royal wisdom. Purple showed a disposition for non-combative magics. Pink symbolized magical wisdom, and demonstrated great knowledge into the inner workings of magic. Brown was a color that became very unpopular and uncommon after ending up on this planet, one that showed a vast understanding for things that were not natural or magical in nature. It had to do with technology and engineering, so something that was entirely useless on this planet. Gray was a color that showed a neutral base, one that could lean in any direction. All warrior dragons had streaks of crimson and yellow directly touching each other. The yellow showed a physical base instead of a magical base to the combative power it held. It was very common to see this combination of crimson and yellow in dragons, but very few knew what it meant. The two least common colors on the other hand were white and black. White was the color of pure power, a power that covered all types that the user had access to. On a warrior dragon it demonstrated immense physical power, speed, and constitution. In mystic dragons, it showed a magical disposition for any spells that the user happened to cross by and immense power in those spells with training. Black demonstrated an infinite understanding, just like space was infinite. In fact, many said that a black-scaled dragon was the wisest of the dragons. _____________________________________________________________________ Inside Gregory¡¯s body and mind was a fierce battle raging, one that was consuming his mana at a ridiculous pace. He had only caught glimpses of the dragon, but it was one he didn¡¯t know how to fight. Even his most devastating spells were doing little to damage it, and there was no sign that it would tire anytime soon. The only advantage seemed to be the space in which they were fighting. It was a very enclosed space, in a tunnel system made of near indestructible bricks. It gave the dragon no chance to spread its wings to take flight, and also gave Gregory the advantage with being able to get around corners and blast the dragon with magic without even needing to worry about retaliation. The dragon itself was mostly covered in white scales, but there were large sections of black scales as well. Most of the underside of the dragon was black, and its back legs also had large streaks of black running down the outsides of them. There were also two small streaks of crimson visible, running from the dragon¡¯s eyes down to the giant feet of its front legs. The dragon was much smaller than any of the dragons it had seen, signifying that it was probably a very young dragon. Still, the dragon was plenty frightening despite its size. Even using all his strongest magic together, Gregory was just doing very little damage to the amazing creature before him. He had combined gravity magic on the dragon itself with casting massive spheres of mana, and even using javelins of mana to try doing damage to the dragon. It seemed there was some outside influence granting him mana, because the amount he was using in such short succession was more than he had access to normally. The dragon in the meanwhile seemed like it had an infinite supply of energy that would never run dry. ____________________________________________________________________ Elise and Lily were in the same room, having just gotten there. The rooms were designed to house two people the regular size of most races. Elise and Lily were simply the two that got along together best, and they decided to be in the same room together. Lily spoke to Elise this time, wondering what she was feeling about possibly losing the newest of their party. ¡°So, it seems he was knocked unconscious. That is definitely normal, but how long do you think it will last. Normally, it is alright to have others around the person during the process. For them to keep all of us away, it must be something different from what we know of as a regular transformation process.¡± Elise looked up, her wolfish face betraying a very new sense of comradery for the human they had met. ¡°Yes, it is true that he will probably be out for a while. He is not dead yet though, which means he did not immediately suffer from rejection. It is a good sign that he may pull through this. It was definitely made very clear that people trying to become part-dragon are likely to die, but it seems they are doing everything in their power to help him survive it.¡± Lily nodded, a grin on her face. She really didn¡¯t have much preference either way about Gregory, but she knew that Elise had taken an instant liking to his honesty. It was something they had all thought previously impossible to find in a human, but that Gregory had proved more than once. He had even helped them in fighting another human, and was willing to put himself at risk to help them. Truth be told, his honesty and willingness to prove himself was something that very few people did in general, regardless of race. Of course, she got herself out of this serious line of thought with the quick throw of a pillow at Elise. The two really were young, and despite the fact that they were an adventuring party of a respectable level, they were kids. In fact, the mentality of the non-human races developed much more slowly due to the fact that they all lived so much longer. Even the shortest lived race aside from humans, the orcs and ogres, could live to be up to 250 years old. The average beastkin lived to be 450, while the demons were completely immune to aging. It meant that they could afford to act like kids for a much longer period of time, even if they were already doing things that only an adult human would do. Adventuring was one such thing. Sometimes even, the youthfulness they displayed could save their lives in certain cases. Of course, Elise dodged the pillow, before picking it up only to have another pillow land squarely in her face. The two continued this pillow fight for a short time, before they began musing to themselves what the wares dragons created would look like. They had to make money somehow, and they both knew that the portrayal of dragons as monsters was about as far from the truth as one could come. It left the question though, what did they make or do to get money. They both decided on going into the city the next day, with a guide of course, to see what they could buy. Chapter 5 Part 3 It had taken nearly a week before Gregory started to show signs that he would awake soon, and definitely not perish because of the transformation. Scales were beginning to form on his body, his magic was changing into that of a dragons, and he was beginning to move. Over the course of that week, the rest of the party he had come with had managed to make some very impressive purchases. The dragons were some of the world''s best artisans, and the products that could be purchased from a dragon were the best anybody could get. Elise was a warrior, and she had managed to get a new breastplate and two new weapons. She got a longsword, and a double-headed war axe as well. Lily got a recurve bow with metal reinforcements. Alfred had gotten a full suit of heavy armor, with some minor enchantments to resist magical effects. The rest of the party had decided against any purchases, as the items were mostly high cost, and all the party members who did spend anything spent all the money they had brought with them. _______________________________________________________________________ Over the course of this week, Xano had been doing everything he could to assist Gregory in getting through this transformation alive. He had been feeding him more mana than he thought a human could consume, but it was still nothing for the dragon. Of course, the dragon was surprised by what it saw of the scales that Gregory was forming. The hands were where his changes began, and there were obviously white and crimson scales on them. As the scales spread to his chest, he could tell that the chest area was a pure black like an empty night sky. Flipping him over, a narrow line of purple scales forming on the back were visible. It was rare in general to see a combination of the black and white scales, so the fact that this person had both colors made him very intriguing. From his scales, it could be deduced that Gregory would be a very powerful mystic part-dragon with powerful magics. Xano was shocked at the revelation that Gregory¡¯s scales gave him, but it was even more surprising that a part-dragon would have those color scales. At least the boy was beginning to wake up, which meant he would not be dying and his group would be able to meet him again soon. It was hard to know what kind of physical changes were all going to happen though. It was obvious that he¡¯d grow scales, which was one of the possibilities, but he wasn¡¯t sure what other changes he would encounter. Everybody that had become part-dragon was said to receive at least three dragon traits. As Xano was bringing Gregory to the palace to show him to everybody, he noticed that two horns were coming from his forehead, and that a tail was beginning to grow from him. Gregory form did not change very much, and he still had a human¡¯s bone structure aside from the tail that was growing from his body. ______________________________________________________________________ After he had defeated the dragon, it turned into a spirit form and began chasing after Gregory. He wasn¡¯t sure what was going on, but it was definitely trying to consume him. Every time he thought he made some distance, the dragon was even closer and was on the brink now of catching him. His mind went into overdrive trying to find ways of escape, but he eventually just stopped running. The spiritual form of the dragon swept over him, consuming him before being absorbed by his body. His body began going through rapid changes after this; he grew scales, a tail, and horns began forming on his head. Leaning up against the wall, he saw in a puddle of water that his eyes had also undergone a change. The pupils had become slit, and the irises were a slightly deeper shade of green. One thing he was thankful for though, was that, aside from his eyes and the horns, his face had remained the same. It was at this moment that he began to feel something different. It felt as if something was pulling him away from where he was, and then he remembered that he had been in his own mind fighting the dragon. It made sense now, he was gaining mana from the real world to assist in his transformation into a part-dragon. It seemed it had been successful too, since he had changed in his mind. Now he would just need to see what he looked like on the outside. Which of course, would happen almost instantly, as Gregory began to stir and then return to the world. ___________________________________________________________________ Gregory opened his eyes, revealing the eyes of a dragon. His body felt much weaker, but his mind felt infinitely sharper than he was used to. It felt as if the world had been unlocked to him, and he would be able to learn everything. Gregory noticed, when he began moving, that the scales he had grown in his mind were growing on him now, but at a much slower pace. He felt around on his forehead, and noticed that the horns had also began growing. All of the changes he had experience in his mind were happening to his real body as well, though all at an extremely reduced pace. The tail was the only thing to have fully grown out now, but his ears had changed fully as well, now pointed and scaled. So far, the scales had grown only on his arms up to the middle of his upper arms, on the sides of his face up to right around the ears, and were beginning to grow on his chest, legs, and back. As his consciousness continued to fade back into the real world, he became far more acutely aware of his surroundings. Even though he was aware of his surroundings before, it was nothing like it was now. He could see further, and with more detail, not to mention the broader spectrum of colors that were now visible to him. His sense of smell had become far more acute, and he noticed that he had a very distinct scent. It was his human scent, a scent that was very different compared to the others in the area. He could even pinpoint where the rest of his group was using this newly heightened sense of smell. His hearing was strong enough that he could hear the heartbeat of Xano if he casually focused, and could hear small sounds from a block away if he really focused. As they moved, Gregory did his best to focus on the feeling of his bodily changes; the changes were definitely going very slowly, but it seemed that they went faster while he was asleep. It was hard to know now how fast they would go while asleep, especially since it was possible they had gone faster because the changes had just started. The dragon was still carrying Gregory on the crook of his neck, giving Gregory time to just think about what was going on.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. ¡®Status¡¯ Name Gregory Jeffrey Drake Age 19 Level 5 Class Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, Enchanter Unique Class Gamer, Master Scout, Arcane Warlock Race Human/Dragon Title Fearless, ¡°Outnumbered, not Outgunned¡± Health 34/34 Stamina 67/67 Mana 7500/7500 CON 15(0+5) STR 8(3+5) AGI 30(25+5) INT 105(100+5) WIS 170(150+15+5) PER 115(100+10+5) FTH 15(10+5) LUK MAX Passive Skills Life in a Game, Passive Luck, Reverse Engineer, Multi-Casting(N5), Observant, Skinning(N1), Filleting(N1), Barrier Vision, Photographic Memory, Cloth-Working(N1) Armorer(C/L)(N1), Repair(C/L)(N1), Clothier(C/L)(N1), Embroiderer(N1), Metal-Sewing(M-A)(N1), Dragon Scales, Dragon¡¯s Body Feats The Wise One, Perceptive, Lucky, Kingslayer Traits Trained, Educated, Boosted Debuffs N/A Active Skills Riftwalker N/A[10M,10S] Flare Novice 9(23%)[10M] Bolt Novice 3(37%)[10M] Slice Novice 8(46%)[10M] Flame Engulfment 3(27%)[20M] Identify Novice 2(17%)[N/A] Healing Novice 1(0%)[20M,10S] Self-Healing Novice 1(0%)[30M,10S] Mana Bolt Novice 1(0%)[10M] Mana Sphere Novice 1(0%)[15M] Mana Manipulation Novice 2(3%)[VARM] Homing Mana Sphere Novice 1(0%)[75M] Homing Mana Bolt Novice 1(0%)[50M] Expanding Explosive Mana Sphere Novice 4(0%)[1000M] Spiraling Mana Javelin Novice 2(19%)[700M] Spiral Mana Bolt Novice 5(4%)[20M] Stealth Intermediate 1(0%) Portal Walker N/A[30M] Enchanting Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Stat Buffing Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Defensive Buffing Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Damage Buffing Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Teleportation Novice 1(15%)[VARM] Chrono Shift Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Gravitas Novice 1(23%)[VARM] Unspent Stat Points 44 Unspent Trait Points 7 ¡®Status¡¯ ¡®Seems that I still have the levels from defeating the mobs, but that they gave less levels for having defeated them. Probably because I am partly dragon now, and that makes it easier to fight the mobs. As a human, the battles I won against large numbers were tough when going against them. I probably lost most of my levels, because I am no longer the same as I was before, and there are certain things that are different because I am a dragon. It would be ridiculous anyways to keep my levels gained as a human, because everybody mentions that humans gain levels at a vastly improved rate. Another thing about being part dragon now, is that my potential power has skyrocketed from where it was before. The real question is though, why did certain stats drop when others didn¡¯t? Maybe I can¡¯t lose certain bonuses. That would explain why I gained drops to certain stats, and others remained the same. I probably can¡¯t lose access to the library of the ancients, which is why PER and INT stayed the same, and I probably can¡¯t lose as much WIS because it is my ¡°primary¡± stat now.¡¯ After Gregory had finished looking at his new status, he craned his head to look around. He spotted the castle, which they had almost made it to now. He was able to hear voices from inside, something which his previous level of perception hadn¡¯t allowed. It really was visible how much his abilities had improved on an overall scale. Xano stopped for a moment to speak before getting to the palace doors. ¡°Gregory, you have made it alive it seems. You are becoming part dragon, and you will probably make a very fine one. We are already proud to see that you have become one of us, and you have surpassed our wildest imaginations. It seems certain stats took some pretty serious drops though. Your physical power and levels of health and stamina will be severely reduced. However, you have gained the full benefit from our increases in wisdom and perception it seems. You also gained a good boost to intelligence, less than most races, but still much better than it was. While your actual AGI has improved, the amount of stamina is affected by your CON, and both CON and STR dropped by five times their original potency. You only have a fifth of the health you would have as a human, and only a fifth of the stamina as well. You will regain health at the normal rate though, and you will regain stamina at a rate improved by ten times. You are also now ten times faster than you were for the same level of AGI now. You have greatly improved in power overall, but you will need to be very careful if you want to stay alive. Leveling up will still help though, so make sure to level up as quickly as you can for now.¡± Gregory moved to sit up on Xano¡¯s neck. His robes were lying down next to him, and he put them on as quickly as he could. They got into Aurum¡¯s throne room shortly after Gregory had finished getting dressed, and then he leapt down from Xano¡¯s back. Aurum investigated Gregory carefully, amazed and surprised at the new appearance of this person that had been human until just today. It wasn¡¯t long until the rest of the group Gregory came with arrived at the throne room, and Aurum decided to make an announcement. ¡°We are glad to welcome Gregory into our family, but please realize that he will be much more frail until he gets up much higher in level. You will need to do what you can to keep him safe, since he will not have much resistance to attacks and be very easy to kill without protection.¡± They all looked at him, immediately noticing the differences about him. Not only had they seen the physical changes immediately, but they also noticed a change in his stature. He looked stronger now, less afraid of potential dangers. Despite being at risk, he showed no fear in his eyes. Elise spoke up, letting Aurum know their feelings. ¡°Thank you, Lord Aurum, we are deeply grateful to you for everything. You have helped Gregory, and, by extension, all of us to a degree. We hope to remain allies, and that we can stay friends for a long time.¡± Aurum replied to them all, letting them know the plans he had in store. ¡°Certainly, I would be honored to remain to friends with you all. By the way, it is probably best to stay for a bit, Gregory will need to train before he leaves, otherwise he may be in too much danger in the outside world. Now, why don¡¯t you all get some sleep, it will be a long day tomorrow.¡± At this, they were all shown to their rooms. Gregory collapsed onto his bed, exhausted from the mental strain he had been going through all this time. The rest of them went to sleep, but were still excited from seeing that Gregory really seemed serious about wanting to help bring peace to all races. Chapter 6 Part 1 Eric had made seemingly quick progress in this world. He had been a lawyer, and then got an Arcane Warlock unique class. He had picked summoner for his regular class, but this unique class was amazing. It was a class that gave him access to spatial, temporal, and gravitational magics. All three were very strong, and could so far beat everything he had faced. They were strong enough that he had managed to reach level 71 in just a few days. Having picked the summoner class to start gave him a slightly different set of clothes than most of the magical classes. His had some armor on the shoulders, as well as armored boots and metal woven into the fabric of his robes. It was a unique set made for the summoner, because of their need to get in close. His robes were also a grayish instead of blue, and he had a shield as well as a mace to wield. His hair was black, and he had a medium skin tone. It was hard to tell what nationality he was, though he was a mixture between african american and caucasian. His opinion of strong though would change when he saw a party of people, only one of whom seemed to be human, heading toward his direction. It was common for him to attack everything on sight. He could worry about everything else later, but he wanted to get strong for the sake of protecting other people from Earth right now. The entire party was made of people lower level than him, but he had never faced an actual sentient race aside from humans until now. Even then, he only killed humans who were definitely from this planet. This human he wasn¡¯t sure about, but he did know that the non-humans were not of Earth. He had decided to attack them all to gain some power. As he attacked, Eric discovered that humans were not on equal footing with other races. Not only did they seemingly shrug off his magic, but they were keeping up with him every step of the way. If not for his teleportation, he wasn¡¯t sure he would be able to keep alive against this group. Of course, Eric was fighting well within his ability to fight indefinitely; this group seemed to be running low on stamina. That changed quickly though, when the mage that looked to be human pulled out the same magics as he was using. ¡®That isn¡¯t possible, I thought I was the only one that could use these magics. Not only that, all the rest of the group has just sped up. If I don¡¯t end this quickly, I will die.¡¯ Eric never got the chance to end it quickly though, he was forced to use long-range teleportation to flee from the battle. This fight had put a dent in his arrogance, and made him realize that he needed an edge when fighting people that were just naturally stronger than him. ¡®I need to find a way to merge my race with a strong magical race. Perhaps elves would be a good choice, if only I knew where to find any. Are elves even a magical race though? I need to investigate this. I passed a city a little while back. A library there should have answers to the questions I have.¡¯ He made quick time to the city, and then found a book on the sentient races that inhabited this planet. He was right, elves were one of the magical classes and would be his choice. First, he had to find where some lived though. He did what he could to investigate, searching through the library for maps. He found books that covered locations, and areas that had elves, but couldn¡¯t find an actual map anywhere. He left the library, looking to find a shop that might have maps. It took him some time, but he eventually found one. It showed that there was an elvish settlement to the south. It looked relatively safe, at least for him, and should be reachable in about a week. While his teleportation was strong, Eric could only teleport to places that he could see clearly for teleportation unless he¡¯d already been there. This severely limited how far he could go, and how fast he could get to where he wanted to go. Since he had never been south of where this city was, he would have to walk there for the most part. It was slow-going, but it gave him time to get some more training in. He continued to grow stronger with his unique class, increasing the levels of the skills associated with it. Eric also noticed that ever since level 50, he had been growing stronger with the classes he had in general, as well as having unlocked access to another class. That had gone to evolving his summoner class, which proved to be a very powerful boost to it. Not only did it give him added spells, but it also gave him a new branch of magic from it. It allowed him to summon not just magical weapons, but also creatures based off his own level. They were only semi-sentient, and required orders to do anything useful, but were still very good at supporting in a fight.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. As avoided others as he traveled, trying to keep his abilities hidden from others. None of the fights he had been in proved difficult for him, and he assumed it would remain the same way. As he kept going toward the elves, he found that to be true of the encounters he had now as well. The week he spent traveling was interesting though, he had improved his abilities to a startling degree with the travel, and he was continuously becoming more powerful. He felt that he was getting to the point that only the non-human races would be able to beat him in combat, at least until he became part elf himself. Once he had made it to the elves city, he put his hands up in the air as a symbol of peace. The elves decided against shooting him down, despite their deep seated distrust for humans. They wanted to see what this human wanted, and to see if they should go along with it or not. They went up to him, with the question they all had for him. ¡°What is it a human would want from us? There is nothing of value here except the nature you reject so quickly.¡± Eric looked at the elf, trying to decide if his answer would be something that it would believe. He didn¡¯t know these elves, but he heard that the humans had killed many non-human sentient beings out of fear and hostility toward others. They were the only ones in fact that had so much hatred for every other race. Even Eric hated the other races, but his desire to grow stronger overpowered his hatred in this scenario. ¡°I wish to become part elf, I have decided to reject my humanity. Please help me to overcome my fear.¡± Eric had only told half truths. He truly did reject that his human side was weak, but he still cared more for humans than any other race. He did have a fear of becoming a mixed race, but only because it might prevent other humans from accepting him. Of course, the half-truths he told were no worse than the lies he told on the courtroom floor some days. All of Eric¡¯s lies were practiced, and he knew just how to tell them to make people believe he was sincere in his words. The elves believed him, and not having any ¡°king¡± in particular, led him to their spiritual leader. This spiritual leader was the one who decided to grant people the potential to become part elf, and Eric was not one to shy away from a little danger. He had read of the horrible success probability of some races, but elves did not seem to be one of them. Not only that, but it also seemed to grant a much longer life expectancy than the humans own. The leader placed his hands on Eric, before voicing the potential risk, but would not yet begin the transformation until Eric gave final approval. ¡°You know that you could die from this procedure? Even if it does succeed, you could only gain small bonuses and take huge setbacks from it.¡± Eric¡¯s face took a noticeable frown, before he decided against changing his mind. ¡°I need to take that risk, especially if it means rescuing my people from danger.¡± Sarzadan, which was the name of the elves ¡°leader¡± then channeled energy into Eric. It immediately took root and began to change him. However, it also knocked him unconscious. His mind began to unlock more potential for learning, increasing in how well he could understand concepts, and his eyesight going to the point where he no longer needed glasses. The boosts he gained to wisdom and perception were only very small though, only five and two times higher than the normal human level respectively. Intelligence had raised to fifteen times the normal human level, making it almost as powerful as an actual elves¡¯ intelligence. His agility, or speed, only raised to twice as strong as a human¡¯s as well. His strength did not drop at all, but his constitution dropped to only a half of his normal level. The changes were not especially potent, but he hadn¡¯t taken any massive drawbacks from them either. Aside from the loss of health, Eric had basically only gained from the changes. He could do more damage and faster, while also gaining the ability to cast massively more spells during combat. He did drop back to level one though, but still kept 15 levels that were gained because of the groups he had defeated single-handedly as a human. Eric took three days for the changes to fully take effect and come out of the dream-like state he was in. He would no longer need sleep and age at the same pace as an elf, but would still be like a human in that he was not resistant to being put to sleep magically. Looking around, he saw he was in a very plain room. The room had only a mirror and bed in it. Looking in the mirror, Eric saw that the the only real change in his appearance were his ears. He was perhaps a bit thinner as well, but only because of elves being naturally thin and lanky. Eric decided to leave as soon as he could. He had done what he had set out to do here, and he had access to long-range teleportation to places he had been to. Eric teleported to a location a few miles outside of the city he had been in, and then headed to look for a place to train. Chapter 6 Part 2 Sean had been leveling strong with his group, especially since he used his ¡°persuasiveness¡± to somewhat control the small army he led. The unique class he had gave him huge advantages, the best being that almost everybody he had met listened to him without question. Not only that, it allowed him to get the best deals on purchasing armor and weapons from vendors. He had basically robbed the town that had stolen the armor and weapons from the others that were transported here. To make things even better, he took control of the city so that humans from Earth could go freely between worlds if they wished to. This weakened his power on this planet, but it also gave him an advantage. People being able to come and go freely gave them a feeling of safety and normalcy. They trusted Sean more freely, and believed that he would do what was right for them. This made it easier for him to control the people, as they would put less effort into resisting him if they trusted him more. It would normally take focus to control people, but now Sean could do it while hardly thinking because of the trust they put in him. Despite his army growing larger, Sean could not help but think back to the one person that got away. It was obvious he didn¡¯t trust Sean, but to ignore his control like that must¡¯ve required something special of him. Of course, it also seemed that Gregory was hiding something. Something that may have been the reason as to why he could resist his control. He seemed to regenerate mana at a ridiculous pace, so he must have had high WIS. That could have been how he so easily ignored the suggestions. The other possibility is that he also had a unique class, one that allowed him to resist the powers that Sean attempted to use on him. Either way, Gregory would be a liability with his ability to resist his control. If he ever turned up again, Sean would need to do what he could do lock him up until he could control him. Many of the people from Earth were growing in power very quickly, most being at around level 35 to 40. Some had even managed to get to level 50, one of which were Sean himself. The only downside, was that level 50 came with a serious drop in experience gained, and there was nothing they could fight that would give them enough experience to level up quickly. Even some of the creatures they fought required multiple people, and still gave hardly any experience once level 50 was reached. They would need to begin expeditions to find stronger creatures to beat and grow stronger, but deciding how many people to bring on these expeditions was the hardest part. One thing that was painfully obvious was that as level went up, monsters seemed to get exponentially stronger. It was nearly impossible to defeat even a level 40 monster with only 3 people at level 50. It made leveling extremely difficult, even with stats optimized to kill monsters. The one advantage was that level to 50 had given them second classes, which Sean invested in the Paladin class. Not only did he gain access to the FTH attribute, but he also gained a suit of heavier blessed armor. The weapon selection was lackluster, but overall the class really complimented the knight class.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Sean saw the need to grow stronger, but it seemed he had gotten as strong as he could. That was when Sean had decided to try something different. There were people who were at level 50 in the town, they worked as the high level guards and some were knights. Sean¡¯s plan was to use the higher level townspeople to gain levels himself, but he first wanted to test the actual reality of it that night. Sean spent the day out hunting, but got back to the city in the evening hours. He took very elaborate steps to prevent suspicion to himself. He went to an inn first, and then sat down to drink a bit. Eventually, one of the higher leveled city guards started to get drunk. Sean used his suggestive powers to keep him drinking, getting him to the point where he was basically ready to pass out. He brought the guard to a church cemetery, before getting him to sleep there. When the guard finally fell asleep, Sean grabbed a knife from belt and dug it into the man¡¯s neck. With the way this world worked, the man survived longer than Sean had expected him to. When he did die, Sean saw that he gained a level and some extra experience for killing the man. ¡®So, killing evenly leveled enemies by myself gets this much more experience. Unfortunately, there are not enough people to get me up any significant levels, and the experience will likely drop off again once I start going up some more levels. I need to perhaps go out and find higher level monsters instead, but what can I do to fight stronger monsters when they are all so much stronger than me? I would need to go out with at least ten or fifteen people to take down monsters in the same level range. Perhaps, if we get stronger by taking out those monsters, it will be possible to continue leveling up at a faster pace.¡¯ Sean had decided against killing any more people; not because they¡¯d do what he told them to, but because it just wasn¡¯t worth the small bit of power he could gain off of them. It made more sense in the long run to have them assist him in growing stronger, and then he¡¯d have an army of even stronger people to use. It wouldn¡¯t be until the next day that he could start doing this, but he would need to grow stronger quickly if he wanted to prepare the people of Earth for this strange place. There were threats everywhere, and he needed to find ways to get them stronger safely. It wouldn¡¯t be easy, but he really wanted to just protect people. Even if that ¡°protecting people¡± was really controlling their actions through suggestion, and really just fulfilling his wish of being the most important man alive. On Earth, Sean had aspirations to become president; here, Sean could become ruler of the planet if he grew strong enough. It had already been almost two weeks since Gregory left, and he could tell that the original group was wondering what had become of him. They were not fearful of him like Sean, but genuinely concerned about his well being. They also all asked why he would have left; Sean had no good answer for them, except the answer that he could not give them. He knew that telling them of his ability would also give them the power to resist it, especially considering this was even mentioned in part of the description for the skill that he knew was controlling them. Politician¡¯s Leadership, a skill that allowed basic mind control, and high level suggestion. However, it let the user know that if the target knew of the suggestion and control, they could more easily break free from its effects. Chapter 7 Part 1 Gregory was ordered to train under the dragons for a time, since there was much that they had to teach him. Their knowledge and abilities were great, and that meant that Gregory would be able to vastly improve his power if he would stay there to learn and train before leaving. The group wanted to leave, but they also knew the importance of this training. Every person took a different amount of time to train, but there were magical circles that could be drawn to slow the flow of time for training. These circles were rarely used, since full maturation was required for peak ability, but Gregory was an exception. For most races, it was a necessity to train; the only ones that didn¡¯t were the humans. That was less out of not being necessity though, and more because they were ignorant as to the benefits of training themselves. They ignored it because it took time, and it gave very small boosts without being a ¡°primary¡± ability. Since Gregory now had WIS, INT, AGI, and PER as ¡°primary¡± abilities, he could train them to higher levels at a faster pace. The dragons told the group that they would be training him for a week, and then let him leave with their group. The group was tired of waiting, but they also wanted to see their group safe. Since Gregory had reverted to level 1, and of a race with low constitution in the first place, he would be in serious danger in any kind of fight. At least with some training, it would only be a similar risk as it was originally for him to join them. Gregory was headed to the place where he would be trained, following Xano to get there. One plus was that he still had all of his original classes, and access to one more unique class. He did notice that he could pick another class though. Probably for having been reduced to base level again. He decided to take the Summoner class for his basic class with the Gamer unique class. However, with the other class, he saw that he could retake a class he already had or get a new class. He would hold off on it until such time as he was told by the dragon which would be a better option. Xano stepped onto a large area surrounded by a strange cloak of magical energy, and it seemed as if his speed had been increased by about three hundred times. Stepping into the area to follow Xano, Gregory realized that it wasn¡¯t their speed that increased, but the flow of time in here that was highly sped up; which made it look like they were moving very quickly to the outside world. It made this place an ideal place to train, especially since Gregory was so far behind the others in experience and skill. It was at this moment that Xano would explain exactly how Gregory would be spending his time here. ¡°You are here to grow Gregory, we all want to see you survive to become much more powerful. You are currently equal to but a normal dragon at your equivalent age of maturation. We can train you most in wisdom and perception, since those are what you have equal to a dragon¡¯s. Your intelligence and agility will be harder to train, but should still be much easier to increase than when you were human. Also, you likely got a new class option for becoming a dragon, I want you to invest it in the class you already have, which I assume would be sorcerer. It will open up the second level of sorcerer, which will give you access to stronger sorcerer spells and also some of the classes only attainable through having other classes adequately leveled. Dragons are also naturally third level wizards, meaning you will have access to very strong elemental spells.¡± Gregory immediately did as Xano said, adding the level to Sorcerer. Xano then continued on with the beginning of the introduction to Gregory¡¯s training. ¡°You will be getting training in wisdom, perception, intelligence, and agility. With an emphasis on wisdom and perception because of your affinity for them considering you are only a half-dragon. It seems your constitution and strength dropped to the levels of an actual dragon, but your body is growing nearly full-body scales and gained the full draconic bonus to wisdom and perception. I can tell because of the aura you give off, us elder dragons and stronger can see the aura of dragons. You give off an aura that tells me you gained very high bonuses for your risk, even if intelligence and agility did not gain the full bonus. If I had to guess, I¡¯d say you received a bonus to intelligence of about 5, and a bonus to agility of about 10. The reason for this is your skills in comparison to a regular dragon, and what I can sense from your body. The bonus to agility for a full dragon is 15 from humans, as is our intelligence bonus. The reason you probably don¡¯t see the bonus to agility is probably because it only affects speed, reflexes, and the rate of stamina recovery. If you were to begin running, you could probably run almost indefinitely and not grow tired. That is one of the things you will be doing, but not until you have done your training to wisdom and perception. I can tell on the full body scales mostly because they are already covering a good portion of your legs, and are on various parts of your chest and growing on your neck and face. Unless they would cover your entire chest eventually as well, they would not be so full across the rest of your body. One more thing, your body will only age at the pace the outside world is moving, so you will not have grown any older by being in here. That is part of the reason why this isn¡¯t used for conventional training, since it is made to be done alongside growth. Even if you will be spending the equivalent of two years in here during the one week I will be training you, your body will not have grown any more than a week older. Without being fully matured, this would be a waste since it wouldn¡¯t improve you as much as aging would. It will let your changes fully take hold though, which probably wouldn¡¯t be a bad thing considering your current vulnerability to physical attacks.¡± Gregory was patient during the first portion of the training, learning how the dragons made their decisions. It was part of their wisdom as much as the modifier was. Not only that, it improved his wisdom score by learning it. It was like they knew how to train other dragons to unlock their fullest potential while at the weakest actual level. Of course, doing it for years was likely why they could train Gregory as much as they were. For the first year to Gregory, the training was a combination of increasing his intelligence and wisdom. Getting him to a point where he could match a dragon with the same stats as he had. There were lessons on magic theory, draconic history, the languages of the world, intricate draconic grammar and writing, the order of draconic thought processing, and lessons on magical spells. These lessons had allowed Gregory to reach an intelligence score of 172 with modifiers, and a wisdom score of 397 with modifiers. They also gave him access to a large variety of new spells that he had previously no knowledge of. During this time, his body had also grown to be covered completely in scales aside from the center of his face. This had granted him resistance to physical attacks where scales covered his body equal to his magical resistance. His magical resistance was complete because it was based upon draconic mana, which meant that he resisted 39 percent of magic directed at him by beings with up to equal magical strength as he had. Beings with weaker magical strength wouldn¡¯t allow any more resistance, but beings with stronger magical strength could still affect him as if he had less magical resistance. Every day that he had spent during the first part of this training had been torture brought on by Xano, an ¡®endless¡¯ training that continued to go on no matter how much Gregory got done. Even when a year had passed inside this slowed time zone, Gregory had still not ¡®finished¡¯ the training, but had done enough that Xano let him go onto the next portion. The next part of his training would be even more intense, training his agility and perception to the absolute limits of what his body would allow without becoming stronger through leveling up. Xano spent the first ¡®month¡¯ of the ¡®year¡¯ they had forcing Gregory to run, avoiding obstacles as they were coming at him. The obstacles were in varied places, would come from out of nowhere, and designed to hit Gregory with enough force to knock him off his feet. All these things made for a challenge any Gregory had faced previously, but were all designed to be barely dodgeable by Gregory if he would keep getting better. Difficulty was designed to ¡®reset¡¯ to Gregory¡¯s current level every morning after he would awake, meaning that Gregory would have a chance to catch up the next day if he would fall behind. Over the course of this month, Gregory had improved rapidly, every day getting better at avoiding the attacks. Even though the difficulty increased at the same rate as his own growth, his wisdom in how to handle these situations grew as he continued gaining more experience. The next ¡®month¡¯ gave a new challenge. Gregory was required to stand in place, blindfolded, and dodge attacks coming at him. The difficulty was that only one attack would actually hit him, so he would need to rely on his increased perception and wisdom to dodge the attacks. Again, it was difficult at first, but he kept on growing at a steady rate. Gregory did not achieve the same level of perfection doing this as he had achieved while running with his eyes open, but the task was fundamentally more difficult. As he had not yet achieved mastery over this challenge, Xano left him with this challenge for another month. Gregory again continued gaining more skill and eventually was able to complete this ¡®test¡¯ flawlessly.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°It is time for the next set of challenges Gregory, you will need to catch weapons that are coming at you with your eyes closed.¡± Gregory responded in protest this time, curious as to why such tests were suggested or even done. ¡°How is any of this even possible, if it weren¡¯t for my body, I would have died countless times over already. Even still, the attacks constantly do massive damage to me. Why are you putting my life at risk like this? I thought the whole goal was to make me stronger, not to daily put me in risk of death.¡± Xano laughed at this, knowing that Gregory really did fear for his life. It was true that Gregory feared death, but not once was he actually at risk of death. Xano had made sure that the traps would not kill Gregory, even though they ¡®were¡¯ designed to test and push the limits of Gregory¡¯s constitution. Xano replied courteously once he finished his short laugh to Gregory¡¯s fear. ¡°You will not die, you are simply being pushed to your limits to improve. If you wish to survive in the world, at least this much is required. Your strong team pushed you far to get here, but the enemies you will face in other places are so much stronger. Creatures get stronger at exponential rates, the ones you faced were barely on the cusp of that edge. Once you go farther, you will encounters enemies the likes of which would destroy you even if your entire team were to try keeping you alive. What is am doing now is to keep you alive, and prevent you from being a burden more than an asset to the team you are in. By the way, there are some magical secrets I didn¡¯t teach you. There are combination classes and evolution classes that can only be attained through reaching higher levels of other classes. For example, a warlock can only gain their power through a combination of five levels, at least two of each, in summoner and sorcerer. There are other such classes, but most humans can¡¯t get them because of the requirements they have to unlock more classes, and their naturally weak power. Now, don¡¯t question me and begin this training. I want to see you grow and survive here.¡± Gregory still didn¡¯t like this idea, but couldn¡¯t deny that he continued to grow stronger daily. Even though gains were low, he knew his constitution certainly had gone up some because of this. Gregory still had to grow stronger, but he couldn¡¯t call Xano a liar about his own power growing. He started the next test, taking three months to reach a point where he could even consistently catch the projectiles, and a fourth to get to the point where he would not miss over the course of three days. Every day he awoke sore, his muscles slowly growing. Pain still existed in this world, even if most normally permanent damage could be healed through spells. To be honest, Xano hadn¡¯t even expected this much of Gregory. Most dragons were too afraid and did not possess the determination to run into potential danger. It was the blessing and curse of their wisdom. Even though he did definitely inherit the full wisdom of the dragons, this boy was also far more mature than the young dragons using this training. The last test was about to start, and this training would end when either the full week outside finished, or when Gregory could go three days without missing a single projectile while running. ¡°The last test is the hardest, I want you to catch every projectile fired at you, while avoiding obstacles. The projectiles will come at you from various angles and directions, and you will be expected to catch even the ones coming at you from behind you.¡± Gregory did what the dragon told him to do. Avoiding the obstacles seemed easy at first, until he realized that the projectiles flying at him were more numerous and from stranger directions and angles than expected. He knew there would be projectiles flying at him from the front, even the top and sides were expected, but he did not expect them from the ground or his back while going through this obstacle course. He also did not expect that they would come from obstacles, or that there would be traps in or on the obstacles that he had to avoid as well. This entire test seemed impossible. His first two months saw very slow progress from Gregory. He was almost constantly in bed from exhaustion and the beatings the challenge gave him. The third month saw a marked improvement, Gregory seemed lighter than before, like he had released a great burden weighing him down. What had happened, was that he had reached true ¡®adulthood¡¯ according to the sentient races. Adulthood was reached when a being tossed aside the fears that held them down, while holding onto those that kept them alive. The fear of death was a fickle thing in people, it could keep children alive, but also put them in more danger. This was why the adults of non-human races could fight at such higher levels. They did not have the same fears weighing them down. The fears that put limiters on what they could achieve, whether it was the fear of failure, the irrational fears that haunt most people, or even the rational fear of death that may prevent staying when it is a better option. Gregory¡¯s continued improvement surprised Xano to some degree. He was expected to improve, but to this degree when he had been a human previously was very impressive. He was gaining the full wisdom, and perception that a dragon of his age would have without leveling up. His intelligence and agility were lagging behind, but even they were impressive from a human standpoint. Still, his level was not to that of the rest of his party, their purity and added experience gave them a huge advantage over somebody who had just gained such powers. The fourth and fifth months went by quickly, Gregory continued to improve, and barely finished the training before the full week on the outside had transpired. In fact, it had taken only a day less than a year inside the training area for him to get to this point. This was a very rare feat, but some had managed it in just a year and three months when using the method of entering the sped up time zone. Now that it was finally over, Gregory was curious as to what his status looked like. Xano had forbidden him from checking it, going so far as to casting a spell on him that prevented it. Now that he could, Gregory wanted to know just what he had gained during this time. ¡®Status¡¯ Name Gregory Jeffrey Drake Age 19 Level 5 Class Wizard(3), Sorcerer(2), Cleric, Enchanter, Summoner Unique Class Gamer, Master Scout, Arcane Warlock Race Human/Dragon Title Fearless, ¡°Outnumbered, not Outgunned¡± Health 141/141 Stamina 382/382 Mana 12900/12900 CON 39(34+5) STR 8(3+5) AGI 152(147+5) INT 172(167+5) WIS 556(501+50+5) PER 421(379+37+5) FTH 15(10+5) LUK MAX Passive Skills Life in a Game, Passive Luck, Reverse Engineer, Multi-Casting(N5), Observant, Skinning(N1), Filleting(N1), Barrier Vision, Photographic Memory, Cloth-Working(N1) Armorer(C/L)(N1), Repair(C/L)(N1), Clothier(C/L)(N1), Embroiderer(N1), Metal-Sewing(M-A)(N1) Feats The Wise One, Perceptive, Lucky, Kingslayer Traits Trained, Educated, Boosted Debuffs N/A Active Skills Riftwalker N/A[10M,10S] Flare Novice 9(23%)[10M] Bolt Novice 3(37%)[10M] Slice Novice 8(46%)[10M] Flame Engulfment 3(27%)[20M] Identify Novice 2(17%)[N/A] Healing Novice 1(0%)[20M,10S] Self-Healing Novice 1(0%)[30M,10S] Mana Bolt Novice 1(0%)[10M] Mana Sphere Novice 1(0%)[15M] Mana Manipulation Novice 2(3%)[VARM] Homing Mana Sphere Novice 1(0%)[75M] Homing Mana Bolt Novice 1(0%)[50M] Expanding Explosive Mana Sphere Novice 4(0%)[1000M] Spiraling Mana Javelin Novice 2(19%)[700M] Spiral Mana Bolt Novice 5(4%)[20M] Stealth Intermediate 1(0%) Portal Walker N/A[30M] Enchanting Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Stat Buffing Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Defensive Buffing Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Damage Buffing Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Teleportation Novice 1(15%)[VARM] Chrono Shift Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Gravitas Novice 1(23%)[VARM] Fireball Advanced 3(1%)[1000M] Inferno Novice 1(0%)[100000M] Lightning Chain Advanced 2(3%)[1000M] Grand Lightning Spear Novice 1(0%)[100000M] Tornado Advanced 1(98%)[1000M] Vacuum Novice 1(0%)[100000M] Frozen Lance Advanced 2(0%)[1000M] Blizzard Novice 1(0%)[100000M] Barrier Journeyman 5(39%)[500M/S] Aura Journeyman 8(72%)[500M/S] Unspent Stat Points 44 Unspent Trait Points 7 ¡®Status¡¯ Gregory couldn¡¯t help but smile. Even though his body ached, now more than when he was in the training zone, he was happy that he wouldn¡¯t be a burden to the rest of his team. Gregory rushed to the castle, his new speed easily allowing him to move at levels enough to better keep up with the rest of his team. All of them had agility levels that were at least double his through their training, but at least, as Xano had said, Gregory would be less of a burden to their team with his newfound abilities. Chapter 7 Part 2 Xano looked at Gregory, he seemed to be excited about his growth. It wasn¡¯t unexpected. Considering it was done in the equivalent of two years, Gregory had made very good progress toward becoming powerful. Gregory would need to figure some things out on his own, though he had learned a number of things about what abilities are strongest for him. Strength and constitution could be trained, but were very difficult to do so with. This is part of the reason why it was recommended he get at least 100 in both with his stat points. Traits were always harder to make a decision on. Gregory had already gotten the best of them, but there were too many to make an easy ¡®this one is better¡¯ blanket statement on the others. Many people liked the traits that gave more classes at an accelerated rate, but there were others that gave bonuses to stats directly. Many dragons took the Trolls Constitution for 10 trait points, simply because it negated their horrendous constitution. The traits that improved stats this directly were the only ones costing more than one point, which is why it was always hard for people to choose those traits. Even though they were very strong, others had far more utility or usefulness. On top of this, they gave the most benefit to races that had a baseline or negative modifier. Dragons taking the Draconic Wisdom trait were often considered somewhat foolish. Another baseline modifier of five gave them a boost of only a quarter or less. Picking another class at twice the rate for a tenth of the cost was far more beneficial. There were other things too, the hidden Perk-Finder trait being one of them. It was a trait that allowed perks to be gained more easily; it either reduced the requirements, or opened alternate methods. The hidden perks were perks that could only be found if their name was searched exactly. Of course, certain races knew of them because their ability when first entering this planet was to have visible access to hidden perks for the first year here. As they neared the palace, Gregory riding atop Xano¡¯s back, Gregory¡¯s team were making their way out to do some more exploration of the city. Xano made an announcement to the group, letting them know what would happen now that Gregory had finished his training here. ¡°Now that Gregory is done with his training, we need to go see Aurum. It is very likely that he will ask you to leave now. Gregory, that would include you. Even though you would all be welcome, it is common for dragons to experience life outside the walls of our cities when they are young. Exploring with a trusty party is the safest way, so asking you to leave with Gregory is a very high chance. I am sure you expected to be heading out soon anyways, but I just wanted to let you know regardless. Make sure you take care of Gregory too now. He will be very weak physically, and physical attacks will be able to hurt him to a much larger degree. What might hardly knock the wind out of you could heavily injure him. His scales will protect him to a degree, but his health is very low and will stay that way until he is able to level up some. Now let¡¯s get moving to Aurum so he can see the progress Gregory has made, and give you all a proper send-off.¡± The entire group looked at Gregory, seeing the scales on his hands and the sides of his face. He was wearing a white robe that covered most of his body, with black leathery boots on. With this robe on, only the scales on his hands and the sides of his face were even visible. They also saw the tail that he had as well, but that was a given considering even a very long robe would do little to hide the full size of it. The changes that would happen to Gregory were nearly complete now, the time spent in the zone to increase the amount of time he could train pushing the changes along that far as well. The party he was a part of could feel that he was much stronger than before, and could tell that his movements seemed ¡°lighter¡± than before. As they moved to the throne room of the palace, following Xano, the entire party were wondering how much the changes had truly affected Gregory. Humans normally gained very small bonuses from merging with another race, but Gregory seemed to have taken to it in a much larger way than most. The one human they had met previously who had merged with another race was barely distinguishable from a human, despite being a mix with a troll. The few differences between him and a regular human were the slightly larger size, the larger arms, and the thicker body hair. While wearing armor though, it was almost impossible to notice any differences aside from the man being maybe a foot taller than most humans. Gregory on the other hand was covered almost completely in scales, had a tail that couldn¡¯t be missed, eyes that were the same as those of a dragon, two long horns growing from the sides of his forehead like those of a dragon¡¯s, and pointed scaled ears similar to a dragons. When the team made it to Aurum, he looked up from what he was working on at the moment. ¡°Glad to see Gregory has finished his training. It seems he is ready to begin his journey that every dragon goes through, the journey to grow so that he can do what he sees fit. Normally, he would go with members of his own race, but since he was a human first, we are sending him with you all. I am sure Xano mentioned it, but dragons are very vulnerable at the stage Gregory is at right now. They have very low constitution and strength, and have no real way of protecting themselves from powerful threats. Assuming you all agree to this, I will be opening a teleportation portal to a linked location of your choosing. Since Gregory is part human and therefore does have some vulnerability in scale coverage, I recommend an area where overall level is slightly under the party¡¯s capabilities. This will not be permanent, but it should be followed at least until Gregory is able to better hold his own. Now, choose a location. There are links throughout the world to dragon havens, as well as major cities of all races aside from the humans. To top it off, there are links to locations in the middle of these areas as well. Some of these places have very high safety, others are places where danger is unparalleled and true safety is unattainable. There are only three locations I will allow though, one is in the middle of a large human zone, which will make it very safe for a party of your calibre. The second is in the center of a location that all of you aside from Gregory likely know of. It is where many go to originally train and gain levels should they decide not to go out into the world on their own; it contains numerous hordes of creatures that, although are stronger than the creatures in human areas, can be killed easily enough to gain levels. The one downside is that it is already sparsely populated because of others going there to train themselves. The last is a place far outside of areas used by the sentient races, but one that will offer a fitting challenge all the way until you make it back to civilization.¡±The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Most of the group upon hearing this thought that the first option would be the best choice, but decided to let Gregory make the decision. They knew that the second option was a bad choice, only because all the areas were picked over and would never allow him to grow stronger without getting into more dangerous zones surrounding the areas. The third area on the other hand was promising, and likely very worth doing, but they didn¡¯t want to be away from civilization for as long as Aurum made it sound like they would be. Considering it would be a fitting challenge, likely meant they would become stronger than they thought they could in the given amount of time. They would have no way of procuring new armor or weapons though, and would be at a disadvantage once their gear fell behind what they were capable of. After some soft words between the original group, Elise stepped forward, her greyish fur moving slightly from the beating of Aurum¡¯s wings. ¡°We have decided to let Gregory decide where to go. It is after all for him that we came here, and for him that we need to grow stronger in one of those places.¡± She looked over to Gregory, giving a gentle, albeit seemingly feral, smile. Gregory stood up, at these words, elated that his party had decided to give him as much confidence as they did. ¡°Even though I am new to this place, and do not know much about where I¡¯ll be going, I have decided to go with the third option. I trust you would not give us anything that would put any of us in danger, and hope to someday make it back to thank you for this opportunity.¡± Aurum gave a ¡°bow¡± to the party upon hearing Gregory¡¯s words, pulling back one of his massive front legs, and bringing the other low. His chin was resting on the ground, and his face was barely before Gregory¡¯s body. This was a symbol of respect that dragons used for anybody who spoke highly of them, but only if it was done with honesty. The fact that he took such note of Gregory¡¯s words caused the entire party to give out a soft and mostly muffled sigh of relief. Aurum stood back upon on all fours, before making one last announcement. ¡°Now, I have a gift for Gregory to accept, it is a more permanent robe for him to wear. It is formed from a very magical plant that was spun into cloth, and has the property to permanently apply magical effects cast to enchant it. I hope you all enjoy the adventure you are about to embark upon.¡± At these words, Aurum handed the robe to Gregory before opening the portal. As the portal opened, the entire group began to move toward it. Upon stepping through, they were nothing short of breathless. The area was a large hill in the center of a forest, green stretching as far as the eye could see. The portal closed almost immediately after the last of them had made it through, shutting them off from easy access back to the dragon city they had left. There were mountains visible in all directions, and even as far as the eye could see, there were no cities visible. What was visible was that they were on a very large island in the middle of one of the oceans, and that they were likely expected to face heavy threats before making it back to any mainland. One unexpected thing about this planet was also that when Gregory looked at the map, he realized that there was much less water on this planet than on Earth. Earth¡¯s surface was 71%. The levels and strength of the creatures in this area were not as low as the group was led to believe, the first encounter they saw being with a group of large bear like creatures with steel feathered bodies. They resisted the bladed and weapon attacks of the party when they began attacking. There were 5 bears in the group, and all of them had a level in the 60s. Since weapons and physical attacks weren¡¯t working, the members of the party began attacking with magic. This time though, Gregory was actually able to do something with his magic to help in attacking. He first covered himself with the barrier, and then threw a fireball at the group of bears. It exploded in the center of them, causing some damage, but their steel feathered bodies protected them from much of the damage that Gregory had seen previously with magical attacks. He switched his offense to frozen lances, hitting each of the bears with one. What he saw made a small grin cross his face. The creatures were slowed immensely, the steel absorbing the cold and doing far more substantial damage to them despite the ice shattering into tiny shards upon hitting their bodies. The creatures were difficult to manage, lunging with deadly force and precision. Despite their reduced speed, and the damage they had already taken, the group of them were still making powerful attacks. Gregory had been hit a few times, taking some damage even through the barrier he had around himself and the scales that seemed to stop almost all damage. The rest of the party¡¯s armor protected them for the most part, but still became slightly damaged upon taking repeated hits from these bears. Even Gregory¡¯s newfound power was not enough to keep completely safe. This slight fear of death though was the thing that he had learned to embrace for power, not weakness. It was only under the knowledge that death was around the corner with any mistake, that a person did their very best to stay alive and gain maximum experience from an encounter. Still, to put them in an area like this was unexpected and putting strain on the entire party. It was at this point that one of the bears died, followed by another two bears after a couple more spells. The entire party felt a wave of relief now that they were only facing two bears instead of five. Gregory had gained four levels, boosting his status by some with the added health and mana from leveling. In fact, the added health saved him, as a swipe of claws slammed into his side, throwing him several meters into a tree. He took damage, enough to put him at just a few left. Gregory had little enough health that he would have been dead had it not been for the recent level ups from the three defeated bear-like creatures. He got up with difficulty, and then threw more frozen lances toward the creatures. With renewed vigor, the entire group attacked, spells flying at the creatures while they continued to move quickly and violently to attack the group. Elise was using a small blizzard like spell, reserved only to those with a level in the spellsword class. It was a class that was unlocked through a combination of five levels in knight and wizard. That she had achieved such a thing in such a short time and at her level was an impressive feat, but the entire group had similar feats. It was something that races aside from human had, base class levels above level 1 and sometimes even 2. Not to mention, training could improve the classes as well with enough of it. When all the bears had been eradicated, Gregory was panting heavily, he managed to reach level 10 and gained another trait point. He had slumped to the ground, and turned off the barrier that had been previously protecting him. Lack of Chapters I know I''ve not been uploading chapters recently. I am currently working 50+ hours a week and am having difficulty finding time to write with other responsibilities. I will get back on a schedule soon. Even some regular time obligations I''ve had are being dropped to though, so please don''t feel like I am just avoiding writing only.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Thank you all for your patience. I know it is difficult to keep interest when unannounced hiatuses come up, so I hope this helps. Feel free to ask questions about the story, and I will do my best to answer them. Chapter 7 Part 3 With a current total of eight trait points, Gregory only needed two more before he would be able to use them for improving his constitution or strength. It made sense to improve constitution first, but then strength would also be a very important thing to have at a regular level. His current level of strength and constitution were pitiful; pitiful enough to make every person in the group question whether he would even survive out here. Gregory knew that until he reached level 20 again, his constitution would be horrible regardless of how high it actually got. Troll¡¯s Constitution was something that would put him at the same level of constitution he had prior to becoming a dragon, which was far better than it was now. Perk-Finder was a trait he was also very interested in, since it would grant the ability to become more powerful in a very easy way. The only other trait that seemed to have as much utility was Power-Leveler, which reduced the level requirement from 40 to 20 for a non-human race to gain classes, or 50 to 25 for a human race to gain classes. Gregory wasn¡¯t sure about himself yet, but either way, it would be immensely beneficial to be able to gain new class ranks at faster rates. Gaining more class levels was the main way that humans ended up falling behind. A level 2 class was far more useful than having another level 1 class, unless it was specifically worked to for getting a combo-class such as warlock or spellsword. What he had learned from Xano was a larger boon than anything Gregory could have ever imagined. He was able to see the differences in power that came with having a higher level class over a variety of weaker classes. His ability to gain classes through his unique class would likely help him in that regard, but he still didn¡¯t want to spread himself too thin. Despite hesitation to spend the last point he had toward classes from his unique class, Gregory knew that it would be less useful to gain a class other than a magical one. This led him to using the one class point he had gotten for his unique class in obtaining necromancer. His eyes glowed for but a moment as the information flooded him and he gained the skills for necromancy. You have gained the spell ¡®Raise the Dead¡¯ You have gained the spell ¡®Consume Life¡¯ You have gained the spell ¡®Necromancy Bolt¡¯ You have gained the skill ¡®Death Resistance¡¯ Learning all the basic Necromancy spells/skills has earned you the Necromancer class. Gregory smiled, it seemed that he had gained some very useful skills. However, reading their descriptions made him realize that consume life was a spell meant only for those who are to be killed on sight. It would steal their life, and grant it to another. It would take their years and give them to a person who could sometimes be called no more important or worthy. Death Resistance was a passive skill that reduced the aging process and granted resistances to disease and poison. A higher level it seemed would further reduce aging and grant higher resistances. Necromancy bolt would make a target killed by it a permanent undead servant without the need for a constant mana drain, whereas raise the dead would require a constant drain to keep the undead from attacking. Necromancy bolt was however a very weak spell, and to be used as a finisher was unideal. Even with Gregory¡¯s vastly inflated stats and his spell power being based off wisdom, doubted that he could kill anything more than the wolves of the past with such a spell. There just was not the power required to kill anything with any magical resilience or resistance. Even humans being without magic resilience had too much willpower, health, and intelligence to be killed off in one hit from such an attack. It was an attack that did more damage on beings with low willpower and intelligence. He wasn¡¯t sure why intelligence was based on it, but perhaps because an intelligent undead would not be a good undead. It would have to consume more before it could properly constitute an undead if the person were still living. The situation with the bears having been handled meant that the group could relax a little, though they were nowhere near as worn out as Gregory from the fight. Even with all his strengths, such exertion was still difficult for him. These weaknesses made him realize that it would be some time before he could properly lead humanity to safety in this place. Even though his mana had restored itself in less than a minute, he still felt exhausted. Such fighting was far more difficult than even the training Gregory had gone through. As he sat back against a tree, he noticed Elise walking toward him. The rest of the group was chatting in a circle, happy to have a true mage with them. Even though he was still weaker than them for now, he had proven to be useful in the fight. He came up with a strategy to take them down, and had used skills that many were just not capable of. Xano had told Gregory of many multi-classes, that focusing on one category of classes could be much stronger than combining two branches of classes. That even multi-classed classes were capable of being multi-classed should the multi-classed classes reach a high enough level. The first class that Gregory was aiming for though, was a class that came from being a level 4 or 5 wizard with a level 4 or 5 sorcerer. It required nine points between the two and both had to be at least level four. The class name was called ¡®True Magic Initiate¡¯ and was a class rumored to be in the line to becoming a ¡®True Magic Master¡¯. Though how to get there was unknown, it was known that it took a variety of different powerful magical multi-classes to unlock it. As Elise drew nearer, she moved with a startling speed to relax next to Gregory. She also sat against the large tree, tree with white bark and thin black lines running like veins to the top. He was half thinking about the tree, and half keeping an eye on Elise. Despite having animalistic features, she held features that would be considered ¡®human¡¯ as well. Very few sentient races had majorly different physical anatomies. Dragons being one of them was why the success rate of people merging with them was so low. It was also why they never sought to merge with others to improve their abilities even if they were a magical dragon instead of a physical dragon. Even a life of constant fear was better than an almost infinite chance to die. Elise¡¯s form was very similar to a human¡¯s, or a human¡¯s very similar to hers. Regardless, the major differences were the legs, which were obviously canine as she was walking only on the balls of her feet and had joints in her legs akin to a wolf, and the face, which was very canine in shape and form. Almost everything else about her seemed human. Gregory found everything about her enticing him. His own figure remained almost entirely human, the tail being the only thing that could quickly set him apart a distance without wearing a robe. Although, the current robe he wore was much more just the lower half. He had on loose white pants, black boots that went to just below his knees, and also went up around the back and side of his knees. Over this, he had the bottom half of a robe with black trimming on the bottom, and slits on the side allowing for easy movement. He pants were held up by a black leather belt, while the robe bottom had a six inch section at the top which showed a tied white sash at the front preventing it from falling. In addition the trim on the robe bottom, there were intricate designs sewn in with runic patterns inside the line of trim. The robe bottom fell to half-way down the boots, and had an inner robe bottom with cuts on the front and back to prevent the pants from being seen at all unless the robe bottom was removed. As he was now covered in scales, he had taken to not wearing a shirt, also because the two large horns made it hard to put anything on over his head. _____________________________________________________________________ On Elise¡¯s side, she was totally entranced with Gregory as well. His newfound power had given her comfort; not just the comfort that he wouldn¡¯t die so easily, but also that he could work to help protect and be a real part of this group. She had constant thoughts of spending time with him, improving her spellsword a level, which was a combination of a second level sorcerer, and third level knight class. The fight with the feathered bears had gotten her to level 41, pushing her past level 40. She had gained another class point, which had then given her even more power in combat. Leveling a multi-class was far more powerful than leveling an individual class, since it gave new abilities relating to both of the classes that formed it. Elise had gained a spell that could be thrown from her sword that would likely even be able to cut those steel feathered bears from earlier without too much difficulty. This was all thanks to Gregory too, thanks to him for being brave enough to try going with them, despite the obvious danger he was in. Thanks to him for choosing this path, despite it being the most dangerous, and thanks to him for being brave enough to risk death to become stronger for those he cares about. Everything about Gregory made Elise feel like he was a shining beacon in a world where many cared too much about themselves to truly think about others. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it ______________________________________________________________________ Gregory noticed the massive drop in experience he gained. Having picked one of two ¡®master races,¡¯ he had limited himself to totally base experience, and the experience that the ¡®master race¡¯ would gain. The entire party aside from him had gained probably ten times the experience he did. It was frightening at first, to imagine what kind of a race dragons were to be so powerful, but then he realized that he would need to train relentlessly to bring out the real power inside himself. For now though, he would continue to relax for a moment with his companions. Before long, everybody was prepared to get moving once again, and they began to make progress toward a cavern they saw in the distance. Inside the cavern were ten beasts of high levels, but were all immensely weak to all magic. Gregory¡¯s new powers didn¡¯t even let him be phased for a moment while ten spiraling mana javelins sprung into existence and not only pierced, but ripped off the heads of the creatures before him. The entire party received experience, but Gregory the largest share for having done the most work. Again, he was able to level, leveling up to 19, and bringing the entire party aside from him up three or four levels each as well. Elise had made it to level 44, and the rest were now levels 41 or 42. All of them gaining their first multi-class with the class points. Gregory went silently to search the cavern, and Elise followed silently. After an hour of exploration, Gregory found that the cavern was safe, and had made a small but fast summon to head back to the party to let them know. Despite it proving her racism, Elise felt the need to speak up to Gregory about how she felt. ¡°I have been very allured by your appearance ever since the transformation, and I will admit that I was far less interested before than after the transformation. You will find that many races are against humans, not because of their appearance, but because of their attitude despite weakness. You are one of the very few who will likely not be ostracized for being part of humanity. That is especially true after we tell exactly what you have done for us despite you being a human originally. I promise that I would do whatever I can to be your strength, to help you when you need it and protect your from dangers you can¡¯t fight.¡± Had her body not been completely covered in fur, it was quite possible that Gregory would have seen a blush across her face. Nonetheless, Gregory had a slight blush on his own cheeks at her words. Elise laughed a bit as Gregory¡¯s face blushed, but knew that she felt the same way. A part of her wanted to see him struggle against her, prove to him that he needed her protection to stay alive. That wasn¡¯t the truth though, she really just wanted him to see her as an equal, somebody that he could spend the rest of his now very long life with. Gregory gave in for just a moment to urges that screamed at him since high-school. Despite not being a normal kid, he still had feelings. He reached out to kiss Elise, and she leaned in to do the same. Her soft nose touching his cheek as her lips met his. At the end of this kiss, Gregory pulled himself back, not wanting to harm this possible relationship with a girl he felt he could really open up to. They both stayed together in this room of the cavern, but both of them wanted to keep this potential relationship from failing. Neither one would push things anymore until they were certain it was a good idea. Gregory being a dragon hardly needed true rest anymore. Very similar to an elf, he only needed enter a meditative state for a few hours before being completely refreshed. Using this, he focused on ways to become stronger. He knew that constitution would need to be poured into to make him stronger, and improve his chances at survival. He also knew that wisdom was the most useful ability to him, seeing as it not only improved his mana regeneration rates, but also improved magical attack and his powerful resistance to all magic. He was pathing out ways for his entire party to grow stronger when he got a notificaiton. A member of the human race has surpassed 1000 in a stat. 10% buffs only apply for the strongest in the world once more, instead of as well for the new entrants. One class point, one trait point, and increased stats have been granted to all except the one accomplishing such a feat in compensation for the weaknesses many will have, as well as to make up for the lesser stat growth gained under the effects of new world entrants ending so much sooner than usual. Gregory¡¯s mouth gaped as he saw this notificaiton. It meant that he was receiving reduced stats firstly, but also that in one of the stats he was not leader of, somebody had managed to reach 1000. That somebody would not receive any more bonuses, but everybody else would gain so much more power because of this one person breaking the mold so quickly. Just then, more notifications flooded his mind. CON has been raised to 81 STR has been raised to 32 AGI has been raised to 219 INT has been raised to 206 WIS has been raised to 819 PER has been raised to 652 FTH has been raised to 17 You have gained one Class Point You have gained one Trait Point Gregory immediately used the class point on sorcerer, and the trait point to get himself Troll¡¯s Constitution. He teleported outside of the cavern and then saw a massive beat attacking several smaller ones. He fired off as many Spiraling Mana Javelins as he could before teleporting back into the cavern. He was hit by a massive physical attack, throwing him against the wall of the cavern as he teleported. He also gained barely enough experience to level up from the small monsters the beast was chasing before aiming a long-range attack at him. Using this next trait point he leveled up and then decided to distribute his now growing pool of stat points.He put 14 into CON, 63 into STR, 39 toward INT, and the remainder to WIS. He could feel the power flood his body, and he knew that he had just greatly improved his survivability with these improvements. ¡®Status¡¯ Name Gregory Jeffrey Drake Age 19 Level 20 Class Wizard(3), Sorcerer(3), Cleric, Enchanter, Summoner, Necromancer Unique Class Gamer(1), Master Scout, Arcane Warlock Race Human/Dragon Title Fearless, ¡°Outnumbered, not Outgunned¡± Health 641/1500 Stamina 4860/4860 Mana 37500/37500 CON 100(95+5) STR 100(95+5) AGI 224(219+5) INT 250(245+5) WIS 917(912+5) PER 657(652+5) FTH 22(17+5) LUK MAX Passive Skills Life in a Game, Passive Luck, Reverse Engineer, Multi-Casting(N5), Observant, Skinning(N1), Filleting(N1), Barrier Vision, Photographic Memory, Cloth-Working(N1) Armorer(C/L)(N1), Repair(C/L)(N1), Clothier(C/L)(N1), Embroiderer(N1), Metal-Sewing(M-A)(N1), Blinding Speed, Massive Vitality, Overpowering Might Feats The Wise One, Perceptive, Lucky, Kingslayer Traits Trained, Educated, Boosted, Troll¡¯s Constitution, Power Leveler Debuffs N/A Active Skills Riftwalker N/A[10M,10S] Flare Novice 9(23%)[10M] Bolt Novice 3(37%)[10M] Slice Novice 8(46%)[10M] Flame Engulfment 3(27%)[20M] Identify Novice 2(17%)[N/A] Healing Novice 1(0%)[20M,10S] Self-Healing Novice 1(0%)[30M,10S] Mana Bolt Novice 1(0%)[10M] Mana Sphere Novice 1(0%)[15M] Mana Manipulation Novice 2(3%)[VARM] Homing Mana Sphere Novice 1(0%)[75M] Homing Mana Bolt Novice 1(0%)[50M] Expanding Explosive Mana Sphere Novice 4(0%)[1000M] Spiraling Mana Javelin Novice 2(19%)[700M] Spiral Mana Bolt Novice 5(4%)[20M] Stealth Intermediate 1(0%) Portal Walker N/A[30M] Enchanting Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Stat Buffing Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Defensive Buffing Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Damage Buffing Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Teleportation Novice 1(15%)[VARM] Chrono Shift Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Gravitas Novice 1(23%)[VARM] Fireball Advanced 3(1%)[1000M] Inferno Novice 1(0%)[100000M] Lightning Chain Advanced 2(3%)[1000M] Grand Lightning Spear Novice 1(0%)[100000M] Tornado Advanced 1(98%)[1000M] Vacuum Novice 1(0%)[100000M] Frozen Lance Advanced 2(0%)[1000M] Blizzard Novice 1(0%)[100000M] Barrier Journeyman 5(39%)[500M/S] Aura Journeyman 8(72%)[500M/S] Unspent Stat Points 0 Unspent Trait Points 0 Viewing the new passive skills, Gregory noticed that his body had become harder because of massive vitality, and that he was more powerful because of overpowering might. Passive skills gained from increasing stats could be just as useful as focusing on a min-max build. Perhaps he would need to put off min-maxing until he was truly safe from any potential threats on his life. Chapter 8 Part 1 Gregory¡¯s improved abilities after somebody got a 1000 in a stat really pushed his power to the next level. Even without the bonuses, his current stats were all above what they had been previously. However, he could tell that his current actual physical strength was barely above what he had as a human, and his health too was only a bit above what it was as a full human. The only thing giving him more survivability currently was him having full body scales, and being almost entirely immune to attacks from people that couldn¡¯t damage his scales. The best thing though, was that his magic got a huge boost from the added wisdom he had gained. Being a dragon caused magic to be amplified by wisdom over intelligence, making dragons a very unique race. There was a mythical race as well, one that Gregory only heard about, that was able to use their agility to deal more physical damage because of their insane speed and lithe builds. Aside from generic information, not much was known about them, but it was known that their lifespan was lower than that of a human, and birth rate lower than the dragons. It meant that despite being the world¡¯s greatest assassins, they were doomed to a difficult life if they wanted to make anything of themselves. Of course, that was the extent on the knowledge of them. Their race had been lost to the annuls of history, in part because they were too ambitious and more died than were born until eventually none remained. Gregory looked at his group, it was a strong group, and would be the only way he could possibly make it out of this situation alive. Thinking to his stats, he remembered that he could speak to the powerful beings who sent everybody here using his FTH as a catalyst. He refused to believe that those things were gods though, as they were far too obsessed with themselves from what he¡¯d seen. He wanted to force a connection, so channeling mana through his FTH, he put out a signal. A signal that only the ones who¡¯d sent him here would be able to see. To his own surprise, his FTH kept getting higher, making the beam every brighter and harder to ignore. Something struck him at this moment, to use spatial magic to summon them here, using his FTH as a focus to find the beings he wanted to call. It seemed that this action was a unique way to get ahold of the self-acclaimed gods. Gregory fell unconscious, waking up in a mental mansion. He saw two beings there with him, a man and a woman, not human, but they appeared to be somewhat human. Their bodies seemed almost perfect, not necessarily infinitely attractive, but as if there were no flaws. ¡°Why have you summoned us this way human, don¡¯t you know we ought smite you for your¡­¡± They paused upon seeing Gregory. Despite recognizing his unique FTH, as it was a rare stat to have, they hadn¡¯t expected him to become as strong as he had so quickly, or to become a part dragon. There was only one person they were watching intently, and that was Eric, the human who had advanced most quickly, and then became an elf, and quickly pushed his way over the level 100 barrier at which point he became an Advanced Elf. It was the gains from becoming an elder elf that had removed the stat bonuses for humans alone, but also gave all but him a huge boost to power. Of course, he didn¡¯t need it anyways. He was already the most powerful by leaps and bounds, pushing himself to already being level 19 as an Advanced Elf. They secretly wondered if that man would become an immortal due to race evolution before Earth had even merged over, it would make him much stronger without a doubt. Gregory though seemed to have a much firmer base of advancement. He had not only been transformed to half-dragon, but also took time with the dragons to naturally push his stats to the limit. They brought up his status, and were shocked by what they saw. With the new spell he had just created, he had pushed his stats even further, managing to break 1000 WIS and even pushing his INT higher. The most surprising part was his FTH, which had grown by leaps and bounds because of the unconventional and almost reality breaking way he attempted to summon them. They smiled a bit to themselves, realizing that these humans were quite unique compared to the humans they had found previously. Despite only being a bit more advanced, they were capable of so much more complex and advanced thought, not needing to focus only on survival and being able to study freely. Only a human mind could ever grasp onto some of the things that these two were doing with their abilities on this world. Both men were frightening in their own way, but these powerful beings feared nothing, partly because they had virtually limitless stats and were far above anything any of the races on this planet could hope to match. ¡°We are leaving now, don¡¯t even try summoning us that way again. Here, a few levels for you and your party to celebrate your ingenuity. Consider this a gift, and talk to us the regular way if there is anything else you want to know. Just to make things interesting, we are giving everybody that came from Earth OVER level 50, and the people in your party, a save stone.¡± Gregory got a notification for a new passive skill due to heightened WIS. WIS has reached over 1000, Mental Fortitude skill unlocked. Mental Fortitude resists attacks on the mind, granting immunity to any mental affliction or disease. This can be overwhelmed by those with higher fear invoking stats than your WIS. They ejected Gregory from his mental space, and he awoke from his sitting position. Glancing over the members of his party, he saw that they had all reached level 91 or higher. He had nearly fainted upon seeing this, for them to have done such a thing meant that they were either very generous, or really wanted to make Gregory a suspicious person to the rest of his group. Even with the experience necessary for his levelups, Gregory had managed to reach up to level 73. He put ten trait points into Gaint¡¯s Strength, and then one point into perk-finder. He had also gained two class points, putting one into Wizard, and Sorcerer. Unbeknownst to Gregory, the gap between 50 and 51 was an enormous stretch to cover for humans, due to their lack of combat power without a heavily combat based unique class. A lack of huntable creatures capable of raising the level quickly made it near impossible to cross it. This is why only five had managed so far to perform this feat, the first was Eric, who had done so alone and was a level 19 Advanced Elvish Human. The next was Sean, who had done so by using his suggestion to kill a human from Speculo. Gregory had made it by the power of whatever these beings were, which was saying just how dangerous and powerful they were. Jessica, who had gained an Absolute Combat unique class, essentially made it to level 103 and had become a level 3 Advanced Human. The last was a gluttonous man who had gained a unique class by the name of devourer, and could directly consume experience from anything he ate. He had reached level 100 and was on the cusp of becoming an advanced human upon reaching the experience needed to evolve race. Evolving race was different from transforming race. It did not remove stats, and was one of the few natural ways of obtaining a save stone. Another way was by obtaining it from a natural dungeon, and the last was by being a sentient killer of a sentient that had used one. The evolutionary levels were Advanced, Elder, Ancient, Legendary, and Immortal, and gave improvements to stats. An advanced human had a multiplier of five to all their stats, making them as powerful as baseline celestials and demons. On top of this, races gained additional class points when advancing to higher evolutionary levels of their race. Humans, and human originated transformed gained three class points on evolution. Many other races gained two class points on evolution in addition to the additional stats, the races that focus primarily on magic and physical attack being the exceptions. Dragons, Elves, Elementals, Ogres, Trolls, and Giants all gained only one class point per evolution in addition to the boost to their stats. Many people when gaining a second race would have it transform their base race, instead of having it grant a second race. Having a second race in addition to the base race was a huge boon. It granted twice the leveling potential. They could level both their original race, and the second race separately, meaning additional boosts to power, especially once a person reached the immortal level. Ranking a race to the immortal level allowed it to continue growing past 100, having no true level cap, but at the cost that every level-up had exponentially multiplying experience required to continue leveling up. Merged races were also powerful, in that they changed the baseline stats of the original race, instead of mostly granting physical characteristics and only very small stat changes. Gregory being a True Draconic Human had gained the full benefit of the ¡°true¡± stat of the dragons. His WIS had a multiplier of 20, making him almost as powerful as a standard dragon in terms of magical might. In fact, it would continue becoming closer when he ranked up his race, as that would push his stats closer to those of a true dragon until they matched. The modifiers that could be for a merged race were True, Grand, Great, and just having the second races name in front of the original race. Either way, one of the modifiers would be used in front of one of the races, whether that was the original or the new race was to be determined by where a person¡¯s talents lay. Grand and Great were weaker variants of the True, while not having a modifier on the second race was very similar to having a primary and secondary race, except that there could still be a secondary race on top of the merged race at an added risk to life. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Looking in his inventory, a very limited space that was actually made obsolete by many of the larger holding bags that could be created, Gregory found the save stone. While he hadn¡¯t gotten one of the holding bags, his enchanting abilities allowed him to find out how to make one. It would allow him to create one himself, given some time to understand the enchantment and advance it to the point that it would be strong enough to be worthwhile. Still, having the base of strength that he had made him that much safer even without all of the tools that a person on this planet would usually have. Now, having the save stone meant that he would be even better prepared to survive. He would need to plant it as soon as he could, and then be free of worry. Well, at least free from needing to worry about his survival. He would wait until morning to ask the rest of the group about the save stone, as well as to let them know about how their levels were all raised by powerful beings and all given save stones. Gregory moved toward the entrance to the cavern they were in, when he saw Alfred sitting up against his hammer. Alfred had taken the night watch, and the notifications he had just received were unbelievable. It was unheard of, leveling that many times in such a short time-frame. Judging from the notification though, Gregory had done something that got the attention of the beings that ruled this place. Their group had all gained enough experience to push them into levels that were normally associated with a degree of difficulty, and then also got them all a save stone, something that would never be seen over the course of a normal lifetime. It was a huge safety net, but also a trap that one could fall into. Using it too soon would result in stagnated growth. It brought people back to the exact same physical state as when the person planted it. Many would plant it immediately, but that only made sense for people that were truly at risk of death. It made more sense to wait until such time that it was actually hard for them to survive. Gregory was the one exception. He was definitely weaker than them, and could be damaged far more easily. It was known, that even with his scales, Gregory was the most at risk of them to be damaged or die. His health was way less than theirs, not just due to constitution and strength being much lower, but also because his multipliers for health were far less than theirs. Alfred motioned Gregory closer, wanting to ask him exactly what happened. ¡°It may not be my place to ask, but the notification I just received seems to indicate that you are the reason I received a save stone. It also appears that something you did caused us all to gain huge amounts of experience. I am not complaining about this, just curious as to what you could have possibly done to elicit such rewards.¡± Gregory craned his neck slightly, while rubbing his temples with the thumb and middle finger of one hand. He lifted his head back up before deciding that Alfred and the rest of the group should know the truth. ¡°I tried to summon one of the beings that brought me here, it resulted in me winding up in my own unconscious while they spoke to me. For what I did, they asked me to never do it again, but rewarded me for the effort with experience and a save stone. They also said that every human over level 50 who had come from Earth with me would receive a save stone. I just hope that there aren¡¯t too large a number of them.¡± Alfred laughed a little, Gregory would likely not realize, but humans for the most part had a very hard time crossing the level 50 barrier, their lack of heightened stats making them far weaker compared to beasts that they would need to defeat for leveling up. ¡°I doubt any aside from you, except for maybe a few with a lot of luck, will be obtaining a save stone in that way. For a human to level past 50 is usually very hard, because they cannot face many of the stronger creatures that would give them appropriate experience for their level. That one human we ran into may be the exception to that rule, but there won¡¯t be many, if any, that could defeat stronger creatures alone like that.¡± Gregory sighed a small sigh of relief before he began to move. He would need to get some fresh air to think things through. ¡°Thank you for that information Alfred, I really appreciate it. If you would excuse me though, I need to take a little walk to sort things out for now.¡± Moving toward the cavern mouth, Gregory began taking a walk outside to sort his thoughts. ¡®I could easily enough push PER to 1000, which would grant yet another passive ability, one that would likely give me a massive boon as well. It may be the best way, it would certainly not hurt, and could only make things easier for me. Not to mention, I could put the extra points into INT.¡¯ 343 points to PER, 240 points to INT PER has reached 1000, True Senses skill unlocked. True Senses enable one to see, hear, and smell through all illusions, dimensional veils, and even sense truth itself. Nothing can give the senses of one with True Senses falsities through any means. They cannot be affected by anything that is not absolutely real. In addition, they cannot lose trace of a target unless it is through a much faster speed that prevents them from keeping up. Gregory smiled, there were two things he just remembered that had to do with his improved WIS and PER. He could read any books in the WIS, PER, or mixed WIS and PER wings of the library. This would be something he would need to test now that he could. Status Name Gregory Jeffrey Drake Age 19 Level 73 Class Wizard(4), Sorcerer(4), Cleric, Enchanter, Summoner, Necromancer Unique Class Gamer, Master Scout, Arcane Warlock Race True Draconic Human Title Fearless, ¡°Outnumbered, not Outgunned¡± Health 8300/8300 Stamina 26892/26892 Mana 251075/251075 CON 100(95+5) STR 100(95+5) AGI 224(219+5) INT 605(600+5) WIS 1019(1014+5) PER 1000(955+5) FTH 203(198+5) LUK MAX Passive Skills Life in a Game, Passive Luck, Reverse Engineer, Multi-Casting(N5), Observant, Skinning(N1), Filleting(N1), Barrier Vision, Photographic Memory, Cloth-Working(N1) Armorer(C/L)(N1), Repair(C/L)(N1), Clothier(C/L)(N1), Embroiderer(N1), Metal-Sewing(M-A)(N1) Feats The Wise One, Perceptive, Lucky, Kingslayer Traits Trained, Educated, Boosted, Troll¡¯s Constitution, Power Leveler, Giant¡¯s Strength, Perk-Finder Debuffs N/A Active Skills Riftwalker N/A[10M,10S] Flare Novice 9(23%)[10M] Bolt Novice 3(37%)[10M] Slice Novice 8(46%)[10M] Flame Engulfment 3(27%)[20M] Identify Novice 2(17%)[N/A] Healing Novice 1(0%)[20M,10S] Self-Healing Novice 1(0%)[30M,10S] Mana Bolt Novice 1(0%)[10M] Mana Sphere Novice 1(0%)[15M] Mana Manipulation Novice 2(3%)[VARM] Homing Mana Sphere Novice 1(0%)[75M] Homing Mana Bolt Novice 1(0%)[50M] Expanding Explosive Mana Sphere Novice 4(0%)[1000M] Spiraling Mana Javelin Novice 2(19%)[700M] Spiral Mana Bolt Novice 5(4%)[20M] Stealth Intermediate 1(0%) Portal Walker N/A[30M] Enchanting Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Stat Buffing Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Defensive Buffing Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Damage Buffing Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Teleportation Novice 1(15%)[VARM] Chrono Shift Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Gravitas Novice 1(23%)[VARM] Fireball Advanced 3(1%)[1000M] Inferno Novice 1(0%)[100000M] Lightning Chain Advanced 2(3%)[1000M] Grand Lightning Spear Novice 1(0%)[100000M] Tornado Advanced 1(98%)[1000M] Vacuum Novice 1(0%)[100000M] Frozen Lance Advanced 2(0%)[1000M] Blizzard Novice 1(0%)[100000M] Barrier Journeyman 5(39%)[500M/S] Aura Journeyman 8(72%)[500M/S] Summon of the Divine Novice 1(97%)[25,000M] Unspent Stat Points 0 Unspent Trait Points 0 Chapter 8 Part 2 Gregory revisited the library now that he could learn more before being overwhelmed by the knowledge, and that so much more of the library was opened to him. As Gregory stepped foot inside the library, he willed himself to be located in the deepest portion of the mixed wisdom and perception area. To his surprise, the library actually brought him there. Reviewing the books in the area, they seemed to have mostly passive abilities that granted improved perception. Walking around, he found the Wisdom wing of the library, and found that the books there contained mostly skills that would improve his ability to output damage through wisdom. Considering he already received this, it made sense to study those books first. Until he found a book that was titled ¡°The Legend of Dragons: A Dragon¡¯s Powers.¡± The book covered a variety of topics about dragons, mostly things that Gregory already knew. A few things were new though. He discovered that him being a true draconic variant race meant that he would gain the same skills as those of an actual dragon. It probably meant he would grow wings, and that he would be able to fire a magic breath attack of some kind. He also learned that there were some passive abilities dragons gained upon ranking up. Moving up to advanced would grant adaptive physiology, which gave dragons the ability to adapt to their surroundings to survive. The other ability they gained through ranking up was Unbreakable, which was attained at the immortal level, and granted total immunity to purely physical attacks, and high resistance to even magical physical attacks. A dragon¡¯s stat bonuses were also listed in this book for the base level of a dragon. Their strength and constitution listed as being 10 times less than a human¡¯s, which made them quite fragile. Their INT and AGI were at a baseline of 10 times higher than a human. Their PER was at 15 times that of a human, making dragons very perceptive of their surroundings. Their WIS was the peak of the abilities, with a multiplier of 20 from baseline humans. It also mentioned that the stats improved further from ranking up. Only the advanced and elder level rank ups were shown, but they gave substantial boosts to power. Advanced increased WIS by another 20 baseline times, and PER by another 15. CON, AGI, INT, and STR all only gained 5 on to the baseline as a multiplier in return though. Elder had an improvement of 20 to WIS again, but also with the same gain to PER. It also had multipliers of 15 to AGI and INT, but with no gain to CON or STR as a downfall. Dragons stayed the most fragile race throughout their rankups, only gaining protection from their powerful scales. Upon finishing the tome, Gregory knew that he would be better off advancing himself so that he would have the adaptive physiology and also help the rest of his party reach a level that they would also advance their races. He left the library and headed back into the cavern. They were all awake by now, Alfred having woken them all up after Gregory left. Speechless, they couldn¡¯t fathom what Gregory could have done to have advanced them so much. Although it mattered not now, for they all made up their minds to reach the next level and really push themselves to new heights. As soon as daytime hit, they quickly moved out. Everybody in the party wanted to grow as quickly as possible, and wanting to see just what advancing meant. It was uncommon for most to ever advance, the difficulty only one part. It required a mental fortitude to break the level 100 barrier. Every time a person hit level 100, there was some kind of barrier or hurdle to cross that prevented advancing. It was why despite there being a large number of people at level 100 in non-human areas, very few were between levels. They felt now though, like they could break that barrier, cross that hurdle, and reach the advanced level with the boost that they got. By the end of the second day after their massive boost to levels, only Gregory remained unadvanced. He only managed to reach level 87, and experience required continued to grow at large rates. The rest of the party were between levels 7 and 10 of advanced, and still seemed to grow faster than Gregory did. This continued for another five days, before Gregory finally managed to reach advanced. It was against a group of king blade wolves that he finally gained the last of the experience required. The wolves were fast, had blades instead of fur, and were almost impossible to attack physically without very precise attacks from piercing or bludgeoning attacks. They were also very resilient to magic, almost entirely immune to raw magic, and being highly resistant to earth based magic. It took a few large-scale lightning based attacks and a few fire based spells to finally kill them. These wolves pushed the rest of the party to between levels 21 and 25, while Gregory only barely managed to push into advanced. What Gregory gained from advanced was completely worth the wait, he was enveloped by his mana, his body changing further to become closer to a dragon. He grew large, scaled, leathery wings from his back. His face became like that of a dragon, it became completely covered in scales and grew out into a snout like a dragon¡¯s face. He also gained the ability to breath raw magic, and any elemental attacks he had spells for. Gregory¡¯s stat multipliers also inflated, growing by enough power in this one rank to match those of an actual dragon¡¯s. His constitution and strength remained the same, his intelligence and agility grew to be 15 times stronger than a human¡¯s, his perception jumped to 30 times that of a human¡¯s at the same level, and his wisdom grew to be 40 times higher, pulling even further ahead as his strongest ability. To top it all off, he also received a boost to his mental stats due to the nature of how he finally ranked up. Gregory¡¯s adaptive physiology skill however was different from a regular dragon¡¯s. Instead of only becoming able to adapt to the environment, he also became able to take on different physical forms. He could keep a form that looked like his most recent form, a form that was his most recent form but with wings, a form that was his most recent form with wings and head of a dragon, or a nearly human appearance. It was the nearly human appearance that Gregory took on. He had regular human height and fairly normal skin, but the horns of a dragon, pointed scaled ears, the tail, and he had purple and red colored lines running down his body where the scales would be; as if the lines were tattoos. This current appearance could probably be used in a human realm and not thought too much of, but he would need to see if any humans living in cities had combined race appearances first. Looking at his experience required for the next level left him beat. He required as much experience for one more level as he had just gained from the last ten levels. Such was the curse of the dragons, though he did at least get two more class points, which he put into True Magic Initiate, bringing him to a very powerful level. This new class was more than just a magic class, but a class that brought forth the true might of magic. The next level was rumored to require True Magic Initiate at rank five, Warlock at rank five, True Revivalist at rank five, and Elemental Trapmaster at rank five. Warlock required five total levels between sorcerer and enchanter, with both being at least two. True Revivalist required Necromancer and Cleric to be rank five. Elemental Trapmaster required five total ranks, at least two in each between wizard and enchanter. The next rank was said to be True Magic Adept, and would give not only extra power, but other bonuses to all magic performed. The requirements for any later ranks were lost, only the names remaining, True Magic Expert, and True Magic Master being the peak of magical skill. The gnome demonstrated to Gregory some use of enchanting, which Gregory found oddly enough to allow him to use his gamer class points on ranking up classes instead of just gaining new ones. It seemed that Tim was a skilled enchanter, and allowed Gregory to rank it up to four by watching his enchants. Gregory did this, and then looked at Caitlyn¡¯s summons, which allowed him to get up to rank three in summoner. After Gregory did this, he unlocked both the Elemental Trapmaster and Warlock classes to gain. Only True Revivalist would still need to be obtained now before he could focus on training them to gain True Magic Adept. It was a class that really interested Gregory, and would likely be at a level that would separate it from just regular classes by a large margin. Even True Magic Initiate offered a large boost to his magical prowess, requiring a rank in all of the basic magical classes, and a rank five in at least two. Cleric was a class that nobody had trained above rank two, so Gregory used his Gamer feature to watch them and get it to rank two. Despite being well on his way toward True Magic Adept for his level, Gregory still knew that he was too fragile to consider himself powerful in this world. Far too many times had he nearly died, and because he couldn¡¯t protect himself despite all his magic. Magic was not all-powerful, as many knew, but dragons had a severe drawback in the physical department. It would take harsh training and long hours to bring himself to a respectable level, either that or lots of stat points. It was a hard decision to make, but he knew that it would be necessary. Of course, he had decided to plant the save stone now, something even the rest of the party agreed he should do. They also discussed which form would be best to take for him, and decided that the one closest to a dragon would be best. It allowed him free flight, a powerful magical breath attack, and full body scales for better protection. During his free time, Gregory spent nearly all his time studying clerical magic. He wanted to perfect it, and do his best to improve it the natural way. It was a hard way to do things, but it was one of the only ways that most people who improved actually got stronger. Using class points was meant to be done as a backup, a way to speed up improvement, not as the only way. Most humans didn¡¯t know this, but Gregory knew it now. After a few days passed, Gregory was more than surprised by how quickly he was leveling up. The rest of his group had reached up to the 80s in the advanced tier, but he had also reached up into the 60s. Through hard work, and improved use of his available magics, he was able to level at much faster speeds. Although, the save stone had literally saved his life twice the first day. It wasn¡¯t until he better understood the way Arcane Warlocks teleportation spells worked that he was able to fully utilize them and make them a powerful asset to his leveling. As the continued venturing on, they saw something quite odd, a lone human was cutting swaths through the beasts before them. They were going carefully, but it seemed that they were far stronger than a regular human on this planet. Gregory understood this now from his team, and they all suspected that she was from the same place as Gregory. Gregory transformed to his nearly full human appearance, and then walked up to her. Inspecting them, she saw that Gregory was indeed a human, and saw that he seemed to be quite strong. This was Jessica, the human who had the absolute combat class. By reaching into this area, she had managed to obtain the level of Elder Human, and had flat multipliers of 15 on everything now. At seeing her, Gregory¡¯s jaw nearly dropped. A level nine elder human, and one that was almost definitely from Earth. She smiled at seeing Gregory, looking at him as if she was seeing home for the first time in a long time. As soon as she knew what she was looking at, she made her introduction. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. ¡°You must be from Earth, I was transported here by a teleportation circle inside of a human capital. I am pretty sure only a person from Earth would even consider becoming one with a race from here. I know humans here are overly corrupt, afraid of anything that overpowers them. I think it is really amazing that you have become a part of such an awesome group, it has such a variety of members. Even you add to the variety a bunch more because of your updated race. Mentioning that, shouldn¡¯t you appear to be more¡­ draconic? I read that the closer you are to a race, the more physical characteristics of theirs you assume. Even more so as you rank up from the base level. Oh, I almost forgot, my name is Jessica. What are all your names?¡± The party quickly introduced themselves, as they wanted to give her time to tell more about herself. It wouldn¡¯t be a bad idea to have another party member, especially one as strong as her. Gregory decided to amuse her, and took on his most draconic appearance before responding to her questions. ¡°This is my currently most draconic form, I figured you¡¯d rather see a human first though. The adaptive physiology I gained from becoming an advanced draconic human allowed me to adjust my appearance. I have a feeling that as I improve my ability with that skill, I will be able to take an almost entirely human appearance. My name is Gregory, and yes I am from Earth, as I know now you must be too.¡± Again, Jessica smiled as if she was back at home. She was also amazed by Gregory¡¯s appearance. She continued by letting them know of her wishes to become a transformed human. ¡°I¡¯d really love to become a transformed race, but the library said that it was rare in the first place; nearly impossible if you have already evolved race. It is still possible I suppose, but I really doubt I could become one. I have also read that if I do, I¡¯d likely remain at the elder level of race, but gain the racial modifier. It would only be possible it seems if it was my true race though, which I don¡¯t really know what it would be. It would need to be one that would roughly match my natural prowess, which I am not entirely sure about. My original abilities were divided into a couple strong areas, but all substantially higher than a regular humans. My highest stats were definitely strength and agility, with constitution being a runner up.¡± Elise immediately made the association, considering she was one of the beastkin of the party. ¡°It sounds like you would be a perfect match for a beastkin. If you¡¯d like, I could perform the ritual on you, it would probably leave you somewhat vulnerable for a time though. It takes time for the transformation to complete, unless it is only a gaining of a race instead of a transforming of a race.¡± Jessica¡¯s eyes lit up at this proposition, she never imagined that she¡¯d be able to grow in power so easily. Of course, it was uncertain that she would grow substantially in power, especially since she had already grown to being an Elder Human. ¡°Absolutely, if it gives me a chance at becoming that much stronger, I will take the risk. You would all be willing to defend me, right?¡± Jessica was a very honest girl, probably about 23 according to Earth age. For her though,age was somewhat irrelevant, as it seemed she would make immortal level with relative ease. As Elise started the ritual, she focused her mana on Jessica. Elise then made a small cut on her arm, which Gregory immediately healed for her once she had filled a goblet with her blood. ¡°Jessica, you will need to drink my blood to finish the ritual. I have entwined my mana with your own to act as a primer, you will need the blood now to begin the transformation.¡± Jessica cautiously reached for the goblet and brought it to her lips, before letting the blood flow down her throat. As she finished, she fell over, her body under stress from what would likely be a transformation. Gregory was able to tell something strange about this change, noticing that her mana was not becoming entirely like a beastkin¡¯s. It was definitely the human mana that was changing, but not entirely to a beastkin¡¯s. It seemed that she would becoming some new kind of race, probably due to her having reached the elder level already when trying to merge with what would be her true race. Atlas decided he would carry her, carrying her piggyback since it was the easiest for him. Jessica sleeping as she was, more unconscious than asleep though to be honest, brought the party some semblance of peace. It was relaxing to know that the party was strong enough that they could bring along a person that was completely unconscious without worry of getting her killed. It took two days for her to wake back up, time that got all members of the party aside from Gregory to level 100 of Advanced, and got Gregory to level 98 of Advanced. His multi-casting abilities had made him much stronger, and his continued use of the temporal and spatial magics gave him a huge advantage in leveling. As she began to wake, there were only a few changes, though her race had changed to become a True Beastlike Human. She took on the full stat bonuses of the beastkin class, but did not gain physical bonuses from claws or better balance from the body¡¯s form. Jessica grew a fox-like tail, and ears, and also grew longer and sharper canines than she had previously. Her eyes also became very fox-like, becoming amber in color with a more slit pupil. As she began moving, Atlas set her down so that she wouldn¡¯t be as confused upon waking up. Still, waking up with a tail was quite a shock for her. She leapt up fully alert when she noticed it, looking around her. She could tell that time had passed since the process was started, though how much she was unsure of. ¡°How long was I out for? You have all grown so much, but this place is definitely a quick way to grow stronger, so I am not going to question too heavily on it. I never really asked before, but could I come with you? I hate having to travel alone, and it would be way more enjoyable to know that there are at least other humans around here.¡± Elise sighed, the group she had formed to travel only had intentions of reaching level 100. When they reached Advanced, she was overjoyed. Having a person that had reached the elder level along, and nearly being there themselves was unbelievable. This was even more impressive considering they were traveling alongside a being who was basically a dragon in human size, and a girl who was now basically another beastkin with a mostly human appearance. ¡°Yes, we had intended to bring you with us anyway once you woke up. We think you would be a great addition to our group. At least until we get back to normal civilization.¡± Jessica jumped with joy, and then quickly began giving thanks. ¡°Thank you so much, I am so glad to not need to travel alone anymore. Oh, I also retained my Elder level, it seems that did not get lost upon the transformation. It says I am an ¡®Elder True Beastlike Human¡¯¡± The party was shocked, but did not let it show too much. They wanted her to feel welcome and at home. Knowing that they would likely fall over from knowing of her strength would probably make her feel left out. ______________________________________________________________ In the meanwhile, the other three humans who had managed to make it above level 50 also showed major improvement. Sean had put so many under his control, nearly all of humanity on this planet, including a few beastkin and dwarves he found on the outskirts of the territories, that he gained a World Leader Title. This was complete with enough experience to push him up to level 100 of the Advanced level. With the five class points, he dumped them into the paladin class, until it reached level 5 and wouldn¡¯t take anymore class points. He then decided to put the remainder into berserker, bringing it up to level 3. He swung his sword and found it infinitely lighter, as if he had gained immense power through the level ups and class improvements. To his surprise, he found that his knowledge of combat took the largest spike from the class ups, and that his actual stats were heightened through the rank up to advanced. On top of his skills, Sean gained an even more powerful ability, the ability to move people up to a level that is at least 100 levels from his own. On top of this, he could grant people fully under his control with classes, up to whatever level the class he wanted to teach them was at for him. It made it easy to grow an army of men that could push the bounds of humanity and be a threat for nearly any that opposed him. ¡®I wonder if this will make me strong enough to control even Gregory now. He may have grown stronger, but this new power feels overwhelming. I doubt even he could stand before me as I am now.¡¯ _____________________________________________________________ Eric on the other hand had just focused on leveling solo. He reached up to Elder, but found experience lacking after that level. There was just no challenge for him anymore. Even killing unique groups of creatures gave little to no levels. His race was his only comfort, Elder Grand Elvish Human seemed like a very powerful race, one that would set him above any that looked down on him ever again. ____________________________________________________________ The glutton, who had a name of Hadley, was mostly focused on doing what he was doing before. He just wanted to eat, and eating is what he did. He consumed everything in his path, gaining the experience a creature had gained instead of killing experience pushing him farther at a much faster rate than any could have imagined. He had reached Elder Human, and continued moving forward at a breakneck pace. Though, he had actually ended up losing substantial weight. Hadley had been transformed from a large man who could barely move upon first being transported here, to a man that was in fairly average shape. He wasn¡¯t thin by any means, but had very little left on him in terms of fat. He could move easily now, and keeping clean was also much easier with his new physique. In fact, with his new physique, he returned to Earth after reaching the elder level, wanting to see if he would rather live here until such time as the two worlds did merge. He liked Earth, the moderness, and gaming especially. Being able to live a fantasy life was incredible, losing the weight he did lose was the best, but he wanted a last hoorah before he would be away from gaming forever just as badly. _____________________________________________________________ Chapter 9 Part 1 It took almost three months for Jessica to reach Ancient level after the transformation. Reaching Ancient level caused something to happen for every human from Earth, Anybody at the base level earned 30 extra levels, people at advanced got 20 levels, while people at elder gained no levels. Another thing that happened, is that everybody from earth lost their exp boost. Gregory¡¯s and Eric¡¯s had been at 20x, while everybody else from Earth had theirs at 10x. The extra reduced exp was due to the type of race they were, gaining exp at a rate of 100x slower than other non-human races. Regular humans gained exp at a rate of 10x from these races, enabling them to level at the fastest paces were they to have the power to actually fight like the other races. Another three days, and she managed to only obtain enough to get ten percent of a level. Gregory, Elise, Katherine, Atlas, Alfred, Tim, Caitlyn, Lily, and Aurora had also been focusing on training. Gregory had reached level 51 of Elder, while the rest of the group were all at level 49 of Elder. Over the three days, Gregory also only gained one level, only reaching level 51 from 50. The rest of the party on the other hand got 5 more levels. Without such a massive boost to exp, his training speed really fell off. For reaching the level of Elder, Gregory¡¯s adaptive physiology also gained two new forms, one that was entirely human aside from draconic eyes, and one that looked to be a full dragon except that it was the size of a human instead. Through training, Gregory had gained level 4 of Cleric, and gotten his True Magic Initiate to level 3. With the class points he obtained, Gregory pushed Cleric to 5, Necromancer to 2, True Magic Initiate to 5, and then got Elemental Trapmaster and Warlock. Over the months, Gregory also used the library some, and was able to read books enough to gain a total of 417 natural WIS. He also managed to read some books on high level necromancy and was able to spend some of his gamer ability class points to raise it from 2 to 5. He was still saving trait points, but decided to spend his stat points at level 51. With his stat points, Gregory put 83 into INT to push it to 1000, gaining a new skill and completely unlocking the library in the process. 1000 INT obtained, Absolute Memory obtained. Absolute Memory allows one to fully remember everything they have experienced since gaining it, and disallows the mind to ever be overwhelmed from information overload. Looking at his other stats, only one pushed forward as the most logical choice. ¡®1875 points to WIS¡¯ Highest WIS in the world has been obtained, adding 10% to WIS. Highest WIS in history obtained, King of Wisdom Title granted. King of Wisdom acknowledges you as the wisest being in history. +100 to WIS, grants bonus stat points per level for every 500 points of WIS. Gregory laughed at the progress he gained just by pushing his WIS. The highest stats being shown was only for those who had recently been allowed into this world, but it had been locked to Gregory after becoming a true draconic human. The new feat and bonuses he got made the WIS push well worth it though. He wasn¡¯t sure, but Gregory guessed that the next highest WIS was at around 2000-3000, mostly because it was a stat that helped dragons more than any other race, and dragons really only needed about 2000-3000 to be at a point where other stats were more beneficial. As a matter of fact, the highest WIS after Gregory¡¯s was 2794, but only a very reclusive dragon living on a very far-away mountaintop knew that. WIS was chosen for one very specific reason, he gained magical resilience, and his scales gained more damage negation based upon his effective WIS. It was actually based upon his ability to regenerate mana, but that was something he only realized now. A dragon¡¯s body and scales was magical in its nature, gaining more power and resistance based upon how quickly mana entered the body. It was a revelation that not many realized, mostly because this world did not allow the equipment to experiment, but also because dragons were for the most part very solitary creatures, closed off to others. The notification was vague, listing WIS only, and did not give any hints as to why. Gregory half expected something for the revelation, but was unsurprised when he received nothing from it. He knew then that he had gained all the natural WIS that he could. Either that, or his WIS had reached such a point, that he could no longer gain WIS naturally unless it was from understanding something outside the scope of understanding. Jessica on the other hand had reached Ancient level 17, having sparked a notification to appear to all of the humans who had come from Earth that were on this planet when she reached level 1 of the ancient level. One of you has obtained the Ancient rank, this has removed the 10x EXP boost you have been gaining. Any below the rank of Advanced have been granted 30 levels as compensation. _________________________________________________________________________ Eric had been training hard ever since he became part elf, but when just three days ago he lost his exp boost to another of them reaching the ancient rank, he nearly lost it. Even when he became the King of Intelligence shortly after that, he still felt anger. Still, the new feat proved to be massively beneficial. Not only did he now effectively have an Intelligence of 2938, he had reached Ancient level 1. He also kept 1000 stat points so he could raise intelligence if need be, he needed to stay above, but didn¡¯t want to use them unless it was absolutely necessary. Eric had also achieved more mana than he even knew what to do with, having a new total mana of 73,097,440. Even with his WIS of only 290, he gained over 7,066,085 mana every second. He was likely the strongest mage among the people from Earth, and possibly on the planet. He definitely believed that anyways, it was the only way to get rid of the uncomfortable feeling of likely being only the second to reach the rank of Ancient. He was also very rare in that he had no affinity modifier on his races. It was also rare that a human would have stats that match so perfectly to a humans, but have ridiculous intelligence to the degree that it would put him on par with a true elvish human. It was for this reason that he had remained almost entirely human in physical and mental abilities with the exception of intelligence after reaching past Elder rank. His modifiers had become 20 across the board with the exception of his intelligence modifier. It had a full on 80x modifier, just like the elves would have on their intelligence at such a rank. _________________________________________________________________________ Sean on the other hand was very calm about the update. It inspired him to push himself to Elder rank, and even gave him the motivation necessary to get level 37 before heading back to the rest of humanity. With his abilities, he had gathered even more of a following, and was currently using his powers to get each of them to level 37 of advanced for free. He got himself to level 5 of Berserker, and then unlocked the Ultimate Sword Ultimate Shield class. This new class was immediately gotten, and then put to level 2. It gave some of the most powerful bonuses he saw, massive boosts to attack and defense power, as well as different stances to improve combat effectiveness. __________________________________________________________________________ Gregory found some good bonuses as a result of his improved WIS, aside from the benefits that King of Wisdom gave him. First, he found that he gained more experience toward leveling up classes with higher WIS, and second that he could view class paths to a level one above any class he had. In addition, for having an attribute above 3000, he regained the ability to view a list of who has the highest attribute, and what the attribute is at. The highest attribute in the world was a strength of 5879 held by what was probably a giant. After that, most attributes had a person with the highest being at around 2500-3000. He also found that the next highest was usually about 500 less than the one above it. ¡®I have a feeling that the difficulty in leveling is a reason for the massive point gaps, and that it grows substantially harder to train an attribute the higher it gets. It is also harder to train attributes that are weak by race, it is why I haven¡¯t made any strength or constitution gains despite my attempts to work out. The reverse also seems to be true, which is why I gained such a massive boost to WIS from creating a spell to call down whatever beings sent us here. The bonuses from INT and PER has made them exceedingly strong, so putting a focus on getting strength and constitution up as well should be next on my stats to improve. Leveling has been far harder, probably due to the reduction in experience gained, but I can still improve myself if I put effort into it. Perhaps I will be able to further train strength and constitution once I rank up from Elder to Ancient, it will give me a boost to the baselines which should also improve how far I can get them through training.¡¯ Gregory had really learned to use his powers to frightening efficiency during this three month stretch, which is why he had confidence in his ability to actually continue leveling up. He had made even greater improvement to his dragon breath, which he could use to fire any magical base, or combination of magical bases he had access to. Combined with his arcane warlock unique class, he found it possible to really push the limits of leveling. Gregory had found out that the place he was in, was a place that was meant to be a thousand times more challenging in return for a huge reward of experience. On top of that, the amount of creatures they killed was far more than the intended amount for this area, meaning that there would be an even larger end reward of experience for all of them. The largest part, the one part that was still hidden, was that the party size was also smaller than intended for this particular area. It gave an even larger bonus to experience. There was one thing they all knew about this area though, it was that without the entire party, at least some would have been dead by now. A normal party size for this area was at least 20, ranging up to 35; Gregory¡¯s party being less than ten meant that they would get not only more experience, but have the total bonus amount split across a fewer number of people.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Just a couple days more of travel, and they all received a notification. They had just left the special training zone, and they were all going to receive experience based on participation and difficulty for the party. Gregory¡¯s race was considered in strength to be just below an actual dragon, everybody except Jessica was rated as their race as well, Jessica was prorated based upon when the transformation took place into how much experience the party would receive. Elise, Alfred, Tim, Atlas, Katherine, Caitlyn, Lily, and Aurora received between 151 and 155 levels, pushing some of them to level 100 of Ancient, and most to the lower legendary levels. Gregory received 152 levels, pushing him to level 3 of Legendary. Jessica received 140 levels, bringing her to level 40 of Legendary. Gregory wasn¡¯t sure about the rest of the party, but his wisdom bonus went from 60x to 110x higher than that of a baseline human¡¯s. His strength and constitution also improved to a base of 5x the baseline of a human, with AGI at 70x the baseline of a human. INT was at 70x the baseline of a human as well, with PER at 100x the baseline human¡¯s. A human at the Legendary level had a flat 35x to all their stats, making their multiplier roughly the same as an advanced race that specialized in the stats. However, they fell severely behind when other races reached the Elder level. Of course, that was assuming any of them reached those levels. Normally, reaching above 50 of the base level was unheard of for humans. For other races, reaching above Elder was extremely rare, races normally only reaching the upper Elder levels late in life. Gregory¡¯s group had become a very rare occurrence, since they had gotten lucky in going to such a training ground. Not only that, the luck it required to be sent with a smaller group, having races that were considered weaker or less specialized, and still getting the bonus of not having one ¡°permanent¡± death. Only old age could cause a truly permanent death to one with a planted save stone, something that nobody in the party with their minimum currently centuries long lives were anywhere close to. Having just gotten out of the training area, they all planted a save stone. The stones that created an indestructible crystalline tree that returned people to the world at the same strength as they were when the stone was planted. Since the entire group was now protected against death, and were all at or very near the Legendary level, they decided it would be nice to take a break from constant hunting. They were all tired of it, it was just that it held particularly true for Gregory and Jessica. They had grown up on Earth, and being plunged into such a way of life, where killing was necessary for survival, really wore on them. How this break was spent differed greatly between them; Jessica began cooking, Gregory decided to perform physical exercise, the rest of the group spent their time training stats and classes with plenty of time to just have fun. Gregory found on a personal level, that his strength and constitution improved at incredible levels in comparison to before. When combined with healing magics to increase the muscle recovery rate, and temporal magics to dilate the time. He was improving at a rate far above what his multiplier would normally allow, using his knowledge of anatomy and skill with temporal magics to further growth. In the one day, he had magnified time to such a degree, that he spent the equivalent of five years training while the outside only had a day go by. Time was split between endurance running, acrobatics, and lifting. Gregory used summoning to summon forth items that could be used to make the acrobatics courses, and lifting gear. ¡®Status¡¯ Name Gregory Jeffrey Drake Age 24 Level 3 Class Wizard(5), Sorcerer(5), Cleric(5), Enchanter(4), Summoner(3), Necromancer(5), True Magic Initiate(5), Elemental Trapmaster(1), Warlock(1) Unique Class Gamer[27][16], Master Scout, Arcane Warlock Race Legendary True Draconic Human Title Fearless, ¡°Outnumbered, not Outgunned¡±, King of Wisdom Health 3304000/3304000 Stamina 3811990/3811990 Mana 28910000/28910000 CON 864(859+5) STR 736(731+5) AGI 982(977+5) INT 1000(995+5) WIS 4253(3771+377+100+5) PER 1000(995+5) FTH 203(198+5) LUK MAX Passive Skills Life in a Game, Passive Luck, Reverse Engineer, Multi-Casting(A3), Observant, Skinning(N4), Filleting(N3), Barrier Vision, Photographic Memory, Cloth-Working(I1) Armorer(C/L)(I1), Repair(C/L)(I7), Clothier(C/L)(I2), Embroiderer(I1), Metal-Sewing(M-A)(N3), Adaptive Physiology(2), Mental Fortitude, Absolute Memory Feats The Wise One, Perceptive, Lucky, Kingslayer Traits Trained, Educated, Boosted, Troll¡¯s Constitution, Power Leveler, Giant¡¯s Strength, Perk-Finder Debuffs N/A Active Skills Riftwalker N/A[10M,10S] Flare Novice 9(23%)[10M] Bolt Novice 3(37%)[10M] Slice Novice 8(46%)[10M] Flame Engulfment Intermediate 3(36%)[20M] Identify Advanced 5(24%)[N/A] Healing Intermediate 9(99%)[20M,10S] Self-Healing Advanced 7(92%)[30M,10S] Mana Bolt Novice 1(0%)[10M] Mana Sphere Novice 1(0%)[15M] Mana Manipulation Novice 2(3%)[VARM] Homing Mana Sphere Novice 1(0%)[75M] Homing Mana Bolt Novice 1(0%)[50M] Expanding Explosive Mana Sphere Novice 4(0%)[1000M] Spiraling Mana Javelin Novice 2(19%)[700M] Spiral Mana Bolt Novice 5(4%)[20M] Stealth Intermediate 1(0%) Portal Walker N/A[30M] Enchanting Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Stat Buffing Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Defensive Buffing Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Damage Buffing Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Teleportation Advanced 2(5%)[VARM] Chrono Shift Journeyman 9(96%)[VARM] Gravitas Novice 1(23%)[VARM] Fireball Advanced 3(1%)[1000M] Inferno Novice 1(0%)[100000M] Lightning Chain Advanced 2(3%)[1000M] Grand Lightning Spear Novice 8(17%)[100000M] Tornado Advanced 1(98%)[1000M] Vacuum Novice 4(3%)[100000M] Frozen Lance Advanced 2(0%)[1000M] Blizzard Novice 1(0%)[100000M] Barrier Journeyman 5(39%)[500M/S] Aura Journeyman 8(72%)[500M/S] Summon of the Divine Novice 1(97%)[25,000M] Dragon Breath Advanced 2(28%)[100,000M/S+) Item Summoning Advanced 3(42%)[VARM] Follower Summoning Novice 1(0%)[VARM] Unspent Stat Points 2850 Unspent Trait Points 66 Unspent Class Points 12 ¡®Status¡¯ Gregory frowned seeing his status, he was elated by the incredible physical improvements, but he had aged himself five years inside that time dilated field he had created. This made whatever the dragon did all the more impressive to not have it affect age. It wasn¡¯t an enormous problem, but it still made him realize that it wasn¡¯t safe to do this. He would live for millennia according to sources of information he found, and would need to age about 40 years to be the equivalent of one human year older, but it still nagged at him that he wasn¡¯t as strong as he thought. ¡®136 points to CON, 264 points to STR, 18 points to AGI¡¯ CON has reached 1000, Unbreakable gained. Unbreakable vastly improves internal durability, allowing for more time to pass and still survive if healing is received soon enough. This affects internal organs and bones, causing them to require excessive force to be damaged. Improves based upon current CON. STR has reached 1000, Heavy Handed gained. Heavy Handed improves physical power by three times, vastly increasing differences in strength. Even small differences when made by those that do and do not have heavy handed, can turn into an insurmountable obstacle. AGI has reached 1000, Nimble gained. Nimble vastly improves muscle elasticity, allowing for incredible movements. Not only can more complex and impressive feats of acrobatics be performed, but there is little to no strain performing such feats. ¡®2432 points to WIS¡¯ ¡®Trait List¡¯ Reviewing the list, he noticed that one was called Full Stats. It seemed that it would allow him to see hidden stats, allowing him to improve other areas of his abilities that were previously locked in place. It had a price of 50 trait points, but it would give him more access to stats that could have a major benefit to his overall power. At the same time, it did not allow him to see all stats, only stats that he could currently improve with points, were at their max, or made sense to have. ¡®Pick Full Stats¡¯ 4 previously hidden stats showed up to Gregory, CHA, WIL, AFF, and TAL, two of which he was curious about. TAL was talent, or natural talent, a measure of his total ability to grow. The higher it was, the greater heights he could reach. AFF was affinity, which under the stat description was affinity for statuses. Every 10 points in AFF increased the base multiplier to Health, Stamina, and Mana by 1. It seemed that every race has a default AFF of 100, it would explain why stats were all at a multiplier of 10. Does that mean he could double his statuses with just 100 points if he put them into AFF? It would be ridiculously powerful, but also have the shortcoming that it doesn¡¯t improve his actual combat abilities. His magic wouldn¡¯t get any stronger, he wouldn¡¯t be able to learn any extra, he would only be able to withstand injuries for a longer period of time, and he would only be able to run for a longer period of time. He wouldn¡¯t actually gain durability like he gets from Constitution, or extra speed and acrobatic ability like he gains from AGI. He also wouldn¡¯t gain minor magic power or extra learning capacity from Intelligence. Overall, it was only useful as a straight up buffer to statuses. Heading to bed for the day, Gregory had in his mind a plan to build a pistol. As he knew that he couldn¡¯t create one the standard way, he planned to instead create it to fire concentrated bursts of magical energy. He wanted to enchant it so that it could fire energy, and the magazine would dictate which spell would be used. The magazine of sorts that it would hold, would be able to absorb mana directly from a body. It would absorb as much mana as was directed to it, with individual shots that could be loaded with as much mana as could be released in one second. It was able to hold up to 20 shots before it would be full. All that was left, would be acquiring the blacksmith skill to actually make such a weapon. Having come up with something that would work in his mind, all that was left would be to actually create the weapon. Chapter 9 Part 2 When Gregory awoke, he first went to the rest of the group to ask about blacksmithing. From what he read, it took someone of master level in a crafting based profession skill to teach it to another. Before heading to a city to learn of blacksmithing from somebody else, he wanted to see if anybody in the group could train him in it. ¡°Hey, is anybody a skilled enough blacksmith to train me in it? I have a few weapon ideas, but I need blacksmithing skill to be able to make them. From what I have seen, metal staves are common as well for magical classes, especially if using a high-class enchanted gem.¡± Everybody from the original group looked at Atlas, who gave a small sigh before straightening up all the way. ¡°Yes, I am actually a very skilled blacksmith, so much so that I had reached grand-master, and am even on the close, in retrospect, to reaching the divine tier. The divine tier is the final level, and one that grants an immense bonus to crafts. It also makes them much stronger, sturdier, and allows me to freely summon a fully equipped divine forge, to be used at will. An advantage to you learning from me, is that the first masterpiece you create will grant both you and I full experience for it, which can sometimes help me in reaching the next tier if it is unique or powerful enough.¡± Gregory paused for a minute before replying back with a question about what Atlas had said. ¡°So, more experience is gained for crafts that are unique or more powerful?¡± Atlas grinned, seeing that Gregory had figured out what it meant. ¡°Crafts that have never been attempted, or are powerful or rare due to design and function, will grant more experience. In fact, I have heard of people reaching from Novice to Master with one craft when it is a piece of work that they put their all into, and is completely unique to this world. The maximum potential power of a craft is based upon the rank you have when you finish it, as well as the rank of the benefactor when you finish it. If the craft pushes my rank to divine, you will have a craft that can be improved to be a divine tier craft. A craft that is made by a novice, will always be a novice craft, though it can be altered and improved to the limit of novice crafts.¡± Considering Atlas¡¯ blacksmithing skills were probably almost unmatched, Gregory was surprised that he wasn¡¯t in a city making armor or weapons. Gregory was also surprised that Atlas wasn¡¯t much older, or far more proud of his accomplishment. ¡°Can you train me to become a blacksmith? I would really appreciate it, it would save me a bunch of time and searching if I don¡¯t need to go anywhere special to learn blacksmithing.¡± Atlas smiled, glad that he was getting praise as a blacksmith. He nodded his head, not even bothering to speak at the moment. The first thing Atlas did, was using a high-cost spell to summon a grand-master class forge. This would be where he¡¯d train Gregory in the art of blacksmithing. ¡°Do you have any ores? You will need some if you hope to be able to complete your first craft and gain the blacksmith job.¡± Gregory reached inside his inventory, which was just about completely filled, and pulled out a decent number of iron ores. Atlas looked a little surprised, wondering how Gregory could have obtained so many in such a short time, but knew that there was an abundance of such inexpensive and more common ores in the training area they had just graduated from. Atlas himself had obtained a number of very expensive and rare ores in the area, so thought very little of the sheer volume that Gregory had of the more common ores. ¡°The first step to turning iron ore into a metal, is to heat up the ore using the forge. You will need to first get it hot, using coal or charcoal as a fuel. You should have plenty of that as well to get started.¡± Gregory reached into his inventory again, pulling out an amount of coal as well now. ¡°Very good, place the coal in and get the fire started. Once you have done that, you will need to use the bellows to heat the fire enough to melt down the iron.¡± Gregory got started, doing just as Atlas told him. It was hard work, and time consuming, but worth it to gain a new job. ¡°Now that you have it going, you will need to add the iron. This is a blast furnace, and you are using only charcoal, so you will get just liquid iron as a byproduct of the production.¡± Gregory added as much iron as he could fit, and continued making as much liquid iron as he could before the forge couldn¡¯t run as hot anymore. Atlas was watching impressed, Gregory was definitely doing a fantastic job for his first time, though his stats enabled him to do the work at a very quick pace. ¡°Once you have smelted it, you will need to cool it, and then begin gather it before you can begin the production of a product. You will need to most likely wait for the ore to cool, unless you have a spell that can cool it from the inside first.¡± Gregory smiled at this, knowing just what to use to cool the entire thing completely. He first entered his most dragon-like form, which was now basically a full dragon at a human size, and then unleashed a very high intensity burst of cold. It had quickly worked to cool the metal to the core, without allowing the outside to crack because only it cooled. Atlas was pleasantly surprised to see such a use of Gregory¡¯s Dragon¡¯s Breath, but didn¡¯t dwell long on that as there was more work to be done. ¡°I recommend grabbing one of the hammers off the wall, and using the iron to create a hammer of your own. It may make sense to use the iron itself to make the handle for the hammer, as I am not sure you would be able to use a wood handled hammer unless it was a high-tier wood.¡± Gregory began hammering the metal, using the techniques that Atlas was describing as he worked. It was not easy, but he could see progress, even if small progress, being made with every swing. By the time Gregory finished, Atlas was visibly tired, worn down from the amount of time they had spent awake. Forging that many ores into useable iron took a long time, even if the cooling process was greatly sped up due to the dragon¡¯s breath. Creating the hammer was quick, but the overall process still took some decent time to complete. ¡°Do you realize that you¡¯ve been up working for almost a week now? I understand that it is because of your constitution, but that is still very impressive. I know you¡¯ve taken some breaks for water, but you have worked very hard to unlock the blacksmith job. Now, what rank of the blacksmith job did you unlock from that insane motivation and hard work?¡± Gregory smiled weakly, his shoulders slumping once he had finished this. He knew he was working feverishly, and at a high pace, but to have been working for a week on this seemed impossible. Still, he was definitely adequately rewarded for it. He had gone straight to the intermediate level of blacksmithing. Even if the subskills for blacksmithing were all at Novice still, the job itself had reached an intermediate level. He would need some rest now, but he knew that he could start on creating the weapon he had in mind now. ¡°I reached the Intermediate level, which may not be great, but I did entirely skip the novice rank.¡± Atlas was impressed, but knew that he and Gregory both needed sleep, so would quit with any further lecturing and just see what Gregory had in mind once he finished creating it. The rest of the group had watched what just happened, not wanting to skip out on missing Atlas teach something he really enjoyed. What they witnessed though was nothing short of impressive. Gregory had shown immense dedication and will in the craft that he had created. Even though it was only an iron hammer, he didn¡¯t let even an ounce of focus be lost on other endeavors or thoughts. He was absolute, as if unable to focus on anything else in the world. When they immediately headed to get some sleep after this, nobody could fault them, and they even encouraged it. Elise was surprised, she was falling for Gregory; even though he was originally a human, he had shown characteristics that she thought were impossible for a human. Jessica on the other hand was falling for Atlas, the man who had carried her while she was undergoing the changes to her body and could not defend herself. A human had fallen for a non-human, and a non-human had fallen for a human. Neither of these two came from this planet, that much was blatantly certain. No human of this planet would ever be open-minded enough to even consider a non-human person enough to fall for. Gregory was a bit the same way, no human from this planet would ever act in such a way that was so open, and be so willing and able to learn things that most humans refused to grasp.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. The next day saw the entire party relaxing, nobody wanting to work hard after the week long marathon that Gregory and Atlas had inspired. They had seen a lake the day before, and decided that once Gregory had finished his blacksmith training, they would all go. Elise and Jessica also decided to go follow Gregory and Atlas respectively. Elise saw that Gregory was already sleeping while in his most dragon-like form. She laid down right next to him, resting her head on his wings. He really had become a magnificent person, in all of his forms. His next most dragon-like form was a form that was very similar to those of the beastkin, except that it was draconic instead of based after an animal. She could tell that Gregory and Atlas were similar in some ways, both were very similar in that neither one seemed to want anything in return for what they did. Gregory almost refused the training when he found it was free, which is something that Atlas would¡¯ve done as well until he was absolutely certain the trainer didn¡¯t want money. Jessica on the other hand found Atlas still awake, though very weary. She laid down next to him, and began talking about how much she appreciates everything he did for her while she was asleep. She knew that it wasn¡¯t necessary of him to do that, but he went above and beyond to keep her safe. She felt indebted to him, but he denied that she owed him anything. He was very much a gentleman in regards to his personality, and refused to believe or accept that anybody owed him anything for what he did. Jessica began liking him even more for this, but refused to let Atlas know that, and instead just cuddled closer to him before going to sleep. When Gregory awoke, he began spreading his wings only to feel a weight on one. As he looked to his side, he found Elise¡¯s head resting on it as she slept. ¡®Did she sleep there all night long, I hope it wasn¡¯t too uncomfortable.¡¯ He smiled to himself, admiring how beautiful she looked. Despite being covered in fur, she still had a very feminine shape to her, and he couldn¡¯t deny that she was very attractive as a woman. She was curled up next to him, her tail gently moving back and forth, still sleeping soundly knowing that Gregory wouldn¡¯t let anything hurt her. When Elise finally woke up about an hour later, she stood up and saw that Gregory quickly transformed into his form that looked very much like a beastkin, but draconic with wings. Both of his final two draconic forms were similar, but his most draconic form adjusted bones a bit more to prevent standing on two feet, or paws, and made him what would be at least an extra three feet taller if he were able to stand. ¡°We are going to the lake today; Caitlyn found it, and we all decided it would be good to relax for a little bit. Especially seeing as how all of us have been ignoring having fun ever since getting out of the training area.¡± Gregory smiled, but nodded at the comment. It was true, they all had been working hard, and had been forgoing a true break. This would be a good chance to relax and forget some worries for now. Not only a good chance, but a much needed chance considering their astronomical growth had been wearing them down physically and mentally. Despite Gregory¡¯s wisdom, he had only prepared to enter this place on the Earth side. He planned on being able to use magic to hunt and get food. While that held true, it didn¡¯t change the fact that he didn¡¯t do pack anything when coming here. Jessica was a bit different, she completely emptied all Earthly accounts and plans, packed all of her clothes into suitcases which she stored in her inventory. In them, she had a few different bikinis that she handed out to Kat, Elise, Lily, and Aurora, all of whom roughly shared her sizes. Caitlyn was noticeably shorter, being a gnome, and wouldn¡¯t fit into any. Aurora and Caitlyn ended up just wearing some undergarments as swimwear. Gregory and Atlas were able to wear some shorts that Gregory had brought along. Tim on the other hand just wore undergarments as well, which were just a pair of light pants he wore underneath his armor. Reaching the lake, Gregory was shocked to see normal Earth clothes being worn by nearly everybody. He knew Atlas would be wearing a pair of shorts that had been brought from Earth. His own shorts were designed based on Earth designs, but to see nearly all the girls in Earth swimwear was very shocking. Such a sight made Gregory miss Earth, but at the same time knew that if this were real, that Earth would soon be merged onto this planet. Gregory leapt into the water, using his wings to fly up a bit before diving down. He caused gills to form on his neck, using adaptive physiology to make the changes happen. When he came back up, he caused his body to revert back to its regular form. He watched as the girls followed him in, with Atlas and Tim jumping in right behind them. Gregory had his eyes trained on Elise, who he found even more attractive with the bikini on. It was white, with black accent lines. It contrasted her gray fur, making her stand out even more in the incredibly clear water. Jessica was wearing a black bikini with yellow accents, and had lent a red bikini to Lily, who actually took a liking to it. Kat and Aurora didn¡¯t particularly stand out, but good in their own ways. What really surprised Gregory, was that Jessica had brought so many swimsuits to this planet. They really did all do their best to enjoy this time of relaxation, and even had food prepared to be eaten during a break. When Gregory got out of the water and laid down on a root of a tree, Elise climbed up and laid next to him. She felt a bit awkward wearing so little, but also felt that Gregory was one of very few people who wouldn¡¯t take advantage of any situation like this. The food was quickly prepared, which they all went to go eat. As Gregory sat down on the same tree root he had been on earlier, Elise sat next to him. ¡°I know we haven¡¯t really talked on a personal level yet, but I would like to get to know you better. You seem like a really caring person, and I have been falling for you ever since we met. I really hate to admit it, but it is true that my feelings for you are only growing as I get to know more about you.¡± Gregory blushed, though it was covered by the scales since he was in his draconic form. He swung his tail onto Elise¡¯s lap, and then looked over at her. ¡°I care about you as well, and I know we need to get to know each other better before we can really admit that the feelings are truly real.¡± ¡°I know you probably have different likes than I do, especially since you were born and raised on a planet that is far different from mine. On this planet, the children play by fighting and competing in combat related games. We spar each other, and train often in doing so. Our education is based partially on practical knowledge, but also on training some classes to levels that can be used in combat in the outside world. I am not expecting you to understand that, or to understand that what I find fun would be competing with you in archery or magical accuracy. I want to know what you would find fun.¡± Gregory was surprised by Elise¡¯s words, and understood the competition part of what she said. Everybody was competitive to a degree, but here it was not only for enjoyment, but to stay alive. ¡°I consider video games fun, well did anyways. Now, I am not really sure if I would still find them enjoyable, or if I would get more enjoyment out of training as you mentioned it. Video games are something that are done with a small handheld device on a window with moving pictures. At least, that is the best way to explain it without using Earth specific terms. The kind of games I played would actually mimic a world like this one, though I don¡¯t suppose that really interests you especially.¡± Elise was shocked to hear what was done for entertainment on Earth. Some people live their lives pretending to be on a world like this one, except that it was just something they pretended to actually be doing. At the same time, she would probably find something like that enjoyable as well, so completely understood where Gregory was coming from with what he said. ¡°I probably would find something like that enjoyable if I were on a planet like yours, but I grew up on this planet. It has changed how I view the world in comparison to you, what I find enjoyable or interesting, and what I would find uninteresting and a waste of time. It sound like people on your planet are mostly equal, at least physically, so it would be hard to say that I¡¯d have needed to do any special training like I did on your planet. Honestly, I think I¡¯d have done the same things you did for enjoyment if I were born on your planet.¡± Gregory smiled at how understanding and agreeable Elise was being with what he said. ¡°I think if I were born here, I could definitely get into what you find enjoyable as well. In fact, I would probably find it enjoyable now, though it is hard to say for certain without some time doing things like that. We could start having competitions starting tomorrow to see if we both enjoy competitive sparring. Although, you would probably have a huge advantage over me in actual physical power.¡± Elise laughed a little at what Gregory said, knowing that he was right about what he said. ¡°I can go easy on you too you know, it isn¡¯t like I need to put all my strength into every swing.¡± Gregory responded quickly to this, blurting out his response almost immediately. ¡°I would love that, we can definitely get started tomorrow¡­ if you would like to.¡± Elise laughed again, excited that Gregory was so eager to do something that she found enjoyable and anxious to see exactly what he could do in a fight. ¡°I would like to as well, let¡¯s see what you are capable of tomorrow.¡± Elise then ran down to the water and jumped in again, waiting for Gregory to join her, which she found that he was only in the water a moment after her, and had snuck up from behind her before she had a chance to realize that he wasn¡¯t in the water. ¡®He is fast too, ridiculously fast. Maybe I won¡¯t need to go easy on him after all.¡¯ Chapter 9 Part 3 Elise had challenged Gregory to a swordfight, which he was holding up to surprisingly well. Despite his immense lack of physical strength, his speed more than made up for it. She had to be careful whenever he moved, always watching for how he moved to determine his next action. She knew that in a direct magical confrontation she¡¯d be way behind, but in a physical bout, he proved to be a very adequate sparring partner. At least as long as she didn¡¯t use her full physical strength to attack him, which was hard considering how much fun she was having. As the spar continued, Elise discovered that Gregory really did enjoy competition. It finally ended, Elise emerging the victor due to the fact that she was able to disarm Gregory as soon as she used her full strength. Gregory had very little in terms of actual skill, relying entirely on his speed to let him do well in the spar. When the spar had finished, Gregory laid down on his back from exhaustion. It had lasted a good portion of the day after swimming, and Gregory had very little to show for it aside from a swordsmanship skill. As Gregory laid there, he came up with something, he would try using necromatic and clerical energy to bring something dead back to life. He really didn¡¯t want to need to use the points to unlock the class, since most higher tier classes required more points to unlock, especially if they had roundabout unlocking methods. True Magic Initiate was straightforward, but other things were less so. ¡°I need to head out for a little, I want to try something. I will be back soon.¡± Gregory immediately started running, even while he was speaking, trying to find a creature that would be easy enough to revive. The first thing he saw was a wolf, which he easily killed by firing a magical arrow at it. Now was the time to try bringing it back to life. He began by starting with clerical energy to recover the body from the wounds, and then mixing necromatic energy into the magic. This only caused the spell to explode, destroying the body. Again, Gregory went looking for something else to find a pack of wolves. He did what he could to kill as many as possible, and then looked the the swatch of destruction he caused. ¡®I only did it to revive them, I need to get True Revivalist¡­¡¯ Gregory first started with necromatic energy this time, then mixed clerical energy in right before the revival, but it again only caused an explosion of the body. ¡®So I can¡¯t mix the clerical and necromatic energy directly, I need to think of another way to get the revival to work.¡¯ This time, Gregory again started by healing, but only enough to recover the portions that would cause death. He quickly switched over to necromatic energy, and then right before the soul returned, used clerical energy to finish. It was amazing, but the wolf had returned to life. It wasn¡¯t even a necromatic life, as the wolf instantly started running, and Gregory felt no magical connection to the animal. True Revivalist has been unlocked Revivification has been unlocked Revivification Brings the target back to life by healing the wounds, getting the soul to the body, and then filling the body with healing energy right before the revival. Requires a week before the body is back to full strength. ¡®It worked, now to do the same for the rest of the wolves.¡¯ Gregory did the same thing, but for the whole pack. A mass revivification as it were, which actually required a huge amount of his focus to perform.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. A new spell has been created, Mass Revivification. 200 WIS gained, 300 INT gained. True Revivalist has reached Rank 3. Mass Revivification A spell that uses the principles of revivification on a mass of bodies at once. Due to the micro aspects of the healing in this spell, requires immense control over mana, and focus in spells. ¡®A spell that took almost all of my focus and control to perform, no wonder nobody else has used such a spell in the past. The rewards were incredible though, I can¡¯t believe I got so much from creating this kind of spell.¡¯ Gregory tested these new spells to see how long he had before revival became impossible. Using temporal magic, he discovered that the timespan was only 24 hours. If longer than 24 hours transpired, it became impossible to revive the body. Another condition was that at least 75% of the body must remain and be undamaged. Only so much healing can be done on a deceased body and still allow resuscitation. Gregory headed back after finishing this, wanting to see what the other party was doing while he had went off on his own. Albeit bright around the cave mouth, it was actually oddly calm. He could smell meat being cooked from here, and could tell that there was some dancing going on. He quickly ran over, which had the rest of the group on alert for a moment before realizing it was just him. Tim spoke up first, followed by Atlas making a comment. Lily and Kat just glared at him for a moment before going back to talking to each other. ¡°You¡¯ve gotta announce yourself first buddy, it is really freaky to have something run up to you that quickly.¡± ¡°Yeah, for sure. If we hadn¡¯t known you wouldn¡¯t be gone too long, we could¡¯ve attacked you.¡± Gregory craned his head down, knowing he should¡¯ve let them know first, at least somehow anyways. ¡°Sorry, I didn¡¯t even think about it. I should be more careful in the future.¡± Elise responded this time, with the question that was really on the minds of everybody present. ¡°What did you get? You went off dedicated to get something done. We are all kind of curious.¡± Gregory grinned, doubting any of them knew exactly how True Revivalist really worked. ¡°I unlocked the True Revivalist class, It is a combination of necromancer and cleric, and allows me to bring the dead to life. At least it worked on wolves anyways. It seems to be a highly beneficial class, though I think I need to get it and a few other classes to rank 5 to unlock the True Magic Adept class.¡± Everybody present was shocked, True Revivalist was a very rare class, one that hadn¡¯t been gotten in recent history. Nobody knew exactly what it did anymore, but Gregory had unlocked it in addition to a number of other classes. Gregory truly spoke the truth when he said that he had good potential, especially considering he was probably the closest person in over a thousand years to reaching the upper level combination classes. The dancing started back up again soon though, Alfred dancing with Aurora, Jessica with Atlas, Tim with Caitlyn, and now Gregory with Elise. Gregory grabbed Elise by the waist and then brought her in to start dancing. Elise was a little shocked, surprised that Gregory would be so outgoing in this. He seemed so to himself usually, but it was perhaps that he was just becoming more comfortable around her as well. Gregory moved with ease while dancing, and showed a skill in dancing that few on this planet actually had. It turned out that his dancing lessons back on Earth proved effective, giving him an advanced level dancing skill. The night eventually drew to a close, and everybody decided to get some sleep. During the night, Gregory and Jessica received a notification that had to do directly with them. Due to the excessive death of humans, the transfer and merging of your world onto this one has been sped up. Only three months remain before the transfer is final. Another wave of humans has entered this world to help balance the declining human population. Neither knew why this was happening, but one of the humans that had come was the cause. ______________________________________________________________________ Sean was concerned by the death the war he had started caused, but saw that the number of enemy soldiers was falling as well. It wasn¡¯t until he got a notification about the Earth transferring over sooner that he finally called a retreat. Since nobody had the power to resist his suggestion, none dared retreat unless he called it. While they were doing something foolish, the way they were made to look at it changed what they would do before the suggestion broke. Sean found that he could use his powers to make somebody amicable to an execution, but could not cause somebody to commit suicide unless they already had serious suicidal tendencies. Now he had a larger base to grow an army from, and grow an army he would. ________________________________________________________________________ Gregory and the rest of the group around him decided to head to the human kingdom, hoping that there was something they¡¯d be able to do in preventing even more bloodshed. While most didn¡¯t care much about this directly, Gregory and Jessica really wanted it. That was enough for the others to agree to this, and want to do their best in preventing the unnecessary death of even more humans. Chapter 10 Part 1 Sean realized a hate for non-humans when he knew that they were near impossible for him to control. Not only did the effectiveness of his powers drop off dramatically against non-humans, they were stronger than humans and were nearly impossible to manage the same way. He had always been a vain man, trying to control people and get rid of those he couldn¡¯t even on Earth. It was much smaller scale, since he was only a mid-rank politician, but he was still involved in a number of murders surrounding people who would defame or oppose him. When it became possible to wage war against those who disagreed with him, Sean felt no options but to make sure that he held a stable place on this planet. It wasn¡¯t to say that Sean had always been like this, but he always thirsted for more power as any politician does. Having gone from a state senator to King of an entire race of people had put his thirst for power on a whole new level. His only desire was to become even more powerful, king of the entire planet was his goal now. He knew only how to gain more people and power, and that was through war. When he was notified that he had caused another wave of humans to enter this planet, he thought first about how best to subjugate them to his control. His goal had gone from saving humanity to subjugating a planet, though it could have always been said that he never cared especially for saving humanity. He only cared about what his best interests were, and as he grew more charismatic by leveling up, he continued to gain stronger control over people. Not only had he grown stronger, but he realized that he had grown stronger than most people regardless of race. Sean also realized that his charisma had reached the highest in the world, being at a value of 7,770 with bonuses. It was a ridiculous value, but he had also achieved ridiculous feats, overcoming an entire race of people, and even luring some in from other races. The truth was, Sean¡¯s vanity was his real downfall. Something that had started back when he was a child. He had grown up poor, with his parents encouraging an education. He quickly realized that lying was the only way for him to fit in, since his parents were both of much lower financial standings than the rest of his class. The lies only continued to pile on when he was awarded a scholarship to a prestigious high school. In college, he quit lying about money, but began lying excessively about relationships and dating. A girl he dated had discovered his lies, and he ended up killing her to keep the relationship he had just started. This had marked his first killing, and also the beginning of his political career. He ended up marrying the girl he dated this last time, and he father got him involved in city management. It was a very small time position, but considering his background, he was happy about it. As he grew older, the lies and murders continued stacking up, even though the murders often went to third parties in exchange for payment. He wanted to keep his hands off the blood, and knew how to hide enough money to pay for at least a couple accidents a year. As he grew older, he began a safe deposit box to use for the assassinations he would need. He funded it with gambling, something that almost always turned a profit when he played poker. His natural charisma and attitude putting people into a false sense of security, or bluffing them out. Even when he didn¡¯t end up successful, he he often put a sum into the deposit box that would pay for another advancement to his career.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. When he was sucked into this other world, he saw an opportunity, an opportunity like no other to grow his political standing. Instead of aiming for president, why not aim for king. Instead of just a country, why not aim for a planet. It was these thoughts that drove Sean to act the way he did on this planet, and also why he began a crusade against all that opposed him. Without the ability to retaliate, those in his kingdom had no choice but to do what he said. Sean had been given an ability that allowed him to become king of a nation of slaves, people that wouldn¡¯t care what lies they were told, and would never question a word he said. This lifestyle gave him a feeling of absolute power, the feeling he had been looking for all his life, but now he needed to cement it further. ___________________________________________________________________ The entire group had obtained skills and abilities, not to mention levels and advancements that put them at a level few could hope to reach. Natural abilities and faster advancement through accomplishments were the only things that could bring other beings close to their average overall stats. Overcoming them would be near impossible for most, since the powerups obtained for reaching higher advancements was even more distancing than the difference in stats that often occurred. Gregory¡¯s magical prowess was almost unprecedented, despite his physical exploits lacking even compared to most base level races. Since where Gregory and the rest of the group currently were was not on the map he had purchased from the map vendor, Gregory would need to find his way back onto that map before he could teleport at will. It was a stipulation of his powers, he could only teleport to places for which he knew how to get to. Otherwise, it could land him off of where he would want to be. Whether that would be in another plane, on a different planet entirely, or at a location far above where he actually wanted to be was uncertain. He also knew that it would cost him exponentially more to travel if it was to an unknown spot, which is what really bothered him. It took time to travel in this way, going by foot over a planet was time-consuming, especially when it was impossible to tell where on the world the location was. It was easy moving through these parts, the power they had gained being a major boon to their speed. When it was possible to defeat even the strongest enemies without using full power, making their way to where the humans were was only a matter of time. Due to racial abilities, it was possible for the beast-kin to find their way home, which would likely get them to a place where It would be possible for Gregory to transport them back to the human civilization. As the group traveled, they met many unique creatures, as well other sentient beings who had set out on their own to grow in power. There were a few giants, and a number of trolls out here. Despite sentience, they were not particularly aware. Trolls were the least intelligent race, most barely able to keep themselves at a sane level. Giants weren¡¯t any smarter naturally, but they had a unique racial skill that gave them a very real ability to get along with other sentient races. They were able to understand that the humans were practically killing themselves off, even if it wasn¡¯t to the same degree as a being with a neutral or positive intelligence modifier would. There wasn¡¯t much going on in the way of relationships right now, everybody was too focused on travel. It ended up taking a month and a half for them to make it to a location that Gregory recognized as part of his map, he had come to realize the world was much larger than he had initially assumed. Four levels were gained by Gregory, netting him 96 stat points. Update I am working on writing the next chapter. I have been stuck with direction though. As it stands now, this first book is coming to an end far too quickly. I have maybe one or two chapters of content right now, but it would be the end of the first book.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Any ideas would be appreciated. I could write the end of this book, and then work on rewriting. Thank you all for reading. Another option would be working on the rewrite first, which would push out the current chapters I am writing substantially. Continuing I have finally, with motivation from some reviews and comments, decided to continue the story. I will at least finish book one, before doing any edits to bring it to a place I want it to be at. I still have some reviewing to do, and reading to do, to get this next chapter written, but it will be done within a month.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Again, thank you all for the positive feedback, and I hope to make you happy with what I write. Hope you all haven''t forgotten, and I hope you can forgive me for the long Hiatus. Chapter 10 Part 2 Gregory stopped when he had reached an area he recognized. They had only a month and a half to prepare themselves to stop whoever it was that had caused this and find out what exactly this was. Gregory used his Arcane Warlock powers to teleport the group to the nearest human settlement, to see if there was any information they could scrounge up on what happened. Gregory aimed to put them about ten miles outside the encampment, to find that it had grown to be a moderately sized village with an active military presence. They were barely two miles outside the city walls, and Gregory could feel that some sort of mage inside the town had felt their presence from the spatial fluctuation that had occurred. While it was impossible, or so he believed, to know what race a person was from magic, their appearance was not something that could be hidden from plain sight. They needed an illusion or transmutation magic casted upon them to cover up their appearances from those who would surely be coming to greet them. Gregory used his own adaptive physiology to take on his most human appearance, only his eyes and a few jagged lines in the color of his scales remaining of his draconian appearance. The rest of his party used transformative magics, ones they hadn¡¯t needed to use in a long time, to cover up their appearance from these humans. Jessica had to rely on others to cover up her appearance, Atlas using some of his free focus to use illusion to undo the changes she had undergone from her becoming a beast-like human. It took only a couple minutes for a squadron to arrive, but that isn¡¯t what surprised the party, it was the level of the squadron that gave them the biggest shock. They all used their magic to check on the squadron before them, and they found something quite odd about them. The entire squadron of knights was not only of the paladin class, a higher-ranking knight class with access to basic holy magic but were also all at level 37 or higher of advanced. It was almost unheard of for humans to reach above level 50 of the basic level, for all of these to be level advanced level 37 paladins there had to be something else going on here. Seeing the party before them, the paladins looked carefully upon the group to see if there were any that seemed to be of other races among them. One appeared to have slit eyes and a couple lines running down his body, but that just showed that there had probably been some lizard beastkin blood in him. The rest appeared to be the same, mostly human with small traces of beastkin or other traits mixed in. It seemed they were just adventurers, which is about the only profession that a person with any mixed blood could really get into. It gave them a slight edge against beasts in the wild, and kept them away from other full-blooded humans who would usually look down on them. ¡°Let me see all of your adventurer¡¯s cards, I need to confirm your identities before I can let you any nearer to the city.¡± The entire party moved slowly to grab their adventurer cards from the locations they were held in. As they handed them over to the city guard, or whoever this person was, they stood waiting for a response from him. The city guardsman looked the cards over, checking on the information enclosed. The only one that didn¡¯t have a card was one that looked entirely human, but that didn¡¯t really bother him. One of the cards seemed peculiar though, the man named Gregory among the group seemed to have been entirely human when he had the card made. At least that is what the information would indicate, but that would be easy enough to mistake, especially if he had been wearing standard city clothing instead of the robes he is now. Also, it was common enough for a mixed-blood adventurer to use minor illusion magic to cover up their race inside a town if they appeared close enough to human. It made it easier for them to live life without discrimination from the people who felt that beastkin and the other races were no more than an abomination of nature. Anyways, there didn¡¯t appear to be anything especially peculiar about the people present, and the guardsman decided to let his men know to head back to town. The guard handed the cards back to the group, and then let them know a short update. ¡°You are free to enter the city, be careful not to cause a disturbance though. We are in a state of war right now, due to the new king of the human realms. He has shown us that we humans are capable of more than we had thought possible previously, and deserve to take more of the land from the filth encroaching on it.¡± As they went toward the city, the entire group was cautious with the guards around them. It wouldn¡¯t necessarily be difficult to get rid of them, but their mission was to get information, not go on a killing spree across a human city. Once they reached the city without issue, they walked to the local adventurer¡¯s hall. They went to the Hall¡¯s bar, and then went to the first person they saw there. Elise decided to speak to him, trying to get answers as to how they were as strong as they were. ¡°Do you know how people got so high leveled so quickly? Last we saw, the military was at most leveled around 50, and they feel so much stronger now. What happened that they got so strong?¡± The man looked at the group and could tell that they looked like they had just gotten back recently. ¡°Our new king is willing to get people stronger in exchange for their loyalty to him, He can share his classes with others, as well as raising their level to what he says is close to his own. He even took over without killing the previous king and uses the previous king as an advisor for policies. His abilities are immensely beneficial and have really improved our chances against the scum that attack our lands just because we are too close to them.¡± Elise nearly killed the man for his incompetence before turning away and going back to the group. She could not believe that a human could be so ignorant as to believe that the other races attacked them without provocation, or even invaded human lands in the first place without at least a half-way decent reason. There had to be some controlling ability in place over these people that made them more ignorant of reality, and somebody that could strengthen people, but who would have abilities that could do both? It would almost have to be two people that are doing this here. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it ¡°The humans here seem very ignorant of the events happening around them and are just blindly following whoever it is their leader is. He believes that the other races are attacking the humans without reason, and I know that nobody just attacks human kingdoms aside from the Trolls and a few other less intelligent races, but they attack every border city. The people here truly seem to believe that they have done nothing to deserve the ire of other races. They even seem to look down on other races more than before, calling them scum or filth for no reason.¡± Discovering that a person had been declared the new leader, and that they had done so without killing the previous king, they doubted it was a person from this planet. Finding out later that they also controlled people to go to war against the other races, they knew it was somebody quite unique, which was also most likely a person from earth. They doubted any human from this planet originally could have gained such strange powers in such a short span of time. Gregory remembered a few people with whom he had met that come to mind in being extremely powerful. The first was the person from whom he had obtained the Arcane Warlock unique class, but he didn¡¯t seem to have any particular persuasive powers that could have placed him as king among so many. Gregory thought back to Sean when he heard what had happened in the human capital. He seemed the one of them most capable of making something like this happen if he wanted to. That man was capable of controlling people to a degree even at much lower levels, making them trust him to uncommon levels. It would be no surprise if he were capable of controlling more people, and even gained some other abilities by now. Gregory decided to speak up about his thoughts on this matter, seeing as it would likely be of use to know who the enemy was. ¡°I think Sean, a human that came from Earth as well, is the one responsible for what we are seeing here. His abilities involved controlling people, and it is likely they have gotten stronger now as he has gotten stronger. He was also the only one who was silent on what their real abilities were.¡± The party looked slightly skeptical at Gregory, but didn¡¯t doubt him. For a person to have such power though, that would put them at an unheard-of level, and they would have had to use almost all their leveling on improving their charisma over anything else. Charisma was also one of the very few statuses that was much different in raising. It had less impact on certain people because of predispositions, had less impact on other races because of how they view people, was varied based on an individual, and even had varied impactfulness due to the attributes of another. It was a primary reason why few from this planet focused on raising an ability like charisma, when they could raise others that would have visible benefits in daily life. Atlas was the first to speak up after hearing this. ¡°If this is really the case, we will need to head over to the capital as quickly as possible. Any delays and the entire world could be at risk again. Even if not due to war, due to the humans once again being wiped out, and all because of one man who is too selfish to let himself not be the most important.¡± The entire group murmured agreement with this but decided to stay the night to allow some actual rest and recuperation after the many months spent in a wilderness. Everybody took actual baths at a bathhouse and then they split everybody between 3 rooms. One for all the men to share, and two for the women to share. The next morning, the party made an early departure and headed toward the capital. It would be in all their best interests to obtain as much more power as possible, and the best way would be training amongst themselves in the use of their multitude of different classes. Gregory would need to grow stronger in melee combat, Jessica would need to focus heavily on magical combat, and everybody else would need overall improvement of their skills. Gregory used this time to gain the knight class from Elise, her teaching him all of the basic skills and stances, and then the gamer class and his wisdom filling in the gaps for him to pick up the class itself. At the same time, Elise was taught by Gregory about the higher-level damaging magics capable to them, and how to properly cast them. Jessica was being taught by atlas about magic basics, while she was using sparring as a way for him to improve his physical capabilities, since hers were almost unparalleled when it came to overall level and raw combat potential and power. Gregory also used some of his ¡°free time¡± to improve his magical classes, in a week¡¯s time gaining the class requirements for True Magic Adept by raising his existing magical classes to rank 5 through intense training and spell making, also increasing his understanding of magic very slightly. The rewards that greeted him over the course of the week were exactly what he needed in order to maintain his magical might over the person who had recently attained the highest level of intelligence out of those from Earth. + 250 WIS +1000 INT +500 PER +700 FTH On top of those gains, he gained a slew of new spells that enabled him to focus magic much more accurately, and also control much larger spells to more minute degrees. Magic Weaving Passive Magic Attained Pillars of Eternum Skill Gained Calling of the Immortals Skill Gained Magic weaving enabled the modification of existing spells, overcharging them without adverse consequences, or allowing them to work with the environment in ways unexpected based on the original spell. Pillars of Eternum was a spell he made that fit in the realm of a True Magic Adept and was basically a realm that gave him absolute control of all magic that he understood inside of it. The third and final skill was one that called down the immortals, the ones whom they had called gods when they first got here. Even though it seemed long ago when they first arrived, Gregory had now proven himself a match for even them having reached the legendary level. Inside of his Pillars of Eternum, even the immortal¡¯s magic wouldn¡¯t be dangerous, as even they were bound to what they knew, and that was really quite limited. The immortals were very skilled combatants, they had to be in order to reach the immortal level and ¡°ascend¡± as it were called. They were not necessarily the greatest in a field though, only more skilled than others when it came to overall power and abilities. They were also given unique abilities that let them ¡°play¡± with the world and were given the responsibility of using those powers for transitions when necessary. What many did not know about immortals, however, was that they had a choice to make regarding this. They could either live where the immortals live, a place where they would not need to worry about the life and death struggle against monsters in order to grow stronger, or choose to continue living on the current planet and suffer through hardships in order to continue growing stronger. The tradeoff for the second option was that they did not gain the ability to ¡°ascend,¡± and would instead only retain their existing abilities. The ability to assist in the merging, having the power to communicate with thousands and not have side-effects, the ability to see everything that is happening on the planet as it is happening as long as they are not being blocked, were the abilities that they gained. They were also raised to level 50 of the immortal level and had an equal distribution of those points allotted to their statuses. So, while they were on average better in most regards than the average person, those few who focused their abilities while reaching up to the legendary rank could potentially challenge or beat them in one or two areas. Gregory, one who focused entirely on leveling up his magic, and also gained more magical classes than thought possible regardless of level, was one of the few who could challenge even a group of their best magicians on equal footing. Jessica on the other hand was capable of challenging even their best in terms of martial combat and could go toe to toe against up to three of them at once. With all these skills and information gained, Gregory felt safe for the attempt to defeat Sean and get rid of him regardless of how strong he had gotten and how powerful his underlings were. Chapter 10 Part 3 The group kept on traveling, going past many towns and cities on the way to the human capital. They stopped at many for a night to get adequate rest before moving out on their way. Due to the number of humans around, they had no choice but to move slower than they would have liked. At the current rate, they would reach the capital a week before the worlds would finally merge. They realized something as they got closer to the capital as well, aside from the humans being all around the same level of power, many also had more classes than they should for a human considering their standard lifespan. It was as if they were gifted a class without having to go through training for it. It was a very strange phenomena, but as there was nothing the group could do about it, they continued on their way to the capital to hopefully stop who Gregory believed would be Sean before the world would get even worse. Continuing to train while traveling as much as possible, and giving advice, Gregory and Jessica were both improving upon the classes they decided needed to be worked on. Gregory had gotten his Knight class to rank 5, and unlocked a secret class that was previously unshown to him. It was Magic Knight Initiate, it took the power of both classes and combined them into one. It enabled the use of swords as a magic focus, and also gave a new skill regarding unleashing straight mana through a sword to create powerful blasts of magical energy. It was a class that fit him much better individually, as his ability with the knight class, while being nothing to scoff at, was much lower than a person with higher strength than him. Even still, with the added technique he had learned and practiced, he was still incapable of matching the stronger humans they had sparred in terms of physical combat. While his primary profession was a user of magic, it was good to have at least a way to hold his own in close range combat in case it ever came to that. At a small town just a few days outside the capital, but one that seemed to house a number of very high-level people, Gregory felt a massive magical presence. The gravity of this magical energy was enormous, and heavy enough that the entire group could feel it. The location seemed to be coming from a massive tower, one that had a number of runes on it. From Gregory¡¯s study with the dragons, and raising of his magical classes, he discovered that these were all made to seal massive amounts of magic strength. Even with his own immense resilience to magic, Gregory doubted he could enter without being severely weakened due to the number of people that were combining their power to keep it running. That, and the power of the one inside, and likely connected to it, seemed to be powering it as well. Such a combination of power meant that even his resistance to magic would not hold 100% against it. Despite having fallen for Elise, Gregory knew that she, Atlas, and Jessica would be the best ones to release whoever it was from the binding of that tower. This mission would be a critical one, as they needed to rescue whoever was locked up in this tower. Even though Gregory could not be directly involved in the breakout attempt, it didn¡¯t mean he wouldn¡¯t do anything. His part was just as important as the actual rescue attempt, he would need to take down the tower as soon as whoever was rescued was removed from it and the seals weakened. It was also his job to work on trying to find where the outside source of this seal was coming from, so that those inside would have a better chance. Already Gregory could feel where the source mana was going; it was however shrouded before the end location, preventing him from knowing exactly where it went. That wasn¡¯t to say he couldn¡¯t find out where it went, but it wouldn¡¯t be as simple as passively feeling the connection. It also meant that he would likely alert them of some kind of attack when they felt the attempt to find them. He would need to wait until the strike group was ready, and then make a brute force attempt to track down the mages and those keeping the tower sealed as quickly as possible. As the mission began, Gregory began his side quickly, forcing open the pathway to the group powering the tower with his mana. The only thing that surprised Gregory was the distance that his mana was traveling. The people powering this tower were not even inside the city, as his mana had already moved miles outside the city before heading underground. When Gregory¡¯s mana finally reached the destination, he found that it was thirty miles outside the city and a mile underground. Another thing that surprised him was that there were ¡°stations¡± so to speak where the mana spiked and were marked by runes that were used to transmit mana to a further location.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Gregory quickly used his mana to ping the location before teleporting there. It was a benefit of his True Magic Adept class, he could use it to control mana in far more elaborate ways. It allowed him to ping the location and instantly teleport there, though it took him almost five minutes just to find the location because of the routing that the mana took before it got here. Once he teleported there, he found that there were twenty mages in this outer room alone, and there was a special seal placed upon the next inner room preventing entry until all the mages in this outer chamber had been taken care of. Raw speed and magical might allowed Gregory to quickly take down this outer group with only a few seconds of time, but the next room still did not open, and even an attempt with a burst of his magical energy barely put a scratch on the next chamber. It seemed he would need to resort to killing those out here before he could get in deeper. ¡®Whoever created these seals is a very cruel person, using the lives of others to protect his own. That is something only a coward could live with.¡¯ Gregory tried one more thing before killing those here, he tried teleporting them out of this underground base, and once they had all been teleported out, he found that the seal crumbled. It seemed that their mana had gotten far enough away that the seal could not draw enough from them to stay active. Discovering this, Gregory cleared the next two chambers this way until he reached a chamber with just one individual, one who was protected by the seal he was generating. It was almost as if the seal that was placed on the tower that they created and were maintaining was also protecting and empowering this person in turn. Gregory made an assumption, one that he guessed at only because it seemed like this ability was one far behind the standard scope of this world. ¡°You aren¡¯t from this planet are you? This power you use gives you away in my opinion.¡± The man across from Gregory had a momentary look of surprise on his face before he quickly turned it into a sour grin. ¡°So, you guessed my heritage, what does that mean? I will show you what my power is really capable of.¡± At that moment, seals formed above his hands imitating runes. These seals quickly moved in Gregory¡¯s direction, but he avoided them with a quick teleportation. He also swung his sword with a light blast of magic in the direction of this man, only to find that the power protecting him dissipated the mana before it ever reached him. At the same time, Gregory was carefully analyzing the magic this person was using, as he assumed it was from a unique class. One that he could likely acquire himself, and use it to grow his power and also extend what he was capable of. The young man he was facing launched continual assaults, and though his magic power was nothing significant, he definitely possessed great skill in his unique class and was quite capable of using it to the fullest of its potential. Gregory was having a hard time trying to find an opening to attack without killing this young man. Already the man he faced used his seals to shut down his teleportation, and was getting closer to landing an attack on him. Just when he thought that the young man had him cornered, he finally obtained what he was hoping for. Grand Runic Mage Unlocked Confirm Purchase for 10 ¡°Gamer¡± Points? ¡®Yes, confirm purchase¡¯ To his surprise, this was a tier 2 unique class, something Gregory had previously thought impossible. It seemed that his focus on advancing his standard classes, while not bad, was also not the only thing he should have been focused on. The more advanced a unique class got, the more power it seemed to have. With how powerful this class had gotten, it seemed that it would be a good idea to improve upon the other unique classes he had obtained. For now though, Gregory used this new unique class to create his own seal that would wipe the brainwashing that Sean had likely placed upon this person. Even though a seal this person had used hit Gregory, he shrugged it off with his draconic resilience to magic. Just as Gregory¡¯s seal hit the man, he fell unconscious, the control of the seal on the tower being lost. Gregory quickly scooped up this man before he teleported back to the city. ¡®That took almost ten minutes. I hope that Elise is doing alright, she was hoping for the seal to be released in five minutes at most. Although, I doubt anything bad would happen with Jessica in there.¡¯ At that moment, the group burst through the front door, with a familiar face in tow. Gregory instantly created an inferno at the location of the tower, and detonated it to create a massive explosion in the area. He had to be sure that the tower could not easily be reused again, and also wipe out any possible way of learning of this man¡¯s unique class through actual study and detailed examination, as that was possible for those who lacked a unique class according to Elise and the rest of her original group. Now it would be time for them to finalize plans on the attack against the capital since they had successfully rescued the prisoner of the tower, and also freed a person from what was likely Sean¡¯s brainwashing. Chapter 11 Part 1 Eric was brought out of the tower safely, and recognized his rescuers as a group of people he had once attacked on a plain earlier. Seeing the power they possessed, power enough to rescue him from a human city, he was impressed. This tower they had built removed the capacity of magic use within its walls, which meant that only those who didn¡¯t use magic at all were unaffected by this place. Eric relied heavily on magic, and without it was little better than the average person guarding him individually despite his high racial tier. Of course, being a part elf he assumed that all races had some kind of draw-back like his had. The people he had fought were many, originally to find out who was the first to advance so high and later to try and prevent the war seeing humanity in its current state here. Despite his original beliefs, Eric eventually came to the conclusion that it wasn¡¯t explicitly right or wrong to forego full humanity and take on the racial traits of another race. He had come to think this way after he had become an Elder True Elvish Human, and then spending substantial time with other races aside from humans. Due in part to elves being similar in appearance to humans, and partly because he had become a true elvish human, Eric had taken on the full outward appearance of an Elf. His skin was much fairer, ears were incredibly long, body suffused with magic from its core, and his eyes and hair turned into a dark purplish color. Aside from a similar facial structure and the same mana signature, it would have been nearly impossible to recognize him as the same person. Eric had only been imprisoned for about a week now, but he had already learned a fair amount about the current state of humanity. For example, he now knew that very few humans from Earth actually believed themselves far superior like the rest of humanity here did over other races. Even the current leader, a person from Earth from what he had learned, only had fear and loathing for other races from the inability to control them with his ability. It turned out that without a very substantial power difference, other races, or those unfriendly with the person, would have a very high threshold for resistance. He had noticed it took a person being within the range where he could strengthen them to initiate control over them, and even then, those who were especially strong willed could still resist his influence to a degree and break it. __________________________________________________________ Even though he recognized Eric as the one who had attacked their party a while back, he did not immediately decide to attack back. In this place, it was possible to change quite a bit in a short time-frame, and Eric it looked like had also taken the plunge to grow stronger. In fact, he was almost unrecognizable from an actual Elf, something that surprised even the natives of this planet about Eric. It was like his affinities lined up perfectly to those of an elf, and that is why he had transformed so completely. ¡°I thought you had attacked us previously because you were against non-humans. Why is it that you¡¯ve become mostly elf?¡± Eric looked mildly distraught at the question. He was half-expecting it once he knew who had saved him, but he hadn¡¯t really thought about why he had changed his beliefs. He knew that part of it involved having become a different race, it was also that he couldn¡¯t justify the blatant racism once he realized that the only real differences involved a racism very similar to the one found on Earth. ¡°You are right, I had attacked previously because I believed as I had been told that humans were the superior race on this planet. I found out later, that such ideology was flawed and was only spouted to provide us a reason to unite against the non-humans. I realized the error of what I believed, and used logic to realize the fallacy. As for why I am so far transformed into an elf, I have reached the level of Legendary 97.¡±If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Greogry looked at Eric with some surprise, wondering he had managed to reach that level on his own, despite having been locked up for at least some time. Even Gregory and his group had not reached those levels, and they had been through what was considered insane leveling speeds as a group in the area of the planet hardest to survive in. For Eric to have caught up with and surpassed that, he had no idea what he had been through. Although he could very well have obtained higher level powers with his unique class, and that is something that would have given him greater capability to level faster if he had a way to travel faster than Gregory could with it. Gregory talked with Elise, and the rest of their party about bringing Eric into the fold. It would only help to have somebody with his skills, and he was probably one of the most capable mages on the planet, aside from Gregory himself in total magical capability. In fact, his reserves of mana were far larger than Gregory¡¯s own. It gave him a capacity to perform magic to an untold degree, especially considering he was of a magical race, and one that gave massive bonuses to the capacity of magic through a higher intelligence. While Gregory did not know for certain, he had assumed that Eric likely had the King of Intelligence feat, granting him an even higher intelligence than he thought it likely he could attain. Overall, the entire group decided to bring Eric along, although he would need to work with them until such time that whomever had taken control of the planet was defeated and the planet was saved from the risk of it once again falling into ruin because of an imbalance of the races. Gregory walked over to Eric, placed his hands on him, and used a healing light to restore him to a perfect state of physical health. Eric was impressed that Gregory had such skills, but decided not to speak, and would listen to the requirements they gave him to travel with them. The requirements they gave were few, they only asked that he assist them in the defeat of the current king of humanity, and that he do his best not to kill any humans except the person who proclaimed himself king. If such a thing were to pass, it seemed at least possible that humanity could begin talks of peace among other races, and finally hope to abolish the cycle of constantly needing to have the planet merged with another to prevent the destruction of it. Using the help of Eric, the god-like beings, and their entire current party, they believed it would be possible to unite together and destroy the current king of humanity, and use the confusion to bring peace across the area. Of course, peace was meaningless without the ability to maintain it. While Gregory could have been the one to do so, he knew that his gifts did not lie with leading people. He had met a few new people, and knew that the best leader for humanity would actually be a non-human right now. He did not know who to pick for the new leader, and figured that a vote would be best, but one that was free of human options. It had to be somebody that would make people realize that diluting their race was not weakness, but something to embrace. There would still be some time left on their trek, and they knew that Eric needed practice as well if he was to not hold back the group. While he may have been able to perform some very impressive shows of strength, he was useless in close-quarters combat if he couldn¡¯t teleport. He was also relatively useless in a situation where the person he hoped to attack had better skills with close-range weapons and were able to deflect or even parry his attacks. A successful parry at his speed of strike, meant that he was much more likely to wind up killed in an actual combat. Here, the worst of the blows was on the emotional level of saying that he still needed practice if he hoped to compete and be powerful enough to actually fight alongside the group. They knew that Eric¡¯s power was great, but they also realized that he was a person almost overly confident in his own abilities. This was very similar to Gregory, but Gregory had taken strides to improve himself to the point that he could compete in a close-range scuffle, and even surpassed that by becoming able to perform magic in the middle of a close-range combat. He could better yet control his magic to the point now that he could destroy 3 targets in an area, and ignore all the others. This even held true with other people and his allies. Gregory could obliterate targets while leaving allies untouched, or heal allies while leaving enemies untouched by the healing. This extra training made for slower travel, but with Eric here, they knew they could get to the capital the next day if they so desired. Eric¡¯s power had gotten to the point that he was capable of getting to any place or person he knew the rough location of, and could bring an entire small party with him. Chapter 11 Part 2 Through continual practice and training, Gregory and his party continued improving at an alarming rate, which they discovered was necessary when they arrived at the human capital. It turned out that Sean had outleveled even them, and utilizing high class magic they found out he was a level 47 lesser god. All of his personal guards were level 90 or higher demi-gods, and many of the soldiers in the city were of the demi-god or legendary quality, although the levels varied highly throughout, the demi-gods only reaching the lower levels, while the legendary ranked soldiers were between the fifties all the way up to a hundred. The overall levels frightened even the strongest of the group, since even if they all had higher base abilities, the sheer number of people that were threatening was immense. Gregory¡¯s stats for a legendary being were numerically ¡°impossible¡± by leveling alone, but that alone wouldn¡¯t be enough to break the difference in two whole stages of levels. Those stages represented breakthroughs, breakthroughs that granted power and greater ability even in just regular humans. The higher the quality of a being was as well, the larger and more powerful a breakthrough became as well. It was possible that if Sean focused on the use of magic, his raw power with it would rival Gregory¡¯s own. They had to be very wary and cautious of Sean, not to mention that he may have higher level classes as well, since his level and quality of being were so high, he would have been able to brute force through class breakthroughs as well. Gregory having the class of True Magic Adept and Magic Knight Initiate gave him powerful abilities, but Sean was likely to have something at least as good as True Magic Initiate being a whole two stages ahead of Gregory, even if he didn¡¯t get any of his classes up with anything but class points. They had no idea how it was possible, but after Gregory summoned the ¡°gods¡± to him to talk with them, he discovered that they were actually only lesser gods themselves, and that they were only not normally on the planet because they had accepted an offer to become immortal arbiters of the will of the high gods. They also informed the group that once a person reached the status of a lesser god, they were given the right to choose between being an arbiter of the high gods, or remaining on the planet they came from. Another advantage of reaching the rank of lesser god was that they earned a ¡°god¡± power. This power they gained was an ability truly befitting of one with the title ¡°god¡±, while they weren¡¯t true gods in the sense of the word, their rank and power was described as such due to the massive breakthrough that occurred at that rank and the gaining of their ¡°god¡± ability. The beings let the group know that even with their help, challenging one who belongs on this world with that title would not be an easy feat, especially when they had an army of legendary ranks and a personal guard filled with demi-gods. Those at the rank of demi-god gained immunity to external ¡°god¡± powers less than the rank of ¡°god¡±, and so could only be fought with sheer power alone. While the one at the legendary rank could be fought off with their unique powers, doing so would leave them able to do little else due to the number. The only real way for the party to really defeat Sean and prevent a real apocalypse from occurring would be to obtain the rank of lesser god themselves, and then fight Sean before the world collapsed. It turned out that there were three types of ¡°god¡± powers; the most common was external type powers which would impact people outside of the user with some sort of boon or bane, then there were internal powers which improved a person¡¯s individual powers, and then the rarest were reality powers which granted the ability to manipulate or better manipulate the real world through the use of magic. The overall split of powers was roughly ninety-five percent, five percent, and only roughly a hundredth of one percent. Some even luckier managed to have two powers at the same time, but it was unknown how such happenings occurred. Normally, actual reality warping through magic was impossible. This rule applied even to Eric¡¯s use of teleportation and time ¡°manipulation¡±. What he did was actually a localized stasis ability using less mana, and while the teleportation was a form of low level reality manipulation, it had its limits and could not be used to the level of an actual reality manipulator. While all magic was technically warping reality, even magic had its own set of rules and costs, and would end once the cost could no longer be maintained. Actual reality warping was quite different they were explained, because they only had an upfront cost, and then sustained permanent impact through that one cost. While the costs were usually higher, they weren¡¯t much higher and the effects being permanent through that slightly higher cost made actual reality warping a much more powerful ability. Another example of the power differences between actual reality warping and regular magic was that magic had little to no impact on anti-magic stones, metals, and enchantments, but reality warping could easily tear apart such things with no more than a thought. Such powers that affected reality were currently only seen in ten beings currently alive, and only about a hundred out of everybody that had ever reached the stage of ¡°god¡±. Examples of external powers were things like giving mass boons or banes to people, with very little to no cost, and controlling whom they would work on. Another example, but one that was rarer, were abilities that would enable control over others on either a strictly physical level, or even control their minds and emotions to gain full control over a person. Internal powers on the other hand granted more power than external powers could, but they were also more limited in scope. While external powers could even go so far as controlling others with their abilities, internal powers could only improve one''s own abilities. Most of the time, this would be a full physical boost, a full mental boost, a full on boost to all abilities, or a much more focused boost that would usually result in even greater focusing of one¡¯s gains. Of course, like all things, the extent of the powers boiled down to the individual. There were some that saw immense gains from a boost to every ability while the next person had a ¡°god¡± ability that boosted only one stat without giving as much power as the one that boosted all. There were others that boosted one to such a degree that even one who had what seemed to be insane boosts to every ability would be toppled by the vast degree of power gained from that one boost.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. After learning all of this, they knew that their only choices were to level up as quickly as possible and obtain ¡°godhood¡± so that they could fight on at least somewhat even footing with whatever powers Sean might possess. The ¡°gods¡± that Gregory had summoned did the only thing they could do to assist in setting the group up for success, and that was giving them access to a special training ground used to quickly boost the powers of the demi-gods who were given express access to guard and protect the ¡°heavenly realm¡± from outsiders. They admitted that the ¡°heavenly realm¡± was actually just a highly secluded portion of the universe, one that would be nigh impossible to travel to without permission of one of the ten with reality warping powers. Those reality warping powers of the ten were also why they were considered ¡°immortal¡± regardless of what their original races'' lifespan would have been. Although, to say that they wouldn¡¯t have immortality anyways is a hard thing to judge, since the higher a persons¡¯ rank becomes, the longer their potential life becomes as well. Regardless, it was their requirement to make sure that this planet did not fall to ruin, and if Sean kept on going at his current rate, that is what would end up happening. So, giving these people access to what was normally reserved only for the demi-god guardians of the ¡°heavenly realm¡± was well within their rights as long as it prevented the toppling of this world. After all, it was bad form to let an ascended being remain on a planet with only one person of the ¡°god¡± rank on the planet. Especially when they also controlled a vast majority of the planet¡¯s people of the legendary rank, and all the people presently of the demi-god rank on the planet. While they could grant temporary access only, even that would greatly assist in the speed at which they could raise their levels. Assuming the higher gods did not allow them to continue training there, they likely wouldn¡¯t raise much fuss over it since the real goal was to bring balance, not to assist their desires for the planet. _____________________________________________________ As for Sean, he was presently testing the true extent of his ¡°god powers¡± that he had gained from his rank up. He had obtained a class by the name of Martial Wizard Initiate and got it leveled to five, the boons this class had granted him being enough to suppress entire forces of martial troops, and brutally overwhelm any troop of mages that came for him. On top of that, with his body''s raw defensive ability and the armor he had built, he was practically invincible when it came to attacks against his person. His armor gave him enormous levels of magic resilience and made him totally immune to attacks below the level of a ¡°god¡± level enemy, and his own body had almost full resilience to attacks below the level of a demi-god human and magic resilience capable of resisting the magical output of a human demi-god level foe with little more than small scratches or very localized first degree burns. His ¡°god power¡± enabled him to control the minds of others, regardless of race or opinion of him. Additionally, it enabled him to give a large boost to the overall power of anybody that was inside the area of one mile of him if they were presently under his control through a different ability. Put together, this was enough to make his army equivalent to an army of demi-gods and lesser gods instead of legendary people and demi-gods. Even though their class was of a lower tier, even his elite guard had power on a similar overall scale to his own under his ¡°god power¡± buffing effects. These abilities greatly intrigued him, and only went to further bloat his own ego and make him believe that only he would be able to lead humanity into a role of importance on this new planet they were taking over. ______________________________________ These flawed thoughts, when viewed by the ¡°higher gods¡± that were set to overview any rash decisions made by the council of ¡°lesser gods¡± in charge of this planet, were what made the decision to allow the people of that planet to be allowed access to the training grounds of the gods a decision that would not be revoked until they themselves were capable of handling that army alone. They did however let the lesser gods know that they would not be permitted to aid in the taking back of the planet if the people using the training grounds of the gods had even three manage to attain the rank of ¡°god¡± within three weeks time. These three weeks were not an arbitrary number either, it was three days less time than it would take for the two worlds to fully merge. Once this time was over, they¡¯d either be ready to face them alone, or the lesser gods in charge of the planet would help and then fall into a position of staying on that planet to manage things much more hands-on until such time as the planet was totally stable. Chapter 11 Part 3 The training grounds in the heavenly realm were unique, even if all of the party were to enter at the same time, they would all be taken to an individual training zone. The zone was designed to be a challenge regardless of rank, and based solely on personal power. This meant that people with more combat potential at a lower rank would still face stronger challenges and may level up faster than people who were a higher rank with fewer combat skills or just a weaker offense. While this may seem like a worse way to train than to kill stronger enemies in a group, it also used the highest rank creature within the level that could be defeated by one¡¯s own combat powers. For Gregory, he ran into a demi-god ranked opponent, one that was at the very top of the demi-god spectrum, the same went for Eric. Oddly enough, the rest of the group only faced opponents in the middle levels of the demi-god spectrum, ranging from level 44 to 67. Atlas and Lily faced the level 67 opponent, Elise was facing a level 65, Aurora faced a level 62, Caitlyn faced a level 61, Jessica faced a level 58, Alfred was facing a level 56, Katherine faced a level 49, and Tim faced the level 44. The fights were also designed as such to improve the combat abilities a person possesses regardless of level or rank. The example would be Gregory and Eric facing opponents of such high caliber despite being at a similar or lower level as compared to the rest of the group. This significant difference in combat power is what enabled Gregory to catch up with the rest of the group in levels. Regardless of time spent, the stronger an opponent was, the faster a person would get experience off of them. Of course, if time spent was also small, then experience could be vastly greater even among people facing the same level of enemy. This was the case with Gregory, Lily, Elise, and Jessica. The leveling up times of these four were substantially reduced as compared to others in the same bracket, and the level of creatures they fought continued to rise faster the more they trained. With exception of course to Gregory, as his not being a demi-god was the only reason he was not fighting stronger opponents. It took Gregory a week and a half before he finally reached demi-god rank, and when he did, he finally had opponents that really challenged his abilities to their fullest extent. He went from fighting enemies of the demi-god rank to enemies of standard ¡°god¡± rank. He had also discovered a number of new classes, which improved his combat ability as well. He obtained High Mage from working on combining the raw magical powers of sorcerer with the elemental powers of wizard and some of the higher level advanced techniques that were acquired by him more recently, such as some of the sealing magic from grand runic mage and some of the conditional release magical abilities from elemental trapmaster. He also gained other classes due to his knowledge of seals, and combining that with his enchanting skills to really understand how to create magical seals. On top of that, he achieved classes that gave him the power to deal holy power as actual damage instead of just using it for the sake of healing others. Another half-week, making for two weeks total time spent, got him to the level of lesser god, finally getting him his ¡°god powers¡± which were reality altering powers and internal powers. The internal powers he gained focused entirely on his magical powers, granting his INT, WIS, and FTH boons while he had them active. This boon was a 50x total boost, granting him virtually unparalleled power in any kind of magic. With these added boons, it was likely that he would be able to at least combat Sean now, and probably even assist in holding off a good portion of his honor guard. At the end of two weeks, it was time for them all to meet up and collaborate for a day about their advancements before they would be sent back in for another six days to see how much further they could get. These gains in classes and levels also gave him immense gains in stats, getting him over 4000 wisdom, 3000 faith, and over 2000 intelligence just from classes and new magics. His gains between levels and classes also put his WIL and CHA at the planet¡¯s highest granting him even greater power. Eric on the other hand did not see the same gains. Having been practically on the cusp of demi-god already, he leveled up to demi-god much faster, but did not have a large increase in training speed once leveling up. He also gained a few new classes, and due to the knowledge from Gregory managed to achieve True Magic Adept, as well as improving his personal unique class to its third rank. Once getting to demi-god, his training speed did increase by some, since he could face into the god class with reliability. He still wasn¡¯t pushing through at the same speed as Gregory until some of his magical classes improved, but he did see huge gains toward the end. He had also managed to attain lesser god, although his level was up to 30 by the time of the meet. The ¡°god powers¡± he obtained were internal, offering a 40x boost to his intelligence, and a 25x boost to all other abilities.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Elise saw vast improvement as well, mostly because she had already been close to a few of the more advanced magical classes, and Gregory¡¯s training with her had improved her combat prowess. Even though she didn¡¯t have the same raw power that Gregory had with his immense stats and massive bonuses to magical might from being draconic, she did not lose to him when it came to understanding and real combat ability. With less leveling drawbacks, she managed to obtain demi-god within four days, and then was able to reach lesser god with a level of 3 by the end of the two weeks. She was also lucky enough to attain Internal ¡°god powers¡± that improved all her abilities by a multiplier of 30, although since her abilities were more well rounded, she still couldn¡¯t compare to somebody like Eric in magic since his base totals were stronger than hers in that field. Lily and Jessica saw very similar growth despite facing enemies that were somewhat separated in level, mostly in part due to Jessica¡¯s continued improvement to growth from remaining human as long as she did. Both had reached the cusp of becoming lesser-gods, being level 100 demi-gods with massive experience. The only thing they lacked was a trigger for their ¡°god powers¡± to develop, which was unique to the individual. Out of the others, only Atlas had managed to attain lesser-god. His ¡°god powers¡± were external, but were unique in that they allowed the people selected to experience another¡¯s experiences within the scope of their understanding. The largest use of it would enable people to bypass years of work aas long as they understood how a person reached where they were at the time. Another use was as a way to communicate in real time without using magic as a catalyst. All the others in the group had only managed to reach into the upper 90s of demi-god, which while massive in terms of advancement would not necessarily be enough to take out the honor guard of demi-gods and the army of legendary ranked opponents that would be up against when it would be time to face Sean. _________________________________________________ Sean meanwhile had been using his resources to level up as well. While it wasn¡¯t at the same rate as the group that would be facing off against him, by the time the three weeks granted had finished, Sean was at the level of Low-god 2, with his honor guard having increased in number and being lesser-gods, and the army being made up mostly of demi-gods with legendary ranked people being used as common foot-soldiers. It was an army and a dominion that he believed to be unstoppable on the planet, and one that he could use to take over and rule his way if he so desired. _________________________________________________ At the end of the two weeks, when they all met, they exchanged their progress and abilities. As the lesser gods that brought them here listened, they were shocked by what they discovered. While it was true that even they could gain substantial power from the training grounds, an actual god rank would not be allowed to use them without express permission due to the requirements for opening it to them and the costs of keeping it active with them inside. Seeing that three of the eleven had reached a god-rank, and the others were all high-level demi-gods, they were more than just a little impressed. The improvements multipliers especially shocked them, almost as much as Gregory having an Internal and Reality Altering ¡°god power¡±. While Gregory¡¯s 50x boost was only equivalent to one full rank, in his case, for many it was even more substantial. On top of that, it was a total improvement to all of his magical abilities, meaning that in terms of magical might, he was able to challenge people of at least a rank higher that specialized in magic without pushing himself. Much like Gregory had massive boons to his magical abilities, Eric and Elise had relatively large boosts to their overall abilities, ones that enabled them to combat people of a higher rank than their own without any significant challenge. Even some of the strongest people that had decided to live in the ¡°heavenly realm¡± had boosts that only went up to a 20x boost for the strongest of them, and the highest recorded multiplier previously had been a person who had a 30x boost to one ability. To see these people push their abilities so far was too much for even the lesser gods living in the heavenly realm to understand how far they might one day reach. With the entire group sharing their new classes, and Atlas using his new ¡°god power¡± to let the others experience his understanding of the classes, at least within their own understanding, was a massive boon as well. Those who had greater magical gifts were able to learn a few magical classes immediately, while those of them who were more focused on physical combat were able to learn from others. Jessica even gained a basic understanding of magic that enabled her to gain some basic abilities. Upon reporting their advancement to the higher gods above them, they were already quite pleased with the progress made, but unfortunately promised three weeks and also saw the current state of Sean and his army, so knew that it was likely that they would probably need the rest of the third week they were promised to actually be able to compete effectively against that many people. Since there was a full 24 hours where they were not permitted inside the training grounds, Gregory and Elise used this time to spend the night in Elise¡¯s room. Jessica did the same with Atlas, and Eric and Lily stayed up all night talking since they had both taken a liking for each other. Chapter 12 Part 1 The next morning they started their last six days in the training grounds, which got all of them to at least lesser-god rank. Out of everybody that got lesser-god rank during the week, only Alfred had an ability that was truly unheard of previously. It was an ability that improved the ¡°rank¡± of other¡¯s ¡°god powers¡±. Of course, ranks only mattered when referring to the most common of powers, external ¡°god powers¡±. They were the only ones that could have impact on the outside depending on the rank of the opponent.This meant that a person with lesser-god rank would still have their external ¡°god power¡± work on a person of demi-god to full effect, and reduced effect on a lesser-god. Considering most of them had powers that were external, it was a very powerful effect for them. Lily gained the ability to boost everybody¡¯s abilities by a 10x multiplier within her range of effect while she has the mana to do so. Jessica became a killing machine, with the ability to reduce all the stats of those within range by a 10x multiplier and also eliminate or reduce the external god powers of those near her that have a buffing effect. Gregory managed to reach level 8 of Low-god, which was unheard of progress previously, due to gods not being allowed to use the training ground after becoming one because of cost requirements. Of course, this was allowed for the party only because of the threat that they knew Sean posed to the world. Between his unique classes abilities, his actual classes and their power, his ¡°god power¡±, and the levels of those around him, they doubted even a strong well equipped party of lesser-gods would be able to stop him without difficulty. This held especially true for a group that had just attained their ¡°god powers¡± and would be currently unskilled and underleveled in their use. ___________________________________________________ Sean on the other hand had a powerful ¡°god power¡± that could be used to actually control those around him as well as improve their fighting capability. On top of that, his honor guard and even some high commanders of the army also had their own ¡°god powers¡± now, and one of them had a frightening internal power that enabled her to completely ignore the external powers of others regardless of their rank or other abilities affecting them. It was considered a very powerful ability, especially since she herself was also quite strong when it came to conventional classes available to her. She was almost on par with Sean, even surpassing him in some ways with regard to his lower number of high level actual combative classes. Of course, he made up for his lack of combat power with his immense potential granted by his politician unique class. Altogether, Sean was more than prepared for any offense against him that he could think of. This didn¡¯t factor in the combat force that Gregory¡¯s new party would put against him, but with what he knew of the strongest people in regards to stats, none came close to him and his colossal gains in charisma from his achievements in controlling people and situations with nothing more than words and his unique class. ___________________________________________________ After everybody had left the training zone, the lesser-gods controlling the world were surprised most by Gregory¡¯s achievements. Despite having the lowest experience multiplier, he still managed to attain the highest level through a combination of sheer power and unmatched magical classes. Hearing some of the spells he talked about having created shocked them as well. Many of the spells were just from the classes themselves, which at his point were directly giving him knowledge of their spells. To top it off, he also used the Library of the Ancients to learn many spells that had been unused for many years prior due to a lack of skill and class levels. Spells that caused massive area destruction, but required very high level classes that until just recently nobody possessed were finally resurfacing in the ¡°mortal¡± world. Of course, it was hardly counted since it was possessed by a person who had just broken into the virtually immortal bracket. It was still quite the feat considering his age and the little amount of time he had spent in training to get to this point. Having a very high level of wisdom and using his wisdom as his primary spellcasting modifier also made him a very potent threat and made it much easier for him to learn higher level spells and gain higher level classes that most others couldn¡¯t. Even the ¡°gods¡± that allowed him to use the training area were concerned about him returning to the ¡°mortal¡± world. Of course, as long as he didn¡¯t do anything to threaten their ¡°fun¡±, they wouldn¡¯t really do anything to retaliate to him. Sean only got the ire of the ¡°gods¡± by threatening the world before the merge even finished, which was quite the feat considering most of the time it took many years for things to become this corrupted after a merge began.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Regardless of the reasoning behind the acceptance of a full team of people on one planet with the level of lesser-god or higher, they knew it was presently necessary, and would not do anything to threaten the group until such time that the world was in a stable situation. Even then, they weren¡¯t sure what they would really be able to do to the group considering that some of them were on par with a standard mid-god in terms of power. Aside from Gregory, none had reached low-god but some were very close. Eric, Elise, Lily, and Jessica had all made it to level 100 of Lesser-god, the others having reached the levels of around 70 at lesser-god. The closest to low-god was Elise, who seemed very likely to make it to low-god with just a little bit of a push. Eric also seemed likely to hit low-god, but none of the others seemed likely to hit low-god anytime soon. To top it all off, three of them were the humans from Earth, and they had massive gains with regard to their stats through the skills they created. Gregory had the highest WIS they had ever seen, even among other god-leveled people. He wasn¡¯t like a conventional person who would enter god-rank either, he chose to stay on the planet after becoming god-ranked. Even those specialized in magic had actual magic that was only roughly on par with Gregory¡¯s. In terms of ¡°god powers¡±, none of them truly wanted to fight him, since he not only was one of the few with creation abilities but also had internal powers. That, and they weren¡¯t sure what his unique class would be able to replicate, and they weren¡¯t willing to push him to find out. ___________________________________________________ The entire group finally finished their training, and the group of gods who had brought them here finally brought them to Earth. They were informed by their superiors, that the overall strength of the group should be enough to take on any threat that had been created, and that there should be no problems as long as they go straight to Sean and take care of him. Gregory found it confusing that they said there should be no problem, but Sean had a strange power it seemed, so it wasn¡¯t entirely unexpected either. As they reached the central city, they found that the guards guarding the central city were all of at least demi-god level and some were even lesser-god level. It confused them that the levels had increased this much from what they were told, and in just two weeks time. Of course, from what they knew about Sean¡¯s ability, he only had to improve himself and all those under him would be improved as well. To have such an ability seemed incredibly ridiculous, but at the same time, it didn¡¯t help that they were no better trained in the art of combat or skills. Those people were basically given their power for free, and would not have the classes that others of their same level would have either. Still, it didn¡¯t mean they wanted to fight an army of people with that ranking. They also noticed that many people were being turned away from entering, even some people with high level passes from other cities were not being allowed entry without express permission. Of course, when one commands the strongest military force they had ever seen, and likely on the planet, it wasn¡¯t unruly to make excess demands for entry. Standing on the outskirts, Gregory was feeling his way in using magic, and finally found something that may get them inside without alerting anyone. It required him to cloak the group with his mana, and use that mana to prevent the detection magic from discovering them. This particular ability is one he had learned after maxing out the class called ¡®Master of Mystic Seals¡¯. He used his mana to ¡®seal¡¯ the presence of those within a radius of him that he had selected. After having used his ability to get inside without detection, he discovered that the military force had indeed risen in power. The weakest among them all were upper level demi-god, and the strongest among the standard military were at the lower lesser-god level. If this were where the standard military had gotten to, then it begged the question, where had Sean and his honor guard gotten to for levels and rank? This did not discourage Gregory though, it simply made him realize that Sean truly was somebody to hold with caution. Sean was capable of leveling up at unheard of rates, even when considering the rates at which the present group had been leveling up at with all their special locations. Of course, not many could use the same methods as Sean, considering he presumably had some very powerful unique class and a possibly powerful ¡°god power¡±. Sean on the other hand likely knew very little about the present group, and would have no idea such a powerful ¡°strike force¡± was aiming to get him out of his present seat of ¡°power¡±. Of course, if Sean were removed from the seat of power, it raised the question who would take over the human kingdom. While it wasn¡¯t a good way of doing things, humans had achieved more over recent months than they had ever managed previously. They were higher leveled, further along socially, and there were fewer dying to war. Of course, there were more of other races dying to war, and the deaths would still be avoidable by selecting a new leader that wasn¡¯t prone to war. Only humans on this planet loved violence like this, so it was entirely possible for them to achieve more if they were to become peaceful with some of the other races. Chapter 12 Part 2 Regardless of how well prepared they were, there was very little time to overthrow Sean before the entire planet would likely be doomed. It had left only one option, to defeat Sean and overthrow him and his reign before the Earth merged with this planet. This wouldn¡¯t be as simple as attacking him recklessly though, regardless of how strong they had gotten. Their opponent was a person who was almost definitely a higher level than they were, and there were many people who were just as high leveled if not higher leveled than most of their group. In order to emerge victorious over Sean, they would need to find him at his weakest, or when he would be least expecting an attack. Although, now would probably fit that reasoning, seeing that there was likely nobody he believed could oppose him currently. _________________________________________________ Nobody knew of Hadley, who had actually managed to attain quite the feats before he left to enjoy Earth before it merged and became one with this planet. He had even gone back a few times when he saw that the world was going to merge sooner than the expected year. When that happened, he had gone back and managed to reach up to mid-god in rank. Despite being a pure-blooded human, he was perhaps one of the most powerful people on the planet. He had also obtained quite a substantial number of melee combat classes, including a high level ¡°battlemaster¡± class that made him one of the most powerful on the planet in regards to weapon combat. It was obtained partially through the use of his evolved unique class that enabled him to also ¡°consume¡± and ¡°gain¡± the classes of the prey he consumed. His ¡°god power¡± was also equally strong, an internal power that enabled him to split himself. It had the drawback that the number of splits done also weakened him by a percentage of the splits done. With the power he possessed though, he split himself in two, and then split the second him into many portions that he sent to different places on Earth to enjoy. This way, his main body was at half power, while the splits he sent to Earth were at about 1/200th of his power. It also enabled his clones to more accurately gauge their power, since the power they possessed now rivaled some of the most powerful beings in the universe, standard Earth materials wouldn¡¯t be able to handle his full strength and could quite easily break if he exerted too much strength. There was also the advantage that when those clones were killed, and every night, they¡¯d send their consciousness to him, enabling him to experience the fun of Earth while also growing stronger on this planet. It was quite strange perhaps that the one who had spent the least time focusing on advancing his power, also gained the most at the fastest pace. It was also strange though, that Hadley was the one person whom nobody knew existed as far as the ascended went. This happened mostly in part because his fast advancement had made him immune to their scrying by the time they were looking for people to oppose Sean, despite the fact that he could have likely stood to stop Sean alone. Also, with his personality, he would be a person who would actually be interested in leading the human race. While he wouldn¡¯t be the best choice, his gaming habits and recent ability to split himself gave him quite the ability to lead people. He had led multiple guilds in the games he¡¯d played, and with even more of his consciousness, he had become incredibly proficient in leading large numbers of people. _________________________________________________ As Hadley was roaming around, he saw Gregory¡¯s group from a distance, and with some of the abilities he had ¡°consumed¡± from creatures, he guessed at the origin of the group. It was a group that could likely even take out the insane rule that was started here, which would bring relative peace if somebody could effectively take control after Sean¡¯s demise. Not only was leading humanity something he was interested in, as a person who had led large groups of people in a number of guilds online, it was something he had mildly built up to. Although Hadley¡¯s individual strength was impressive, he wouldn¡¯t believe that he was the strongest person there was. He had seen that Sean held great power, and would not be a person he could easily handle. He also knew that while he possessed immense personal strength, Sean had a much greater reach of total power. Hadley was a single fighter, more if he split himself, but with so many splits, he would quickly be weaker than even the standard soldiers that Sean was using in the capital. On the other hand, this group was not as large, but each of them had a massive qualitative advantage over the army that Sean owned. On top of that, he could tell that the leader was insanely strong for his level. Hadley had dipped into all the classes to some degree and had obtained a class called ¡°Novice Jack¡± which presumably implied his overall skill in such a broad number of classes without having really obtained real mastery in any. It was because of this class that while he didn¡¯t have immense combat ability for his level, he could tell the rough combat of most other people, and he knew that the group before him were of a much higher calibre than those of Sean¡¯s army. It made him curious, and so he followed them from a distance that he figured would be relatively safe. He also did everything he could to cover his presence, even going so far as to split off a clone to follow them instead of using his real body. At the end of the day, if one of his clones died, he would take damage, but it could never be anything life-threatening. If on the other hand, his main body died, he had no idea what may actually happen. He presumed that he would eventually supplant a clone¡¯s identity and return that way. Of course, this was just his hypothesis, and nothing was certain yet.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. ____________________________________________________ Through an application of his mana, Gregory could tell that they were being followed, but he didn¡¯t know who was following them, or what their goal was in following. He could tell that whoever it was, was doing their best to remain hidden and unseen. Only due to his incredibly high perception and high level classes could he tell that they were being followed. He could also tell that they were not preparing any kind of attack though, and were only following passively. Gregory wasn¡¯t sure if their goal was to take advantage of a weakness in their team, or if it was just to see what they were up to. He knew though that whatever the reason, they would need to be careful for now until they found out who it was. He knew it couldn¡¯t be any random person, as they would not be capable enough to hide from him that well. It was also unlikely that it was anybody of a lower ranking than some kind of god-rank. This meant that whoever it was could potentially be dangerous. Of course, it was just as likely that it was somebody who could help them in their fight against Sean. Considering it was impossible to pinpoint a location though, Gregory ignored this person for now. Instead, since they had made it to the city that housed Sean as the ¡°center¡± of the human kingdom, they entered it using their best full human disguises. Each of them knew magic now, and they were able to use this to fully hide their non-human traits. Investigating the city, they found that the army was made almost entirely out of demi-god ranked humans, and that their commanders were all lesser-god. Gregory, using his abilities, was able to find out that the escort for Sean were also all lesser-god ranked, and that Sean himself had reached low-god as he had. It would be required to at least somewhat fight off a portion of the military, but they also knew that with just the group they had, it would be impossible to fight as many people as were present even with their abilities. At least, not without the mass destruction of an area. Even though this was something the group wanted to avoid at first, it was different now. The enemies they had to deal with were not substantially weaker than they were, and there were quite a number of them. It would be difficult to deal with that many unless they first thinned out the group with a massive destruction spell. Gregory started this by forming a massive ball of fire and rock above the city, at a point where nobody could see it. It was being suspended with an application of telekinesis on his part, and being created with the powers of creation that he possessed. For all intents and purposes, what was being created was in fact an actual meteorite which would be propelled down through telekinesis along with natural gravity. In order to prevent unnecessary casualties, Gregory also created a massive barrier of mana when the meteorite began dropping on the human capital. He had no doubts that the more powerful people would be able to withstand such an attack through sheer strength and endurance, but those would be only the very best, and from what he saw, only about a hundred of the troops would survive such an attack. Even then, only about 20 would still be in fighting condition after taking that attack. It would seriously improve their chances of succeeding in such an endeavor if their enemy was severely hamstrung, and they didn¡¯t each need to deal with an entire platoon of soldiers of a level that would be resisting their strongest abilities, and the leaders of which would be almost entirely immune to their ¡°god powers¡±. Now, they just had to fight with a number of people about twice as many, who they probably overwhelmed physically since they had the racial bonuses that the humans didn¡¯t have. With everybody having at least some magic, this pronounced the difference even further, since Sean¡¯s troops were capable of only one form of combat, not having had teachers that were experienced in melee and magic. By the time the meteorite was known about, it was too late for anybody to escape outside of the area of effect. Sean and only two of his elite force were able to reach a secret bunker that had been built far below the castle, which kept them completely from harm. The rest of the elite force was alive as well as many of the generals, due to their abilities, but the total number of men left alive was actually only 87. The number of people left in full fighting condition only reached twelve, but almost 50 could still fight effectively if they needed to. However, Gregory was also left almost entirely unable to perform even basic combat due to mana exhaustion. It was something he hadn¡¯t felt in a long time, but due to the amount of mana he had to use constantly to create the meteorite, and then protect the townspeople from the meteorite, he had used his entire mana pool countless times since the beginning of the creation of the meteorite. He was able to still fight with a sword and perform very short range teleports, which was still effective in holding off people who were a lower rank than him when coupled with his insane speed and higher level. As the team reached closer to the remnants of the castle, they found that Sean was already issuing orders to those around him. Seeing this, Gregory suggested that they take two thirds of their group and attack Sean, while the rest would hold off the soldiers that remained. Gregory would work with holding off the soldiers since his mana exhaustion left him incapable of fighting on par with anybody that was roughly an equal, especially somebody like Sean who had unknown physical powers and was at least as strong as he was in level. Eric, Atlas, Katherine, Alfred, Caitlyn, Tim, and Jessica all went after Sean. This left Elise, Lily, and Gregory to go against the soldiers. The soldiers instantly began attacking to protect Sean, but Gregory, Elise, and Lily managed to quite easily hold them off with superior speed, positioning, and the ability to use magic to catch them up as well. At the same time, the other group was having trouble just hitting Sean, since he had actually trained himself quite well to handle attacks against himself. The closer it seemed they got, the more Sean was able to back off. When it finally seemed as if Sean might lose, a teleportation array went off and he vanished from their sight and sense range. Chapter 12 Part 3 Since Sean had already escaped, and Gregory was still suffering from mana exhaustion, he was incapable of tracing the location of the teleport. This left the group able to relax for the first time in a long time, since who they believed to be their primary opponent had been defeated to a degree. His abilities were also deactivated, since he had to leave the area and didn¡¯t want to risk being found by magical traces. He knew that whoever had the power to destroy such a vast area would likely be able to also track him if he were to teleport while keeping such a massive amount of magic in use through controlling people. After Sean was defeated and left, Hadley came into the palace that had been being used by Sean. Seeing this man enter the palace, the group did not know how to react. Reaching their level, they could feel that he was strong and was giving off insane amounts of energy. They could also tell that after their battle with Sean, they would not be able to handle whoever this person was right now. Not only was Gregory incapable of his most powerful spells, but the rest of the group as well were currently in a rough situation in regards to their energy levels after a fight against a melee specialist on the level of Sean. Considering the energy this person gave off, they were obviously stronger than Sean and probably on a higher level than Gregory overall. With caution, they stared at him before Elise spoke up. ¡°What is your intention here?¡± He replied calmly, looking around the place as if determining their abilities through the combat. ¡°I am here to assume control of the human realm. I doubt any of you would, or rather could, take it. I also come from Earth, as I assume at least one of you does as well.¡± He nodded toward Jessica, and made the indication that he understood she was likely not from their original party considering that she was very obviously not a natural blooded beastkin. They were impressed by his deduction, and knew that he didn¡¯t suspect Gregory due to him being probably more draconic and beastly looking at the moment than a lizard beastkin. It was quite the easy assumption to make, some lizard beastkin looked very draconic in nature, and since Gregory did not currently have his wings on display, he could easily be mistaken for one. If he had his wings on display, it would almost be more unbelievable that he was originally a human, as the dragons were capable of great and powerful magic, magic that could likely transform them enough to give them a human-like appearance. Though, this was not what Hadley assumed. He had discovered, quite by accident, that dragons could perform semi-shapeshifting to assume very human-like forms when they so desired. Of course, their pride normally prevented it, but perhaps this one was different was his opinion. The whole group knew that Hadley was correct in assuming that none of them would want that position, and it was also likely true that none of them could adequately take that position. Even if they did want to, humans would oppose a non-pure human taking over the position of their king or leader. Since there had been a deep seated and long-held hatred for non-humans, they would need to start with eliminating discrimination against non-humans before anything could change. This wasn¡¯t to say a non-human would become the leader of the humans, but it was at least possible that there would not be a hatred of them anymore if they found a leader that would not actively hate others. ¡°Very well, you may take the leadership if you believe you can protect the human race, and promise to not discriminate against the non-humans.¡± Hadley gently smiled, as if there was no way he would do this in the first place. ¡°Why would I discriminate against non-humans? Even though I am a full human from Earth, most of us do not believe it is right to discriminate. It does still happen, but many do their best to try being civil to their fellow person. We are all people, and it is better to view it this way than to view it as human or non-human. That is the philosophy I hope to bring with me in leadership.¡± Gregory was impressed, and nodded when Elise looked back at him. Even though he was still unable to perform any actual spells, he could tell through mana that Hadley was telling what he believed to be the truth. Considering the power he possessed, he doubted that anybody could truly oppose Hadley¡¯s desires. Even more since the humans were now free from Sean¡¯s control for the first time since he took over humanity on this planet, he believed that it was possible for things to change. A person from Earth in control meant that there could be social reform, even if the technology would not work in a place with mana and magic like this place had.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Elise responded to Hadley¡¯s claim since it seemed that Gregory seemed to believe what he had said. ¡°Alright, if you promise that, then we will let you claim leadership, but you mustn¡¯t attack other kingdoms without reason and do your best to maintain peace with others.¡± As this was Hadley¡¯s goal anyway, he looked at the group quite happily. ¡°I agree to the terms wholeheartedly. I even offer a god promise that I will not go back on my word.¡± At this, Elise and the rest left, having certainty that this person would be a good person to have lead humanity on this planet. Having reached the rank of god themselves, they knew what that meant. It was a promise that would revert them to their basest level, and would remove all their skills. Even if he once grew strong, he would likely not have anything left to grow strong with if he were to break the god promise. __________________________________________________________ After they had all left, Hadley let out a sigh. It was nerve wracking for him to be in front of a group such as that. Even though he had power, he had never truly fought an enemy that was his ¡®equal¡¯ so to speak. He did know that they were exhausted, but he still dared not upset them as he could tell that they were much more experienced at combat than he was. Raw power meant nothing when you didn¡¯t know how to use it effectively, or would just use it to perform basic techniques. He may have had some high-level classes, but that did not make him an expert combatant. Even Sean, a person who used his unique class excessively to grow in strength, still had to fight to grow in power. He had the advantage in being able to kill people whom he had grew in power, or use a large group to hunt excessively powerful creatures, but he still chose to fight and learn how to fight effectively so that he believed nobody could really oppose him one on one. The opposite was true for Hadley. His unique class permitted him to grow stronger by consuming creatures. He was definitely not the strongest in any individual form of combat, but he had consumed many stat points, classes, and much experience. This made him strong beyond reason, but it also made him complacent and untrained in combat. He knew that even the group that had just barely managed to force Sean to escape would likely be capable of taking him on alone, just because he had only basic spells, and did not train with them against anything that could really challenge him. In fact, it could be said that he only consumed creatures that could not challenge him and his level of power. While the same wouldn¡¯t be effective for any other person, being able to consume experience permitted him to grow stronger quickly even if he killed weaker creatures. __________________________________________________________ Meanwhile, Sean was hiding as far away as he could. He had taken the offer to enter the realm of the gods. Even though he was quite prideful, and disliked the thought that he had been defeated by people whom he believed to be below him, he would not be willing to suffer death. It was a place that basically made him totally immortal, as he could not be killed by anybody that belonged there, and he would be protected if people came to kill him without a reason that occurred after he took the offer to come there. Unless they could fight off the virtual army of high-gods, he would be totally safe. His ability may not give him as much power here as it did over the humans whom had been basically worshipping him previously, but he was still much stronger than the low tier of gods who were forced to merge planets and keep them going when they brought themselves to the bring of self-destruction. Of course, that was only true of magical worlds. Planets like Earth were exempt from the same sort of self-destruction that would facilitate the required merging of planets. Another reason that non-magical planets are generally picked, is that the people are usually less biased against what would have originally caused the destruction. He learned now though, that his previous ways would have likely doomed the planet to death, and he would have died with it if he had done such a thing. So, in some ways, he had to be grateful to Gregory and the party with him for stopping him. If they hadn¡¯t, he would have basically killed himself, and there would be no way for him to blame others about that. Still, he did not like the fact that he was forced to run by others, and would do his best to get revenge once he grew enough in power to be above them. __________________________________________________________ Gregory and the party with him on the other hand had left the human capital as quickly as possible, and found an out of the way place to make camp. A good rest was about the only thing that could cure their exhaustion, and they needed that badly. The night transpired uneventfully, but of course marked the day that everything would really change again. A day that their ancestors had told them about when they could tell that humanity was driving themselves to extinction. The planet started shaking, as a gap was created where planet earth would be transformed to create a new ¡®continent¡¯ on this planet. Gregory on the other hand got a notification telling him about what was happening. ¡®The world Earth is fully required now for the upkeep of this planet. The transition is beginning. Please do your best to assist and prevent the other people from Earth being overcome by the dangers of this planet that may be awaiting them. You have 30 minutes to get there, you and your group may teleport there if you so desire.¡¯