《Searful - Rise of The Alaba [Dropped]》 Chapter 1 - The Guild 1 ¡°I¡¯ve been walking down this wretched path for 6 days now. When the hell am I going to reach the town I was told about.¡± The young boy, better known as Sear, scowled as he continued walking, his cloak fluttered softly in the wind behind him. He had been walking down a worn gravel road for a few days after leaving his home town of Hilljin. He was supposed to be at the city of Lendmark now but somehow he still wasn¡¯t there after a few days of walking. Through the dark brown mud stamped upon his head after several days of travel, you could just barely see the faint shimmer of shiny, flowing black hair. ¡°This is why you can¡¯t ever trust those damned fools. They never tell you how long it would take or how far it was, only that you would be there in a few days,¡± He mumbled to himself, obviously displeased. ¡°If I ever see them again I¡¯ll give them pain for making this trip such a pain in the ass." Blinded by his anger, Sear lashed out and accidentally sent a ball of black fire flying towards the woods. On the moment of impact, a air-splitting crunch was heard before the tree shattered into hundreds of pieces and the nearby area started burning. Seeing this, he quickly began to run along the path, wanting to get away from the fire so that it wouldn¡¯t be linked to him. Not only would he be in trouble for burning it, but he would most likely be hanged for having the power to use black magic. Black magic was banned in all of Gruflumlor, the continent he lived in, as it was considered demonic magic, magic only used for evil and destruction. Sear knew that it was partially true, as it was all he ever used it for. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few hours later, Sear awoke to the sound of approaching hoof-steps. Realizing he had fallen asleep while walking, he quickly got up and dusted himself off. He watched as a fat, middle aged man came out of one of the lone carriage and began coming towards him. ¡°Good day lad. Do you require some assistance?¡± The man smiled and Sear could feel the greedy aura coming off of the man. He counted multiple gold rings on his fingers and figured that this man was most likely a slave trader, who was trying to lure him in. ¡°Ah yes, thank you for the help. Would you happen to know how far away we are from Lendmark currently?" Using his innocent voice, he waited to see if he managed to trick the slave trader. ¡°Why, we are but 6 hours away. If you prefer, I could let you ride in my carriage to get there. Here have some water, you seem a bit parched.¡± ¡°Why thank you sire, for your kindness. I¡¯ll happily make your death an easy one.¡± Sear smiled and stood up, grabbing the man by the neck, bloodlust radiating off of him. The man began to claw at Sear''s arms and fear could be seen in his eyes. He was like a bunny cornered by a pack of wolfs. ¡°Shhhh, its ok, this won¡¯t hurt.¡± Sear once again summoned his black magic, but instead of throwing it as a ball, he surrounded his hand in it and burned through the man¡¯s neck. Dropping the body, he looked over at it. ¡°Let¡¯s see here. What do I get for my troubles... 4 gold rings, 2 of which have magical gemstones on them? Seems I stumbled upon a nice prey today.¡± He continued to loot through the man''s supplies. On the cart he found a few handcuffs and slave shackles. Throwing them aside, he took some food and water from the carriage before letting the horse go. With that, Sear stood and continued to walk towards the city, leaving the man¡¯s body and his carriage in the middle of the path. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By the time dusk came, Sear could see the walls of Lendmark in the distance, only an hour or two away. ¡°What perfect timing, I¡¯ll be arriving right when the night comes.¡± Sear continued on until he was stopped at the walls by some guards. ¡°State your business in this city, young boy, and if we don''t accept your answer, we will have you executed on the spot.¡± Sear realized that the guard was talking to him, so he quickly made a believable excuse. ¡°Oh I¡¯m sorry that I look like this, my father had me go with a few people to a nearby village for him. He didn¡¯t want us to be attacked by bandits so he have me this clothing. I have gold rings to show that I am from the upper class.¡± The guards looked at the golden rings for a few seconds before speaking. ¡°Alright lad, pass on now, and don¡¯t cause any trouble for your father.¡± The guard let him pass and turned to the next person in line. Sear walked into the town and put on the gold rings, catching some eyes in the process. ¡°And now we wait,¡± he thought to himself. He continued on the main road until he found himself at an inn that didn¡¯t look like it had been destroyed and rebuilt from dirt multiple times. As he entered, he felt all the eyes land on him, or more specifically his gold rings. He knew that showing these off in the poor district was going to catch attention, but he hadn¡¯t realized how easy this would be for him. Smiling inwardly, he walked towards the innkeeper. ¡°I would like to rent a room for the night. How much is it?¡±The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°A room for a night would be 100 pots, little noble.¡± The innkeeper said the last word with so much hatred and emphasis that Sear was actually surprised. But instead of doing anything, he gave the man the 100 pots, which left him with only 150 left. ¡°Your room is up the stair and 3 doors to the right.¡± Sear collected the key and went to his room. He knew that he had been cheated, but he could honestly care less. He didn''t want to make a big deal out of it, so he left the man to his own accord. Laying down in the bed, he closed his eyes and began to wait for a special someone that would be arriving, looking for a young defenseless boy with multiple golden rings. People would sell information on easy targets for simple cash, so he knew it wouldn''t be long. A few hours later, Sear was awoken to the almost silent sound of someone picking the lock to his door. He was lucky that his magical aptitude had given him very good hearing and sight. He smiled, knowing that his dreams would come true in a matter of hours. After what seemed like an eternity, the door opened, allowing a shabby looking man to enter the room. The man was wearing worn cloth pants with leather gauntlets and a chain hauberk, which was rather weird considering he was a thief. Quickly closing his eyes, Sear let the man walk closer to him. Upon seeing Sear sleeping on the bed, the man took out his rusted iron dagger and slowly began to inch forward, wanting to cut Sear''s neck quickly and quietly. Upon hearing the man''s footsteps stop, Sear jumped out of the bed and kicked the dagger from the man¡¯s hand, breaking his wrist at the same time. The man quickly recovered with a quick yelp but before he could do anything Sear had already gotten behind him and held the dagger to his throat. ¡°Now, now, now. Who do we have here? Let me guess, someone from the Thieves Guild?¡± Sear lessened the grip on the man¡¯s throat but pinned him against the floor. ¡°How do you know that name? Only a few people outside of it know it exists.¡± The man was struggling to talk while losing breath, so Sear took his hands off the man''s back and placed the knife right where the man''s kidney would be. ¡°Tell me now, where are your headquarters? I know you guys are set up mainly in this city. If you don¡¯t answer, I¡¯ll begin to torture you, and trust me when I say this, nobody will come to save you.¡± Sear once again went back to his normal self, slowly releasing bloodlust into the air, causing the man to shiver. ¡°A¡­a¡­as if I...I would tell you. I would ra¡­rather die than tell you.¡± After responding, the man began to struggle against Sear. ¡°Very well.¡± Stomping his foot against the man''s head, he quickly grabbed the man''s hand before putting the dagger underneath his thumb nail and ripping it off. Before the man could scream, he grabbed the thief''s throat and began to squeeze. ¡°Now then, next time you don¡¯t answer I will take a finger off. Now tell me, Where. Are. Your. Headquarters?¡± Sear put the dagger against two more of the man¡¯s fingers, getting ready to slice through them. ¡°G¡­g¡­.go to the sewers to the N¡­north of the town. Once there, you¡­ you follow the sewers straight for around 5 minutes. Once you see a large center room, knock 3 times on the opposite wall from the entrance. That¡¯s all I can tell you, please don¡¯t hurt me anymore.¡± The man spoke quickly, knowing that he would be discarded from the Guild if he lost his fingers. A thieves most important tools are his fingers after all. Seeing the fear in the man¡¯s eyes, and happy with the knowledge he had gained, Sear moved away from the man. ¡°Go and run back to them now and tell them someone is coming for a visit in the morning. If you are lying, I will burn this entire town to the ground trying to find you.¡± Sear kicked him out of the room, closed the door, and fell back asleep. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The next morning, Sear got up, grabbed his rings and the rusty iron dagger, and made his way out of the inn. As he was making his way north, he realized he was being followed very carefully. Realizing that the Thieves'' Guild was smarter than it seemed be began to walk faster. He was not stopped during the walk and it only took him an hour to get to the sewers. As he entered the sewers he felt the stench of piss, shit, and beer surround him. He continued successfully walking until he accidentally walked into a nearly invisible string. The string was connected to a mechanism that shot a dart with what Sear presumed would have been coated with poison. It was a very close call, but Sear managed to lean back just enough that it passed right by his face. He smiled, realizing that he had almost died. He began to continue walking until he reached the center room. When he stepped in, he immediately wanted to run out. There was a smell so bad in the air that it stung to the very core of his being. He could feel the smell traveling through his body, being absorbed by all his pores. He covered his nose and continued to move on. Other than the smell, the center room was quite nice. It must have been at least 10 meters high, with wooden walkways connected to the walls with iron. He could imagine a Thieves Guild quite nicely setting up in a place like this. As he went to knock on the wall three times, 2 men walked into the room and greeted him. ¡°I guess you are the boy we were told about? You don¡¯t seem like much.¡± The taller man responded. Sear thought that the man looked more like an ogre then a thief, with all his brawn and large hands he didn¡¯t know how that man managed to steal anything. The other man on the other hand, looked just like what he expected a thief to look like. The man was of average height with a slim build. He could tell by the man¡¯s posture that the he was quite agile. ¡°Yes, I guess I am the man you have heard about. Are you here to show me in or are you here to kill me?¡± ¡°Hah, why would we kill someone who managed to find us? That seems like a waste of talent.¡± The man walked over to Sear and knocked on the wall once. An entrance was opened a few feet above the wall, and the man climbed up to enter, motioning for Sear to enter. Preparing to use his magic in case, he jumped upwards, right into the main room of the Guild. Chapter 2 - The Guild 2 This is chapter 2 of Searful. I tried to make a cool action scene in this, don''t know how good it was. Any criticism will be welcomed, for it will help me improve. Edited ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Upon entering, Sear found hundreds of eyes looking upon him. Many were just casually glancing at him while others had taken their daggers out to try and intimidate him. The two men who ushered him in began walking forward, cleaving a path through the group. He slowly began to follow behind until they eventually stood in front of what looked to be a stage. At the front, there was a man Sear expected to be the Guild Master. He was wearing a gold and blue overcoat and had finely-made, dark leather clothing. On his hip was a dagger with a gem encrusted hilt, most likely passed down from Master to Master. ¡°You are not quite what I expected young boy. I expected you to make more of an impression but you seem to be another poor peasant who managed to steal some gold rings. I doubt you will be of much use to us here. Do you have anything that can change my mind?¡± The man talked with such audacity and authority Sear almost threw up. But he knew that the man was most likely more powerful than anybody else here. "How about this, I will fight against one of your men. If I will, I''ll join. If I lose, you can have everything I own, which isn''t much to be honest." ¡°Oh really, then this should be interesting.Greb here will be your opponent.¡± He reached under his cloak andthrew two wooden daggers at the ground. Sear looked around and saw most of the men laughing and saying that he would be massacred in a matter of seconds. When he saw the man that was picking up the knife, he knew it would be a good fight. The same burly man that was at the entrance was the man chosen to fight him.Grabbing the dagger, Sear crouched down and prepared to begin. The leader began to count down until the fight began. ¡°Three, two, one, BEGIN!¡± The moment he said begin, Greb charged forward with speed that left Sear stunned. In less than a second, the man had traversed nearly 15 meters, cutting their distance by half. Sensing that he heavily underestimated this man, he changed his dagger to an underhand hold and also charged forward. In a matter of seconds, the two had come together and shared hundreds of strikes. Not one hit its target. They kept this up for nearly a minute, perfectly blocking each other and countering, before they both backed off. The men watching were left speechless as the two charged forwards once more.Sear could feel his stamina begin to dwindle, so he switched tactics. Instead of winning with stamina, he would win with precise and deadly strikes. He charged back at Greb, but right before he swung with his dagger, he swooped low and tried to kick his feet out from under him. Instead, Greb jumped over Searand prepared to land upon Sear. Sear rolled over, then lifted his leg upward so that his heel connected with the man¡¯s chin. He got back up and took a defensive pose, hoping to buy a few seconds to catch his breath back. His blow had caused Greb to stumble, but he had not fallen like he wished he would have. Once Sear regained his breath, he charged forward sending a flurry of attacks at him. Once again they went into a mad fight with each person perfectly countering the other. Sear went high, he went low, he even tried to go for the man¡¯s groin, but they were too evenly matched. After a few more strikes, the two collided daggers with such force that they broke into a mess of splinters. Instead of stopping, they both switched tofist fighting. Sear attempted to uppercut Greb, but he managed to move back and delivered a solid kick to Sear¡¯s chest. The blow sent him flying towards the wall. He crashed into the wall and dented it, leaving the shape of his body imprinted on it. He managed to get back up and once again took his stance, getting ready to continue. Hoping to use his small size to counter Greb''s strength, he moved forward. The two circled around each other for an eternity before Greb moved forward and landed a hook to Sear¡¯s face. Sear was knocked to the ground and when he tried to stand, he realized his legs were too wobbly.Greb took his opportunity to kick him in the stomach. Sear took the hit and moved over to the wall, gripping it so that he wouldn¡¯t fall. When he looked at the ground he managed to glimpse the light gleam of a dagger near him. Not wanting to attract to much attention, he slowly began to inch his way toward it. Once close enough, he bent down to pick it up.Upon seeing that, Greb took his own dagger out and ran at Sear. The two collided once again. The crowd watched in astonishment as the two danced their own Dance of Death. All that could be heard was the clang of steel meeting steel, the screech of their blades scraping past each other, the sound of their footsteps on the hard stone floor. They both managed to land their own share of hits, causing minor bleeding that would stop within a few minutes. By the time they once again pulled apart, Sear was bleeding for more spots than he could count. He decided to finish the fight, and charged straight at Greb¡¯s heart. Greb did the same and charged at Sear¡¯s heart, each hoping to kill the other first. They were merely inches away from each other, the blades about to pierce skin and slide through ending a life¡­ ¡°ENOUGH!¡± Surprised at the sudden scream, they both lost their grips on the daggers and collided into each other. When he looked up, he sawthe leader looking at both of them. ¡°Don¡¯t try to kill each other for god¡¯s sake! Do you know how hard it would be to take bodies out of this sewer without being spotted? You two, come with me, the rest of you can continue what you were doing.¡± He picked up both of the knives and began to walk. As he was walking, he began to talk. ¡°I will admit, you surprised me. You were perfectly matched with Greb, and he is one of the best men in this guild. Well, before we do anything else, I guess I should introduce myself, my name is Limbo, better known as The Serpent of The Deep. What is your name?¡± ¡°My name is Sear. And no, I wasn¡¯t perfectly matched with Greb, he heavily beat me. While he only has a few minor scratches and bruising, I have many deep cuts and tomorrow I will most likely have trouble moving because of all the pain.¡± ¡°Hmmm, Sear, quite the strange name. Well, welcome to the Thieves Guild. I have a few questions for you before you can truely join, but for nowI will send you and Greb to the healers and then he will escort you to my office. Go on now.¡± He turned past a corner and continued to walk. I realized that instead of the stone and wood area we were in before, these hallways seemed to be made of a much darker stone, maybe basalt. There were metal hinges connected to the wall that were holding torches, and there were guards patrollingevery 50 or so feet. Sear realized that the guild was much more than he had expected. ¡°This will be very fun,¡± he thought to himself. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. ¡°So Sear, you gave me more of a beating than I was expecting. I won¡¯t be underestimating you from now on, that¡¯s for sure.¡± Greb didn¡¯t look back as he continued to walk and talk. ¡°I could say the same for you. I didn¡¯t think you would be that much of a challenge. I guess I still have much more to learn. But I wish he didn¡¯t stop us, I would have loved to see how it would have gone on.¡± Once again Sear took on his look of bloodlust. He almost lost control of himself and began to attack Greb once more because of it. The two continued to walk on before entering into a large room.¡°Well here we are. These guys know healing magic so it will just be a while. The showers are to the left. Once they heal you go clean yourself. You smell like a cowpie. I¡¯ll leave clothing for you.¡± Without saying anything, one of the people Sear presumed was the healer mage came up to him and began to put his hand over all of his cuts. He could feel the magic flowing through him and healing him. He hated the feeling of any magic other than his own flowing through him, but he endured it for now. After being healed, he went into the showers and got a good look at himself. His long black hair was patted down bybrown mud and his face looked as if someone poured ink onto it. The only thing that looked the same was his blue eyes. He was amazed at how much depth they held, as if he had all the wisdom in the world. He laughed at that thought and cleansed himself from all this dirt and grime that had built up from a week of travel. Once he was done, he went back to the mirror to see if he had any marks left on him. Sear looked at his body, he was of average heightand had a slim yet muscular build. He looked like a good thief. He found the clothes that Greb had left for him and looked at it. He had black pants made of some kind of thin leather. They tightened around the ankles and the waist so that nothing could get into them. He got a grey undershirt that had an emblem of a skull over a burning log.His main shirt was made from a tougher hide, yet still left him with perfect mobility. He looked at the shoes he was given, they were nothing special. Normal black shoes with an extra thick sole to absorb his weight and muffle his footsteps. His gloves were cut at the finger, and had a hardened palm, used for grabbing the blade of a weapon. He grabbed the brown cloak and draped it over his shoulder, set to go talk to Limbo. He walked out of the shower looking like a completely different person. For once in his life, he felt proud of himself, proud for accomplishing something he had wanted to accomplish for a long time. Now that he looked like himself again, he walked out to the room and greeted Greb. ¡°I could hardly tell it was you, you aren¡¯t caked with dirt anymore. Well follow me, now it¡¯s your turn to meet Limbo.¡± Sear was once again following someone in this maze that they called a guild home. A few minutes of going god knows where, Greb walked up to a door ornate with gold and silver carvings andknocked on it. ¡°Limbo, the kid is here.¡± The door opened and Sear was shoved inside. He turned around to see Greb close the door and walk away. "Well, you look like a brand new person now that you are clean. Now then, let¡¯s get to talking about everything you need to know. Firstly, this isn¡¯t just a thieving guild. We also get assassination requests from time to time that we accomplish, for a price of course. Our base has tailors, foragers, blacksmiths, locksmiths, healers, chemists, and mages.¡± ¡°The tailors can repair and create new clothing for you. You can pay with all the money you get. The foragers are the people who teach you how to survive in the wild without food. They will teach you to travel by yourself without needing to bring any provisions.¡± ¡°The blacksmiths create new weapons for you. The locksmiths create locks and safes for you to bring down to vault in case you want to store something. Luckily for you, you won¡¯t be needing that, I¡¯ll explain later. The healers can heal you, as you just saw. The chemists create poisons and other things that may be useful, such as liquids that create smokescreens. And the mages sell you scrolls or for a higher price they can teach you magic.¡± ¡°Now, if you want to sell anything you get, just go to the furthermost right door in the main room. In there will be black market traders who appraise and buy anything you steal. Now on to the guild ranks. There are 5 in total. From highest to lowest is Pawn, John, Commendern, Majicor, and Chief. I am the sole chief.¡± "Before I go on, I have a few questions for you. If i disagree with any of your answers, or feel as if they might get in the way, I''ll kill you." he asked a few simple questions about Sear''s parents and life before he went back to speaking. ¡°You will be given the rank of Commendern, which you should be happy about. It takes most men about 4 or 5 years to get there and you start out there. Now about what I was talking about your safes and locks. As soon as you become a Commendern, you are immediately given your own store room. Yours is 5 by 5 meters and has a few crates and shelfs in it for you to store things.¡± ¡°A Majicor has a 10x10 room to store things in, and mine is a 50x50 room which I almost never use. Quite ironic isn¡¯t it. If you want to know where your store room is, ask someone where the safes are and you will find out.¡± ¡°Greb over there is a Majicor. If you want to become one, you have to steal a certain amount of value or get trusted enough within this guild. Here are2000 pots. Go buy yourself some weapons and poisons at the front. Have a good time, and steal a lot of things. Here is a map of the base by the way.¡± With that, Sear left the ¡°office¡± and began to walk towards the blacksmith. On the way there, he passed many of the other stores, and slowly built a map in his mind of the base. After a while of walking, he finally found the front room. He decided to go to the vendors and sell the rings he got. When he walked in, he was surprised to find a large room with about 20 different counters. Each counter had a different appraiser for different items behind it. He located the ring appraiser and came up to him. ¡°Excuse me, I would like to sell these 4 rings.¡± He handed the rings over. The appraiser was an older man with a monocle on his left eye. ¡°Well let¡¯s see here, 4 gold rings 2 of which have gems. The two gem less rings have a combined value of 550 pots. The gold ring with the blue gem is worth 400 alone. The ring with the red gem is quite special actually. It¡¯s magically enchanted to give you more stamina. Are you sure you want to sell it?¡± "Stamina huh, I''ll keep the stamina ring and sell the other two." He took the ring and put it on hismiddle finger. The vendor handed him 950 pots and now he was up to a total of 3100 pots. He walked over to the blacksmith and began to inspect the weapons. The best he could buy was a plain iron dagger that came with a whetstone. He gave up the 3000 pots and left with a new dagger and a whetstone. Back at the main room, he sat down and began to sharpen it. He realized that many of the people in there were looking at him. Seems that the story of his fight had spread quickly. After sharpening the blade, he pocketed the whetstone and left the base. This would be his first time stealing in a major city, and he was ready. Chapter 3 - The Guild 3 Chapter 3- Hope you guys enjoy! Edited ------------------------------------------- As he left the sewers, he was greeted by the lightless night of a new moon. Putting on the hood of hos cloak, he began to walk along the city, trying to find something to steal. After a few minutes, he found an open window of an inn connected to a dark alleyway. It looked as if he would be able to climb up onto it due to the already made footholds, well holes actually. Determined to begin the pillaging, he crept into the alley and began sliding his hands across the wall, making sure to grip tightly against the holds. After a few minutes he found the perfect sized hole. ¡°Perfect.¡± He moved away from the wall to get a running start. He ran up to the wall, put his foot in the hole, and pushed himself upward. He just barely managed to grab the ledge of the window. When he pulled himself up, he found a man sleeping in a bed. He was snorig and seemed to be sound asleep. He looked to be either a mercenary or adventurer from all the scars on his face. Sear crept in and begin to open the closet. He found a coin purse in it which contained 330 pots. He decided to take the pots but left the purse. He looked under the bed to see if the man had left anything there, and he found a jackpot. He found a steel sword in a hide sheath. He unsheathed the sword and looked at the light reflecting off of it. He knew it was of high quality due to the shine and ring of the blade as he swung it around. He tried the edge against his nail and found that it was very sharp. He looked around the room but found nothing else. Happy with what he got, he climbed onto the window ledge and jumped down. He hid the sword with its scabbard in his cloak and continued down the path. After a few minutes of walking, he realized he was being followed. He walked into an alleyway when he got ambushed. ¡°Give us everything you got if you don¡¯t wanna get hurt you scum!¡± The man pointing the copper blade at him looked very raggedy, and Sear could tell that this man was not anything to fear. He looked around and found that the other 2 men surrounding him were much the same, except they didn¡¯t have blades. Not wanting to waste time, he unsheathed both the dagger and the steel sword, and went to work. A few minutes later, he walked out of the alley with 20 more pots and a very bad copper sword he could sell. ¡°That¡¯s about enough for one night I guess.¡± He walked back into the sewers in the black of night and went back into the base. Once there, he sold the copper sword for a meager 30 pots and decided to go see what his store room looked like. Upon reaching his room, he took out the steel sword and decided to go to work. He knew that very few people would be down here at this time so it was time for him to go to work. The first thing he did was cut his finger with the broadsword and let a few drops of blood fall onto it. Next, he began the incantations. "Ilgor herectuim, zectur juhfil dudlifim helgore!¡± The sword shined with a dark light, as just above the handle guard a small rune was carved into the blade with his blood. He had just successfully enchanted the sword to be a sword of darkness. Anytime the sword cut into another living thing, it would slowly lose its vision until they could see but a small line of light in the center. He still wasn¡¯t very powerful, so the effect would only last for 30 seconds, but it would still prove useful in battle. He hid the sword in one of the crates and took out his dagger. He did the same time but this time he enchanted it to make the opponent nauseas. He knew that an enchantment like this would be very good to have in case he was ever spotted. Happy with what he did, he put away 300 pots to keep in save for later use. He left once again and made his way over to the training room. When he entered, he saw it was a large room with weapon racks on some walls, targets on other walls, and fighting rings carved into the ground. He went over to pick up one of the short swords and decided to practice with it, as it had been a long time since he used one. He went over to the dummy and began to slice away at it, tearing bits of the material off. After a few hits, he managed the cut through the neck and decapitated it. He put away the short sword and moved over to the targets. He grabbed his newly enchanted dagger and balanced it on his fingers, trying to find the point of balance. Once he found it, he gripped it and threw it straight into the bullseye. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. By now people were once again watching him, as very few people could fight as he could and none were near his age. He decided that repeatedly hitting the target wouldn¡¯t do anything so he walked up to one of the better men training. "Would you like to spar with me?¡± Sear took on his innocent look once again to try to convince the man. ¡°Sparring with you, hah what a joke. I¡¯ll go easy on you I guess.¡± He picked up two wooden broadswords and threw one at Sear. Catching it st the very tip, he turned around. They both moved to the ring and positioned themselves, getting ready to fight. ¡°Three, two, one, BEGIN!¡± Once again there was someone there to start the fight. At the start, Sear dashed forward and attempted to jab his opponent in the chest. His opponent managed to parry him and almost landed a hit onto his neck. He took his stance once more, and charged back in. He tried cutting diagonally across the man¡¯s chest, and he managed to land a hit. Too bad it did almost nothing as only the tip touched the man¡¯s armor. He decided to continue in his barrage, sending wild strikes anywhere he could. He managed to get a hit few hits and the man began to back up. Realizing he had gotten the man near the edge, he jabbed the man, sending the tip of the sword into the man¡¯s chest. The man almost fell out put managed to pull himself up by grabbing onto Sear at the last second. The man began to move his sword in an 8, getting ready to create a boundary between the two. He slowly crawled forward towards Sear and then lashed out with his sword. The blow came so fast and quick that Sear was unable to block it, and he got hit near the elbow, making it hard for him to bend it properly. The man¡¯s blow came so fast that it looked as if the man had simply flicked his arm towards Sear and the next thing he knew he had gotten hit. Now aware of the man''s attack, Sear took an offensive position and began to move towards the man, throwing random swipes every now and then. The man blocked each with such ease that he began to get angry. His thoughts turned irrationally and Sear began to go wild on the man. He attacked with such random and uncoordinated attacks that he actually managed to get past the man¡¯s defense. In the end, that did nothing for when he passed the man¡¯s defense, he got knocked straight into the floor by a hit to the side of his neck. He could feel his entire brain being shaken by the blow. The man put the sword to Sear¡¯s neck, and he was the decided winner. ¡°You¡¯re nothing than a faker. You have no skill in the art of sword handling.¡± With that the man walked away leaving Sear on the ground. He got up, angry with himself for being so bad, for losing to another man. He left the room and took another look at his map, trying to find his sleeping quarters. He laid down and decided to sleep the anger away. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sear got up feeling relieved the next morning. When he stood, he felt his entire body shake from the beating he had received yesterday from the two fights. He went over to the blacksmith and with the money he had left, bought a badly made wooden short bow and 6 copper arrows. He decided that thieving during the day would only get him into trouble, so he decided to go out into the forest east of the city to go hunting. He remembered all the training he had with a bow. Since both of his parents had died when he was young and most of the village hated him, he was left to make money by himself, so he hunted and sold most of the game he caught, while learning to thieve when he could. He also decided that it would be a good idea to go explore the city and find the nobles area, so that he could steal from some of the higher ups. He took a look at the huge stone wall in front of him, the wall that separated the city from the outside lands. Once again the guards stopped him and he had to explain what he was doing. Once outside the city, he walked in the direction of the forest. On the way there, he spotted a lone wolf walking through the plains. He nocked an arrow in his bow and took a shot. The arrow landed a bit left of the wolf¡¯s ear, just barely grazing the wolf¡¯s neck. That was already enough to get its attention, so he nocked another arrow and took his second shot, which connected with one of the wolf¡¯s hind legs. He took out his dagger and when the wolf pounced on him, drove it into its heart, killing it on the spot. He took the dead carcass with him and continued hunting until the later noon. Once back in the city, he sold all the pelt and meat he had gotten, earning him 570 pots. He decided that now would be a good time to explore the city. He went back to the sewer entrance and decided to go west along the wall. He found all sorts of shops in the streets. People were selling hides, clothing, tools, weapons, armor, some priests were even selling their services. He passed what he assumed were the slums, and moved his way to the middle class area. Here he found better shops including glassmakers and carpenters. He spotted a few shops that seemed easy to steal from and that seemed to be of worth. He continued on walking for another while, but by the time it got dark, he had gone around half of the wall and still not found the noble district. He walked into the nearest alley and covered himself with his cloak, waiting for it to get darker so that he could go into a shop. He waited for a few hours, taking the time to just mess around with the magical energy around him. He was slowly learning how to use it for more than just dark magic, as he managed to heat up and cool the air around him however necessary. Once it became darker, Sear walked out of the alley and put on his cloak, eyeing any of the surrounding shops. He climbed onto the roof of one and looked around. After a while, he found what he was looking for, a chimney that connected to a small blacksmith. He ran from roof to roof, looking out to make sure that very few people saw him. To make him even less visible, he crouched at whenever he was near the street. After nearly falling about 7 or 8 times, he finally made it to the chimney. It was old and the brick had turned grey from all the weather it endured. He climbed onto it and looked down, seeing if he had enough space to get to the bottom. Deciding that he did, he climbed down to go see what he could find. Chapter 4 Chapter 4 of my book. This chapter has once again more fighting in it. The beginning isn''t what i wanted it to be, but the ending is worth it, for me at least. Enjoy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 4-Eldor When he got into the shop, he realized he had landed into a pile of burnt coal. ¡°Goddamn it.¡± He slipped and collided face first with the ground. He began bleeding from his nose. When he got up, he looked around to make sure there was no one in the room. It was almost pitch black, but luckily Sear could still see because of his ¡°connection¡± with dark magic. He walked over near a bin and peered into it. Inside, all he saw were clumps of iron and some larger clumps of copper. Leaving it aside, he continued looking around. All over the wall were racks with tools, but no weapons. Deciding that there was nothing in this room, he moved into the main room. There he found what he was looking for. Inside of a small glass display, sat all sorts of weapons. He saw throwing axes, a few longswords, daggers, war hammers, even a damned great sword. It looked like it required a beast of a man to handle it. When he went up to it, he realized it was locked. He had completely forgotten that he needed to get new lock picks. Instead of waiting around, he did something really dumb. Sear smashed the glass. He dove into the mess and picked up all of the higher quality daggers, along with a few other weapons. He hid it all in his cloak and ran back into the other room, going straight for the chimney. Behind him, he heard someone going down the steps and he thought he heard a sword coming out of a scabbard. He propelled himself upward out of the house and began running for dear life. He knew that in less than a minute, the entire city guard would be there to hunt him down. He ran faster than he thought he could, and after what seemed like an eternity, he stopper and turned around. It seemed like he had gone towards the base. Instead of going into the sewers though, he decided to go into an inn. ¡°Excuse me, how much is a room for the night?¡± Sear was impatient, knowing that at any moment the guards could burst in. ¡°A room is 20 a night lad.¡± Sear felt like killing the man right then and there. 20 pots! That was double the price of the last in. Instead though, he paid and ran to his room. Once there, he took count of everything he had taken. He had 4 iron daggers, a copper broad sword, and a bronze throwing axe with him. He reckoned he could get at least 400 pots for all this. He fell asleep and that night he was troubled. All throughout the night he kept waking with an image of a man in his mind. The man had shoulder length black hair, a lumberjack beard, multiple scars, and most surprisingly, his pupils were blood red. Even though it was only a memory, or an imagination, he was scared by it. Throughout the rest of the night he couldn¡¯t sleep, for the man would not leave his head. Once morning came, Sear made his way out and went back to the guild base. He sold everything he got except for 1 dagger and got 465 pots from it. While strolling around the halls, a shorter man with chain armor and a long sword came up to him. ¡°Limbo is asking for your presence immediately.¡± The man stood and left, not even looking to see whether Sear payed attention or not. He realized that this was most likely quite important, so he ran the way to the office. Once there, he knocked on the door like Greb had done. A faint ¡°Come in,¡± came from inside. Once inside, he saw Limbo holding a piece of paper next to a picture and a map. ¡°I have a job for you, to test your skills. We just got an assassination request for Gef N¡¯Eldor, one of the nobles that commands the court in the palace. You have to kill him in the next 4 days. The reward for completing this is 10,000 pots. Will you do it?¡± Sear knew he had heard the name before, but he didn¡¯t know where. But then it hit him like a cannon. Gef N¡¯Eldor, the man who ¡°controlled¡± the village he grew up in. He was the reason for all the pain that Sear had felt during his life. A few years back, the man had come to the village when Sear was only 1 and pronounced him as the destroyer of the village. Since then everybody either shunned him or outright hated him, for they all feared Gef. ¡°I accept. He will be dead tonight.¡± Sear got up and left the room with determination in his eyes. He knew exactly where to find Eldor, the noble brothel. He felt the two daggers in his hand, and knew that tonight both of them would shower the city with blood. He hastily left and began walking towards the center of the city. He knew that the brothel had to be somewhere around there. In this part of the city, everything was much more spaced out. In between each shop was space for another 2 or 3. There were trees, grass, small ponds, and luxurious houses everywhere. He knew that most of the people here had gotten this fortune by scamming others. It angered him to see how easily they got to such high status while people how actually worked always struggled and were laughed at for it. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. After a few more hours of looking around, he finally located it. It was a large stone building with very few windows. There were guards surrounding it, so he knew that many nobles were most likely currently inside. He would wait for the perfect time to strike. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ¡°C¡¯mere you swine!¡± Sear heard the crack of a whip and the wimping of a girl. When he looked, he saw a girl, no older than 15, being attacked to a chain. It was already dark, so he knew that it was getting to be time for him to act. ¡°This girl here only cost me 5,000 pots! She even still has her chastity!¡± He heard a man say. Apparently, a nobleman was bragging about it to the other nobles. He could hear the whip again as the girl was hit again. The nobleman stepped out of the shadows and Sear lost control of himself. The man standing in front of his was none other than Gef. He was a fat, horrid man that smelled of rotten eggs. He had a double chin for his double chin, and there were rumors that he needed a 2 horse platform to be able to ride. He gripped his daggers and began to move forwards, toward Gef, towards the group of nobles, towards the pack of over 60 soldiers and guards. ¡°You there! Stop where you are or you will be executed!¡± He looked over to see a guard pointing a lance at him and beconing him to back off. Instead, Sear ran forward, slashing the man¡¯s throat as if it were melting butter. Blood gushed from the wound in all directions. Most of it was sprayed 15 feet to the side, towards the pack of nobles. When he looked over, he saw them all staring wide eyed and with horror at what had just happened. Not only that, but they had also been covered with blood, causing one to collapse and start screaming. Instantly, Sear was surrounded by men moving closer and closer. He couldn¡¯t see because of the hood so he took it off. ¡°YOU! Its you!¡± He looked over to see Eldor looking and pointing at him. ¡°I told them that you were going to be a bad person! Guards, kill him!¡± The men all charged in, closer and closer to him. At the last second, Sear jumped upwards and landed on a man¡¯s shoulders. He drove the blades downwards, cutting into the man¡¯s shoulder blades and eventually cutting his arms right off. The man screamed and ran as blood poured from his body. Once again, Sear turned into a bloodthirsty animal who¡¯s only goal was to kill and devour. Sear went on a rampage, slicing through men and armor like nothing. He ripped their eyes out, split their head right down the center, decapitated them and threw their heads at other soldiers. He did everything he could to kill as many of them as possible. He hadn¡¯t been hit once yet in his attacks. Men were starting to back off, seeing that it would be almost impossible to kill this living demon. Sensing his opportunity, Sear ran at the nobles who were too stunned to move. When he got close, the jabbed his daggers into the man¡¯s gut. The man doubled over, but before he collapsed, he pulled his daggers out once more, bring the man¡¯s whole intestine with him. Men threw up at the sight of a man¡¯s whole digestive system being pulled out of their own body. As he went to each noble, he began to do more and more gruesome things. For one, he ripped their eyes out then stuffed them in their mouth before cutting his throat. For another he started cutting from the hands of his left arm and continued the slash until the man¡¯s right hand, cutting a meter long slash along the man. After a while, all that was left were soldiers who were too scared to do anything, Gef, and the girl. Now would be the part he would savor the most. He slowly began to walk towards Gef. ¡®No! No! NO! Get away from me you madman!¡± He tried to stand and run, but he slipped on the blood and collapsed once more. By now, Sear was right above him. He loved seeing the fear in the man¡¯s eyes. The fear that made a man regret everything he had ever done in his life. Fear so strong it would affect him even if he lived. He slowly bent over, getting closer and closer to the man. Once he was close enough, he cut the dagger up to the noble¡¯s mouth. ¡°This is the end for you. Your time on this planet is over, as it was for the rest of the men foolish enough to follow you. You die now.¡± His voice was much, much deeper and sounded raspy. He sounded as if he hadn¡¯t drank in years. In one final attempt to protect himself, the man tried to punch Sear, and only ended up with a dagger plunged in his hand. ¡°AAHHHHHH!¡± You could have heard the scream from miles away. It was the type of blood curling scream that gave you goosebumps. To eager was Sear, when he plunged the dagger into the man¡¯s neck. He saw the life leave his eyes. After a while, he had calmed down. He looked around and saw everything he had done. There were dismembered body parts everywhere. There was enough blood to flood a town. He looked down at the girl and saw her terrified look. He unlocked her shackles and began to run away. He knew that if he got into another fight like that and lost control again, he would end up turning the city into ruins. Chapter 5 This chapter is REALLY SHORT. Tuesday morning/afternoon i will upload a much longer chapter. I made this one short because it will change the course of the book. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 5-Growth Sear ran and ran, never looking back. Once he got stopped by a guard because of all the blood coating him but just slashed the man¡¯s throat and continued. He could hear the ruckus all around the city. The city was thrown upside down by the dead of over 5 nobles, each of which was one of the most influential. Lights were turning on behind him as more and more people heard the news. It had probably already spread back to the guild hall. Sear continued on, trying to race his way back to the base without getting caught. He ran across the entire city without stop until he found what he was looking for. A hole dug near a bridge that led all the way to the base. He scurried down the hole and ran like a dog on all fours. He continued running in the pitch black until his face collided with a wall. With a grunt, he tapped the wall 3 times and the entrance was open, leading Sear straight into the main hall. Immediately Limbo ran over. ¡°What in the utter hell have you done!? I asked you to assassinate Eldor but you ended up killing an army along with 7 nobles! Do you know what you just did?¡± Sear could visibly see the rage coming off of him. ¡°I was surrounded and lost control. There were too many for me to be able to kill him silently. I got bloodthirsty and decided to kill them all.¡± Sear was angry at himself for letting it happen. ¡°And I don¡¯t see the bad thing about me killing them all. The less nobles, the easily it will be for you.¡± ¡°The problem is that the man who was paying us was one of the man you assassinated! You imbecile! I¡¯ll give you by midnight. If you¡¯re not gone from this city by then I¡¯ll hunt you down myself.¡± Limbo turned and left, leaving a stunned Sear standing there. Sear felt himself get angry, and he wanted to unleash his anger. Instead, he shut it away and left the main room, braking some of the things in the way. He made his way straight to the showers, where he cleaned himself and his clothes, before he made his way back down to the store room. There, he took out all the pots he had made and the silver sword. He shoved the sword into the cloak to hide it from prying eyes. Once again, he was being shunned from the place he had made his home. First it was him being shunned from his home village when he turned sixteen, it was the reason he was in the place he even was. He turned and lunched the wall, leaving a dent in the stone wall. His dark powers could make him many times stronger than any normal human, so that hit felt like nothing. Sear left the base and was once again in the sewers. The stinky, mud covered green bricks that the entire sewer was made of. He ran down the side and instead of continuing the same way, he took a turn and decided to go out from the part that connected to the river near the cities wall. He would take that river and make his way to wherever it led. He waked down the hallway, taking time to think about everything that has happened to him in the past few years. He was hated by everyone he knew, he was kicked out of his home town, he found a job in the Thieves¡¯ guild, and then a few days later got kicked from it. He continued to walk until he heard a gushing sound to his right. He realized that he had reached the river connection. He jumped into the water and began to swim forward, using bubbles to find his way upwards. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. He nearly drowned in the water. He was sucked back downwards by the current and slammed his head against the dense rock, making him lose most of his breath. Thankfully, he managed to float upwards and catch a breath of frigid air. He pulled himself out of the river and took a look around. He was in a plains area and could see the city wall raising almost 3 kilometers away at most. He looked up to see the moon. The full moon¡¯s brightness stirred something inside him, and he felt his want for power to increase. He suddenly knew what he had to do. He had to submit himself. He began to sprint, all the meanwhile chanting different dark powers that would make him stronger, faster, and have more stamina. He was about to become an army of a man. He continued running for days on end, only stopping for short rests or to eat some game that he had hunted. By the third day, he could feel his power increasing because of the constant use, and he was running at a much greater speed. Without him noticing, his piercing blue eyes began to take a faint red tint. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Days of travel had passed, and Sear could heavily feel the effects of using his magic so much. His entire body was sore. From the skin under his toenails, to the very nerve that interlocked his brain. All he felt was a mass of pain. It was as if someone was burning every part of his body at the same time. He looked around him, and realized that had been running towards The Zone. It was the only place unexplored by humans, for there were rumors of giants, dark wielding humans, and it was also the home of the half human races. The races that mutated and made a home there. He thought it would be the best place for him to go, as he was like them, an outcast. He looked onwards and decided that he should learn to protect himself better before going there. Though he felt as if he might die if he used any more magic, Sear sent tendrils of dark magic into the air and had it go towards the corpse of the animal he had just hunted. The tendrils wove themselves into the animal¡¯s body and suddenly the small fox opened it eyes and lifted its head. Its eyes were a glossy white that held no pupil. The raised fox tried to stand but collapsed back into the ground, lifeless. ¡°Hmmm, this is harder than expected.¡± Sear had expected for him to be able to raise such a small animal with ease, but it seems like he didn¡¯t send enough dark energy at it. This time, he concentrated harder, and before sending the tendrils of energy at the fox, wove them around his body as they gathered power. When he reached his limit, he sent all of the energy at the fox. It jerked awake and jumped up, lifting itself off the floor. Its eyes now had black lines flowing through it, and its red, orangey pelt had turned gray. All of its wounds instantly healed into scars and stood attentively, waiting for its orders. Sear had done what he wanted, he had learn the skills needed to be a necromancer. While it was only a small animal, he was proud of what he did and began to casually walk towards the mountains, knowing that he would need time to gather a bit more strength before he walked in there. CHapter 6 This chapter had a bit more action, and begins the second part of the book. This will be the main topic for the rest of the first book, so if I decide to change it, it will not be far into the future. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [th_0tive.gif] This goes here cause yeah. Chapter 6-Expansion A month had passed since Sear had first raised a dead fox. He had spent entire days and nights expending his energy and getting stronger. He looked around and looked at all the corpses around him. He had wolfs, hawks, foxes, tigers, anything that could die he had with him. Every morning when he stood he would awaken them for the whole day to see if he could handle their numbers, but at the stage he was at, raising them was as simple as raising his hand. He could summon hundreds of thick, dense tendrils of light that could either enter the corpses, or could be used as some type of weapon. He could use it like a tentacle, just letting it flop around with momentum. He could thicken it with more energy and make it hard and sharp, using it to slice things. He could make it dense and add a large mass of energy at the end, propelling a ball of black power as if shot from a slingshot. By now he could notice many changes through his body. His hair seemed brighter, he felt lighter, and he also had dark runes carved into his very arms from the constant exposure to the magic. He left the corpses behind and decided that it was time for him to begin making his way to the mountains. He knew that he still had at least 100 kilometers to travel before he reached the wasteland surrounding the mountain. After that it was most likely another 50 to get to the beginning of the ridge. After all this time, Sear finally used his dark energy to increase his speed, stamina and strength. He hadn¡¯t used it at all this past month, wanting to be able to see a difference. Once he was done summoning the magic, his body convulsed and he fell to the ground. He had so much power! It was hard to control himself at that point. Sear picked himself back up and began to run, trying to see how much he had improved. Instantly he felt a difference. He was basically flying compared to his old speed. He was jumping over trees, crushing rocks in half, and running faster than he ever thought was possible. He continued running till dawn, trying to use his new found power to the most. He felt the mountains coming closer, and for the first time, felt power. He felt as if he could take on the whole world with ease. Now he could sense the power that lay near the mountains. They seemed to spew out energy like a volcano. He thought back at how simple it was for him to reach this point. In only a month he had gone from not being to correctly summoning a simple fox to being able to command an army, but that wasn¡¯t what he was after. Being a necromancer just seemed like a waste of power. He continued on until he found that the grassland was slowly turning into a cliff dotted valley. Anyway he looked, he would see cliffs that stretched upwards for hundreds of feet. He took a step towards the ravine and looked town, to find that the bottom was pitch black. It would be impossible to get down and back up. He looked around and realized that there wasn¡¯t a connection anywhere. And being the reckless idiot he was, he decided to do the stupidest thing he could think of. ¡°Get to the top of a cliff, run, and jump to the other side. Sounds simple enough.¡± He was serious with doing that and he began to look around for a cliff to climb. He spotted the highest cliff and began to run towards it, almost falling off the edge while doing so. His foot slid while he was running due to all the broken up gravel around the edge. He continued to run until he reached the cliff¡¯s face. He looked up and realized it would still be hard to climb this. Determined, he grasped onto a small hole in the wall and began to pull himself up foot by foot. You could see his back muscles bulging as he pulled with all his strength. If it wasn¡¯t for the effects the dark powers gave him, he would have fallen long ago. Hell, he would have been dead years ago. He couldn¡¯t survive in this world without his powers. He was just glad he hadn¡¯t ran into any other magicians in the city. It seemed that this country had very few people who had magical powers, and those who did kept it secret in case they were taken and exploited. After a while, he had finally managed to climb to the top and got a good view of the surrounding area. He took in the sight while resting for a few minutes. He could see the sunset in the distance, the tall, looming mountains waiting for him, all the small animals and birds moving around in their own world, the view of the area from atop this cliff. The area around him looked like a place someone like him would love to live in, a perfect place in solitude, away from everyone else. Once he had regained his strength, he used his magic once again, and prepared to take a leap of faith. Due to his powers, he jumped tens of feet into the air and he almost felt as if he was flying. He was already half way across when he began his decent. It started slowly at first, but picked up speed extremely quickly. He realized he wouldn¡¯t make it. He would be close, but he would most likely slam into the wall of the crevice about 15 meters from the top. He tried his best to keep himself moving, but he continued to fall like a brick. He braced himself for the impact he was about to receive. He slammed into the wall of the ravine with enough force that the area around him cracked. Instead of grabbing on like he wanted too, all the broken stones around him caused him to bounce away from the wall. He looked in fear as he began to fall down into the ravine. He turned around to look into the pits of black below him. He could no longer see the sky, and he realized it was getting hotter. ¡°Where am I going?¡± He couldn¡¯t think of anywhere where a man could fall for minutes without hitting anything. As a turn of ¡°luck¡±, he saw something. There was a large red spike poking out of the darkness. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. He tried to aim himself that way, but managed to only get further away. And then he saw what was beneath him. There was a blood red river flowing in a mountainous area. The ground was made of rocks the shades of red, orange, yellow, purple, and some dark blues. He was falling straight into the river. He slammed into it, and he realized that it was not a river made of water, but a river made of a much harder substance, for he felt like he had fallen against metal. All breath was sucked from his lungs as he descended downwards. He closed his eyes, and blacked out. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When he awoke, Sear could not see. He kept his eyes closed and realized he was still alive. He could feel the blood flowing through his body, his ragged breaths, and could hear people talking around him. ¡°What should we do with his sire?¡± He heard an almost deathly raspy voice speak to someone else. ¡°Leave him here. If he awakes call me. If he tries to escape, kill him on the spot.¡± Instead of a voice like the last, this man¡¯s voice showed power, and something else that Sear couldn¡¯t detect. This man¡¯s voice sounded very human like, and was deep, even though it sounded as if it was home to an old man. He kept his eyes closed and tried to use his magic to figure out where he was. During the past month, he had learned how to use to magic to create a ¡°picture¡± in his head of the surroundings. What he received was not what he expected. Instead of an image of his surrounding area, he felt pain like he had never before. He felt himself being thrown at a wall, and when he collided, he was forced to open his eyes to see. He saw a short man with long brown hair. He was pretty sure it was the raspy voice he had heard. For some reason he connected the man¡¯s bad posture to his voice. The other man looked extremely angry. It was a taller man, with slick white hair, dark eyes, and a long dark robe that covered him from neck to toe. ¡°You think you can fool me? I could sense your magic from miles away. Though it¡¯s not every day that I find another dark user.¡± Sear opened his eyes at, another dark user. ¡°You can also use dark magic?¡± Sear tried to sound courageous, but his messed up throat disobeyed him and instead he said it while wheezing. ¡°Not only can I use it, but I am quite proficient at it. Now I ask, why are you here? I might kill you if I don¡¯t trust you.¡± Sear felt as if the man was staring into his very soul. It was like being a mouse surrounded by hundreds of cats. There was no place to escape. ¡°I was making my way to the mountains, but I fell into this damned ravine.¡± The man, or actually mage Sear realized, laughed at Sear remark. ¡°Sounds about what I expected. You seem like the type that would try to reach the mountains. Now if you want to live, you will have to do something.¡± Sear felt a pair of magical hands grab hold of his neck and pick him off the ground, throwing him towards a circular indentation at the ground. Sear saw that he had fallen into a sizeable pit. ¡°If you want to live, fight these and win.¡± The man pulled a lever, opening a large cage door behind Sear. When he turned, he saw a huge 3 large things. Monstrosities. That¡¯s what they were. They were like wolf except bigger and each had 3 heads. They were like the hydra relatives of wolves. Sear put his hand by his back and tried to search for his blade. He found nothing. Upon looking up, he could see the man smiling, while holding his weapons. ¡°Damn that man, I¡¯ll kill him if I get the chance.¡± Sear moved back, and the wolves charged. One of them attempted to tackle him, but Sear moved out of the way, and right into the path of another one. It slashed at his chest with razor sharp claws. Sear looked down and realized his clothes were ruined. There were 3 large blood covered scratches where the claws connected. He barely had enough time to look back up and see the last wolf charge at him, and attempt to bite his head clean off. He had no idea what he could do in this situation. He had no weapons, so there was nothing he could do against these monsters. He continued to attempt to dodge them, but to no avail. In less than a minute most of his clothing was tattered and he was bleeding from over 10 spots. He could feel the adrenaline and fear begin to take control of his body. He got slammed into the walls by the beast. The three surrounded him and he knew that it was the end. He looked up and saw the old man, looking at him in disappointment. He gave the type of look you would give someone when they forgot something simple. Sear thought, and then he was pounced upon by the monsters. At the last second he remembered, the thing that could save his life. He concentrated, and produced a large wall of dark energy in front of him. The three wolves touched it and parts of their body burned off. Sear got back up with new determination, and began to summon balls of black hell fire around him. He launched them at the wolves at speeds that made them impossible to dodge. They all hit their targets, and the monsters became aflame. He summoned a large tendril dark energy and began to weave it around his body, and finally it had joined with his body and he now had a marking along his arms and legs. He extended his arms, and felt the dark energy form into large swords that could be controlled with a singular thought. He rushed forward, and slashed his swords like an x, decapitating one of the heads of the wolves. It screeched in pain, causing the other 2 to go protect it. It seemed that the worked as a pack, but it would make no difference for Sear. He realized this was taking too long, so he decided to end it quickly. He summoned hundreds of other swords that floated all around him. He aimed them at the wolves, and with the lowering of his hand, they all pierced and killed them. He looked up, and blacked out once again due to the blood loss he had gotten. Chapters I haven''t posted a chapter in a few days. I reached a point of the story where I''m not sure how i want to continue. The next chapter will be up by Sunday or Monday, with Tuesday max. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.Sorry for not writing. Chapter 7 Sorry it took so long for this chapter. Didn''t know how i wanted to continue it exactly. NExt chapter will involve more battles and will be longer so stay tuned. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 7-Training When he woke too once again, Sear realized that he was no longer strapped. He tried to get up but felt immense pain going through his body. His injuries must have not properly healed yet. Realizing this, he tried calling for someone. ¡°Hello?¡± There was a loud echo in the round room. He stayed still for minutes before he heard a door open. It creaked shut and he could hear the man¡¯s footsteps approaching. He opened his eyes and once again saw the mage. ¡°Awake I see. You¡¯ve been unconscious for 6 days. I thought you were about to die.¡± The man said this with a chuckle, making it seem like he wished he really was. ¡°Now that you are awake, we can begin. My name is Herj. I am a master of dark magic.¡± ¡°As you are another wielder of dark magic, it is my duty as a master to teach you. I moved to this secluded location hoping to not do this, but somehow life never goes how I want it too.¡± With that, he kicked Sear off the table causing a series of painful moans to come from the ground. Sear stood with a clear limp and walked over to the ¡°master.¡± ¡°Hell of master you are, first thing you do is pit me up against some monster and then kick me off a table?¡± Suddenly, the man took a step back and lashed out. In a split second, his hand reappeared by Sear¡¯s stomach and he was launched backwards. He collided with the wall at such a speed that it felt like he was actually just traveling through a very thick paste. He felt his body coming out of the other side of the wall. He skipped along the ground until he came to a rest at another wall. He looked up to see a trail of blood and destruction leading right to him. He saw the man emerging from what he thought was the room he was in. ¡°Young kid. You act as if you know nothing of the dark arts! I will teach you through pain and torture, not through nurturing and caring.¡± The man spit into Sear¡¯s face causing him to swell up with anger. He attempted to attack, and summoned a sword. He sliced at the man¡¯s neck. The sword was spot on, and was going to decapitate the man¡­ when suddenly the man grabbed the sword. At the last second, his hand came up and he grabbed the sword by the edge. Sear could do nothing but stare in silence. He thought it would have been impossible for the man to save himself. Once again, he was skipped along the ground and slamming into walls. The man once again came up to him. ¡°Would you like to continue? A one-sided battle is sometimes fun.¡± He charged forwards and kicked upwards, hitting Sear directly in the chin. He went souring over the ¡°village¡± he was in and when he reached the end of his ascend, began to come back down. His body rocketed down as he could do nothing to stop himself. The hit to his chin had left him semi-unconscious and it was hard for him to move, much less use dark magic. He closed his eyes and let himself fall. He heard a large crack and felt a jolt of pain travel down his leg. He opened his eyes once more, to see his ankle sticking out of his leg at a 90 degree angle. He looked around and realized he was now out of the town. He stood on his one leg and began to hop towards the town once more. While he would most likely be hurt more, that man was the only other person who could use dark magic, and so was quite useful to him. A few minutes later, he reached the man. ¡°Ahhh, you¡¯re back I see. Do you want to continue to get hurt or will you listen to me as your master?¡± The man spoke with a monotone voice, not allowing Sear to see anything past his words. Not only that, but the man¡¯s eyes, while they were deep, felt as flat as a brick wall. Pitifully, Sear responded. ¡°Yes. I agree to be your apprentice and I agree to listen to from now on.¡± ¡°Good.¡± Herj turned back and sent one last kick at him, causing him to double over and cough out. ¡°Go get your leg fixed by a healer and then meet me. We will train by the 10¡¯s.¡± The mage walked away, leaving Sear to go find his way alone. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An hour later, Sear had his leg fixed and was walking around the town, trying to find where he had to go. He surprisingly found out that they also used pots as their currency here. He expected it to be different. He ended up drawing up a map of the place, as he knew he would end up getting lost. Another strange thing about this town was that since it was well underground, they didn¡¯t use the night or day as time signs, they used burning wax to see how much time had passed. The candle would burn for a full day, and there were incisions on the candle, marking each hour that passed. He had to be back at the mage by 10 of night and it was already past 9. He rushed towards the center of the village, the place he found out the mage lived. He made it back to the building he was punched out of, and knocked on the door. The building was made from grey and black slabs. All of its windows were covered up with rods of iron, to give it an almost prison feel. The door was made from a hard, dark oak and was reinforced by even more iron. When he knocked on the door, he could hear the echo coming from inside. The door opened and Herj motioned for Sear to move out of the way. ¡°Follow me.¡± The mage looked him in the eyes and then began walking away from the house. He passed through a deserted street. He could see lights flickering inside of poorly build homes. This seemed to be the poorer district of this town, which he realized he still didn¡¯t know the name of. They continued walking along the road until they came to a stop at a bridge. The bridge went over a large river that supplied all the water to the village. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°Here is your first task. Stay in the water for an hour. Every time you fail I will attack you with harder and harder hits. Is that understood?¡± The man glared at Sear as if he was ready to cook him in a barbeque. ¡°Yes I understand.¡± Sear looked at the river and then realized, how was he going to stay underwater for that long without going up to breath? He attempted to take a deep breath and just jump in. A mere 3 minutes later he came up by a natural instinct for air. Before he could even take a breath of air, he felt his body being thrown against the bridge. He heard a small snapping noise, and when he finally fell against the ground he realized his shoulder was dislocated. ¡°That is your first mistake.¡± Herj walked over and pushed Sear¡¯s shoulder back into place, which caused a large howl of pain to erupt from his throat. ¡°Don¡¯t forget, you are here to learn dark magic.¡± He walked away again, and watched. Sear thought about what he said and decided to use dark magic to benefit him. He cast strengthening enchantments of his body and jumped back in. While he lasted longer, he was still short of the hour by 53 minutes. He was once against slammed into the bridge, this time only harder. He continued to mess around with this. And a few hours later he was all scratched and bruised. He looked at the river once more and thought about what he could do. ¡°This is taking too long.¡± Herj sounded quite angry with Sear. He stood up, grabbed him and pushed him into the river, and kept him below water with magic. Sear felt the water begin to enter his lungs, and he began to lash out, trying to grab onto anything to save himself. He could feel his mind going blank, and he allowed his powers to take control. His eyes turned dark and strange symbols appeared all over his body. Somehow, he suddenly knew what he had to do. He summoned is dark magic and infused it into his very body, he changed his body from the inside out. After a while, he could feel that he no longer felt the water in his lungs. He felt as if he would never need to breathe again. Once again, he blacked out. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When he woke too, he was still underwater. He pushed himself upwards, and looked around. Herj was still there, waiting. When he looked down, he saw strange markings and glyphs covering his entire body. Once he saw them, they began to retract themselves towards his heart and vanished. ¡°You have been underwater for 3 hours. I guess you finally figured out how to do it?¡± He looked up at Sear and began to walk away. ¡°Continue to follow me, we still have much more to do.¡± Sear followed and allowed the enchantment to fade away, allowing him to breath normally again. He could still somehow remember how he did that. Instead of using air to breath, he instead managed to use his magical energy as a form of sustenance. He wondered if he would do the same with water and food. It would need to be tested later. They walked past the river and continued on further. They eventually reached a large wall of rock. It was layered with rocks of all colors. ¡°Your next task will be to stretch out a perfectly flat pole of dark energy from one side of this wall to the other.¡± Herj summoned a large pole of energy about 10 feet long and continued to extend it until it reach the wall¡¯s length, which was 15 meters. The pole of energy was perfectly straight, and unlike Sear¡¯s magic, didn¡¯t ripple along the very edge. Sear attempted to do it. He summoned a pole of energy 10 feet long, just as Herj had. He thought that this was too easy. He continued to extend it until 20 feet. At that point, he felt it begin to push on him. He continued to extend it, to find that the parts furthest away from him had begun to sway and he could no longer control it properly. He continued to stretch it until he reached the correct length. ¡°Is this good enough?¡± Sear talked through ragged breathes. ¡°Not even close.¡± He kicked Sear, and he lost all concentration, causing the pole to explode. ¡°You had to make a straight line but instead you made a whip of energy. I already knew that you could do that.¡± ¡°Instead of just extending and adding, more and more energy to the pole, try to instead make a large mass of energy, and extend that same mas of energy along a large distance. While you may have much power in you, it is not refined in any way whatsoever. You are the same as a great sword that is as blunt as a club.¡± He stepped back and allowed Sear to continue to try. After a few more hours, he finally managed to control it. He had a relatively straight line of energy that spread from side to side. ¡°Uhhh, that¡¯s good enough for now. Now, instead of allowing all that energy to be released, try to consume it all back.¡± Herj impatiently continued to talk. ¡°In long fights, you will have to learn how to consume any unused energy that you have.¡± Sear began to slowly shorter the rod, all the while taking in some of the energy from it. He managed it, until he got near the center. He couldn¡¯t hold all this energy he was taking back. Once again, the pole exploded, and Sear was sent flying. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sear continued to do mediocre tasks for the rest of the day. He found out that he could also use his energy as sustenance instead of food and water. By the end of the day, he was once again sent to the healers to get fixed. It seemed like this would be all he did for the next few weeks. Sear walked back to the house but decided to talk to Herj before he slept. ¡°Hey Herj, what will we be doing tomorrow?¡± Sear wanted to know how hurt he would end up getting hurt tomorrow. ¡°Tomorrow we will be hunting giants.¡± Sear couldn¡¯t tell if he was being serious or not, but Herj made no motion to continue the chat. Chapter 8 Nothing to say. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 8-The Giants The candle burned through 8 in the morning at when Sear went back to Herj. The prior night he had gotten himself ready for this fight. He brought along his enchanted silver sword as it would greatly help him ruin the beast¡¯s vision. ¡°I hope you remember how to do everything I showed you yesterday. This battle that is to come will be me testing your capabilities. If you manage to fight how I expect you too, I will begin teaching you more difficult spells.¡± Sear saw him cast spells on himself and suddenly he began running. Sear had to begin running and casting at the same time to catch up. This would be his first time outside of the village. He ran after Herj and took a look at his surroundings. This large underground cavern looked to be much bigger than he expected. To support the weight of the ground above it, there were large pillars of rocks that went from ceiling to floor. They looked more like giant stalactites that connected to the ground. There weren¡¯t many, but they were each at least 150 meters in diameter at their thinnest point. In the distance, Sear could see the one of the walls of the cavern. The only weird thing, was that this wall was covered in large holes and had gigantic stairs carved into it. When Herj said they would be hunting giants, he hadn¡¯t realized what he had meant until now. Each opening had to be at least 50 meters high and 25 meters wide. Sear couldn¡¯t even think of being able to fight something that large. Suddenly, Herj stopped and pulled Sear into a crevice in the ground. ¡°Now we will wait. You will not be able to fight many. They usually go hunting alone, so once one separates enough, you will attack. They took turns looking out of the crevice in order to see if any giant was coming. During Herj¡¯s 3rd time, he motioned for Sear to look. He saw a humanoid figure coming out of the opening. It had roughly made pants from what seemed to be the hide of hundreds of animals. It carried a large club made of stone and metal on its shoulder. He realized that a hit from something like that would kill him. ¡°What could be big enough to feed a tribe of things this big?¡± Sear couldn¡¯t imagine the rest of the things that dwelled in this cave. ¡°This place is full on mutants. The giants are mutated humans who grew, the small person with me is from a tribe of mutated humans who grew smaller, there are even humans that have full red scales and are about 10 feet long.¡± ¡°Along with humans, many other animals other mutate, such as the 3 headed wolf you fought earlier. They come from a pack. Even bunnies here have mutated. One such is the Grul, a bunny that is about 5 meters tall. It can jump over both of us with ease, and it is considered a delicacy for giants.¡± Herj continued to stare at the giant while talking. ¡°There are many other mutated animals, but that was just one. This entire area is full of crazy animals. But surprisingly, none know magic.¡± Sear watched as the giant walked past him. The ground trembled as if the giant commanded it. Once it passed, Herj began to follow it. Behind him, Sear pushed down his fears. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- They traveled for another 5 miles before coming to stop. The giant was busy stomping all over one of those 10 feet tall red humanoids. Herj screamed out loud, and the giant turned to face him. ¡°Go on now. Your fight has begun.¡± He pushed Sear out in the open and hid again. ¡°Your fat head is ugly!¡± Herj screamed from behind a rock and he saw the giant visibly get angry. Sear swore he saw smoke coming out of the giant¡¯s nose and head. He looked like an angry bull. While they were massive, they apparently got angry at the smallest things. Sear concentrated and cast his spells on himself. He unsheathed the silver sword and charged forward. In a blink of an eye, Sear had reached the giant¡¯s Achilles heel and cut horizontally along it. When his sword connected though, it felt as if he had hit solid rock. He hadn¡¯t even left a scratch. The giant roared and swung downwards with his club. Sear ran and the giant missed by a breath. Unfortunately, there was so much power behind the swing that when it hit the ground, Sear was pushed away by the shockwaves. He went tumbling into a nearby rock. When he got up, he saw the destruction the giant could cause. His arm was bruised even though he hadn¡¯t gotten hit. The ground around the impact had cracks sprayed outwards for meters upon meters. If he had gotten hit, he would have surely been hit. He decided to stop using the sword and once again summoned a ball of dark energy. He used his previous day¡¯s experience and straightened it out into a 10 meter blade. He rushed forward, and the giant swung down once more. This time, instead of dodging, Sear pirouetted between the giant¡¯s feet and jumped upwards. His magic allowed him to jump upwards towards the beast¡¯s back. He slashed upwards with his momentum and left a large bleeding cut going from the giant¡¯s butt to right below its shoulder blade. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Before he fell, he grabbed onto the giants back and turned the sword into a cone shaped weapon. He stabbed his arm into the beast¡¯s back, and he managed to pierce it. The giant roared and fell back, attempting to crush Sear under his back. Sear saw this coming and jumped away from the falling giant. He hadn¡¯t gotten smashed, but while he was in the air, the giant swatted with his arm and smacked Sear. He tried to use the cone of energy as a shield but it did not turn out well. Instead, he went flying from the impact. The impact had hit his chest, so he got whiplash on his neck when he began to fly. He crashed into one of the pillars and stayed there for a minute. The giant walked over and looked at his body. Sear could see stars flying around his head. Everything was blurry, and he could only hear muffles instead of the giant¡¯s loud roar. He pulled himself out of the hole he was in and fell to the ground. He got up and attempted to dodge the giant¡¯s rampage. He got hit multiple times which only cause his to get slower and slower. ¡°Shit.¡± Sear realized he was going to die if this continued. He got up and sprinted away, putting some distance between him and the giant. He knew that it could traverse this distance in a matter of seconds but he didn¡¯t think about it. He made two smaller yet denser and more powerful swords for him to use. He put all of his magic into self enhancement and charged towards the lumbering monster. He reached the giant¡¯s left foot, and ran up it, slashing away at the same time. He jabbed and slashed away at its leg without stop, and by the time he reached its hip the leg looked like a piece of raw meat. He continued on through the giant¡¯s chest, but began to run diagonally and zigzagging on it, for it was trying to smack it. He felt all of his stamina vanish from within, and used one final leap of power to push himself towards the giant¡¯s face. His ascent stopped directly at its eye level, and he threw the two swords into its eyes. With a cry of pain, the beast smashed him towards the ground, and Sear felt like his life was on the edge of a cliff. With one last effort, he took control of the swords still attached to the giant¡¯s eyes and forced them to explode, only making an even louder cry of pain come out from its throat. With its eyesight gone, the giant began to throw itself at the ground. It kicked and punched anywhere it heard a noise. Sear stayed down and let himself recover a bit. He had lost a lot of blood, so he needed to heal himself. He had learned the prior day that you could temporarily stop bleeding with magic. It would be dark, water, fire, even earth magic. Any of those could stop bleeding. He healed all of his major wounds and took a look at himself. He was covered in several interchanging layers of dust, dirt, and blood. He stood once more, and summoned one last sword. He gripped I tightly while he limped over to the giant. It was now on its knees and punching the ground. He charged towards it and jumped onto its back. It turned back though it couldn¡¯t see and snarled at Sear. Sear hesitated for a second, but then ran forward, and with almost pin perfect precision stabbed the sword into its jugular. A large spray of blood so strong that it pushed Sear back sprayed out, and the giant went limp. Sear fell onto his knees and finally rested. Without all of his magical self-enchantments, he felt all of the accumulated pain going through his body. Herj walked towards him. ¡°Well at least you are still alive. You killed it, but you did it such a dumb way.¡± Sear could do nothing but stare up with confusion. He couldn¡¯t believe what he had just said. ¡°You decided to get yourself injured by using melee. You are a magic user you moron. You could have very easily just sent a whirlwind of magic and killed it.¡± ¡°You still have much to learn.¡± Sear blacked out as Herj picked him up. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When Sear woke, they were still by the dead corpse. But somehow, his body was healed. Before he could ask, Herj explained. ¡°I took you to the village and had you healed, and then came back. You still need to kill one more.¡± With that he motioned over and Sear could see a giant stuck in a wall. Somehow, Herj had enough magic to keep it restrained. ¡°Good luck.¡± Herj released the giant and it reeled its head back with a shout of anger. It charged straight forward at Sear. This time, he took heed of Herj¡¯s words and summoned a large ball of energy. He threw it forward at the giant at such speed that it was impossible to dodge. The instant it touched the giant¡¯s chest, the beast was pushed back by an explosion large enough to destroy a cities wall. It fell onto the ground and had severe 2nd and 3rd degree burns covering its entire body. Sear fired another one, and the beast was killed. ¡°Now that was much easier wasn¡¯t it?¡± Herj was for some reason proud of himself. He began walking back to the town, and Sear followed like a stray dog. Chapter 9 Sorry that this chapter is a bit shorter, and that it took he like 10 days to write it. I wasn''t home for a few days so now I''m going to have to catch up. Expect another 1,500 word chapter tomorrow and a 4,000 word chapter on Tuesday. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 9-True Power A day had passed and still Herj had made Sear do nothing. He just had to wait while staring at a wall. He questioned Herj as to what he had to do. ¡°How much longer do I have to stare at the wall?¡± He received no reply. ¡°C¡¯mon, why am I wasting time here justing staring at it, tell me what to do with it.¡± He had attempted to practice magic, but every time he had Herj would come up and bash him. He repeatedly reminded him to not practice magic, and to not fall asleep either. He had done that once, and woke up to a wooden pole being jabbed into his stomach. He continued to look randomly and decided to do something he hadn¡¯t done in years. One thing he had learned early on, was to meditate. He sat on the floor and folded his hands on his lap. He cleared his mind of everything but sound of his heartbeat. He concentrated on that ever growing pulse, and at a certain point he began to feel something else. He felt as if he was being dipped into a large bottomless pit. Or at least, almost bottomless. He knew it had a limit, but he just couldn¡¯t see it just yet. The further he stayed in this state, the harder it became to go deeper. It went from feeling like he was moving through water to moving through maple syrup. HE was exerting more and more force to go deeper, but was slowing considerably. This continued until he hit a wall, literally. It felt as if he had collided with an object at high speeds. From his mind, he could feel that past it he could be able to finally find the pit of this lake he was in. No matter how much he tried, he couldn¡¯t get through it. He tried applying force over a large area, applying it on a small area with great force, even to try to connect with it. This continued for a few minutes before he gave up. In his mind what he saw was the layer at which an iceberg went below water. He was still only on the very tip of this unknown entity, power. He decided that instead of going deeper, he wpuld try to understand it more. He went further back up and when he felt at ease, he began to move the energy. At first, it felt like he was trying to mix a bowl of rock, but slowly he began to move it faster and faster till the point that he had to stop in fear of messing something up. He continued to move it before he realized that he had been doing this wrong the whole time. He had been trying to pry into this ¡°energy¡± when he should have been moving with it. He was trying to punch a hole through a wall of water instead of just simply going with the flow. He concentrated once more and began to move deeper, until he once again came to the wall he had grown accustomed to feeling at this point. He began to go through it, into it. He felt his body come out the other side and was met with a feeling of pleasure. Never in his life had he felt something as great as this. Once through, he had also realized what he had been doing. He was moving through his own magical energy. The barrier he passed was the first level of magic, the only one he knew, but now he had begun to move deeper and deeper into it. He felt as if he could fight against Herj now. He commanded the energy around him, and begun to propel himself further downwards faster than ever before. He continued moving deeper and deeper into his true self while getting stronger and stronger as time passed. He didn¡¯t know how long he had been here, only that it was the best thing he had ever experienced in his life. He continued further until he came face to face without another barrier. His mind reeled with thoughts. If he could have such pleasure at only the second level, what would happen if he went to the third? When he tried pushing against it, he realized it was much, much easier than the second, and was plunged what felt like miles deep into it. The only difference, was that there was no energy, no pleasure. All he felt was searing pain. Pain he had never felt in his life before. He felt like his body was being torn apart, molded back together, and ripped apart once more hundreds of times in a matter of seconds. He knew that the pit of his energy was still far away, but there seemed to be something much stronger than he keeping him from it. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. He tried to push himself back up, only to feel more pain. He had nothing to control here. All that was around him was pain. He was sapped of energy, and could do nothing but be tormented by it. Finally he gave up and reopened his eyes. He was sweating like never before. It was like he had been dipped in water. The area all around him was covered in his sweat. When he turned to face the candle, he found that it had burned all the way through. ¡°That¡¯s impossible>¡± He thought about how much time had passed. It felt like minutes, an hour at max, but the candle had burned through 15 hours. Not only that, but there were 8 other candles near it, the last of which was down to one hour. ¡°So, how was your trip?¡± He heard Herj behind him, and jumped up startled. ¡°How, how long have I been gone?¡± Sear¡¯s head felt like a brick. While physically he felt fine, he was mentally exhausted to the point he was about to go unconscious. ¡°It¡¯s been a full week since you began.¡± Sear took that in. He thought it was impossible that it was a full week. It had to be a joke. He didn¡¯t even know what he was doing exactly, but he had been doing it for an entire week. With his head feeling like bricks, he blacked out. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ¡°Uhhh.¡± Sear couldn¡¯t form any words at his current state. His head still felt like bricks even though he had woken up hours ago. He had slept for another full day after blacking out. While laying, he realized he somehow knew more about magic than he did before. He realized how to enchant himself to a whole other level, how to control his magic with pinprick precision, and how to create being that would follow and listen to his every words. After looking through everything he had gathered, he began to get up. While his head still hurt, he knew that after a week of doing nothing he should atleast move around and use his muslces to some point. He felt much weaker than before and confirmed it with that fact that he couldn¡¯t stretch as far as before and that his entire body felt sore. He walked around the village a few times and after began to work out the rest of his body, wanting to get it back to normal. He walked back home after a few hours, and greeted Herj once more. ¡°Hey.¡± He could finally talk again and his head felt somewhat better. He had many things he wanted to ask Herj, and he began to bombard him with questions. ¡°Was making me stare at a wall your way of teaching me to meditate? Why did you have me meditate? What is all of this knowledge and power I¡¯ve suddenly gained?¡± The last question made Herj¡¯s head come up. ¡°You breached into the second level?¡± Herj looked surprised at this. ¡°Yes I did. I also went into the ¡°third level¡± but all there was, was pain.¡± Sear commented about how he had figured out how to move through the energy, and about everything he learned. ¡°Well, you are a much faster learned than I expected. Way too fast for my own liking.¡± Sear was surprised at this. For once he had gotten a compliment, or atleast he thought it was a compliment. ¡°It took me over 30 years of experience to get to the second level, and you did it in a matter of weeks.¡± ¡°And also, the third level of energy doesn¡¯t exist. It is the space between mortal energy and god level energy. Only one person reached that, and he suffered so much pain that his organs all collapsed onto themselves once he awoke. Stay away from it if you prefer to live.¡± Herj stood up, and began to walk towards the door. ¡°From now on, I will go out. It is your task to master everything you learned, for I can¡¯t help you with that. It is specialized to a single person, and what you learned is different from what I learned. I will go out into the word, and when I return in a year, if you haven¡¯t learned it will be my task to kill you.¡± He turned back towards Sear and said one last thing. ¡°I¡¯ve already had to kill one apprentice, don¡¯t make me kill another.¡± With that, he walked out of the room and closed the door, leaving Sear all by himself. Once again, he had been abandoned. Chapter 10 Chapter 10 of my book. This is another short chapter, but worry not as the next will be around 4,000 words long but will only be up on Wednesday. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 10-Skeletons For a day Sear thought about what he could do. He didn¡¯t know what he had to improve on. He already knew how to enchant himself, so while this knowledge would make his enchantments stronger it would be the same thing. He though until he came to a conclusion, the only problem, is that he would need many bones. One thing he had learned when going into this new layer of magic, was that with his energy he could reform boned and create skeletons with them. He could change a human bone into a dragon bone and if he had enough boned be could be able to create an entire dragon skeleton that would act almost like an undead he would raise. He remembered that there was a cemetery in the town, but he doubted that they would let him take the bones from it. He came up with a plan, and when the night came he began it. Once the darkness took over, he moved over to the cemetery and began to use his magic. His new knowledge allowed him to gather up all the boned in it and move them aboveground, where he levitated them hundreds of meters above him in danger of being spotted. He ran from the village with the bones following nearly a mile ahead. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After running for 2 hours, he came to a large cave connected with the wall of the cavern. He walked in moved all the bones in. There had to be at least 1,000 dead body¡¯s worth of boned there. He sat once again, and began to concentrate. He could see all of the bones around him with his mind, and began to move some of them around. He reformed a bone structure similar to the small assistant Herj had. He looked at it and began to change the bones. While it was a tedious process, he managed to change it. Its skull had been elongated backwards into a spike. Its legs and arms had gotten thicker and a fraction larger. He hardened its ribs and made its teeth sharper and his jaw larger. Its feet and arms gained claws at the ends. In the end, it looked like a really burly man that had claws and a jabbed skull. With one last push on magic, he wove energy into the skeleton and it came to life. In front of him was a being that went up to his shoulders. It looked as if it could take multiple hits from hard weapons, and its skull seemed to be like a shield. He decided to call it a Bone Guardian. He tried to communicate with it, and found out while he could telepathically talk to it, it could not talk back. Maybe in the future a more advanced skeleton of his would. In his mind he could see the exact process needed to recreate it, and by the end of the day he had created 4 more. Now that he had them, he realized that they had no weapons that they could use in battle. That was now his next task. He created 3 different models of what he could use for weapons. The first was a large great sword that was cumbersome for even this beast to carry. It carried large destructive power behind it, as whenever it collided with something, the momentum would push it meters away. He gave it to a single one of his creations. The next weapon he made was a large 3 meter long pole with a ball of skulls on the end. The skulls would act as the end of a mace. He also decided to make a large 1 ? meter tall shield made from connected shoulder blades. He gave this to 2 of the Bone Guardians. Lastly, he made a pair of thin yet long swords. Each measured up to a meter and were made of finger bones. He gave the pairs to the last 2 guardians. Lastly, he imbued all of the weapons with dark energy, making both them and anything that wielded them multitudes more dense, basically allowing him to make 5 tanks. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. With this done, he created a wall of energy between him and the outside, and went to sleep. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Once he awoke, he saw that the guardians had stayed at the same place. He commanded them to all stand at the entrance of the cave, and to kill anything that attempted to enter. They all walked off with a rattling of bones rubbing and crushing together. His next creation would have to be a much faster and agile beast. He looked at his supply of bones. Making all of the weapons and guardians had used about 10% of all the bones. It seemed that changing the bones used a ridiculous amount of bones. He began to work on the new creature. This time, he shrunk the body even more than before. This time, he made the bones even denser than before. While these would be much faster, they would need to have a much higher defense to counter their size. In the end, he kept the same human shape, but made the arms and legs almost double in size. Their fingers were also elongated, and instead of making separate weapons, he turned the fingers into sharp bones that could bend. He had made being who had a malleable bone sword. He elongated the creature¡¯s foot to allow it to have a bigger surface to use to maneuver itself with. Now it was time for him to bring it to life. One thing he had learned while making the weapons, is that the more energy you put into a certain area, the stronger it¡¯s ¡°muscles¡± in that area would be. Knowing this, he added large amounts of energy to his creation¡¯s arms and legs, making his clawed hands strong enough to cut through thick steel armor. One again, the being appeared before him. He testing it out, by telling it to run around at its fastest. Sear was surprised to see the now called Flashing Bone zip around the room at speeds that would make Sear¡¯s enchanted self to seem like a slug. It stopped after looping around the ceiling and colliding with Sear¡¯s body. He created another one, and began to walk to the entrance. ((Just wanted to say, from now on, whenever you see italicized dialogue, it is Sear talking to his creations. ¨C Zono)) ¡°Come here Bone Guardians.¡± They all came to him, and with a thought he created a layout for them to follow him. He had his two Flashing Bones to stand to his left and right behind him, and had the Guardians created a V formation behind those two. With that he began to casually walk towards the village, not wanting to rush himself and lose the slow guardians. On the way, they encountered a large mutated deer. It had sharpened antlers, and was about 5 meters tall. ¡°Guardians, surround it and begin to pepper it with attacks. Flashings, whenever you see openings, go in and do as much damage as possible.¡± He watched as the battle commenced. As he said, the 5 guardians began to surround it, with the great sword wielding one at its head. It sent a lethargic swing downward, and when the sword collided with one of the antlers, it snapped off of the beast. The mutated deer raised it¡¯s from legs and kicked at the guardians. At the same time, the two Flashings zoomed in from behind it and each one cut into vital points on its legs. The first one cut into the hamstrings of the back two legs, while the other slashed at its Achilles tendon. The beast collapsed as it was no longer able to support itself. The guardians saw this and began to attack every part of its body, shearing off chunks of meat that looked to be cut by a dull knife. The flashings, as to not be undone, dashed onto the deer¡¯s back and began to crisscross its body with their claws. In a matter of seconds the deer was dead, and they were walking away, Sear proud of what he had done. Chapter 11 He is the planned chapter 11. It has around 4k words, but beware. It has torture, gore, and a fight scene all together. Btw i have a link to battle music to listen to while reading. Enjoy Battle Music ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 11-The Attack As Sear was nearing the village, he was surprised to hear shouts and see smoke rising from above it. At once, he charged forward and ordered his minions to follow. Once he reached the village, he saw what all the commotion was about. There was a group of 5 giants raiding the village. People were running around as housing were being torn apart by a single swing of the giant¡¯s clubs. Sear remembered how hard it was to fight one, but knew he had to do something. He noticed that the giants seemed to have split into 2 separate groups. One group have 3 and were going after villagers. The other group of 2 were just walking around and destroying houses. ¡°Guardians, go deal with the two giants destroying the houses. Make sure to cause them pain. Flashings, follow me.¡± His guardians stumbled off towards the group of two, while Sear began to enchant himself once more. He had learned during his breach to the second level that he could enchant the very fibers of his being, allowing him to stack his boosts. Once done, he felt a chill at the back of his neck, and he let his instincts take over. His eyes turned blood red, and there seemed to be a red mist that was coming off of his body. His dark hair had somehow turned even darker, making it seem as if there was just a void there. Once again, large black tattoos overtook his body, and he charged forward. His two flashings went to one of the giants, while he decided to take the other two for himself. As soon as he got close, he let his emotions turn loose. He charged forwards at one of the giants, not even bothering to create a weapon. No, instead he came up to its face and punched it. There was so much force behind that punch that Sear managed to send the giant flying across the air, straight towards the other one. The two collided and fell onto each other, and Sear could hear the distinct crack of bones. At this point, he cared not, for he had already summoned a large pole of dark energy. He threw it at the two beings with such force that the area around the impact cracked and a 100 meter wide crater formed. The bolt of energy had impaled the two giants, one by its leg, and the other by its arm. Still, the two got up and turned to Sear, who was now floating in the air. Red lightning was crackling and coming off of his body, making him seem like a mythical being. At this point his eyes began to glow red. He charged back forwards towards the giants. One swung its club at him, but he blocked, and when it collided with him he hear it snap behind him. He continued to charge forward at unimaginable speeds. He created a sword of energy near him and sent himself through one of the giant¡¯s bodies. When he came out, he turned back and saw his work. Apparently he had gone through the creatures intestines, as would be shown by the fact that on the floor beneath it was a pile of meter wide tubes of meat. The giant screeched, and a gush of blood was sent from the wound. It knew it would be dead in a few seconds, but at this point it was so enraged that it didn¡¯t care. It attempted to punch Sear, but he simply kicked the hand away. At the same time, he summoned thousands of small balls of energy, and sent them all at the giant. What resulted was a chain of explosions and a showering of blood. When all the debris cleared, Sear saw a dead giant that was blown into 10 different parts. Its bones would serve him well in the future. At this point, he was bathed with blood, and it began to seep into him. His once black tattoos now had a red outline on them. He looked at the next giant, and charged at it, wanting to get this over with. He created a massive ball of energy, and just simply transported it into the giant¡¯s head. It blew off, showering anything below it with blood and small fragments of its brain. People below stared in astonishment as a singular man killed two giants with ease. Other were retching across the ground, from all the blood, guts, and raw meat sprayed on the ground and their very bodies. Sear looked at the direction of the giant¡¯s home, and began to fly that way. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Meanwhile, The Bone Guardians and Flashing Bones were fighting. Since their fight began a few minutes ago, both the giants and guardians seemed to be severely weakened. When the fight began, the giant attempted to step on the guardians that had duel swords. But because of their resistance, they were able to handle the giant¡¯s weight, while at the same time stabbing their swords into the giant¡¯s foot multiple times. This caused the giant to only continue to stomp on them, until its foot looked like a mushed pile of meat connected to a bone. The giant could no longer use that leg as the foot was utterly shredded. Seeing an opportunity, the guardian with the great sword sent a diagonal slash at the giant¡¯s other foot. The force of the blow caused the foot to slide a few meters, making the giant lose balance and fall over. Unfortunately, it fell backwards onto the two shield wielding guardians. While they didn¡¯t die from it, their bones began to crack as they struggled to keep the weight off the ground. While this was happening, the other giant came over and swung downwards towards the great sword guardian. The guardian blocked the attack, but was sent flying through buildings until it stopped near the other side of the town. It would be a while before it came back. The giant turned back to deal with the other guardians, but instead it too fell onto the other giant. When it looked down, it was surprised to see that the two guardians had attacked from opposite sides and cleanly amputated it above the ankle. It screamed in pain and attempted to stand up, pushing the other giant further into the two skeletons stuck underneath. Because of this pressure, one of the guardians left arm broke and their shield was destroyed. The guardians took this opportunity to climb onto its face and stabbed the giant¡¯s eyes, going straight through to the brain and killing it. The guardians came out from underneath and the 4 stood together to face the last giant. The great sword wielding guardian was nowhere to be seen. The guardians all rushed in and began to attack the giant¡¯s last good leg. It finally fell, and died. With their task complete, the guardians now stood next to corpses waiting, while onlookers were baffled. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On the other side of the village, the two Flashings were busy barraging a giant with attacks. Due to their increased mobility, they were able to traverse and walk along the giant¡¯s entire body, allowing them to attack from where ever they pleased. The two charged in from opposite legs, and once they reached its back they slashed their claws along the entire surface, from top to bottom, leaving 20 bloody marks along its back. The giant roared and attempted to swat them off, but they were simply too fast. At one point, the giant managed to backhand one of the Flashings, and it was sent careening into the ground. With a large crack, it had died. It was now up to a singular one to finish the giant off. It zig zagged along the giant¡¯s body until reaching its neck, where it spun like a typhoon and managed to partially cut the giant¡¯s throat. It was now coughing up blood as it kneeled down to the floor, grasping its heavily bleeding neck. The Flashing continued to strike at the giant¡¯s hands, attempting to get through them to get to its neck once more. The giant was smart though, and managed to grab hold of the Flashing. Sadly, its hands were so teared up that it managed to escape from an opening in its fingers. It danced across the giant¡¯s body as blows came raining down at it. At this point the giant was so enraged that it was striking its own body in its rage. This continued on for a few more minutes while the giant continued to attack itself. Suddenly, the flashing caught an opening, and charged at its jugular. It managed to get to the vein, but after slashing it the giant bit down onto the flashing, cracking it in two. The giant soon fell to the ground, and the rest of the flashings body was seen near its mouth. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sear continued to travel towards the giant¡¯s home. His eyes were now glowing red and all he could think of was ripping the giant¡¯s guts out with his bare hands and drawing with their blood. After a few more minutes of traveling, he reached the openings that led to the giant¡¯s home. Outside it, a sleeping giant lay. Not wasting time, Sear changed his path and dove at the giant. The second his feet touched its body, he had already moved towards its head and in the blink of an eye the giant¡¯s head turned to dust as it was imploded by what seemed to be a black hole. From there, Sear continued with his speed and dove straight into the giant¡¯s lair. Once inside, he landed on top of another resting giant, causing its ribs to cave in and impale its own lungs. The giant leaned up trying to help itself, by Sear was already doing his next task. He leapt off of the giant and ran towards the next. At this point he had caught the attention of several giants. With a quick scan of his eyes, he found both young and female giants. It seemed that there weren¡¯t only males. This would be fun. A mad smile appeared on Sear¡¯s face, showing a set of black razor sharp teeth. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. One of the children threw a rock at him. He bent his body at an impossible angle as his head was now near his legs. The rock sailed past him, and when Sear took a look at the child it was only 10 meters tall. Changing directions, Sear flew straight towards the child. Seeing his target, several of the giant stood in his way, but Sear simple moved around them while at the same time attacking vital points. Many of the ones that stood in his way had lost a limb, while others had a body part disabled or became blind. Once near, Sear formed two razor sharp blades and began to cut the giant child up. From legs all the way up to its neck, Sear cut the body into 1 foot wide slices. He cut through meat, tendons, bones, everything. The only thing the giants could do is stare at this act of torture. Excretion was coming out of some parts of the dismembered body, while some parts were being flung across the room as Sear threw them at other giants. He was once again soaked in blood, and it reinvigorated him. Licking his blood seeped lips, Sear swallowed some of the blood and moved on to his next targets. As he was flying, he suddenly was struck with a club, sending him flying towards a wall. He swore that he could see his shoulders dislocate. When he attempted to move his arms, he found that it was true. Without a care in the world, he slammed his shoulders into the wall, pushing them back into place with an audible crack. It caused even some of the giants to flinch in pain. Sear found the giant that had attacked him, and ran through legs to get to him. Once reaching the giant, Sear impaled its ears with rods of energy. Instead of letting them explode though, he left them there to slowly burn away the giant¡¯s body. He continued to attack it in gruesome ways, such as ripping fingers off, or shoving his hands into its eyes. The other giants could do nothing but watch, as they knew that there was no way for them to beat him. Once he finished this giant off, he found two that were running away. Not wanting them escape, he chased them down. He decapitated one, while unhooking the other¡¯s jaw with a swift kick to the joint. Before the head could collapse onto the floor, he grabbed it and shoved it down the other giant¡¯s now agape mouth. Once inside, he punched it, sending it further into the giant¡¯s throat, getting it officially stuck in there. Knowing that it would die from this, Sear turned to see what remained. There were 2 male giants, 1 child giant, and 1 female giant left. He charged at the male giants, and slashed their guts open, spilling undigested food upon the female giant. Both collapsed, and Sear moved on to the baby giant. He grabbed its hand, and slung it towards the far wall. Before it could collapse against the wall though, Sear reappeared in between the two and kicked it straight back to where it just was. This continued for a few minutes until Sear realized he was now just kicking a dead corpse around the room. Wanting to finish this quickly, he looked at the female giants and decided to have some fun with her first. He raised her off the ground and inserted a large rod of energy up through her bottom. It burned any flesh it came in contact with, as Sear could tell from the smell of burnt meat. Sear elongated the shaft, stretching it to that it connected to her feet and eventually to her hands. Finally though, he extended the rod out through her mouth, burning her throat and lungs in the process. He got rid of the energy, letting the cooked body fall onto the ground, and as a finished he used his dark energy to shape the ground around her. He impaled her from groin to skull with a large spike coming out of the ground. No blood came out, as most of her blood had boiled from the heat of the energy. Sear took a look around him, and began to run back to the town, wanting to see how his creations had done. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sear ran back to village to see what had happened. On the way there, he managed to calm down and go back to his normal self. He realized what he had done, but instead of being disgusted, he was quite proud of himself. Not only had he dealt with a problem, but he also managed to have fun doing it, and not to mention the fact that he could test his creations against better opponents. Once he reached the town, he was happy to see that the giants were all dead. What he wasn¡¯t happy about, was the fact that 3 of his Bone Guardians were severely injured, and both of his Flashing Bones were dead. Upon landing near the town and getting all his minions together, he was surprised at what began to happen. Many people began to shout his name at a higher and higher volume, until the entirety of the town was saying his name. He asked the nearest person what this was about, and apparently because of this, he was now considered a ¡°hero¡± in the town. Pushing that aside, Sear took the giant¡¯s bones, and went back to his cave, needing to repair and remake his creatures. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few days later, all of the giant boned had been recovered from both the town and the giant home, and his minions were repaired. He fixed his 5 guardians while making them much harder and durable. At the same time he also created 10 more with the bones he still had. He did the same with his Bone Flashings, but only made 10 as large numbers of them would be less likely to die so he would need less the more he had. Even with all these new creatures, Sear had nearly 10 times the amount of bones at his disposal as he had when he first created his minions. He left the bones there, and decided to sleep, as he hadn¡¯t had a good nap in nearly a week. When he awoke, he decided to go back to the village. Upon reaching it, he noticed that repairs had already been started. A courier ran up to him. ¡°Sire Sear, the council has requested your presence at the town square.¡± The courier seemed to be carrying a letter sealed with brightly colored candle wax. Once he opened it, he saw that the letter told him where to meet them. Confused at what this was about, Sear walked through the half destroyed town to get to the square. ¡°Ahh, you are finally here.¡± An old man wearing a blue and red cloak regarded him, and he motioned for Sear to sit at one of the chairs. ¡°Now that we are all here, let me begin. I was the king¡¯s advisor, Shur, as many of you know.¡± The man received many nods of approval from this. ¡°As many of you may also know, the king died during the siege of the town. He was one of the first to perish as his chambers were struck with a large boulder which flattened him.¡± Sear could see that many of the men were worried, while others seemed to be happy about this. They knew that they now had a chance to become kind as they were the ¡°nobles¡± of the town. ¡°Before we get to that topic though, I would like to discuss Sear¡¯s contribution during the siege. Not only did he kill two giants single handedly, but his minions managed to kill another 3, ending the siege.¡± Many of the nobles seemed pleased, but he could see glimmers of fear and hatred for him. ¡°One question though Sear, why leave mid battle? I saw you leave the town during the attack.¡± Sear was surprised that the man had noticed with all the confusion going about. ¡°I went to the giant¡¯s home. I killed the rest of the 12 giants who lives with this tribe.¡± With his statement, many of the people walking around stopped and looked at him, shock covering their faces. Even the man who had so far not shown no expression was clearly surprised at this. ¡°So you are saying that you killed a total of 14 giants by yourself?¡± Shur seemed quite dubious of his claim. ¡°That would be a massive amount for a single man to handle. Ummm¡­¡± The man could no longer talk as his brain was going over what he had heard. Considering the giant¡¯s strength, it was not surprising that he doubted him, and Sear knew this would happen if anyone asked. He decided to simply wait it out while the rest of the nobles talked about his contributions and how he had saved the city. They also said that for doing so they would build a home just for him near the cities center. Before he could protest though, the topic changed to something more serious. ¡°Now that the king is dead, we have to decide who will be the next one.¡± Many of the people acknowledges this, and Sear knew that an argument was about to occur. ¡°As advisor, the people I would see best fitted for title of king would be Finin, Charles, or Knox.¡± Suddenly one of the nobles stood and slammed his hand onto the desk. ¡°WHAT?! This is outrageous! Those three buffoons can¡¯t even control a band of 10 men, much less an entire town! What you are saying is preposterous. The man most fitted to be king would be me! Not only have I been in the council for the longest time, but I have commanded armies and have a large area of control in this village!¡± The man looked like a teapot that was about to burst. ¡°And this is exactly why you shouldn¡¯t be kind. Your temper is worse than a 3 year olds!¡± Shur shouted back at the man and the two began staring daggers at each other. After what seemed like too long, the enraged noble charged forward and attempted to attack the advisor. Before he could do so, I commanded one of my Flashings to cut a finger off. Before anyone could react, it flew across the table and there was now just a lone finger flying in an arc through the air, followed by a trail of blood. ¡°Ahhhhhh! How¡­ how dare you! You just attacked me, a noble of great wealth! A filthy commoner such as yourself has nothing to do near me! Guards! Kill him!¡± Guards began to surround Sear as continued to stare off into the air, daydreaming. As a blade came down to hit his throat, one of his Bone Guardians grabbed the guard and threw him across the plaza, slamming into a stone pillar. The guard was knocked unconscious, and when Sear looked back up his minions were all surrounding him, keeping the guards away. ¡°This bores me.¡± As Sear stood, he looked back at the nobles once more. ¡°As decided by me, I am now the new king of this town which name I still do not know. If you have any complaints, please go speak to a wall and I will be glad to help you. With that, Sear walked off, leaving the group in awe and shock. Chapter 12 Really short and quick POV change. I want to introduce the main "enemy" of this arc. Im going to be working all weekend so i don''t think i may be able to get another chapter out till monday. We will see though. Enjoy. -Zono ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 12-The Holy Light Thousands of kilometers away, lay a temple belonging to a holy order. 2 days ago the order had summoned its highest ranking members to have a meeting. Something big had happened and people needed to know and decide on what to do. ¡°Father Gregory, Saint Bartholomew and Grand Father James have arrived. Shall we commence the meeting?¡± The newest member of the order didn¡¯t look Father Gregory in the eyes as it was considered treason for anyone below a Priest to talk to a Father. For a simple Cleric like him, it would mean most certain expulsion. ¡°No, instead everyone to meet together at the first light. We will decide when our power is the strongest.¡± The father turned back to the man he was conversing with while the Cleric left. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At first light all the men gathered in the great hall. They sat together around a chiseled marble table. The room they were in was over 5 stories tall, and had large glass drawings that stretched from floor to ceiling, depicting mankind¡¯s history. At last, the Grand Father walked in and took his seat at the large ¡°throne¡± at the end of the table. ¡°We are all here because of what occurred a few days ago. This meeting is being taken place in order to decide our next move. Now Father Gregory, may you give us the full status?¡± The Grand Master looked at Father Gregory and he could feel every other eye in the room shift to him. ¡°W¡­why certainly Grand Father.¡± Father Gregory bowed to the Grand Master when he said his name. ¡°We are all here because yesterday we felt a large magical disturbance coming from another area in Gruflumlor. This disturbance was caused by a sudden increase of dark magic.¡± His words caused gasps to come from other high ranking members around him. Even the lowly servants who stood around knew what that meant. ¡°To put it in perspective, the increase wasn¡¯t someone just carelessly using a large amount of energy. It is much, much worse.¡± He continued. ¡°This amount of energy only occurs when someone breaches the second layer.¡± Immediately, murmuring could be heard around the room. Some people were in disbelief, while some were wondering how someone of this strength got past them. ¡°SILENCE!¡± A large vibration was felt around the room and everyone looked at its source, Grand Father James. ¡°Allow the man to speak and then we will discuss this after words. For now all you should shut it before I kick you out. Continue Father Gregory.¡± Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. ¡°Ahh, yes¡­ um, ah, this breach of the second layer was felt by us yesterday during the morning, and we have discovered its source to be somewhere 3,000 kilometers from this temple. We do not know in which direction, only that this event most likely occurred days ago because of the time it would take for the energy to be felt all the way out here.¡± ¡°We will now begin discussing what to do because of this.¡± He looked to the Grand Father. ¡°Grand Father James would you like to begin?¡± With a nod, James began. ¡°This is quite worrisome. A man has been able to achieve such a high level of power without us finding out. While this may bring bad omens, since the event occurred less than a week ago, the man most likely still has little control over all this energy. I propose we make a team of 10 Fathers along with 15 Saints to go hunt this man down.¡± Once he stopped talking, people around began to talk again, thinking about what he had just said. Finally one stoke up. ¡°Pardon me for asking Grand Father, but why would we went a total of 25 of some of our strongest men to take down 1 measly opponent?¡± ¡°You fool!¡± Once again Grand Father James had shown his anger. ¡°IF you did not hear me correctly, this man has reached the second level of dark magic. If you don¡¯t know, different elements take longer to get to the second level. While your took 10 years to get to the second level Saint Herin, it takes close to 30 for a dark magic user. With that much experience under his belt he must be a formidable opponent.¡± The murmurs began once more, this time everyone talking about whether or not this was a good idea or not. After a few minutes, it seemed like everyone had decided. In the end, everyone decided to vote to go after the man. Now it was Father Gregory¡¯s turn to talk once more. ¡°Now that we have all decided, we must find exactly where this man is. While we know that he is about 3,000 kilometers away from us, we have no idea in which direction. He could be in a neighboring country or he might as well be in the middle of the ocean as far as we know.¡± He went on. ¡°I propose that before we send the men to hunt him down, we sent 10 Clerics to track him down. They should have more than enough skill to find such a large source of energy.¡± The Grand Father spoke again. ¡°Very well, I will agree to that but we will send 1 Priest along with them to help. The clerics are still quite new mind you.¡± Looking around to see that nobody disagreed he finished it off. ¡°Now that we have decided that, I conclude that this meeting is over. Everyone get ready to be called into this battle if you must. If one week the requested members must be here. Dismissed.¡± Everyone began to leave, and soon only Grand Father James stayed behind. ¡°Time to see how much skill you have, o Dark Magic user.¡± Chapter 13 Hey guys. Sorry its been so long! With work, birthdays, and graduations, its been a pain in the ass for me to write all week long. Good news, school ends on the 23rd so I''ll have more time to write! :D Also, I have ideas for 3 other books that i want to write, so during the summer my schedule MAY look like this. Day 1- Searful Day 2- Idea 2 Day 3- Idea 3 Day 4- Idea 4 Day 5- Searful With that it should be a chapter every 4 days, so hopefully i can make it work. Idea 2 is a VR-MMORPG, Idea 3 is another fantasy with a bit of a twist, and Idea 4 is a dungeon master type book. Think slime dungeon. So with that, enjoy. BTW: Changed book desc so now you will not be killed with names. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 13-The Fight for Supremacy Sear left the town and went back to his cave, deciding to create more creatures. He stared at his creations and realized that the next thing he needed to do was gain better control over the bones. He sat down and picked up what looked like a human femur. It was too small for what he needed so he joined it with another by molding fingers around the center. In the end, he was left with a large stick that had a bump in the middle. Concentrating on the bone, he began to imbue it with his energy. When he felt his mind take control, he began to slowly condense the bone stick making it thinner and thinner, all the while it began longer. When he finished, he had a bone shaft the height of his body, the width of a finger and the length of his forearm. He gripped it, and with all the strength he could muster, jabbed it towards the stone wall near him. The shaft went a foot into the wall, before chipping into hundreds of bone shards, many of which went into Sear¡¯s own hand. ¡°Shit!¡± A good ten minutes of pain and misery later, he had fished out all the bone shards from his hands. At least he thought so. Sear now made ten more of the same shafts. By the tenth, he could tell that it was about 2 millimeters thinner than the last. He continued until he got what he wanted. He had an unsharpened sword, basically. It was a 3 meter long shaft of pure white bone. He had made the entire length about 5 millimeters thick. The edges were somewhat sharpened, but nowhere near what he wanted it to be. Once again, he thrust it into the stone wall. This time, all 3 meters of the sword slid in. It also didn¡¯t crack. He took it back out, and made a handle that would fit its size. It would look like a bludgeon if it wasn¡¯t for the uneven shape. He picked more bones and continued to mend them together while compressing it. In the end, he had a 3.5 meter long bunt claymore. He put it back into its hole in the wall and began to move back to the town, wanting to see what he could do now that he had assigned himself as king. With a grin, he walked out of the cave with his small pack behind him. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When Sear arrived at the gate of the wall, he was surprised to see a large group of well over 100 guards glaring menacingly at him. Confused, he continued to stare, until he found the leader. Sitting upon a large steel chair on a platform carried by slaves, was none other than the same noble who had attempted to kill another. When he realized he had been noticed, he began to talk. ¡°Sear! You are now wanted by the Town of Eldridge! I, as the strongest noble, have made myself king and you are now wanted for treason and attempting to take the crown!¡± ¡°Ahh, so that¡¯s the town¡¯s name, Eldridge.¡± Sear laughed it off and continued to stare at the group. ¡°Surrender now Sear, or we will be forced to take action!¡± Instead of doing anything, Sear just stared at the man on the ¡°throne,¡± and waited. Minutes passed as he could see both the guards and the ¡°king¡± begin to sweat. After another minute, he could see regret in some of the guard¡¯s eyes. Happy with his success in the psychological battle, he charged in. ¡°Flashings and Guardians, stay behind and let me do this alone.¡± His creations just stood while watching Sear rush into battle. Be thought he saw one of the Guardians get saddened because it found out wouldn¡¯t be able to fight. Paying attention to the guards once more, he saw that they had pulled their weapons out. They formed a wall of shields, and anywhere there was space, spears stood out. He smiled, seeing that the barrier was slightly wobbly as the men were still fighting a mental battle. Sear felt his bloodlust coming, and showed it to the world. Many of the guards collapsed onto their knees and some even shit themselves. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. The others began to hunch over and looked like they had just seen a ghost, not that it was impossible in their world. Sear continued to rush in. Right before he reached the wall of shields, Sear lowered his body almost parallel to the ground, as launched himself through men¡¯s legs. Once through, he strengthened his grip upon the floor and spun, kicking countless guards into the air. He got up, and took in his situation. He was now in the middle of a pack of guards. The guards all around him dropped to their knees, and a few even fell unconscious as they now felt the power radiating off of him. The pressure they felt was onto second to them having to carry a mountain on their backs. Sear now moved on to his next plan. Summoning a large scythe in his hand, he began to spin it around him while walking towards the nearest standing guard. The guard ran in, attempting to surprise and injure Sear. Instead, Sear whipped the scythe from his back and with a slash the man¡¯s head got lobbed off. It landed in the arms of another man, who fainted from the sight. Grinning, Sear continued to move forward all the while attacking anything that got in his way. Soon enough, he turned into a tornado that flew through ranks of men. All around men screamed as limbs were cut off, while some suffered a worse fate as Sear cut a few men in half, both vertically and diagonally. After a while, he had reached the noble. All the guards around had either been killed or had fled from the battle, cherishing their life that was almost taken away. ¡°Im, impossible! How can one man defeat an army of hundreds of trained soldiers?¡± The noble began to slowly crawl away, while Sear continued to increase the pressure he put on the man. Soon enough, the noble was unconscious and Sear was dragging him back to the town square. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Once the noble woke, he was astonished by what lay around him. He didn¡¯t even care that he was in a cage. All around, the village had been changed, the once red stone town hall was now turned into a tomb of bones. The entire building, from the throne to the walls, had been remade from bone, and mended together to create a nice surface. The town around him was darker too. The pavement had turned pit black, and the lampposts seemed to give off an eerie blue light. Some of the houses had bones and skulls melded in random areas. In the distance he could also see walls that went up a good 15 meters. The walls were made from the red stone, and had bone towers that went up for at least 10 floors. He turned back to the town hall and took in what he saw. The chandeliers now, instead of having golden candles, instead held skulls with black and red candles within. The wax dripped and formed stalactites hanging off of the jaw. The guards were now replaced by Sear¡¯s minions, and the throne held a large skeleton that seemed to belong to a mermaid in shape. Upon that very throne sat Sear, wearing a golden crown that was lined in bones. The entire village had become bone themed. Sear now spoke. ¡°I see you have awoken. Welcome to the new village of Eldridge! As the new king, I have changed a few things, and the entire village is now much more fortified, and to my liking.¡± Sear could sense the hatred coming off of the noble, but he paid no heed to it. He instead looked around at his handiwork and smiled. He had turned the entire city in a crypt of bones. He had infused every single thing in the village with his mana, from shoes to wooden boards, literally everything. ¡°Guardians, take him to the dungeon and let him rot, I have work to do now.¡± Two of his guardians moved over and took him out of the cage, leading him down a path to the ¡°dungeon¡±, more known as a hole in the ground. He could hear the nobles muffled screams and pleads for mercy, it was soothing. Now that he was done, he decided to go visit the other nobles to see if they accepted him. He was surprised at how effective his magic was at changing an entire town, but he wouldn¡¯t make it perfect until he took over a city on the surface. By the end of the day, all of the nobles had accepted him, some nicely, and others with a small amount of persuasion. Going back to the town hall, he created another staircase leading into the room that would become his army barracks. He still had to make an army of skeleton dragons to follow him. For now though, he had to be happy with the Guardians and Flashings. Chapter 14 WOW! DAILY UPLOAD FROM ME? WHAT KIND OF SORCERY IS THIS?! But seriously, here is the next chapter. A small training montage followed by a plot continuation. @KRUTEN: Last chapter you commented saying you wanted him to become a dark god fast for larger battles. Dont worry, i already have the final fight planned out in my head, now all i need it to add atleast 50 chapters inbetween there and this current chapter. If you manage to wait, you will be rewarded. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 14-Training Montage 1 Now that the village was to his liking, Sear decided it was now time for him to become stronger. He planned carefully, looking at maps of the surrounding areas, and deciding the next best move. For now, he decided to increase his mana reserves. He created the densest ball of mana he could and absorbed it back into him, hundreds of times. He continued doing this for days and days as the ball continued to increase in size. After a few days, he created the same ball he had created the first day, and found that it he could create 2 more of the same size. The 2 weeks of practice had tripled his mana reserves. Now he moved on to his next plan. Sitting down, he focused on the rock beneath him and attempted to control it. Now that he had a lot of practice with dark magic along with large mana reserves, he could now begin to master other types of magic. By the end of the first week, he was only able to levitate a small rock 2 centimeters in diameter off of the ground. By the end of the second week, he was able to create slabs of rock that were 6 by 6. By the third week, not only could he summon balls of rock and throw them with great power, but he was able to cause a very minor earthquake. Happy with what he had accomplished, he moved on to air magic. It was much faster for him to learn air magic, as it was as easy to control as well, air. Controlling earth took much more focus and power because it was much denser, while the air moved quite easily. In two weeks, he had managed to create shard blades of wind, he could suffocate things by taking the air from their lungs, and he was able to push items away with gusts of wind. During this training, he had been attacked multiple times, sometimes a few bandits, sometimes a few mutated animals. He used his newfound skills to kill them. While fighting, he also found out that he could launch rocks even faster if he combined them with air magic. He had basically created a cannon with earth and air magic. His next magic tree to learn was fire magic. Not knowing how to control it without physically touching it, he stuck his hand into a fire, somehow thinking that it would be a good idea. Once his cooked hand cooled off, he attempted to control the fire from afar. Doing this, he learned that instead of having to touch it, he just had to sense its heat in order to control it. It took him around 6 weeks for him to learn to properly use fire magic. He remembered what he once heard a man say, ¡°Fire is unwieldly, unknown, feared. Try to control it, and it will burn through to your very soul.¡± He remembered what he once heard a man say, ¡°Fire is unwieldly, unknown, feared. Try to control it, and it will burn through to your very soul.¡± By the end, not only did he have multiple new scars covering his body, but he had managed to form a spear of fire, capable of piercing and burning through anything living. The next, and still not last type of magic he had to learn, was water magic. On the first week he attempted to create whirlpools, and he managed to successfully. In the next two weeks, he could create waves that rose 5 feet off of the water, and could also create pellets of water that he could launch at something. Something he didn¡¯t try was to drown someone, or control the water in someone¡¯s blood. That would be saved for later. With those 4 magics down, Sear moved on to the next one, Nature Magic. Nature magic revolved around both plants and animals, and would allow him to be able to control them. By the end of that month, Sear had managed to control tree branches to hit people with them, use grass and roots to grab onto an enemy, and had learned how to ¡°talk¡± with animals. In total, he had spent 4 months training his magic. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Now as he walked around, he could control everything around him. He looked at the town to find that the pitch black stone it had before had slightly changed colors, and now had different cracks of brown, blue, red, green, and grey flowing through it. It seemed that that stone showed which magic he had, and still dark magic overwhelmed the rest. Done with that, he attempted to dive into his mana as he had done before, getting to the second level of dark magic. What he found was that he was nowhere near the power needed to get to the second level. Comparing his dark magic to these other magics was like comparing a newborn baby to a full grown mountain lion. Once he fainted, he decided that trying to get to the second level wouldn¡¯t happen anytime soon. Instead, he sat down, and for the next dozen hours he refined a ball of pure dark mana. Multiple times he had failed, and was thrown meters away. The amount of energy in that small orb was intense enough that it slowly began to take a solid form. He continued creating this solid form until he had run out of energy. He looked at his work, and was surprised that all that energy made a ball smaller than 1 centimeter in diameter. Though the think he was happy about, was that being next to it seemed to make him stronger. It was as if dark energy was radiating off of the orb. Picking it up, he put it into his bag and moved on to his next plan. He had to create an army, more specifically, a skeleton army. The first thing he wanted to do was create an ¡°overlord¡± for the flashings. Taking the basic design from them, he increased its size while at the same time making the claws sharper and the bones denser. It was roughly ? times larger than a normal flashing. Finally he began to interweave the bones with both wind and dark magic. He wanted it to be able to create blades of wind that would fly off of its claws, and the dark magic to help it camouflage and hide when attacking. He added triple the amount of mana into it than a normal flashing, making it much faster and stronger. Happy with what he had, he finished it. At once, he could see that it had a much higher sense of intelligence. His training had paid off. ¡°Massster, what do you need me to do?¡± Sear was surprised at how much it sounded like a snake. ¡°I will summon more Flashings for you to command. I want you to go down into the barracks and teach them the very basics of air and dark magic.¡± With that, he summoned 10 Flashings, and sent them all to follow the commander, which he decided to name Heer. Allowing himself to rest, he waited 3 days before beginning to make a commander for the Guardians. Once again, he took their basic form and changed it. Instead of making it just rationally bigger, he widened the shoulders and added more depth to the chest. He increased the size of its hands while keeping the arms, legs, and head the same. He strengthened the shield it had to make it harder than Damascus steel. The rest of body also became denser, but nowhere near the shield. Finally, he interwove earth magic into the being. Once he was done, he once again heard the voice of his new intelligent creation. ¡°Thank you for birthing me, my lord. What do you wish for me to do?¡± The Bone Guardian commander, now named Hunk, nearly tripled Sear in size, and its voice sounded exactly like what you would expect it too. A deep, hoarse voice. ¡°Take these bone guardians and teach them the basics of earth magic. You will be their commander.¡± He summoned 5 Guardians, and sent them all away, wanting to relax. Creating beings that were semi-sentient had drained him both mentally and physically. Tired, he sat down, and slept. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- POV CHANGE ¡°Grand Father James, we have discovered the source of the dark energy, Along with it, we began to sense faint nature, earth, fire, air, and water magic. It seems that this person has chosen the Grand Ravine as his home.¡± All that responded was a short growl. ¡°Damn the gods! It has taken us 7 months to find him, and by now he is clearly much stronger than before.¡± The Grand Father looked at the lowly Acolyte. ¡°Summon all of the Fathers. We will bring an army upon that man.¡± Chapter 15 Ok, so I dont think i ever really told people the size of the cave where Sear "lives." It is basically a 500km by 500km cave that had huge rough pillars that connect the floor to the ceiling. Think this only magnitudes bigger: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwigzJTS57fNAhWGWT4KHRSDAcAQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%2Fsciencetech%2Farticle-2441450%2FEr-Wang-Dong-cave-China-huge-weather-system.html&psig=AFQjCNFK6utiBf1Ujg6q_En8doxqKH5zDg&ust=1466553461119810 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2441450/Er-Wang-Dong-cave-China-huge-weather-system.html And yes i actually did research. And btw, the "Royal Knights" described in this chapter are not what you think. They are more of soldiers for merchants than nobles. True noble knights have much more power and might appear later in the series. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 15-Preparing For Battle ¡°Father Simons, we have arrived at the edge of the crevice. Do you wish for us to begin constructing a way down?¡± Father Simons looked at the Priest in front of him. Somehow other than any other Father, he was the one selected to lead the Crusade. Behind him he had over 100 Priests and Clerics with about 500 Paladins or Royal Knights. Along with that he had about 100 Mages of different types. ¡°Before we do so, allow the men to rest. We will begin 3 after dawn.¡± The priest walked away while Father Simons just sighed, worried about what was to occur. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The morning after, Simons awoke to the noise of stone being moved. When he left his tent he found that the Earth Mages were already creating a ramp that went down the side of the crevice. It was about 50 meters wide and allowed carriages to be brought along it. Along with that, he could see several Paladins praying to the gods. Every time one finished, a white light would shine upon them giving them the Holy Blessing, allowing them to be more resistant to every other type of magic. All around him saw an army preparing for war. He wondered, what could 1 man do that would require these many people to go against him. Suddenly a group of Knights and Air Mages came up to him. ¡°Father, we request that you allow us to venture down the ravine early to scout out the area. We will report the moment we see anything.¡± The leader of this small group seemed better equipped than the rest. While the other Knights had steel and iron armor and weapons, his armor was made with silver, gold, and basilisk scales. His sword and shield had holy runes engraved onto them and the sword¡¯s hilt had golden threads going along it. ¡°Hmmm, I guess a little scouting wouldn¡¯t be bad. But, you must be back within 2 hours. If not, we will not attempt to find you.¡± He was hesitant in allowing to go, but he realized that it would be a smart idea. ¡°We will not disappoint, Father.¡± The group walked off, leaving Father Simons to do his daily prayers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- POV CHANGE A week had passed since Sear made his commanders, and he was quite surprised with how effective they had been so far. Heer had managed to successfully teach the Flashings to use basic Wind Magic, but they were quite slow with cultivating dark magic. Hunk on the other hand, had managed to perfectly teach his minions Earth Magic. While they could do the same attacks as Hunk, there was a large difference in its strength. Meanwhile, Sear had been continuing to increase the size of his Dark Mana Orb. It was now 3 centimeters in diameter, and Sear could tell without a doubt that having it near him made him stronger and helped him get his mana back faster. Surprised with how effective this was, he began to create Orbs for the other magics, but they were still much too small. The biggest one he had been able to make, an Air Magic one, was only 3 millimeters in diameter. Another thing he didn¡¯t notice before is that a faint mist came off of the orbs, allowing him to tell which Magic they were from without having to peer at it endlessly. Creating these orbs had allowed him to increase his magic¡¯s strength, and he could tell that his attacks with the other magics were almost double what they were before. The one thing that he was worried about was the pounding of feet echoing off of the cavern¡¯s ceiling. Many of the people said that it reminded them of the pounding of an incoming army. Not only that, but Sear could feel magic coming from the entrance to the cavern. It felt alien, almost as if it was the exact opposite of his. Not wanting to be unprepared, he summoned 30 more Flashings and about 70 more Guardians. Along with that he created a human sized skeleton that was able to use magic. He called them Bone Mages, and created 5 for each magic other than holy and dark. In total, he had 2 army commanders, over 100 melee soldiers, and around 25 Mages. All he would need now was some kind of Skeleton archers, but he left that for later. Happy with what he had done, he decided to continue increasing the orb sizes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ¡°Massster, I dissscovered intruderss and managed to incapasssitate them all. What sshould I do with them now?¡± Looking over, he found Heer. He knew that they would come, but surprised at how soon it was. ¡°How many were there?¡± He needed to find out how many people he would go up against, because he doubted that they would send in their whole force from the get go, and lose that fast. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. ¡°There are 7 warriorsss and 5 magessssss.¡± Sear still couldn¡¯t get over how annoying Heer¡¯s voice was. ¡°Let them live for now. I will go down to see them in a few hours. Make sure to keep 10 Flashings and 10 Guardians around them at all times.¡± He didn¡¯t want them to have a possibility of escaping and reporting back to the main army. A few minutes later he made his way down the stairs to the crew. Once he arrived, he found a pile of staffs and armor piled in a corner. On the other side of the room, behind 4 inch bone bars, was a group of 12 men. Each looked heavily worn out by the bags under their eyes and the number of relentless slashes on their skin. Each one had to have at least 20 cuts along their body. Once they saw him though, they perked up. ¡°Ahh, another human finally!¡± One of the stronger men spoke. ¡°You need to help us, these skeletons are infesting this cavern. We think that a powerful dark mage created this. Please help us escape so we can lead you to safety.¡± The man looked extremely happy and hopeful as he scanned Sear. Then suddenly, he came to a stop upon Sear¡¯s head. ¡°That¡­ that crown. It¡¯s made of bones. And¡­ the skeletons don¡¯t attack you. But how¡­.¡± Sear smirked upon seeing the group open their eyes in understanding. They were looking at the dark mage himself. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- POV CHANGE 7 hours had passed and still the scouting group hadn¡¯t returned. Father Simons began to worry at the mage¡¯s potential. To be able to wipe out 12 trained men. The only other reason they could have not returned from is getting lost, but considering that each Knight is trained in cartography he doubted it. Looking at the ramp once again, he saw that the mages had made considerable progress. Not only had they added a railing to the edge so that men wouldn¡¯t fall off, but they were also around half way down. Before him he took in everything he saw. To his left he had groups of Knights practicing against each other, to his left he had hundreds of mages working together to create large spells and barriers, and behind him he had members of the Holy Order praying. He was suddenly extremely discouraged. For some odd reason he felt like they wouldn¡¯t even be able to come close to the Dark Mage¡¯s power. Instead of worrying though, he went up to the Lieutenant of the Knights. ¡°How are the men?¡± The Lieutenant looked back surprised at hearing a sudden voice from behind him. ¡°You really know how to sneak up on people don¡¯t you?¡± The Lieutenant spoke sarcastically. ¡°With old age comes slow moving. And with slow moving comes silent moving.¡± The two shared a quick laugh before getting back to serious talk. ¡°The men are well. Very few seem to be worried, and most are quite excited for what is to come. They only think of the riches that might come from this.¡± He sneered while saying that. ¡°Well that is good to know. Hopefully they perform well.¡± With that father Simons walked over to the mages to see what they were doing. When he arrived he saw a shimmering wall of mana. It was rainbow colored, and he realized that all the mages were coming together to form one barrier with all their energy, making it much stronger than any other. He walked over to Sir Eer, the strongest and most well-known battle mage in all of Gruflumlor. ¡°So how are the mages?¡± The wizard turned around and seemed happy with Father Simon¡¯s presence. ¡°They are well. I am having them finish the last of their team based spells before they prepare to journey down. I suspect that we will move at dawn?¡± Father Simons simply nodded. ¡°I suspect that they will be ready by dawn. They may even be able to get a bit more practice before we begin to go. Also, how did the scouting go?¡± Father Simon¡¯s face dipped at the though. ¡°They have not come back. I fear that they have been captured or killed. Hopefully this man won¡¯t be as strong as we think he is.¡± Forcing a smile, he looked at Sir Eer once more and walked away. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ¡°Men! We have traveled for weeks to reach the Great Ravine! You have all been selected to help in the hunting of a dark mage! This might be one of the strongest men you will even face in your life.¡± ¡°Though many of you may be worried, remember, he is only one and we are many! With enough will even the weakest can rise to the top!¡± Turning to face the ramp he continued. ¡°Now let us march onto this mage¡¯s territory!¡± All around him men cheered and cried out as they began to follow him down the ramp to their destination. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- POV CHANGE With the torturing over, Sear walked back into the town hall. Around him people moved back, and he realized that those blood-curling screams were probably heard throughout a large portion of the village. But he had gained some nice information from them. He was apparently being hunted by a ¡°Holy Order.¡± They had set up camp above the ravine and were planning to come down to face him in a matter of days, if not hours. They had at least 500 people, and Sear realized that he would need many more men for this battle. Using his Earth Magic, Sear sensed the trembling in the ground and smiled. The main group was here. Chapter 16 I wanted to add music but idk which. Just choose an epic song i guess :P/ but otherwise here''s the new chapter. Enjoy. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 16-The Raid Pt. 1 As the group came closer and closer to the town, Sear began to move his creations into position. All around the village sentries were posted along the walls. He also managed to quickly create tunnels underground for his troops to move through thanks to his earth magic. He smiled thinking about what was about to happen. It would be his first true test of skill, and he would have to use all of his trump cards to win. ¡°My lord, what should Heer and I do?¡± He looked over to see his commander kneeling before him. ¡°Take 50 Guardians and 20 Flashings with you both and stand near the west gate of the town. Once they get close attack and kill all.¡± They moved away leaving Sear to think alone. According to the soldiers he tortured, they would quadruple his forces and still have many left over. While they weren¡¯t the strongest of foes, a group of that size could inflict quite a lot of damage. It seems that he would need to personally get involved after all. With the last few seconds he had, he continued to expand the size of his orbs. His dark magic orb was now 5 centimeters in diameter while the other orbs were all 5 millimeters, with Air Magic being 7. He pocketed them all and stood up to go see if anything had happened yet. At that moment he heard shouts from the edge of the village. When he looked over, he was surprised to see a meteor flying towards the town. It wasn¡¯t very large, but it would easily panic the entire town if it managed to land. Clutching his Air orb, Sear focused on the air around the orb and slowly began to make the air denser and denser to the point that it was visible at this point. While it didn¡¯t stop it, it gave him a few seconds to think about what to do. Use Earth Magic to break it? Would only make smaller meteors. Punch it? Would hurt and same thing would happen. Use tree roots to create a shield to block it? Not strong enough yet to block that. Water magic would only flood the town and fire magic would do nothing to stone. The only thing he had left that he could do was utterly obliterate it with Dark Magic. And by that, he meant create a wall of dense magic that would absorb the rock. He would basically create a flat black hole. He would need to try making one in the future. Seeing as the meteor was beginning to close in, he jumped towards the meteor. Soon, he got close enough to it that he could touch it. Stretching his hands out. He sent magic flying out of him. He created a wall big enough to fully block it and got away. But then something he didn¡¯t expect happened. Around the meteor he could see a faint white glow. The meteor passed straight through the magic wall without even being slowed down. He could do nothing but watch it crash into one of the larger houses in the town. On the moment of impact, the meteor exploded sending magic of all types flying through the city. Screams could be heard coming from all directions as a large plume of smoke rose up into the air. Soon most of the city was covered in smoke, and Sear had to use his magic to keep himself from suffocating. He heard a clashing of weapons coming from his left so he ran as fast as he could to the main battle. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As soon as Sear reached the outer walls of the city, he finally saw the battle. All of his Guardians were fighting head on with the soldiers, each one fighting 4 or 5. Many were actually able to kill their opponents and help out other guardians. They were also quite good at using their earth magic to trip the knights and make them attack their own. When he looked over to his commander, all that he saw was a line of death. All around him men perished to either his sword or the spikes that came out of the ground all around him. This continued for a few minutes until a white light began to slowly shine throughout most of the men. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. They now suddenly moved faster, and actually managed to create cracks in the guardians. Realizing that they were using holy magic, he decided that it was time to get involved. Taking control of the air on the battlefield, he slowly began to push it all away. He could now see many of the knights visibly pale as they began to suffocate. It started slow at first, but by the time Sear¡¯s Air mana had run out he had killed a good 50 of the men, and the rest would be weakened for a few more seconds. Once again his guardians began to slaughter anything around them. BOOM!!! Sear was sent flying away from an explosion that occurred right in front of him. He was sent flying into a house which collapsed once he crashed into it. Pushing the rubble off of him, he saw over 100 mages begin to move into the battle. He smiled, and charged in. In a matter of seconds, he had closed in on the mages. He jumped, and while pirouetting he summoned large spikes of ice all around him and launched them away from his body. The mages had now become frozen kababs. Kneeling under a sword, Sear used his earth magic to create pillars of rock coming out of the ground. While the pillars didn¡¯t exactly kill men, it launched them a fair distance into the air before the landed on the ground and died because of that. Once he saw his Flashings begin to move in, Sear backed off to regain his mana. He was still quite novice with those magics so he had very little mana for them. He continued to take in the battlefield as a thought occurred to him. There were hundreds of dead bodies around, and most of them had bones. He sat down before covering himself with a layer of rock and then roots to blend into the surrounding landscape. Concentrating on the bones around him, he slowly pushed them all out of the bodies. He could hear screams from the surprised soldiers. Continuing, he began to make something larger than he had ever made before. The bones began to combine to make meter long claws that connected to large legs. The creature now split into two parts. One of the part began to thin slightly before ending off with a large hook at the end once it reached a length of 10 meters. It then continued to grow in the other direction. Two large arms grew and accommodated a pair of human like hands. Its neck elongated upwards until it came to an end. A large snout formed and several gigantic teeth began to fill in its jaw. Out of the side of its head, 2 large curved horns grew out. Just as people thought it would finish it continued. Along its back 2 protrusions began to grow and expand very rapidly. Soon, it was made in all its glory and everyone got a glimpse of what it truly was. Roaring with vigor, the creature landed on the ground, and with a swipe of its tail killed tens of men. People could do nothing but watch it, stunned in place. They were seeing a skeleton dragon in all its glory. A hoarse laugh could be heard coming out of the dragon¡¯s mouth before it began to form two black orbs on the edge of its horns. Once large enough, the dragon leaned forward, and the orbs launched off and collided into packs of men, sending limbs and blood flying through the air. As it continued to kill, its bones began to turn red. Slowly a layer of muscle could be viable on the dragon. It looked like something that would have been skinned alive, except that nothing skinned alive could look that excited. Launching itself up into the air, the dragon once again summoned two large black orbs, only this time they were about 10 times bigger. Seeing this, men began to flee as mages began to erect a barrier in order to stop it. Sadly, it could do nothing as the orbs flew harmlessly past it. They exploded, and this time it looked as if someone had dropped bombs along the entire battlefield. Friends and foes alike were killed by the large explosions. At this point, the dragon had finished growing. Its muscled bulged as hard red scales grew onto it. Suddenly it spoke. ¡°Hahaha. Puny humans. See what happens when one of your kind attempts to recreate and control me! I am Zedrin, the Dragon King!¡± Zedrin roared, sending shockwaves of air through the area. He turned and began to fly off into the area, leaving a stunned Sear and less than 100 men on each side standing. Seeing as the bane of their existence had ran off, the mages and knights began to once attack, getting Sear out of his trance. Chapter 17 My other book: Ley World This is the end of the first arc. Its a boss battle, finally something semi-epic. I''m still horrile at writing so don''t expect much from it. But yeah, check out my other book, and also, during the fight, think Dragon Ball. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 17-The Raid Pt. 2 ¡°What the hell was that thing?¡± Sear cursed under his breath as he began to shower his opponents with spears of ice. He could still feel the faint magic coming from the distance. Whatever that thing that he created was, it was much more powerful than him. It seemed like it sucked the very souls out of people and used that to regrow itself. Summoning something like that would be something he would only do in the very far future. Back to the current situation, his side was winning, barely. He had about 30 Guardians to go up against around 50 knights, and still had around 60 Flashings that were fighting 50 mages. Slowly the enemies were being pushed back, but at this point he was losing far more troops than he had planned to. This continued on for a few minutes, each side taking casualties, until something else happened. In the distance, Sear could make out a man wearing a white cloak. That man was completely obliterating his troops. With just a flick of his finger even the Guardians were sent flying. ¡°Someone to fight huh¡­¡± Preparing to rush in and fight the man, Sear used all the buffs he knew. Once again he used his dark magic to improve his strength and speed, he used air magic to make himself even faster, and used earth magic to add a layer of protection. Happy with what he had, Sear summoned a sword of dark mana and propelled himself forward. He flew over the battle and straight at the man. The man spotted Sear, and raised his hands, most likely creating a shield. Instead of stopping, Sear swung his sword and sent a blade of dark magic towards the ¡°Priest¡±. The shield blocked it easily, but Sear continued to charge in. Once he was a few meters away, Sear jumped once again and slashed downwards at the shield. His magic collided with the barrier and the two opposing magics began to fight against each other. Sparks and lightning flew from the impact, and anyone foolish enough to be nearby was swept away by the howling winds produced by their energy. As soon as they separated, Sear once again charged in, but this time he lunged forward. Even the ground beneath the man¡¯s and Sear¡¯s feet began to crumble away. Lightning began crawling along the ground and striking at anything that was flung near, whether it be wood, a rock, or a dead body. After this strike, Sear was rewarded by a large crack in the barrier. Sensing this, the man reinforced his barrier and began to go on the offensive. Pointing one finger upward, the man began to chant a long sequence on words. While Sear did try to stop it, the barrier stopped him before he could do anything. Once the chanting finished, the man pointed at Sear and 6 bright white orbs appeared around the man. They slowly began to spin around him before each shot out into a different direction, before turning and coming at Sear. They were each coming from a separate direction. Suing his earth and nature magic, Sear created a dome around him and then layered the inside with roots. A second later he felt the impact of the orbs. Even with his protection, he was launched off of his feet. Once he stood, he felt a jabbing pain in his right shoulder. Looking over he saw that the man had imbedded a spear into his arm. Then suddenly the man spoke. ¡°My, my, how aggressive you are. We haven¡¯t introduced ourselves and you already attempt to kill me.¡± The man smiled, before twisting the spear so causing Sear to fall onto his knees. ¡°I am known as Father Simons, the man that was sent here to kill you, the newest dark magic user.¡± ¡°Remember my name, for it will be the last you hear. Now what is yours?¡± The man shoved the spear even deeper, and Sear could do nothing but just watch. ¡°As if¡­ I would tell someone like you my name!¡± With explosive power, Sear jumped up and launched an uppercut at Simon. It collided, and he was sent flying into the air. Noticing this opportunity, Sear summoned large stone spikes and sent them hurling towards the Father. Two collided with him, but neither did major damage, just light cuts. ¡°Hmmm, so that¡¯s how you will be. Very well then.¡± The Father stood up, and closed his eyes. Sear was about to attack, before he sensed the immense amount of magic coming from the man. ¡°Awaken!¡± Sear was blown back as Father Simon exploded in a flash of white light. So much power was being sent out at such a fast speed that around them a tornado formed. ¡°You will now feel the power of a Holy Warrior!¡± Simons screamed and all the light disappeared. What now replaced the man was an angel. Literally. With a long white robe, pure white wings, and a large golden trident, Father Simons had turned into an angel. Preparing himself, Sear stood his ground and prepared to attack. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Before he could even see him though, Father Simons flew past him, and a large gush of blood began to flow from where Sear¡¯s left arm used to be. Looking down, he found his dismembered arm on the ground. Sear couldn¡¯t even feel the pain from the strike as he was still too surprised. The only thing he felt was a slow anger boiling inside of him. Knowing what was about to come, Sear sighed, ad let himself go, this time fully. Just as what had happened with Father Simons, Sear began a transformation, albeit smaller. His eyes turned fully red, and at the center all that could be seen was a small black pupil. Lines of energy began to appear all over his body. They spiraled along his arms and legs before coming to a stop right above his heart. His veins had turned a deep black and his skin paled slightly. Electricity began to crackle along his body, and his clothes were replaced by a pair of void black baggy pants, and a skin tight black tank top. Where his left arm used to be, a pitch black replication of it made from dark magic appeared. The runes on his arms began to shine and glow. On his face, two stars formed, one white and the other black. Opening his eyes once more, Sear spotted Father Simons looking at him. While Simons was surprised, it was nothing like what Sear had been like. Smiling, Sear crouched down on the ground, and using both his arms and legs, launched himself forward at the Father. He punched forward while Simons intercepted with by sending his trident forward. The two collided, and a large explosion occurred. The stone wall of the village had been disintegrated, along with anyone within 100 meters of them. Kicking the trident away, Sear punched Simons in the chest, sending him flying all the way to the other side of the town. The two began to throw punches around, and soon enough the entire village was destroyed by their shockwaves. Simons got a kick in, and Sear was sent flying into one of the nearby cavern pillars. He flew through the 200 meter thick pillar like it was water, and he heard it crumble behind him. Flipping around mid-air, Sear summoned large poles of dark magic, and sent them towards the rapidly approaching Father. Simons spun his trident around on his fingers and all of the spears were stopped. Landing in the ground, Sear put his hands on the ground and began to work his magic. All around Simons large curving walls of stone rose up attempted to close him in. Everywhere he moved, the walls would just follow. Eventually the walls just split into hundreds of pillars that continued to chase him throughout the air. He pirouetted through the pillars, slowly breaking them. At the same time, Sear began to form a large ball of fire inside one of the pillars, that was set to explode whenever it got close to Simons. He sensed this though, and quickly disposed of the pillar before flying down towards Sear. The two once again began flying throughout the cavern sending punches and kicks at each other. Large stalactites shattered from the force, and in the distance you could hear shouts, most likely coming from another one of the villages they had passed through, and destroyed. Eventually, the two began to slow down, and instead began to send projectiles at themselves. Large speaks of ice, stone, holy energy, and dark magic were flying between the two. At one point, Sear summoned a boulder at least a kilometer in diameter and sent it flying towards Simons. It was easily cut into pieces by the ¡°angel.¡± Once again, the two began their fast paced melee. Sear smashed, kicked, and countered while Simons blocked, slashed, and jabbed. During the midst of this battle though, Sear managed to kick Simon¡¯s trident away and is dispersed, having been sent away from its source of energy. The two gripped each other and landed, sending out shockwaves once more. The ceiling of the cavern was coming down in large portions now, and both knew that the cavern would collapse before long. By now both Sear and Simons were tired. They both had countless injuries, and Sear seemed to be suffering from heavy loss of blood, while Simons suffered from multiple broken ribs, and a possible punctured lung. The only reason the two were still alive was because of their magic. But it was now coming down to the very end. They both knew it and prepared themselves for the hardest part of the fight. It began when Sear launched a left hook at Simons. He successfully blocked it, yet was sent a few meters to the side because of the force. He countered with a kick, and kneed Sear in the guts, bending him over. Simons took advantage of this, and slammed his hands down onto the back of Sear¡¯s head, sending him face first into the ground. He still managed to stand once more, yet his legs were shaking like crazy, and he could barely move. Simons dived in, and prepared to kill Sear. Mid-flight though, his magic ran out. His winds disappeared, and his robes shattered, leaving him with the old clothes he had. He was also not able to stop himself, and he collided with Sear at over 200 kilometers an hour. Sear felt his consciousness fade away from the two colliding at such a speed. The last thing he remembered was seeing the entire cavern roof collapsing onto itself, onto Sear. Chapter 18 Chapter 18 is here. My Other Book ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 18-Rebirth ¡°Why are we still here? It¡¯s been 10 days and still he haven¡¯t found anything.¡± After the collapse of the cavern, hundreds of treasure hunters and mercenaries came to try to find some long treasure. Currently, ten days had passed but John¡¯s group had yet to find anything. ¡°There is still a chance. We still have much land to find.¡± Jim responded back to John. He was the leader of the expedition, and he wouldn¡¯t stop until he found something. ¡°Now get back to digging John, Lord Here isn¡¯t paying us to sit around.¡± Standing back up, John went back to his digging. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ¡°Oiii! I think I¡¯ve found me something!¡± One of the expedition members in the distance threw a rock up, indicating where he was. John and the rest ran over, wanting to see what he found. In his hands was a piece of white cloth. It seemed to be made out of silk. ¡°Do ya think there could something near that this came from?¡± The expedition member looked at Jim and asked. ¡°There might¡­ Ok everyone, focus on digging within 100 feet of this finding. We have some money to make.¡± They all walked off, picking up their shovels. John was lucky, and he had earth magic that he could dig with. The bad part was that it was extremely weak, and the most he could dig was a cubic meter of dirt. He would then have to wait almost 10 minutes to get his energy back before he could dig another. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- POV CHANGE ¡°Grand Father James, according to the mana crystals, a large influx of mana was sensed before the collapse. It seems most likely that Father Simons had to use his Angelic Form to fight the dark magic user. At the same time though, enough dark energy was summoned that it equaled Father Simon¡¯s Angelic Form.¡± ¡°The two probably fought and died once the cavern collapsed onto them.¡± James looked over and took this information in. ¡°Has there been no more dark or holy magic sensed from that area?¡± ¡°No Grand Father. Since the last large surge of energy all the energy there has disappeared. The only magic being sensed from there is the Earth Mages digging away at the rubble.¡± ¡°Another topic Grand Father, what will happen if people find out that the collapse was partially cause by us? The collapse ended up destroying 4 different villages and killed around 900 people.¡± ¡°We will just simply tell people that it was in the name of god. Nobody is dumb enough to go against god.¡± After saying this, Grand Father James walked away, leaving the Priest there. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- POV CHANGE ¡°I found two bodies!¡± John looked over at Jim and ran over, almost tackling one of the other diggers. In front of him were two completely bashed bodies. One was of a 20 to 30ish year old man. He seemed quite fit and his body was covered in blood and bruises. The other body was a teenage aged boy with pitch black hair. He also had bruises and blood covering most of their body. Kneeling down Jim went to close their eyelids but once he touched their bodies he felt something. Heartbeats. They were both still alive, somehow, barely. ¡°They¡¯re alive! Quick Get them to the tent and send a message out to the nearest healer!¡± Jim shouted out orders while getting the only first aid supplies they had been given, 3 ounces of healing balm. Applying fair amounts onto both bodies, he covered them up and waited for the healer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ¡°Ok, they are both alive and should be in a stable condition by now. All we have to do now is wait for them to wake up and then ask them what had happened.¡± Jim thanked the healer and sat down next to the two, waiting for them to wake up. He would not leave their side for days if he had too. The amount of money he could make from saving two people. He had people take shifts digging, while most of the others just waited along with him for one to wake up. A few days later, the older man woke up. ¡°Where¡­ where am I?¡± The man looked extremely groggy, but immediately perked up once he saw the boy¡¯s body. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. ¡°You are at one of the expeditions sent out to find anything left behind from the collapse of the cavern. It¡¯s a miracle you¡¯re still alive. Do you know this young man?¡± The man pointed to the dark mage, and Simons was about to kill him on the spot, but held back. ¡°I do, if you could for me, once he awakes tell him that I will be seeing him in the future.¡± Simons stood up and left, his clothes still in tatters while Jim could do nothing but watch in amazement at how casually the man acted even after this. Shrugging, he sat down once more and waited for the boy to wake up. Thankfully, the boy woke up only hours later. ¡°Where am I? Who are you people?¡± The boy sat straight up and looked as if he was about to hurt someone to get his answers. ¡°Wow, wow relax. We found your body after digging the remains of the collapse of the cavern. There was another man we found with you, do you know him?¡± Sear jumped up. ¡°Where is he? I need to know now!¡± ¡°Wow, relax. He left a few hours ago and went southeast. He also told us to save a message for you. He said that he would see you in the future.¡± Sear cursed at the fact that his opponent hadn¡¯t died. ¡°Ok, thank you, but I must go now. Also, could you show me a map of where we are right now?¡± The men spoke between themselves before finally answering Sear. ¡°Sure¡­ here¡¯s a map of the country we are in. Good luck out there.¡± Sear walked out of the cave while inspecting the map. It seemed that he was currently in the country of Zelfin. Its northernmost boarder stopped right at the edge of where the ravine was, so it was no surprise that he had been dug out in their area after the collapse. As he left the camp he began thinking about where he should go. He now had no city, all his soldiers were gone, and so it would be hard for him to take an entire city. What if I start with a small village? Looking at the map once more, Sear found a small village that went by the name of Porg. It was quite small and was also next to the coastline, which meant that with enough time he should be able to convert it into a capital city. So let¡¯s see what I have to do at the village. Firstly, make connections. I don¡¯t want to have to fight another ¡°noble¡± so it would be good if everyone accepted me. Two, take over the village and turn it into my type. Third, slowly grow the city and turn it into a large enough city that it could be a capital, then expand outwards from there. In his head it sounded simple enough. Now it was time for him to begin to run to the village. As luck would have it, the village was on the North-West while the Ravine was on the North-Western part of the country. It would take him at least 4 days of all out sprinting to reach it. Not wanting to waste time, Sear began running towards the village. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh the way to the village, many important things happened. Firstly, he had been stopped around 11 times and now had some decent gear after killing everyone who stopped him. He also learned that he could reanimate humans, though their lack of any intelligence whatsoever was a downside. On the way, he had also heard that Megribil, his home country, was on the brink of revolt. With so many nobles killed that night when he went crazy, the town slowly began to travel down the path of chaos. Nothing interesting happened again until he reached the village. Not wanting to scare anyone, he stopped running with his power a while beforehand and instead choose to walk at a leisurely pace. Upon reaching the village he realized it was just as shabby as he had expected. There were around 15 buildings at most, and the wall surrounding the village was just a 2 meter high and 10 centimeter thick wall of wood. Walking through the opening in the wall, Sear looked around and attempted to find the thing most resembling a tavern. For a village on the coast, it also had a surprisingly small port. There were 2 fishing boats and the actual port looked like it would fall apart if anything that weighed over 10 pounds stepped on it. Walked over to the largest building he found, he walked in. There were only two men in there, one which Sear assumed to be the barkeeper, and someone else. Walking over, Sear began to speak. ¡°Excuse me, but do any of you have a place I could stay for the night? I will pay of course.¡± The men stared at him for a while longer before speaking back. ¡°Ayyy, we have a room, but why should we rent it too ya?¡± Sear sat there stunned for a few seconds. Why they should let me rent it?! CAUSE I¡¯M PAYING GODDAMNIT! ¡°Because I¡¯m paying for it. Is there a bigger reason?¡± The two began to stare daggers at each other until the other man interrupted. ¡°Just let him rent the room Gee. No use in fighting about extra cash.¡± The other man picked up a key handing it to Sear. ¡°5 copper.¡± Giving him the key, Sear walked into the room and fell asleep for the first time in around a week. 19 Heres another chapter, quite short indeed. Sorry bout that. Next chapter will be up tomorrow near the night. Other book Chapter 19-Questing Upon waking the next morning, Sear walked back out into the inn. Once again the two men were there. Now that he wasn¡¯t tired, he realized that the second man, the one that had told Gee, the inn keeper, to let him stay was actually the town leader. Well, this is going to be easier than expected. All I have to do is become friends with him. Walking towards the man, Sear spoke up. ¡°Excuse my interruption, but would the two of you have any tasks for me?¡± He bowed slightly, attempting to not sound like the rude idiot he really was. ¡°Ye we¡¯ve got some tasks for ya, but don¡¯t expect any pay for them. All I would give you is food and lodging.¡± Sear was about to start arguing, but upon looking at the man realized that it would be too much work because the man seemed quite stubborn. ¡°No need for payment, I am only here to help.¡± ¡°Well then, for today your tasks will be quite simple. One, gather a total of 250 meters of wood logs at least 6 inches thick. After that, go to Jen the blacksmith and ask her what she needs. That will be all for today.¡± Handing Sear an axe, he went back to talking with the town leader. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I can¡¯t believe I¡¯m doing this for free. I¡¯ve cut down 20 trees and still only gotten 150 meters. I would use my powers, but I might either break the tree or scare the village, neither of which would make this easy. Walking over to the newly fallen log, he began to slow chip away at all the branches until he was left with a 20 meter long log. Measuring it, he found the point that it began thinner than 6 inches and cut that part off. This log was only 6 meters long now. He still had a long ways to go before completing the task. He piled the log on top of the others, and moved on to the next tree. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By mid-afternoon Sear was done. Walking into the inn, he noticed that it had a few more people. On the way he also noticed that there were a few children running around. He walked over to Gee. ¡°I¡¯ve completed your task. The pile of wood is behind the inn. I will go to the blacksmith now.¡± Maybe the blacksmith will have me do something that¡¯s interesting. I¡¯m about to kill someone from boredom. As he nears the smithy he begins to hear a rhythmic tap¡­tap¡­tap. He sits down outside the smithy and waits for the tapping to finish, knowing that talking to someone while making something is a pain. He learned from having people speak while he practiced magic. Around half an hour later, he heard the tapping end. Standing up, he knocked on the door and waited for a response. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. A few seconds later a mid-aged woman opened the door. By the ash on her face and hands and the apron around her waist, he knew that she was Jen. For a woman, she was extremely muscular and could probably throw him like a rock. ¡°Yes, what is it you need?¡± She had a deep yet feminine voice. ¡°Hello, Gee told me to come help you after I completed his task.¡± She nodded her head and walked in. ¡°He tends to do that a few times a year. Well, I¡¯m Jen, the blacksmith of this town. I produce all of the tools here.¡± Motioning around, she showed all assortments of different tools. There had to be over 20 different tools, now counting the reproductions for each one. ¡°I¡¯m Sear, a passerby that is here to just help around.¡± Looking back at her once more, he realized that her gaze had already gone away. ¡°Your task will be simple, sharpen all of the tools in that pile, and then after that you will help me smith. I am hoping you know how to sharpen tools?¡± He nodded, thinking back to all the times he was forced to back in his village. Every time he used to mess up, he would gain another lash o his back. Sear walked over to the pile and picked the topmost tool. It looked like a normal scythe used to gather crops. One boring task right after the other. At least I¡¯ll be able to help smith after I¡¯m done with sharpening this stack of well over 50 tools. Such a pain in the ass. Picking up a whetstone, he began his own rhythmic scrape along the tool¡¯s edge. After doing this for a few minutes, he tested the edge along his nail and found it to be more than sharp enough to cut wheat. This is probably sharp enough to cut a man¡¯s arm off cleanly. Maybe I should sharpen it less. This continued for a good hour and a half before he was sure that he was done. Seeing Jen walking over, he spoke up. ¡°I¡¯ve sharpened all of the tools in this pile.¡± He moved over showing the neatly stacked arrange of tools. ¡°Good job. They seem to all be sharpened. Now come here, we will now begin to smith. This smithy has 2 furnaces but I can only use 1 at a time. Your task will be to follow along and do what I do.¡± She led him past a small crate full of clumps of iron and picked one up. He also picked one similar in size and went to one of the furnaces. Following along with her, he plunked the clump into a steel bucket and held it over the already burning furnace. After a few minutes it was already melted, and he poured the liquid into a T mold. Letting it cool, he took it out and put it atop the anvil. Starting at the T¡¯s, he slowly flattened them and elongated them while having to keep the width the same. After a few minutes it seemed to be good enough for Jen. Next, He slowly elongated the long part of the T. After he was done with this, he slowly began to curve the top of the T on the curved edge of the anvil. Slowly, the head began to look like the head of a pickaxe. Now, he heated the very center of the long part of the T, and with 1 smooth twist gave it a small design. Plunging the pick into a bath of oil, he waited till the pick cooled and picked it up once more. Getting a strip of leather, he slowly wove it along the bottom of the T and then nailed the ends. ¡°Not a bad job. Could have been better, but for your first it isn¡¯t that bad. Chapter 19 Chapter 19 of my book. Enjoy. My Other Book ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 19-Questing Upon waking the next morning, Sear walked back out into the inn. Once again the two men were there. Now that he wasn¡¯t tired, he realized that the second man, the one that had told Gee, the inn keeper, to let him stay was actually the town leader. Well, this is going to be easier than expected. All I have to do is become friends with him. Walking towards the man, Sear spoke up. ¡°Excuse my interruption, but would the two of you have any tasks for me?¡± He bowed slightly, attempting to not sound like the rude idiot he really was. ¡°Ye we¡¯ve got some tasks for ya, but don¡¯t expect any pay for them. All I would give you is food and lodging.¡± Sear was about to start arguing, but upon looking at the man realized that it would be too much work because the man seemed quite stubborn. ¡°No need for payment, I am only here to help.¡± ¡°Well then, for today your tasks will be quite simple. One, gather a total of 250 meters of wood logs at least 6 inches thick. After that, go to Jen the blacksmith and ask her what she needs. That will be all for today.¡± Handing Sear an axe, he went back to talking with the town leader. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I can¡¯t believe I¡¯m doing this for free. I¡¯ve cut down 20 trees and still only gotten 150 meters. I would use my powers, but I might either break the tree or scare the village, neither of which would make this easy. Walking over to the newly fallen log, he began to slow chip away at all the branches until he was left with a 20 meter long log. Measuring it, he found the point that it began thinner than 6 inches and cut that part off. This log was only 6 meters long now. He still had a long ways to go before completing the task. He piled the log on top of the others, and moved on to the next tree. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By mid-afternoon Sear was done. Walking into the inn, he noticed that it had a few more people. On the way he also noticed that there were a few children running around. He walked over to Gee. ¡°I¡¯ve completed your task. The pile of wood is behind the inn. I will go to the blacksmith now.¡± Maybe the blacksmith will have me do something that¡¯s interesting. I¡¯m about to kill someone from boredom. As he nears the smithy he begins to hear a rhythmic tap¡­tap¡­tap. He sits down outside the smithy and waits for the tapping to finish, knowing that talking to someone while making something is a pain. He learned from having people speak while he practiced magic. Around half an hour later, he heard the tapping end. Standing up, he knocked on the door and waited for a response. A few seconds later a mid-aged woman opened the door. By the ash on her face and hands and the apron around her waist, he knew that she was Jen. For a woman, she was extremely muscular and could probably throw him like a rock. ¡°Yes, what is it you need?¡± She had a deep yet feminine voice. ¡°Hello, Gee told me to come help you after I completed his task.¡± She nodded her head and walked in. ¡°He tends to do that a few times a year. Well, I¡¯m Jen, the blacksmith of this town. I produce all of the tools here.¡± Motioning around, she showed all assortments of different tools. There had to be over 20 different tools, now counting the reproductions for each one. ¡°I¡¯m Sear, a passerby that is here to just help around.¡± Looking back at her once more, he realized that her gaze had already gone away. ¡°Your task will be simple, sharpen all of the tools in that pile, and then after that you will help me smith. I am hoping you know how to sharpen tools?¡± He nodded, thinking back to all the times he was forced to back in his village. Every time he used to mess up, he would gain another lash o his back. Sear walked over to the pile and picked the topmost tool. It looked like a normal scythe used to gather crops. One boring task right after the other. At least I¡¯ll be able to help smith after I¡¯m done with sharpening this stack of well over 50 tools. Such a pain in the ass. Picking up a whetstone, he began his own rhythmic scrape along the tool¡¯s edge. After doing this for a few minutes, he tested the edge along his nail and found it to be more than sharp enough to cut wheat. This is probably sharp enough to cut a man¡¯s arm off cleanly. Maybe I should sharpen it less. This continued for a good hour and a half before he was sure that he was done. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.Seeing Jen walking over, he spoke up. ¡°I¡¯ve sharpened all of the tools in this pile.¡± He moved over showing the neatly stacked arrange of tools. ¡°Good job. They seem to all be sharpened. Now come here, we will now begin to smith. This smithy has 2 furnaces but I can only use 1 at a time. Your task will be to follow along and do what I do.¡± She led him past a small crate full of clumps of iron and picked one up. He also picked one similar in size and went to one of the furnaces. Following along with her, he plunked the clump into a steel bucket and held it over the already burning furnace. After a few minutes it was already melted, and he poured the liquid into a T mold. Letting it cool, he took it out and put it atop the anvil. Starting at the T¡¯s, he slowly flattened them and elongated them while having to keep the width the same. After a few minutes it seemed to be good enough for Jen. Next, He slowly elongated the long part of the T. After he was done with this, he slowly began to curve the top of the T on the curved edge of the anvil. Slowly, the head began to look like the head of a pickaxe. Now, he heated the very center of the long part of the T, and with 1 smooth twist gave it a small design. Plunging the pick into a bath of oil, he waited till the pick cooled and picked it up once more. Getting a strip of leather, he slowly wove it along the bottom of the T and then nailed the ends. ¡°Not a bad job. Could have been better, but for your first it isn¡¯t that bad. Now then, you could go off to do whatever else you are needed for. Thank you.¡± She motioned him out the door, and Sear began to walk towards the Inn once more. Walking in, Gee spoke up. ¡°Have you done what Jen needed?¡± Sear nodded at the man and walked back into his room, retiring for the night. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Waking up, Sear woke up once more and decided to continue doing what he was doing. He knew that in a few days or weeks he would be well-respected throughout the village because of how little people there were. ¡°Sear, today you will be out hunting with John over here. Listen to everything he says.¡± He turned around to see Gee standing next to a well-kept young man. He had leather armor, a few daggers around his body, and most importantly a crudely made bow and quiver on his back. ¡°Well hello there Sear. My names John. I¡¯m the main hunter here in this village of Porg and I gather most of the game for this village. Today we will be hunting deer.¡± Handing Sear a bow and quiver, he continued. ¡°I hope you know how to hunt, because if you don¡¯t work as hard as you can you will probably be kicked out by Gee, he¡¯s a stubborn old man.¡± ¡°I heard that John!¡± John laughed and walked out the door, Sear following. The two walked out of the village and continued to walk for a good 5 kilometers before John came to a stop. ¡°You see that forest up ahead?¡± Sear nodded, and looked at it. ¡°That¡¯s where we will be hunting. It¡¯s relatively safe, save for the few rabid wolves and the rare fire-spitting lizard.¡± Walking forward, Sear just stood thinking about what he had just heard. A fire-spitting lizard? How the? Why? Uhhh, this is also going to be a pain, I can already tell. The two walked into the forest and began to hunt. For the first hour or so, nothing much happened. A few minutes later, Sear stopped John and motioned to a tree. ¡°There is fresh ash near the bottom of this tree. Could it be one of those lizards?¡± ¡°It could. Follow me, those things are a pain so let¡¯s try to not find one.¡± They continued moving until they spotted a small herd of around 5 deer. Taking out their bows, they shot at the pack and managed to take 2 out. The herd began to run, but before they could John had launched 3 more arrows, 2 of which found their mark on another deer¡¯s legs. Walking over, they finished off the one deer with arrows in its legs. They picked up its body and brought it back to the village. They stopped for a quick food break before going back out to hunt more. Nothing happened until while they were leaving. ¡°Today¡¯s hunt was good wasn¡¯t it Sear?¡± John smiled and sat down, obviously tired after a day¡¯s hunt. ¡°It was. If only we could have gotten the other deer¡­¡± Pushing John out of the way and raising his arm up, Sear felt the teeth of an animal biting him. ¡°Uhhh, why did you hit me¡­Wait that¡¯s a wolf!¡± Pushing himself off the ground, John took out his daggers and began to run towards Sear. Sear, seeing an opportunity, kicked the wolf off of him and into a tree. Sadly, 2 of the wolf¡¯s teeth had gotten pretty far into his arm, so a piece of flesh was ripped off of him. He took a dagger out and threw it, striking the wolf in the ear and pinning it to the tree. Coming close, John grabbed a dagger and threw it, hitting the wolf between the eyes and killing it. Chapter 20 Other Book of Mine Well here''s chapter 20. Hope you enjoy. No chapter will be uploaded for the next few days as I will be away from home so just saying. But I''m kinda mad at myself. The ending of this chapter would have been so good as the ending for the first book, but I just haven''t written enough for the book to be a decent length. Hope you enjoy the cliffhanger till next week, i know I will. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 20-Questing Pt.2 Waking up, Sear left his room to go out and begin his next day of working. These past days have been a pain. Maybe I should have shown off my magic and gotten a better start here. He steps out of the inn and looks outside, attempting to find where Gee had gone. In the distance, he could see Gee and the town chief, whose name he still didn¡¯t know, talking to a group of men that looked like knights. They were all on horseback and had some of the finest armor Sear had ever seen. They were people that shouldn¡¯t be taken lightly. Walking closer, he overheard what they were talking about. The first person to speak up was a knight that carried an exaggerated great-sword. ¡°On request of the royal family, we are here to warn you. In the past month since the collapse of the cave, a group of over 100 bandits have been going around and slaughtering whole villages.¡± ¡°Since most adventurers are at the collapse, there are few people to fight against these bandits. We royal knights would fight them but with growing tensions on the border with Crysium, most of us are deployed at the border.¡± ¡°We suggest that you create defenses around the village to help deter bandits away from here. We wouldn¡¯t want another village to fall to them. They are at most a week away, so you will have to work quickly.¡± The knight turned around and prepared to move. ¡°Thank you for your time.¡± With that the knight trotted away with the rest of them following. Gee and the town chief looked at each other and then looked to Sear. The first one to speak up was Gee. ¡°Well Sear, looks like we¡¯ve found you a new job to do. Get the shovel from behind the counter in the inn. I want you to dig a moat 50 meters away from the walls. But make it deep enough that a sole man can¡¯t climb out of it.¡± ¡°You really know how to make a man work don¡¯t you Gee? Well Sear, if you can do this I¡¯ll be sure to repay you. They went on to do whatever they were going to do leaving Sear there speechless. They expect me to dig an entire moat on my own!? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few hours later, Sear was digging, and his back felt dead. He forgot how hard it is to do manual labor without using his magic. I wonder if I improve my normal body if you reinforced body will be even stronger? Continuing to dig, he stopped once the sun set to look at his work. The moat he was digging was 8 meters wide, 5 meters deep, and so far he had dug out 30 meters of its length. The total size would be around 500 meters, so this would be hard for him to do. ¡°Picking himself up, he looked up. To his surprise, the moon he saw was different. It was a full moon, but it had shades of blue coursing through it like the waves on a beach. Closing his eyes, he felt the magic radiating off of it. It was like a never-ending see of power. Whoever did this was strong enough to destroy whole planets, he knew that much. Going back into the inn, he put his shovel away and fell asleep. The next day the nothing important happened. All he did was dig. Once again dawn came and still he had only dug 80 meters of the moat. Doubting he would be able to finish in time, he stayed up a while longer to get to 90 meters. The next days were much the same, with him just digging. The only difference he felt was that he could dig for longer without stopping and that digging felt easier. Hours passed as he kept moving his arms up and down, shoveling dirt away. By the end of 5 days, he had dug out 300 meters of the moat. Damn, I probably won¡¯t be able to finish this in time. If only Gee would get off his lazy ass and do something around here. I¡¯m basically his slave at this point. Keeping quiet, he continued to dig till the end of the day. As he was about to leave for the day, he spotted Gee coming towards him. ¡°Hmm, you¡¯ve still only dug 300 meters?! Get off your ass and do something around here! I don¡¯t let you stay for free! You¡¯ve done nothing for the past few days and the bandits can be here at any minute! What a waste you are!¡± Gee¡¯s face had turned red and Sear swore he could see steam coming off of his head. I¡¯ve done nothing? Is that what he just said?! ¡°I¡¯ve done nothing?! What a damn idiot you are! I¡¯ve been digging non-stop for the past five days while you sit around and drink ale!¡± Picking up his shovel, he hurled it at Gee, and was presented with the nice crunch of a broken nose. ¡°I¡¯m done with this.¡± Placing his hands on the ground, Sear decided to use his magic. Gee could do nothing but watch as a 15 meter wide, 30 meter deep moat was dug 250 meters away from the village wall. The moat surrounded the entire village soon, and had a total length of over 2 kilometers. Instead of stopping by the shore though, Sear continued the moat and connected it with the sea. Switching magics, he began to use water magic to push forward water from the sea to fill the moat. In a few minutes, the water filled the entire moat. The water was only 10 meters deep, but Sear wasn¡¯t done there. Switching back to earth magic, he hardened the walls of the moat to be harder than stone, and then created sharp pikes of metal that came 5 meters above the water. Each spike was sharp enough to cut through extremely thick leather, and nobody would be able to escape it. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. By now, most of the village, which consisted of only around 40 or 50 people, was watching. Continuing, Sear began to dual use nature and earth magic. Using these two magics, a large 10 meter thick and 15 meter tall wall began to form out of stone and wood. Staircases were created along the entire area, and soon there were battlements along with towers spaced out along the walls. To finish off, Sear switched to dark magic. Invisibly, he wove dark mana into everything he created, making it so that nobody could change anything using magic. If they did they would feel the backlash and most likely die. Standing up, Sear eyed his work. He had just created a moat and wall that stretched over 2 kilometers. If the city expanded up to the size of the walls, its diameter would be over 600 meters, and the village would have quadrupled in area. There we go, a nice moat and wall, just like Gee wanted. Maybe now he¡¯ll get off my goddamn ass. Turning around, Sear eyed the crowd. Everyone was awestruck. This was probably the first time they had seen someone use magic, much less seen someone do something this large scale with it. He walked up to Gee and spoke. ¡°Well there you go Gee, a nice moat and wall for you. Hope that broken nose was worth it.¡± With that he walked back into the inn and fell asleep. He had used way too much mana and almost ran out during that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sometime later, Sear woke to a knocking on his door. Who could it be? Can¡¯t they tell I want to sleep? Opening the door, he saw the town chief and Gee standing there. Looking ar Gee, he noticed the man¡¯s eyes drop down. Hah, serves him right. The first one to speak up was the town chief. ¡°I would like to thank you for what you¡¯ve done thus far. I can¡¯t believe that I would be able to see such mastery of the magics in person. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.¡± Looking back up, he nudged Gee. ¡°I am sorry for what I have been doing to you for the past weeks. If I had known about the power you possess, I wouldn¡¯t have done it. I thank you.¡± He looked back to the ground which pleased me. As a smirk appeared on my face I spoke. ¡°I guess you all know what I am capable of now. It was no problem for me to do it, just wanted to show that I am more than what I seem to be. Now if you excuse me, I have to go do one last thing to the village.¡± Walking away from both, he couldn¡¯t stop laughing at their faces of utter disbelief. Even after doing this for the village I was still going to do more and they couldn¡¯t believe him. Ahh how I love being strong. But slowly I am beginning to be respected. In no time at all I will be able to take control of the village. He continued to walk along the village until he reached the docks. It was a crudely build double T that looked like it would fall apart at any moment. Placing his hands upon the ground once more, he decided to do one last thing. Summoning nature magic, he dispersed the old port and created a new one. Out of the sand wood and stone rose up to create a port worthy of this village. Along the shore he created a pier over 50 meters wide and 100 meters long. Branching off from it were tens of different walkways. Some were smaller, for fishing boats, while some were large enough to hold a 200 meter long ship. To finish off, he used earth magic and deeper all of the sand near the port and further out to see, making it possible to hold massive ships. Standing up, he eyes his work once more. And again he had a crowd around him. Slowly, the crowd began to shout his name. ¡°Sear, Sear, Sear, Sear!¡± He smiled, and turned around, ready to start his new journey in the village. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Since that day, a month had passed. The bandits ended up never attacking the village, but Sear didn¡¯t mind. He was now one of the most well-known and feared people in the town. That¡¯s right, town. Since that day, the village¡¯s population reached over 500 and had become a town. The reason for this was all the people running from the villages destroyed by the bandits came here. Not only that, but now the docks were actually being used. When the village officially became a town, the dock got quickly filled with merchants and Sear had to expand the pier to 75 meters by 250 meters. All along it now were massive warehouses full of goods. Along the moat now you could see drawbridges that were being used daily by caravans, and upon the walls and towers guards were stationed. Though it had taken a while, the village was slowly expanding. Soon, this will be mine, and I will expand it to its full size. Another thing that happened was Sear¡¯s position changed. He along with Gee and a few others had become town executives, not chiefs, but close. While this was happening, he was still training though. Now that people knew he had magic he used it blatantly, well except for dark magic. That he still hid. Looking back, he realized that he had actually lost all of his orbs, but that was no matter. He now had enough mana that if he used two magics at the same time they would be equal to his dark magic. Without Sear knowing though, trouble was brewing. Along the borders of Megribil and Crysium soldiers from both sides were being killed by an unknown force, and soon it would reveal itself. Now all that there was for him to do is wait. Chapter 21 My Other Book: Ley World Finally, after 15 years the next chapter has come out! And its short... But anyways, I''m back, sort of. Basically, in this past month, 2 of the weeks I haven''t been home, and the other two weeks I was too tired to write. Not physically or mentally, just tired of the book. While it still takes a bit of effort to actually write the chapters, I don''t want to leave the book for over a month, (Its been 29 days) so I decided to write a quick chapter. Don''t expect any scheduled releases, cause I write whenever I want too, and hopefully I start wanting to write a lot more often, or else I''ll cry with tears of sadness. Well yeah, hope you guys enjoy! And I will never drop this book, even if it takes me 10 years to finish it, especially since I have a perfect idea for the final chapter, even though I''m not even half-way done... :( Enjoy! - Author Guy -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It has been 4 months since Sear upgraded the village. In that time, the village prospered. The village had once again expanded its size, now having a diameter of over 1 kilometer. At the center were all of the main government buildings, the schools, the mage tower, barracks, and the library. On the second level were all of the shops. Along the third level were all of the homes. The city had no nobles, as it was ruled using mercantilism. This allowed the city to be somehow poverty free and nobody looked down on anybody else. The three sectors were separated by the walls and moat that was created earlier and then the second pair separating the shops and homes. Past the outer wall and moat were fields of grain spanning tens of kilometers in any direction, and giant quarries mining out any valuable resource found. The town was now marked on the map, as it was capable of holding its own. The population by now had reached well over 2,500. The best thing that happened though was the mage tower. When the Mage¡¯s Guild learned that most of the village was built using magic, they sent very high-tiered magicians there to create a mage¡¯s training hall and tower there. Because of them, Sear was able to learn more about magic in 3 months than he did in 16 years. The village¡¯s defense force now consisted of 100 trained men along with 20 trained mages. There were also 250 enlisted men ready to battle if necessary. Nowadays, all Sear did was train some soldiers and give a ¡°helping hand¡± to anyone who tried opposing them. Those people usually consisted of a few minor nobles from other cities coming and trying to take over an area, usually by taking many people hostage with their soldiers. Too bad those nobles never had people capable of countering a plethora of mages. There were a few times where some of the citizens attempted to gain higher standing, but they were brought down even faster than the minor nobles. Speaking of those minor nobles, they had made the city quite a fortune after being ransomed back to their family. The times the families didn¡¯t accept, the nobles were sentenced to life in an ore mine, where they were usually killed by other prisoners because of their standing. Other than that, nothing major happened in the city. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Waking up, Sear groggily stood up remembering what day it was. Today was one of the monthly council meeting, which usually last anywhere from 12 to 30 hours one time. That was a time Sear wanted to forget. At the beginning, being a council member wasn¡¯t bad, but now I¡¯m stuck doing this. I don¡¯t even know what I do on the council. Am I the General of the city or something? Cleaning himself up and putting on some decent looking clothing, he walked out of his house. It was nothing big, just a two story stone and wood building. It was big enough for two large families, but Sear mainly used it as a miniature war-house of his own. Walking towards the main building, Sear realized how much this once small village had changed since he first came to it. Soon, all this work will pay off and an empire will begin. I¡¯ll rule that empire and grow it to encompass the world, controlling it with an iron grip. I¡¯ll would crush foes and then use their bodies as walls. I¡¯ll paint the ocean red with blood, and turn the world black with dark magic. Soon, it will begin. As he was doing this, sub-consciously his eyes were turning black and people around him began to slowly inch away. *You¡¯re actions have been noticed mortal. Prepare for the worst.* What?! Turning around and finding nobody near him, Sear continued on thinking it was nothing but a figment of his imagination. But elsewhere a being laughed and prepared, for his entire world was going to be turned upside down by this boy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Opening the door to the room, Sear stepped in. Taking a look around, everyone was there. Gee, the ¡°mayor,¡± aka the town chief, Jen, and a few others who Sear didn¡¯t care about enough to ask their names. In total, there were 10 people including him. The first person to speak was Gee. ¡°Now that Sear has arrived let¡¯s begin talking about¡­¡± This is going to take a while¡­ This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. And it did take a while. 14 hours actually. All spent talking on random things such as, the percentage of the population which was okay with us exporting extra food instead of stocking up, and talking about whether or not we should import horses and cows. I¡¯m so glad this is over. These meeting drain me of my will to live. God I wanna kill someone right about now. Looking out the nearest window, Sear realized that it was already dusk. Don¡¯t punch a hole in the wall, again. Relax Sear, relax. Sighing, Sear walked out of the meeting hall. Standing outside, he took a good look at what had happened to the town. Around him were magnificent buildings worthy of royalty, inns worthy of the most extravagant adventurers, and stores made for the best merchants could offer. Smiling, he adorned his cloak and began to walk towards his home, which was on the border of the first and second sector, a good 50 minutes away from where he currently was. Looking around, he slowly watched as the day-dwellers were replaced with shadier characters and mercenaries. He continued to walk for a few minutes before turning into a dark alleyway. Once there, he forcefully coughed up blood and leaned on the stone wall next to him. In a matter of seconds the thieves following him showed up thinking he was injured. ¡°Well, well. What do we have here? A poor soul¡­¡± Before he could continue Sear cut him off. ¡°A poor soul and 7 corpses.¡± Lifting his hood, Sear looked at the men around him. Their leader had ragged chainmail that covered some thin leader. On his hips were two 10 centimeter (4 inch) knifes. The man next to him was most likely the best off of the bandits. Sporting some plate-mail gauntlets and breastplate, thick leather gloves and pants, along with chain-mail to cover his arms, he struck a menacing appearance with his large size. In his hands were two 30 centimeter (1 foot) long Makhairas (Ancient Greek Swords). The rest of them all had the normal ragged leather with copper daggers. Before they could react to what he had just said, two daggers flew out of his hands and slammed into the bandit¡¯s heads. As the two fell, their leader yelled. ¡°Attack him!¡± As they rushed him, he took out his favorite weapon, the silver sword he had enchanted a long time ago. He had slowly changed it over time, so now it resembled a thick saber. He also changed its enchantment and made it so that the sword would secrete a poison capable of taking down most humans. Lifting it, he quickly spun it in a circle, managing to hit three of the bandits. In less than a second they all fell asleep. Seeing this, the last ragged bandit turned and ran leaving Sear, the leader, and the well-off bandit alone. ¡°Well then?¡± Looking to the leader, Sear continued. Using his left foot to push himself forward, he quickly pivoted once he got close to the leader, sending a roundhouse to the man¡¯s temple. He slouched over, and as Sear was regaining his balance, he was flung towards the far wall. Slamming his head onto the wall, he smiled as he felt blood coming out of his nose. It had been so long since he had been hurt. Sure, he isn¡¯t even using 1/20th of his power, but still. ¡°So now it¡¯s just you and me huh?¡± Getting up, Sear wiped the blood off of him and took his stance. ¡°Yes it is.¡± The large man also took a stance, and after a few seconds of staring at Sear, charged forwards before attempting a vertical slash. Seeing this coming, Sear blocked with his sword before preceding to feint and then jab into the man¡¯s shoulder. *clank* Damn I forgot he had armor. Heh, oh well. Laughing, Sear kicked the man before moving back. The man, having blocked the kick, took his stance once more before circling around Sear. Realizing he was hungry, Sear decided to finish this. ¡°Sorry about this¡­¡± Using Air Magic, he greatly improved his speed before dashing forward and slicing the man¡¯s neck. To anyone watching, it would be easier to say that Sear had teleported behind the man. Licking the blood off of his blade, he picked up the plate mail and the two Makhairas before going home. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Somewhere in the city¡­ ¡°Lord, the preparations are set. All the men are in position and our ¡°allies¡± have confirmed that the targets are where they should be. There is no way for the city to know of what will happen.¡± Standing in a dark room, there was a man sitting upon a large ornamented chair surrounded by various other peoples talking to him. ¡°So it seems. Very well then. Tell the necessary contacts to prepare for tonight. We will first strike at the centerpiece of this city and take it from the chaos that follows. Worry not my followers, before us is the fruit of our labor, our soon to be city.¡± Laughing, his voice resonated along the large room before he stood up. ¡°You are all dismissed. Tell your men to prepare and set everything in motion. This city will be ours in a few hours. Also, tell Him that we can now begin.¡± Around him the people nodded before each exiting through a different door. And now we rise to power. Hahahahaha! This city and its wealth shall be mine! Chapter 22 Another short chapter :( Sorry. My other Book: Ley World- Sci-Fi/Fantasy VRMMO Story Heres the next chapter. Sorry for it being so short again. Next chapter everything will slow down again. Well yeah, not much to talk about so here ya go, enjoy! -Author Guy -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Early In the Morning¡­ Back in the dark room, all of the figures met to prepare to begin their operation. The only difference is that they now all donned battle gear. Some wore leather armor to increase their movement, some had chainmail, one even wore plate. Their weapons ranged from bows to war hammers capable of striking down the largest of walls. At once, they all stood up and walked in sync, towards the large metal door. Back in the city¡­ The sun still hadn¡¯t gone up and few people were about and moving. Smiths were preparing to work, merchants were setting up their stalls, and farmers went out into the fields to grow their crops. As the first signs of light slipped past the horizon, the attack commenced. In the outermost layer of the city, a large explosion was heard before a multitude of shops and work areas were burst aflame. From the southern wall came over a hundred warriors that would strike down any guards nearby. Any citizens that attempted to fight were slaughtered. Soon, the outermost part of the city was in panic. With almost a tenth of the area aflame, people struggled to put down the fires while at the same time fighting against the enemies. Minutes passed before the city guard had gotten to the outermost layer, but by then it was too late. Along the entirety of the outermost layer blood-curling screams could heard as people were killed, buildings set aflame. The guards, not believing what they were seeing, could do nothing but watch a large portion of the city being subsided and burned. Foolishly, some rushed in attempting to control the attacks, but that only served to give openings for the enemies to rush in and overwhelm the guards. In minutes, the second layer had also been taken. The only safe area was the third layer, where most of the officials and richer merchants hid behind their soldiers. As the attackers attempted to fight against the guards, outcry broke out inside of the inner sector. Looking to the side, the merchants and officials noticed a hundred, if not more of the enemy soldiers coming out of one of the buildings. Behind that large group, stood a man 7 feet tall. With arms the size of tree trunks and legs the length of a horse, everyone understood who it was. In front of them was Gebron Von Diesel. Out of everyone in the city, he was the richest. He owned several of the largest buildings, along with rumors of him having a personal army. As the men came closer, those rumors were solidified. By now, all of the guards had been taken down, and the merchants and officials had been surrounded. Soon, Von Diesel began to speak. ¡°Hello all of you. As you already know who I am, I won¡¯t waste time with what I want to say. As the new ruler of this great city of Riverhelm, I sentence you all to death.¡± Smiling, we watched as everyone began to cry out and protest before continuing. ¡°Since you all seem so happy with this, I will make it quick. Guards, tie them all up and throw them into a pit.¡± A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Minutes passed as a pit in the center of the village was dug and the men were shackled. Soon, they had all been thrown in the pit. ¡°Ah good, I was beginning to get bored. Now then,¡± He held a torch up, ¡°I will let you all die nice and slowly!¡± As he began to drop his torch, he stopped. ¡°You there! Why are you not worried? I, the great Von Diesel is about to kill you, and you don¡¯t even have the respect to look at me?¡± As people moved out of the way, people realized he was pointing to a young adult with a muscular frame and pitch black hair. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lifting his head up, he noticed the man pointing at him. ¡°Hmmm? Are you talking about me?¡± Tilting his head to the side, he continued to look undisturbed. ¡°What, how dare you! Guards, pull him out of the pit, I will personally kill him!¡± At his command, people moved over and picked the man up and dragged him towards Von Diesel. Dropping him in front of him, they moved back and waited. ¡°This is your fault! For not caring about me, I will personally kill you with my Great Sword, Wind Cutter!¡± Picking his blade up, he swung it downwards towards the man, striking right between the shoulder blade and neck¡­ But nothing happened. Instead, a large metallic ring came out. Taken back, Diesel tried again, and again, and again. Soon, he was leaning with his sword on the ground, breathing heavily. ¡°You¡­huh¡­ how can you¡­huh¡­ not be hurt¡­huh!¡± Pointing at the man once again he waited. After what seemed like a very long 10 seconds the man responded. ¡°Because I don¡¯t care.¡± Standing up, the man spread his arms apart, breaking the shackles. Seeing this, hundreds of guards rushed in, only to be slaughtered like pigs. All around him men fell and bodies piled up, but the man hadn¡¯t moved an inch. Smiling, he continued talking. ¡°I thought you idiots would to know better than to attack a city with someone as powerful as me in it. I mean c¡¯mon, I literally created this town.¡± Smiling, he looked an Von Diesel. ¡°No way¡­ the rumors were actually true?! G¡­guards!¡± Taking a few steps back, he watched as no guards came. ¡°What are you guys doing?!¡± Looking around, he found that most of them were either dead or on the floor, having both pissed and shit themselves with fear. ¡°Huh. You sure they will do anything?¡± Smiling, Sear moved forwards. Every step he took small craters would form in the ground and sparks would move along his body. As he got closer and closer, Von finally took action. Picking his sword up once again, he twisted it at full force before letting go of it and launching it at Sear. Surprised by the amount of force, Sear lifted up his hands, and caught it. Grabbing its handle with his other hand, he bent it till it snapped and threw the pieces away. ¡°Not bad Vonny. You threw that with enough force that I may have actually felt that if I let it hit me. Oh well.¡± Swiping his hand to the side, hundreds of small rocks were lifted off the ground and projected towards Von Diesel at speeds so high that the sound barrier broke when they began moving. Not being able to dodge, Diesel just stood there while being pummeled by rocks. Though most of it hit his plate, it hit with such force that the area behind that hit would either bruise or the bones would even break. Hearing crunches and snaps coming from Von Diesel, Sear turned around before snapping his fingers. Suddenly, all of the other prisoners shackles were cut, and the entire enemy force was swept away by gale winds created by him. Soon, most of the city was calm, except for the still burning outer area and blood that covered a large portion of the city. Chapter 23 Heres chapter 23. Enjoy. -Author McAuthoryAuthorGuy ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ¡°We can¡¯t thank you enough Sear.¡± As the chaos was dwindling down, the town officials began to bombard him with compliments. Sadly, he didn¡¯t listen. ¡°Yeah, yeah. It was nothing.¡± Turning around, he quickly utilized air magic and put out all of the fires in the city, along with rebuilding the outer wall that got destroyed. ¡°I¡¯ll go back home and sleep. I¡¯ll be up in a few hours.¡± Motioning goodbye, he began to walk back towards his home. I hope it didn¡¯t get destroyed. Then I would have to rebuild it once again. But its funny how people think they can take a whole city that easily. Well, they did almost take, if I wasn¡¯t there they probably would have now that I think about it. Hmmm, I guess I should try to make the guards better. In a few minutes he was back at his untouched house. Well, except for a few spots of blood here and there and a few bodies by his door. Walking forward, he kicked the bodies out of the way until he had a way to the door. Walking inside, he slowly walked up to his room before closing the door and falling face first into the bed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the outskirts of the country¡­ Along the frontier of the city that connected with Greenjorn, villages and towns from both sides were burning. ¡°Quick! Someone get a healer! Commodore Feltin was wounded by an enemy and his whole left arm is gone from the elbow down. We have burned the edge of the arm to stop the bleeding but he lost too much blood!¡± As the seaman spoke, another barrage of waves the size of palaces was sent towards the coast of Megrib. Screams were heard as the waves tore through the camp. Men were smashed, crushed, and then pulled back into the ocean to find that the water was pressing down upon them taking them to the very bottom of the bay at a much quicker pace than usual. Definitely the production of magic. As chaos unfolded, on the other side of the bay a certain man could do nothing but laugh. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After Sear¡¯s Nap Getting up, Sear pushed his hair back and got up. Making a quick ball of water and splashing it on his face, he realized that he had let his hair grow out a bit too long. It now reached past his shoulders by a few centimeters. Quickly grabbing it behind his head, he cut off 10 centimeters off of the end and let it down once more. Happy with it, he walked out the door and slowly made his way to the town hall. He would probably have another day of listening to them conversing about random things. I would train some soldiers but I doubt we have many left. Maybe I can convince the council to let me buy a mercenary group? I heard that there was one camped an hour outside the city¡­Hmmm¡­ Walking inside the council area, heads turned to face him as he sat down. ¡°Ah, you¡¯re here Sear. We have been discussing ways we could protect the city from bandits while we rebuild now that most of our soldiers have been killed. Well isn¡¯t this some luck. Sometimes I feel as if there is something greater than me making my life go the way he wants. Oh well. ¡°Actually, I was thinking that I could hire the mercenary band that¡¯s on the road near here. I can get all the money myself, I would just need your approval.¡± ¡°Well, it could help, but they aren¡¯t that skilled¡­ ah screw it, go ahead.¡± Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. ¡®Thank you.¡± He stood up, and left before anybody had another say. Smiling, he quickly ran home. In his basement, he quickly picked up a divine pot. Using earth magic, he recreated another 20. That should be enough to hire then for a few years. Considering most mercenaries worked for 100 pots a day, 20 divine pots which were worth 10 million pots each should be more than enough. It was sad that he still didn¡¯t know exactly what they were made of. While he could summon the same metals as the normal coin, he had no idea how much of each or even what types it was that he used. Oh Well, I¡¯ll just go now. Walking towards the outer wall of the city, he watched as people slowly began to take the corpses away. For now, all of the injured were being healed by mages while those without homes were sent to a camp in the highest layer. It would probably be a few days before the reconstruction of the homes began, but they would most likely now be mostly stone. Continuing to walk, he soon reached the outer wall of the city. Saluting to the few still remaining guards, he walked out and began to run along the road leading to the capital city. In a few hours he would reach the mercenary camp. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Few Hours Later¡­ Ahh, I can see the smoke rising in the distance and I can hear the clamoring of weapons. I am quite close by now. Slowing his pace from an inhuman run to normal job before finally coming up on the camp. It was quite large, sporting one of the largest mercenary groups in the continent with over 600 people in it. As he stopped running and began looking around, he noticed several of the nearby men taking out their swords and looking at him with bloodlust. ¡°I¡¯m here to talk to your leader. Where is he?¡± Looking around, he saw several of the men sneer. ¡°And what makes you think he cares? He¡¯s a busy man, now get out!¡± Drawing his sword, the man charged Sear. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh¡­ Looking at the man, he was surprised that he was quite fast for his size. With at least 2 meters in height and arms the size of small tree trunks, he was someone who most people would run from. Sadly, his form was horrible. Noticing several flaws in the man¡¯s stance, Sear rushed forward. As the man delivered a downwards swing, Sear sidestepped it and landed a solid kick, infused with magic of course, right to the man¡¯s liver. As the man fell to the ground coughing up blood, Sear spoke. ¡°Can any of you tell me where your leader is?¡± Seeing most of them shrink back, he charged towards one and pinned them to the floor. ¡°So?¡± ¡°He¡­he¡¯s at the central tent. It¡¯s the one right next to the bonfire. Impossible to miss.¡± Letting go of the man who almost pissed himself, Sear began to walk towards the bonfire. On the way, he noticed that he would quickly have to teach these thugs some manners. Continuing, he soon reached the big tent. Outside of it stood two men who were even burlier than the other man he just subdued, and they motioned for him to enter, having seen the fight. Walking into the tent, he looked around. There were a few sleeping mats on the floor and on the other side of the room stood a man seated behind a large desk. ¡°Well then, speak up. What do you want from me?¡± The man¡¯s voice was quite weird, having both a high and low tone to it. Shrugging it off, he took a better look at the man. With a short military cut, a large cut along his left cheek, and a large beard, he looked exactly what you would expect a mercenary too. ¡°Straight to the point I see. Well, I¡¯m here to hire you¡­¡± ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MY OTHER BOOK. READ IT PLIZ Chapter 24 Here''s chapter 24. Sorry for it being a bit shorter. I know that a few things seem a bit too easy/Sear seems a bit too powerful, but that will all be explained next episode/fixed next episode. For now, enjoy. I''ll try to get the next chapter out by Thursday. -Authory Guy P.S:forgot to put this here. my other Book: Ley World: pliz Read -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ¡°I¡¯m here to hire you.¡± Silence spread as the mercenaries listened to what he said. ¡°Hire¡­us? HAH! Don¡¯t joke kid. Nobody hires us. We go around seeing if people want us, we don¡¯t care if you need us¡­¡± The mercenary leader laughed while talking but quickly shut up when Sear showed the bag full of divine coins. ¡°Ummm, well we may be able to make a deal with this.¡± The man sat up straight and Sear could see a thin layer of glistening sweat beginning to form along his head. ¡°Well yes. I came here prepared.¡± Sitting down, Sear leaned forward showing that he wanted to begin negotiations. ¡°Well, how much money are you willing to spend?¡± The mercenary spoke first. ¡°I am willing to spend all 20 of these divine coins. I want to hire your men for 10 years. You will probably all die by the end, but you are mercenaries. As for your terms, those are different. I am hiring you guys to act as city guards. You will all listen to my every word, and you will be trained to increase your strength.¡± Sear sat back and let the man think. ¡°Well, I am sure that all of the mercenaries will agree. Though I doubt they will listen to your orders and train under you, as they are well, mercenaries.¡± ¡°That¡¯s alright. A few examples won¡¯t be that bad.¡± ¡°Oh, ok then. Well, I think everyone in the camp will agree to these terms, so I accept. Give us a few hours to prepare and we will follow.¡± ¡°Very well.¡± Standing up, Sear left the tent and walked towards the road. There, he created a simple chair and sat, waiting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 Hours later¡­ As the leader said, the men were all ready. Behind him he could see hundreds of horses and mules carrying tons worth of weapons and food. All in all, he now had control over a very sizable force. Smiling, he looked towards he approaching leader. ¡°We are all set up and ready to move on your orders. On a side note, could you care to share the name of the city we are being hired to protect.¡± ¡°Well yes, the city is called¡­ uhm¡­¡± DAMNIT! I¡¯ve forgotten the city name! How can I do something that damn stupid! God! ¡°I¡¯ve¡­well¡­ forgotten the city name¡­¡± Sear watched as the men who heard him either began laughing their asses off, or giving him concerned looks. ¡°Well then, that¡¯s awkward. Well either way, shall we begin moving now?¡± ¡°Yes we shall.¡± Mounting his horse, Sear began to slowly move back towards the city under the moon¡¯s bright shine. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At dawn¡­ ¡°We¡¯ve arrived!¡± Behind Sear hundreds of men began getting off of their horses and began to set up a camp outside the southernmost wall of the kingdom. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. During the travel, a few men had been sent around to explain what was going to happen during the first day. First of all, they would build their camp outside the walls. They would then be split into 12 groups. Each group would have 50 men and then 1 leader. Those 12 leaders were then to report to the mercenary leader, whose name was Gut. After that was done, Sear would give a bit of ¡°discipline¡± and then begin to teach them all. Hopefully, he would only need to make a few examples, but with so many mercenaries he doubted it. As Sear began to walk back to inform the city council of this, Gut came behind him. ¡°So Sear, how should we split the groups up?¡± Sear turned and realized he hadn¡¯t even thought of that. ¡°Well¡­ pick 12 of the stronger/more trustworthy individuals in the group and make them leaders. Then make sure each group has the same amount of strength. If there are 50 extremely powerful people, put 7 or 8 into each group and so on.¡± As he began to walk away he could hear Gut begin to shout instructions. I¡¯ll leave him with his group. For now he knows them better, so everything will be much easier to control. Once inside, he could see large groups of men putting bodies onto trailers to be brought outside and burned. Of course, only the enemies were burnt that way. The citizens and the guards were put in a different area, so that they could be later buried inside the catacombs Sear had created underneath the city. They would most likely need a large expansion. Maybe I can create a large side-connection that will house all of the people who died during this attack¡­ a large mini-catacomb to put their bodies. Yes, that will do. Currently, there were 200ish people buried in the catacombs, but with this he was sure it would skyrocket to over 1000 bodies. It was mainly split into 3 parts. One part was for the common folk, the second part was for the merchants and various peoples of the crafts, and the last was for people and families of the guards. Though not much of the spaces were taken up, with this he would need to make many more tombs. Continuing to walk, he noticed that the closer to the innermost sector he got, the better the streets looked. At the border of the second and third sector, most of the blood and bodies were already taken away, and repairs had begun on the buildings that were damaged. Smiling inwardly, he continued on until he reached the council. They were currently staring at a large sheet of paper. As he approached he began to hear some of what they were saying. ¡°¡­of people who died is at least 60% of the city. 30% of those were normal citizens, 15% were guards, 10% were crafters and the last 5% were merchants. It will take a good 2-5 years to get back to where we were.¡± Turning around a few of them noticed Sear. ¡°Ah Sear. How has it gone?¡± ¡°Well. There are over 600 of them, and I¡¯m currently having them set up outside the city and split into groups. By tomorrow their training will begin. I don¡¯t expect many problems so it will be quite easy to train them.¡± ¡°Ah, well that¡¯s quite nice. Will give us protection. Well, I think you overheard us talking about the casualties. Can you, you know, increase the catacombs?¡± The man looked away while saying this, but Sear payed it no mind. Putting his hand of the ground, the first thing he did was rebuild the wall. Since it had few details, it would be quite easy. Once that was done, he moved on to the catacombs. In a matter of seconds all of the passageways and rooms were dug out. Now placing his other hand on the floor, he slowly began to add details to the area, making it look like it was built out of tiles. Finally, he used fire and earth magic to create an extremely hot sphere that would be used to light torches and placed it along the corridors. Standing back up, he began to walk away. ¡°Done.¡± Chapter 25 Here''s chapter 25! Hope you enjoy, and get ready because finally the book''s pace will start to speed up. Over-powered MC is coming! Well, over-powered compared to normal people. There are still many things you guys don''t know about and neither does he ;) I hope you enjoy the chapter, leave feedback and have fun! P.S: Please read my other book Ley World as it would also help me :D -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 25- Training Back at the camp, the mercenaries, or guards, had split up into groups and were awaiting Sear¡¯s orders. Walking in front of them all, he used magic to amplify his voice and began to speak. ¡°I am guessing you all know what you have been paid to do. You are now guards here. For the next month you guys will be trained to become stronger and learn to respect others. Understood?¡± Most of the mercenaries began laughing, but before they could say anything, Sear taught them to fear him. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breathe before reopening them. His eyes changed to vertical ovals, almost turning into reptilian slits. ¡°UNDERSTOOD?¡± This time when he screamed, an aura of power followed. Some of the men around him fainted, while others were blown back. The ground near him rippled as his aura extended outwards for hundreds of meters, encompassing the entirety of the mercenary camp and some of the city. Blinking, his eyes turned back to normal before the aura vanished, leaving hundreds of men staring at him with eyes full of awe and instinctual fear. Walking away, he told Gut he would return in 2 hours. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Two hours later¡­ Walking back to the camp, he noticed that the men now had all stood at attention and seemed much more, calm, compared to before. Fear truly was a wonderful weapon. ¡°Now that you all have learned respect, let me begin. You have been split into groups of even power. Soon, you men will all be fighting group against group to learn how to work together better. But for today, you will be doing one-on-one sparring.¡± Walking over to an open part of the camp, he created 60 circles in the floor each being 10 meters in diameter. ¡°The rules are as goes: the first man to 10 points wins the duel. Each hit is 1 point, if they fall on the floor its 1 point, and if you leave the circle its 2 points. Each group will be allowed to use up to 5 of the arena circles. Try to pick someone of your own skill to fight against, or else I¡¯ll kill you.¡± At those words, many of the men gulped before walking to their destinations. He quickly formed a total of 120 swords, 120 daggers, 120 bows, and 120 shields, all made of wood. ¡°Also one more thing, try not to kill each other. These swords are wooden, but I¡¯ve reinforced them enough that they can take tens of hits from a steel sword before cracking.¡± Turning around he began to walk back to Gut. ¡°Well Sear, you seem to know what you are doing, so I¡¯ll let you continue. But if its not rude, care to duel and show these men how to fight?¡± As Gut said that, Sear felt the eyes of many men come to look at him. ¡°Why not¡­¡± Smiling inwardly, he watched as Gut went towards one of the arenas and picked up two swords. Well, well, a dual wielder. Not bad at all. Walking over, he picked up a dagger before entering into the circle. ¡°Is that all you are going to pick up?¡± Gut smiled, thinking that this would be easy. ¡°Don¡¯t underestimate me kid.¡± Taking a stance, he began to circle Sear. ¡°I¡¯m not underestimating you. If anything, this is already too much.¡± Looking towards Gut, Sear¡¯s face contorted to a disturbing smiling. ¡°Why are my instincts telling me to run? Surely he isn¡¯t that strong¡­¡± Gut¡¯s thoughts were cut short and Sear vanished. Looking around, he saw Sear reappear behind him before flicking one of the swords. The sword was forced out of Gut¡¯s hand and flew out of the circle, almost hitting one of the men. ¡°One point.¡± Vanishing again, he appeared at the other side of the arena. Throwing his wooden dagger, he watched as the hilt hit the other sword. That sword was too launched flying away as the men stared in awe. Sear ran towards Gut before quickly gabbing him 9 times. ¡°Ten points. I win.¡± Turning back, he left. Behind him, Gut kneeled on the ground staring at his hands. ¡°How does he have so much power?¡± he looked up watching as Sear left. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In Sear¡¯s home¡­ Well then, now that that is over with, I can take time off for myself. Looking around, Sear thought about the battle he had against the saint back in the caverns. How can I get stronger? Sure magical knowledge will help, but after a certain point my power will cap out¡­ Sitting down, he began doing something he hadn¡¯t done in a long time, mediate. Closing his eyes, he sensed as he dropped into his inner being. It felt refreshing. After not being here for so long he was finally back to his true self. As he looked around, he realized that his inner self had expanded. When before he might have had the mana of a master mage, he was now sure he could easily fight against the saint from before. This is, but still not enough. I need to be even stronger. There are still plenty of being on this planet capable of killing me. Argh! As he screamed his inner self compressed down on itself. Instantly, he was forced out of his inner sense. Opening his eyes, he coughed up blood. He could feel the backlash of what he did, whatever it was. Blood slowly seeped from his ears and he tears of blood started flowing down his face. What did I just do? Closing his eyes, he once again went back to his inner self. Looking around, he realized it all went back to normal. What if I try doing this on a small amount of mana? Moving towards the edge of his inner self, he picked off about 1/1000th of his total mana and slowly began to compress it. At first, it felt normal, but after a few minutes, he could slowly feel pain flowing throughout his body. He continued though, and slowly the mana began to compress into a smaller and smaller orb. After what seemed like an hour or two, and the pain had become unbearable, something started to change. Looking at the orb of mana, it was now only 1/50th of its normal size. At its edges though, he watched as small black balls slowly separated themselves from the mana and dispersed. He held the mana like this for another hour until he thought all of the black balls had vanished. Looking back to this mana, he saw it undergo a drastic change. Well it wasn¡¯t ¡°drastic¡±, but instead quite weird. The color of this mana slowly changed from a void-like black to a dark grey. A very dark grey. What did I just do to the mana? Did I remove something from it? Maybe I¡¯ll find out if I put the mana back to normal. Slowly de-compressing the mana, he watched as it got back to normal, or well, close enough to normal. Once he had let it go, it was much smaller than before. It was about 1/10th of its original size, and when he released it, it separated itself from the normal amount of his mana. Instead of the ocean he had before, he now had an ocean and a slightly brighter puddle next to it. So, maybe I purified the mana? That¡¯s the only thing I can think off. Maybe the more I purify, the lighter it gets until it eventually turns white? Getting out of his inner mind, he felt an orgasmic pleasure flow through him. This¡­ this is¡­ so much power! The mana, being slightly purified, had become much stronger. The amount of mana that grey puddle gave him was 200-250% stronger than the mana he had used to create it. YES! YES! Finally, I¡¯ve found a way to make myself even stronger. This is good, oh so very good. The only problem is the time limit, but I¡¯m sure that as I do it more and more, I¡¯ll slowly start doing it faster. My body may now start doing it on its own now that I have started the process. Smiling, he took a quick look outside. Seeing that it was currently before mid-night, he sat down once more and went back to his inner mind, ready to start again. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AN: So, get ready for the pace to speed up, and hope you enjoy! Chapter 26 Here''s the new chapter! Sorry it took so long, but it''s an important part of the story, and decided to make you guys wait for it. :P I hope you enjoy, and please read my other book: Ley World! Enjoy-Zono -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 26- Showing Off A few hours later the sun came up. With dawn though, began the culmination of dark clouds slowly closing in on the city. As people looked out of their windows and travelers peeked out of their caravans, the clouds seemed to speed up. In an hour, the city had a veil of clouds covering it. If someone were to climb upon the tallest building and look out into the horizon on all sides, they would see the continual darkness, and could hear faint lightning in the distance. As this continued Sear was still shut away in his basement, unaware of all that was happening above him. In a few minutes, the wind began to pick up. At first it was gentle, and carried a nice homely smell with it, but soon the gusts were blowing rocks and logs of wood around the town. Many of the homes being reconstructed collapsed as the supporting foundations were blow away. Soon enough, even children and small adults were being slowly blown back. By now, the lightning had grown enraged, and every now and then a large strike would fly across the clouds before congealing in an area and shooting downwards. Luckily, or unluckily, the lightning hit with such power that it didn¡¯t cause any fire, because the area that was hit got vaporized. Over in the camp, the men were quickly packing everything up before it got blown away and began to pile it all in an enclosure so that it wouldn¡¯t get blown away. The men dashed to the nearby cave and hit. In Gut¡¯s mind, only one word played out: ¡°Sear¡­¡± Back in the city, people were quickly being moving down into the cities catacombs to hide from the turmoil brewing in the sky. Inside the mage¡¯s tower, a meeting was taking place. ¡°What should we do? This storm seems to be just starting, and if it gets any worse we may die.¡± One voice spoke out before the entire room erupted into people talking. ¡°We could all hide underground!¡± ¡°Use the wind mages to blow the storm away!¡± ¡°We should take the city, and push it somewhere else!¡± Seeing that nothing was going to actually happen, most of the men left to go hide. But still, Sear was in his inner mind, toying away. Soon, the rain began to come down. At first it was already bad. It felt more like a hurricane just came to them than anything else. A an hour though, the water droplets had been less in numbers, but each one had to be at least 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) in diameter. Anyone they hit would squeal out in pain before running away, waiting for the bruises to come. Along with the rain, some light hail would fall every now and then, either knocking people out, or destroying some of the houses. It was total mayhem, and nobody knew the cause for it. Across the city people began crying out to the gods for forgiveness, while others struggled to find Sear to see if he could help. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ok, done with that part of the mana. In total, 0.5% of my mana has been converted. Not bad, for a singular night. Opening his eyes, Sear could immediately tell that something was wrong. Not only could he hear everything going on outside, but he could also feel a vortex of mana high in the sky. What¡­what happened while I was meditating? Did I cause this accidentally? Hmmm¡­ I think that there may be something controlling this storm by the way I sense the mana spreading through the clouds from a center point. Walking outside, Sear quickly put up a wind barrier to stop anything from hitting him. Infusing himself, he quickly got to the catacomb entrance, where he knew everyone would be. He needed some answers. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Walking in, he soon came upon who he was looking for, Gee. ¡°Gee, what¡¯s happened here?¡± Startled, some of the people took out their blades before seeing Sear and relaxing. ¡°We¡¯re not sure. Since¡­¡± Sear listened to Gee talk about how the weather seemed to come from nowhere. ¡°Do you know where it came from?¡± Turning around, Sear began to walk away. ¡°I think I have an idea, and I¡¯m going to check it out. Looking at him with bewilderment of wanting to go back outside, they ran after him only to be greeted with the dust left behind. After jumping upwards, Sear quickly used air magic to create solid pieces of air. Placing his foot on them, he pushed forward, running in the air. In a minute, he was halfway top the clouds. Continuing on, he almost got struck down. As soon as he passed a certain threshold, a large lightning bolt spiraled through the clouds before launching itself at him. He quickly put up a shield, but he was still pushed back quite a bit. ¡°Damn, whatever is controlling this sure knows what they are doing. Too bad it changes nothing.¡± Smiling, he launched himself upwards once more. This time he was prepared, and once the lightning bolt struck he managed to deflect it towards his right. Continuing upwards, he soon was struck by more bolts, while these were smaller, their sheer amount almost broke his shield. Pushing forward, he continued until he reached the clouds. Realizing he could not see anything, he quickly dispersed the water particles around him. In the end, it was a futile effort. Before he could even react, a serpentine like being made of lightning flew out of the clouds, barreling into him. Watching as his shield was instantly ripped apart like paper, Sear began to see his life flash through him eyes. Whatever he had just tried going against, was much too strong for him. Realizing he was about to die, he quickly used most of his magic to create a small shield covering his chest. Even though the being still ripped through it, it visibly slowed. Slamming into Sear, he could do nothing but accept this. As he got hit, a large crunch was heard from the breaking of his ribs. Almost going unconscious, Sear¡¯s body got launched backwards at such a speed that he broke through the speed barrier, by a lot. Feeling the strain this speed was putting on his body, he attempted to slow down. Looking around for the serpentine, he quickly jerked around just in time to see its body barrel into him again, this time breaking his left arm and shoulder. One his already ribs poked out of his back, sticking out like a misplaced horn. This is it, I¡¯m actually going to die here¡­ damn, to think there were still things this much more powerful than me that existed¡­ He watched as the being body once again turned towards him. This time though, instead of flying towards him off the bat, it slowly began to curl its body and pull back like a spring. In seconds, the being had shrunk down to 1/10th of its size. Feeling killing intent coming off of it, Sear closed his eyes and waited for this final hit. And it came. His body flew over the countryside, eventually passing though entire countries. Over the continent, people spoke about this day being the beginning of the end. Many stated that the bright object flying to the skies was a message from the gods, and believed that their time was up. The main reason for this was the fact that the city got wiped off the map. Not a single pebble was left. In its place was a large crater spanning a few kilometers. The nearby area was either blow to smithereens by the wind that followed the strike or was still on fire. Panic broke out across the continent of Gruflumlor as people began to kill each other for food and hide. Soon, most of the continent was in hiding, waiting for the final day. Across the continent, the bright streak in the sky landed in the middle of the ocean, waiting to be swept away from anything that it knew. Edit READ EVERYTHING::::ITS IMPORTANT Hello everyone! I hope you guys have enjoyed the story so far! Now that I''ve gotten to chapter 25, I want to go back through the entire 25 chapters and revise it before I continue the series. (No it''s not over. Some people have messaged me asking if it was because of chapter 26 :P) I want to fix most of my grammatical and spelling mistakes and I''m going to be editing some parts of the story to make it flow better. While I won''t change the entire story, I HIGHLY recommend you go back and reread all the chapters once I have edited them because I''ll tie up some loopholes and create some more to fix in the future and if you don''t read them then you will be confused in the future. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. That''s all I wanted to say. I will post a update once I''m done editing, so I guess for now you guys just have to wait, as I won''t be updating every time I fix a chapter. it should take less than a week so you won''t have to wait too long. Thanks for reading this far! Arc 2- Prologue Some Time Later... "Sir, we are running out of rations! We will only be able to feed our population for another 20 days at this rate. Some people are starving and many fights have broken out. in the past day 13 people have been found dead. They either had food on them or they were the food." - ??? "Dammit. I hoped we would be able to last a bit longer. We''ve managed to survive a month, but a group as small as ours would have no chance against the kingdoms that took everything. Are you sure there''s nothing else we could do to prolong this? Maybe shorten the rations?" - ??? "We could shorten the rations, but I feel that people would just start fighting for food even more than they already were. Unless we somehow find a good source of food nothing is going to happen, other than us starving of course." - ??? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elsewhere "Haha. Today was a good day. We got a hefty haul and should be able to feed ourselves for another few weeks. At least until we get to the northern stronghold. We also managed to get this nice little Sally right here." - ??? In the man''s arms was a small frail girl. Her blonde hair, matted down by mud, covered most of her face. She looked quite underfed but still had a natural beauty to her that attracted the men. The man holding her was a giant in comparison. He was at least 2 meters tall, had tree trunks for arms, and looked more like a wall than a person.Stolen novel; please report. No matter how much the girl tried to escape, it was futile. She was simply too weak. "You''re right boss. This is a nice little Sally we''ve gotten here." - ??? A few murmurs passed around as the bandits looked at their leader. "So boss you''re going to take her first?" - ??? "Of course!" - ??? With a wild grin on his face, the man tore the girls shabby clothes off and lay her down on the floor. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On a small island in the middle of the ocean... "Archmage, are you sure that we will be able to continue living like this?" - ??? "Silly Apprentice. Since that day, nothing has happened. The only reason populations are starving and people are killing each other is because of a false prophecy. I doubt anything will happen now. In a few months people will realize that nothing has happened and kingdoms will rise again. For now though we can continue training our magic here." - Archmage "Yes Archmage." - Apprentice -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In a small lagoon... As the sun began to rise, a body washed up on the shore of a lagoon. The Lagoon was situated on the outskirts of a group of archipelagos, known as the bumbling lands. Very few people had ever come into the islands and come out alive, do due to the humongous insects that dominated the island. Not too far from the body, a meter long scorpion was eating away at the dead corpse of an eagle. After finishing it''s meal, it began to move towards the body with the sharp clacking of its legs, striking against the rough sands. As it approached, it readied its stinger, and pounced forward. As it was falling through the sky towards the body, it got slammed into the sands, turning its insides to pulp. The body rose..... Chapter 27 Back on the island... As the body rose, a purple aura could be seen forming around it. The aura slowly became thicker and thicker before it condensed into a liquid-like state and fell onto the ground in globs. Out of the globs small creatures appeared. The creatures all dispersed outwards while the body began to move into the dense jungle. The body stumbled and fell a couple of times before finally getting used to moving again. As it reached the edge of the forest, it swiped it''s hand sideways. Nothing happened for a few seconds, but suddenly a large roar was heard. it wasn''t a beast, neither was it living. It was wind. A ferocious wind came and ripped the jungle apart. Trees were uprooted and sent flying off into the distance. Large insects where split into hundreds of pieces and flung towards the water. Soon, the wind stopped. While in the distance the jungle was just as dense as before, the few square kilometers near the body were devoid except for a few sparse trees. Soon, the creatures made of glob ran back to the body carrying pieces of carcasses. With a swipe of it''s hands, an aura surrounded the carcasses before it was dissolved and absorbed into the body. While there was no large change, the body had managed to gain a trickle of power. With a loud roar, the body sprang away towards the forest. A mad smile could be seen on its face. it''s eyes were colored a black darker than void. In them there was truly nothingness. While the body was distinctively human, it had changed. The toe and fingernails were a deep red color and where sharper than an iron knife. The skin had turned an almost gray color, and flashing heterochromatic lines could be seen traversing it''s body. If anyone knew the body, they would clearly see who it was, Sear. But, it was as if he had turned into a wild animal. His mind was broken and he would just slaughter any nearby animals and absorb them, slowly increasing the power he had. A few minutes later, glowing orbs could be seen flying around Sear''s body. The glowing orbs were actually just orbs of raw mana that he kept outside his body. Now, instead of using his hands and feet to kill the animals, the orbs would just shoot out a laser of raw energy, killing the animal and cutting a line through the jungle for kilometers. As it continued to run away, mindlessly slaughtering everything, it came to a stop. Looking towards it''s right, it saw a tasty meal. Not far from him was a large gorilla, easily the size of a two-story building. AN: THE MUSIC LINK:https://soundcloud.com/inouesora/really-slow-motion-collapsing-universe ITS GOOD!!!If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. BACK TO CHAPTER =====> It was silver-colored, and light shone off it''s body like water. It''s bulging muscles rippled as it prepared to charge at Sear. It roared, showing off it''s large fangs the thickness of a young tree. It''s eyes blinded by rage for being disturbed during its hunt, it charged. The ground shook as it''s massive hands pushed forward. Nearby trees were knocked down and living beings of all kind ran, except for Sear. Smiling, he crouched down and dispelled the orbs of mana. If the gorilla wanted a match of strength, that''s what he would give it. Sear blinked out of existence before reappearing in front of the gorilla. The two began sending punches at each-other. Sear''s arms looked like machine gun''s rapidly punching forwards tens of times in a second, while the gorilla was only slightly behind in speed. As their punched connected, shock waves sprayed out. Dust was being lifted off the ground as rocks were sent hurdling away like bullets. The ground beneath them was slowly being destroyed by the endless attacks. Soon, the two were in a crater. Seeing that it''s punches were doing nothing, the gorilla jumped into the air. As it''s body got pushed a hundred meters into the air, a white film began covering it''s arms. As it began to descend the film only got thicker until one could no longer see the arm beneath it. As it neared the ground, it prepared to punch. Sear, seeing this, did the same. Quickly gathering air mana around his arms, he pushed off the ground, right into the gorilla. As they came withing meters of each other, they both transferred all of the air mana into one arm. The two punched forwards, their fists colliding. A shock wave exponentially stronger than the previous rang out and lightning formed around their connected arms. The ground beneath them was trembling. In the distance, the very ocean itself was being pushed away. Any trees nearby were blown away by the force being emitted. The two never separated, even as a bright flash began to form between them and overlap their arms. More lightning was being thrown out, melting the ground around them or being shot towards the heavens. As the rumbling reached its max, the white flash exploded outwards, sending the two flying away. The nearby clouds were pushed away as power comparable to a god was released. As the flash died down, two forms could be seen standing in-front of each other. As Sear got up off the ground, the gorilla struggled. it''s entire right arm had been blown off and most of the hair covering it''s body had burned away. Meanwhile, Sear''s arm was burnt to the point bone could be seen in some places, specifically his hand. All of his fingers had the meat blown off of them. All that remained from the fingers was bone, which surprisingly could still move. Sear''s smile grew to an all time high as a psychotic laugh came out of his mouth. Walking forward, he ended this. With a quick swipe of his hand, a dark crescent shaped orb of dark mana cut the gorilla''s head off it''s body. Walking forward, the dark aura once again covered the corpse as it was absorbed into Sear. When the body was gone, Sear grunted and fell onto the floor. Within seconds, his fingers had grown back. His nails returned to normal while his skin color returned to normal. The heterochromatic veins covering his body disappeared as his eyes changed back to the normal. After that was done, steam began to flow off of his body. His nails grew a few inches while his hair came down to his tailbone. His body turned a red shade as defined muscles appeared on his body. After a few seconds, the red shade piped down and the smoke stopped. He fell downwards, as his body was covered in a thick layer of dirt to protect him. Chapter 28 A few hours later Sear awoke. *Where am I? Gah!* The memories of what had happened all rushed into his head as he tried to process them all at once. Giving himself a few seconds to relax he let go of his head and looked around. *Ok, so I still don''t know what happened. Am I in a weird afterlife? Did the weird lightning being kill me or did I just get sent to another continent? God, so many damn questions to answer. For now, all I could think off is my body went into a subconscious state while I drained mana to replenish myself. And since when did I have those two abilities? I absorbed the body somehow and I created a few minions out of liquid mana.* Sighing, he went into his inner mana pool to look at it. Before he got hit by the being made of lightning, his mana pool was quite large. Compared to it now though, it was about 1/10th of the size, but luckily the lighter shade of liquid was still there. *Ok, I''m going to do something simple for myself. If before I had for say, an area of 100 units taken up by mana, it now takes up 10 meters. If I had to number my mana, I''ll use 100, I now have 11. My body most likely used up all of my mana to allow me to live, and because of that I was put into that state where I had to absorb more mana into myself for me be safe.* *Maybe I can still absorb mana like that?* Pointing his hand at the ground, he copied the feeling he felt when absorbing the other things. Soon, the black, purple fog began gushing out of his hand and anything it touched began to get absorbed. Soon, he was standing in a crater, having absorbed a few cubic meters of dirt. *How much mana did I get back? Hmmm, I got back a third of what it would cost me to create this much dirt.* Looking around, he saw the remains of the ape. Though he absorbed some of it, he reached the threshold of gaining his consciousness after only absorbing it''s arm. Letting the gas flow out once more, he continued absorbing it. Unlike when he absorbed the dirt, he could feel the large amounts of mana flowing through his body. Soon, the body was gone. All that was left was a white pearl. Picking it up, he realized it was an air orb. The same thing that he had created by compressing a lot of the same type of mana. Looking back into his inner pool, he saw that it had gone from 10 units to around 25 units. He still only had around 25% of his original mana. Grabbing the air orb, he began to absorb it. Surprisingly, it held almost the same amount of mana as the body of the ape. Confused, he continued to absorb it until nothing remained. Now, he had around 40 units. While still nothing compared to how he had been, it was still much more powerful than the ape. *The ape was strong enough to create a center for all of it''s mana? I guess since it used air magic it would be normal for it to have an air orb, but why does it have the orb? Do animals not have the capability to store mana like humans?* Realizing just how little he actually knew, he decided that it was time for him to find some more animals to absorb. Closing his eyes, he felt a large source of mana coming from the north. There were two sources, and from what he could tell they were fighting. They each held around 1 unit of mana, but compared to everything around, except for the now deceased ape, they were the strongest by far. Looking in that direction, he began running towards it. Sadly, he had forgotten that he underwent a transformation when he awoke, and his own strength surprised him, so instead of running along the forest-side like he planned, he instead started tumbling across a small plain. As he came to a stop, he got back up and continued, slowly getting used to his new body strength. Whatever had happened to him, his physical capabilities were now double what they used to be. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few minutes later, Sear saw the two fighting animals, or insects. And let me tell you, they were huge. One was a beetle, roughly 15 meters long. It had two long, lightning fast pincers. Even to Sear, who had vision hundreds of times stronger than a normal human, the pincers closed and opened so fast and that was left was a blur, and the blast created when something goes faster than the sound barrier. it''s opponent was no less dangerous. A hornet, roughly 20 meters long from head to stinger was flying overhead and sending out strikes every so often. It''s stinger looked like a drill head and was 3 meters long on it''s own. While not penetrating the beetle''s shell, it was leaving visible dents. As the ground rattled around the two, Sear stood and watched. They continued their attacks until the hornet got to close. It stung forward, aiming for the beetle''s head, but the beetle scurried backwards the bit the hornet in two. As it''s lower body collapsed, the hornet tried to escape with it''s wings, but ended up falling due to pain.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. As the beetle closed in, Sear finally intervened. Creating two spears of light, he sent them flying through the insects heads. The two collapsed, and Sear quickly absorbed them. The two also ended up dropping orbs, but they were so small compared to the ape''s that he almost missed them. The beetle had dropped a earth orb, and the hornet dropped a nature orb. The beetle, given time, would most likely learn to use mana to give itself an even more impressive defense, while the hornet would most likely use it''s mana to create poisons and toxins to kill it''s pray with only one strike. Smiling, he absorbed the two orbs, and began walking away, with his inner mana pool now at 45 units. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Soon, a week had passed, after two straight days of absorbing the strongest things around, he had gotten back to 55 units. But something he saw was that the strongest animals weren''t even giving him half a unit anymore. So, he decided to sleep it out. Going back into his inner mana pool, he realized that during the time he had been unconscious along with the time he was on the island, the slightly brighter puddle of mana had increased by around 10%, without having a crazy aftereffect like last time. To be able to safely do that again, he would either have to go deep underground or get strong enough normally to fight back. During those 3 days of waiting, he saw as the strongest animal would constantly change. Sometimes, two even numbers would fight and the winner would absorb the other, becoming stronger. Other times, insects swarmed the strongest and killed him. Luckily for Sear though, since the ape, which was most likely the strongest thing of this island died, the number of strong beings went up. Right now, there were around 17 of them above 1 unit, 8 above 2 units, 4 above 3 units, and there were 2 that were above 5 units. Luckily for Sear, they lived on opposite sides, so they didn''t kill each-other. *This is good. Right now, if I hunt them all I should be able to get around 60 units. And that''s without abosrbing their orbs. With the orbs I should be able to get easily over 150 in total. Not only will I get back to my old limit, but I''ll pass it by a lot.* Getting up, he sensed where the nearest 5 was, and flew towards it. One thing he had managed to quickly learn during these three days was to use his air magic to propel him, allowing him to fly around 10 times faster than he could already run. In a few minutes, he found it. The first one, currently with 6.5 units, a spider that specialized in fire magic. It would spit venom out of it''s mouth, and anything it touched would catch fire. It''s web would had an average heat of 80¡ãC. Most things that touched it would slowly heat up as it was stuck on the web. *Too bad it''s still extremely weak.* Quickly using earth magic, he created a dome around the spider. The dome was made of several layers of reinforced dirt, and would be able to withstand temperatures tens of times higher than the melting point of stone. It was also harder than diamond, not that diamond was hard to break for Sear. He quickly made hundreds of spikes poke out of the walls of the dome, and the spider was stabbed in hundreds of spots at once. Quickly getting rid of the dome, he absorbed the corpse and held onto the orb. Once he killed everything, he would use all of the orbs at once to give him a rapid increase. Sensing the nearest thing over 1 unit, he rushed towards it. Soon, all the animals below 4 units were dead. Sear currently had 99 units of mana. The rason the last two animals were still alive is because they were buried beneath the earth. One was a ghastly white worm, capable of shooting tens of meters into the air after bursting out of the ground, while the other was a mixture between a mole and an ant. It''s front two arms were much thicker and used for digging while it''s body composition reminded him of an ant. That ant was the stronger once, at just over 5 units while the other was just under 4.5. Due to them being underground, they would be the hardest to kill, with him having to create a sort of jail cell underground so that they can''t escape. Placing his hands of the ground, he quickly began. Spreading out from around him for 100 meters in every direction, the dirt turned glossy. He had hardened it to the point it would be hard for him to break out. As sweat began to drip off his nose, he continued. Below the edges the dirt also turned glossy until everything below 200 meters was also covered in glossy dirt. Sensing that they were in a trap, the two animals tried to go further underground, but before they could Sear closed the bottom. As he let go of the ground, he laid back. His body, glossy with sweat, wan shaking up and down as he gasped for air. He had used up nearly a third of his total mana within a minute. You might think that wasting 33 units to get 10 was a dumb idea, but in reality, he would regenerate the 33 back, while he had to absorb the beings so that he could increase his total. If he didn''t have a total, by now would easily have a few thousand units. Cooling himself off, he quickly made an opening. The two beings, thinking they would get out, rushing out. As he two launched out of the ground, Sear quickly stabbed them with hundreds of dark spears. As their bodies fell to the ground, he quickly absorbed them and took their orbs too. He now had 110 units of mana as his total. Now the only thing left was to absorb the orbs. Going down towards the center of his cage underground, he created an open space. Placing all of the orbs in-front of him, he began to absorb. As his total spiked up unit after unit, he eventually finished them all. Looking around at his inner mana pool, what he saw mesmerized him. Not only had he gotten past 150 units, but he had also managed to break past 200. Without him knowing, the moment he began absorbing, the orbs fed off of each-other and became stronger, allowing him to gain even more. As he opened his eyes, he quickly fell over in pain, as his body began to emit steam once again. This time, he turned a slightly darker shade of red, and after a few minutes he was unconscious on the ground again, 2 times stronger than he was a few hours ago. Chapter 29 On a different world... "Hey ???, come look at this. Someone on Bulfrog just broke into the second stage." - ??? Standing over a white orb stood a man. Though he wasn''t quite a man. He was a mixture between a man and a lizard. At 2 meters tall with broad shoulders, he had light green scales covering his entire body. (Think Argonian from Skyrim: Link at the end) Next to him, writing onto a piece of black paper, was another lizard-man. He was smaller in size, but his pitch red eyes seemed powerful enough to cut through mountains. "Did one? Interesting. The last one happened not 2 years ago. it is speeding up considerably. Let me see him." - ??? With a swipe of the hand, the larger lizard-man sent the orb levitating towards the other. The other grabbed it and looked. "Interesting. A human capable of using all types of magic. Put him on a watch list. Since the planet is under our supervision we have to watch out for people like him. While compared to some planets where getting to the 5th stage is simple, on Bulfrog it is quite hard due to the distinct lower amount of mana in the air." - ??? With that the two men went back to their old work. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back on the island... After a week passed, Sear had finally reawoken. Getting up, he noticed a vast difference. Though his mana total stayed the same, his physical capabilities and mental capabilities increase. His body was stronger than before and had an aura of superiority around it never there before. In his mind, he could feel that his thinking had sped up and he could now more clearly understand how mana worked. Smiling, he created a whole out of the pit he was in and floated outwards. Using his mana sense, he looked around. He was surprised to say the least. Almost every living thing within 1000 meters was gone, even the trees. Spanning it out even further, he was that living things were keeping away from him. *Everything is staying away from me... is it because of this aura?* Focusing on it, he tried to suck it back in. As he did that, animals began getting closer and closer. Finally, he managed to suck it all in. As he reopened his eyes he saw that the animals now could not sense his power. A bee at 1 unit even tried to attack him! He quickly tried swatting it away, but was surprised when part of the bee''s body vaporized into bloody dust. *Interesting. I wonder just how strong I have become. Now I only have to continue becoming stronger. Whatever that being that attacked me was, it was confident enough not to use this aura.* Quickly flying towards a nearby mountain, Sear prepared to test out his new strength. Taking a stance, he quickly lashed out at the rock-side, only using his pure strength. After his punch connected a massive chunk of the area exploded. Enough though his punch penetrated into the rock and destroyed it for 200 meters ahead of him, it was still nothing compared to the entirety of the mountain, which must have spanned for at least 20 kilometers. *Now that I''ve done that, I need to find out where I am.* Taking a deep breath, he prepared to use his mana sense once more. The only difference now would be the size of it. He began expanding it. 1 kilometer, 10 kilometers, 100 kilometers, 200 kilometers. At that mark, he felt that his brain was about to shatter, but he had found something. Roughly 180 kilometers to the north laid an island, and from what he could tell from his low quality mana sense, there was civilization there. Closing his mana sense, he quickly launched off of the island, headed straight towards the civilization. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After two days of flying, he could see the island in the distance. Quickly slowing down, he used his mana sense once more. In front of him was a bustling sea town. it had around 50,000 people living in it, and he could see that there were roads leading out of it, most likely to other towns. Smiling, he began to close in. Deciding not to fly straight in, he flanked around landed near one of the gates. Approaching the gates, two of the guards stopped him. "What are you doing in this city traveller?" - GuardsThe author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. "I went out for a stroll this morning but fell asleep a few hundred meters from here. I woke up a while ago and came back." - Sear Though they eyed him carefully, seeing that he had nothing for which to attack or defend himself with from far away, they let him pass. Walking through the city, Sear was surprised at how they used the same language he used even though they must be quite far away. He also noticed that there was nobody even close to passing 1 unit of strength. *I wonder why all the mages here are so weak. I can sense large amounts of mana being used, but it all seems to be similar in a way. I''ll have to check this later.* Seeing a nearby inn, he walked in. Unlike what he had expected, everyone there was quite cheerful and not like the ones back at his... home. Suppressing a scream of anger, he walked towards the innkeeper, a middle aged lady with golden yellow hair with white on the tips. "Excuse me, but how much is a room for the night?" - Sear "A room for the night would be 10 coppers. A whole week is 65 coppers, and a month would be 240 coppers." - Innkeeper Using his earth magic, he quickly created 10 copper coins. He saw one on the tables earlier and copied it''s design. Putting the coins on the counter, the lady took it and gave him a key. "Dinner will be served in 5 hours. Breakfast is 3 after sunrise." - Innkeeper Going up to his room, he opened the lock. There was a simple bed with stained clothing, a tall wardrobe, and a chest. Laying down on the table he began to think. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After a few minutes he decided on what he would do. The first thing would be to try to join a mage''s guild to learn more about the area, and maybe even some new types of magic. Going downstairs, he walked up to the innkeeper and asked her where he could go to learn magic. She gave him a weird look, but eventually told him the location. Near the edge of a town there was a tower where mages would go to learn magic. It was a 10 minute walk from where he was. Leaving the inn, he quickly ran there, making it in less than 3 minutes. Looking at the building he was surprised. For a mage tower, it was quite worn down and was close to collapse. Not thinking too much about it, he walked in. As he walked in a man around the age of 60 came in. He was holding a book in one hand and a carved wooden staff in the other. "Yes, what is it you have come here for?" - ??? "I''m here to learn magic." - Sear "Hmmm, good. It''s been a few years since I''ve gotten a new apprentice. Now then, you know the basics about magic... right?" - ??? "Yes." - Sear He was going to continue talking but the old man cut him off. "Pick up one of the empty books in that bookcase," he said pointing to a bookshelf with 6 thick tomes. "And you may address me as Runemaster Wilkins." - Wilkins "Yes Runemaster Wilkins." - Sear *Runemaster? What is that? Maybe a new type of magic usage?* Walking over to the bookshelf, he picked up one of the tomes. It was empty. Walking back towards Wilkins, he saw that he had cleared away a desk and put another book, bigger than his chest, onto the table. "Okay, since us humans can''t use magic with our bodies like beasts with mana cores can, we need to draw runes. This makes it almost impossible for mages to do anything other than enchanting and defense because of the time it takes drawing these runes. I want you to copy all of the runes from page 1 to 250 into your book. That book has runes engraved into it that makes it grow bigger every time it gets filled up. This book here is an example of the public rune book. Since mages don''t share their own runes and rune formations, Runemasters like me have much bigger books than this public one. But that''s for later. Start copying." - Wilkins *Wait what?! Human''s can''t use mana here? But I can use it clearly, and so can everyone else in Gruflumlor(His old continent). Did they lose the ability over time? And what''s this about runes? Do they inscribe things and then just put the mana into it?* Sitting down with his thoughts, he soon sent them away and looked at the book. On the first page were the simplest of runes. They were Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Death, Life, and Lightning. They were the elemental runes. Beside the name there were the symbols for them. They were all basic, like a lightning bolt for lightning, a flame for fire, a wave for water, a skull for death, a mountain for earth, cloud for air, and the weirdest one, a shining ball for life. Besides the symbol there was a description of the rune and what it did. But Sear knew all of the information for the elemental runes, as he only used these types of magic his whole life, except for life and death. From what he could tell, those two where almost impossible to comprehend because of how they played a part in everything. *Wait, if the black magic I''ve been using isn''t death, than what is it?* Deciding to focus on the runes, he began to copy down everything he found. After the first page, he went onto the second, and third, and fourth, and tenth, and hundredth, before coming to the last page. By now, he only had 10 pages left in his book before it would fill up. At the top of the last page it said: Immeasurable Runes. They were runes that used so much mana that it would be impossible for anybody to use them properly. Taking a quick glance at the words, he understood why. There was Infinite, Indestructible, Godly, Chaos, and Order. Smiling seeing them, he quickly copied them down. By now, he had an extensive list of runes, but they were all singular. But god was there a rune for EVERYTHING. A rune for glass, a rune for reflection, a rune for sand. He wouldn''t be surprised if there was a rune for apples. Getting up from the chair, he stretched quickly after being seated for over 10 hours, writing the entire time. Looking around, he saw that the old man had fallen asleep on a table next to him. Seeing that the man was asleep, Sear decided to just mess around with some of the runes. Drawing an earth rune on a piece of paper, he pour a minuscule amount of mana into the rune. All that he saw a small layer of dust cover the paper. *I guess I never did define the shape. God this is so hard. I would have to combine the rune of earth along with the rune of ball and propulsion if i wanted to create a simple earth projectile!* Chapter 30 After looking at all the runes he would need to combine, he quickly realized that he knew no way to combine them. Sighing for a few seconds, he sat down and began to think on the runes that he had seen. He was currently combining them in his head to create new magics. As he continued to do this, he saw the old man begin to stir. As the old man got up, he looked at Sear''s book and saw that he had copied all of the runes down. "Ahh, very well. I''m guessing you want to learn how to combine runes now correctly?" - ??? "Yes." - Sear "Okay then. Come closer. Let me just grab this and that, here we go. Now, I will show you how to combine runes by showing you a simple shield spell. The runes we will be using are spheric, to make it spherical, anti-mag, to give it some resistance to magic, anti-physic, to give it some resistance to physical, and lastly the transparency rune to make it see-through. First, draw the 4 runes. They should be equally spaced apart. Now that you have them all drawn, draw a circle in the middle. Now draw 4 circles around the runes. Then connect those 4 circles to the circle in the middle with a straight line. Lastly, draw a large circle that overlaps all of the runes and other circles." - ??? As Sear finished drawing it, he felt a short pull of mana from the air going into the paper before it flashed lightly. "And just like that you have drawn a glyph. Now, you can also combine glyphs in the same manner by connecting them all to one mid circle and the larger circle. Now for how to use these scrolls. Since we as humans can''t use magic, we have to rely on this mana crystals. They slowly absorb mana from the environment and when he touch it to something that absorbs mana it feeds it. This is the main reason many people don''t use scrolls. These crystals are very expensive. There are also 5 different types. This one here is a blue crystal which is the first type. It can use feed a 25-rune glyph once before running out and can recharge in under a day. The other four, in increasing order, are green crystals, red crystals, yellow crystals, and finally purple crystals. Purple crystals are stuff of legend as there has only ever been one is existence many centuries ago, but it was said to be able to feed a 250 glyph spell with each glyph consisting of over 10 runes. It is though to be able to handle roughly 250 million times the mana of a blue crystal." - ??? Even for Sear, who had an enormous pool of mana, that crystal would be powerful. That crystal would be easily able to surpass the 100 unit marking. But one thing intrigued him. Why can''t humans use mana? He would ask this question, but it would obviously show he isn''t from around here. "What do you mean when you say that there WAS one in existance?" - Sear "The holder of the crystal attempted to power a 4 rune glyph that used the infinite rune. He was attempting to create a small object that would open up into a different sub-dimension where people would be able to store items. But the infinite rune was so powerful that it absorbed all the mana the crystal had, and once it ran out it began absorbing the very crystal. In the end, the ring he put the glyph into did connect to a separate dimension, but all the mana the ring stored only created an area 50cm by 50cm by 50cm. barely enough to fit crate of food. After seeing how much mana one of those things would cost. They gave up on using the Immeasurable Runes." - ???This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. *Hmmm, even something with 100 units could only make something so small. "Well, that''s everything I could teach you. Now everything you do you must do on your own. You can have the book, but if you want crystals you will have to buy your own. Good luck out there kiddo." - ??? With that, the man pushed Sear out the door and just left him there. *He just gave me this much information and just let me go? I guess since these people can''t use magic it must not be very important for them. As for now, I wonder if I can draw the runes in the air with raw mana. I''ll have to try that out in a bit. For now I''ll go back to the inn and sleep. Tomorrow I''ll go out and begin testing out a few glyphs. If i can learn them well enough, I may be able to create a shield that can protect me when I begin refining my mana again. That way I can be in peace.* After getting a good nights rest, Sear left the town and went out into the wilderness once again. Once he got around 5 kilometers from the town, he sped up to his max speed, breaking the sound barrier and ran to an isolated spot. Once he came upon a cave, he quickly went inside. Using his magic, he created a small room with a stone chair and table. Sitting down on the table, he took out his book and began to draw glyphs. He continued so for a few hours until he felt a large vibration shaking the ground. A few second later he heard a large roar coming from the town. Using his mana sense once more, he zoomed in on the town that was only 26 kilometers away. What he saw surprised him. A large red wolf, well over 100 meters long. It had a total of 180 units of mana. What surprised him the most though was that city was winning. For now. Surrounding the city there was a semi-transparent dome of energy. It seemed to be a much, much stronger version of the shield that the mage had taught him. From each of the large towers on the wall, he could see groups of five people holding large red crystals and drawing glyphs onto the ground. When they were done, large fireballs, of icicles, of spears of iron would be shot towards the beast. These attacks were slowly but surely damaging it. But it wasn''t enough. Sear could tell that even he would be hard fought to even fight that thing to a standstill, much less win. While he had more mana, it''s physical power was enormous. The shield was strong, but with just it''s physical strength it was causing cracks to form. The area around the city had been utterly destroyed. He could even feel the impact from its hits all the way here, over 20 kilometers away. As the battle raged on, more and more cracks began to appear on the dome. After another 10 minutes, the beast decided to finish it all. Backing up, it prepared to use a magic attack. As Sear watched, it began to gather a large amount of mana in it''s mouth, 100 units to be exact. Once it reached that threshold, the wolf roared. A large red beam of pure fire shot out of the wolf''s mouth. The moment it touched the dome it instantly evaporated. As it crashed into the town, the stone it got near melted in a matter of seconds. The beam continued, and as the wolf moved it''s head side to side the rest of the town also met the same fate. After finishing that attack, the wolf moved in and killed the remaining people, before beginning to devour the bodies, the ones that hadn''t evaporated due to the heat at least. Still in his cave, Sear gulped. Sweat ran down his neck. he knew that that one attack could kill him, or fatally injure, but that''s basically the same. Realizing this, he quickly got back to drawing the glyphs. He would need to become stronger. Much stronger. And fast too. Chapter 31 A full week passed, Sear had still been writing more runes. buy now his book was well over 10 kilograms in weight, and had at least five thousand pages. along with it, even though he hadn''t actually made those glyphs, he had created some that involved the immeasurable runes. One of them was the glyph that would be used to create the storage dimension the rune-master talked about back at the town. Another glyph that he created was to create an indestructible shield. it would last as long as it had sufficient mana. He planned to use it later on when he purified his mana so that he could have a day or two of peace. other then that, he discovered another thing. If he concentrated hard enough, he could draw runes in the air around him. It didn''t take much mana, but he needed to have enough control to keep it from moving and shaping it into runes, while still keeping it at a visible state. So far, the hardest glyph he had managed to draw in the air was one for an earth spike, which used the Forward Propulsion, Cone, Earth, and Sharp runes. He also couldn''t do it while moving, as that would take too much concentration. For now though, he still had his other ways of using magic. It also seemed that this country he was in was quite dangerous. He had been surprised when he found that there were two other beasts with over 100 units. But luckily they seemed to be hibernating. Picking his book up, which was now bigger than his head, he left the cave that he had been in. Going outside, he spots a squirrel on a tree a couple meters away. Drawing a glyph in the air, he sent a needle-thick projectile of solid air through it''s neck. He had gotten his time required to draw 4 rune glyphs down to 5 seconds. Not bad considering he started a couple days ago. He began walking through the forest, just taking time to walk around and be in nature. He can''t remember the last time he did that. It was more than likely before he had even joined the Thieve''s Guild. He had so much free time back then that he would do this daily. Looking back, he realized how far he had come. Somehow, he had become one of the strongest existances, he believed, in a matter of three years. Some people trained for years with magic and yet they couldn''t reach 1/100th of his potential at their peak. *Now that I think about it, how did I become this powerful? It makes no sense for me to be able to become this strong in such little time, considering how slow I had been training in magic before. Maybe it''s because I''ve been put in more hard situation and have had to use more magic? But that still doesn''t make sense.* Even without absorbing the beast''s orbs he was still the most powerful human alive. The one in second was that Priest he had fought back in the crevice. It seemed like it had been forever since then. Remembering that time, he decided to use some magic he hadn''t in a long time. Using his mana sense to look around, he quickly found a pair of bears fighting over a small stream. Flying over to them, he quickly killed them both. For one of them, he sent a pure black mana thread into it''s body. It''s eyes focused om him and sat in front of him, awaiting a command. *Good, seems like my resurrection still works. Now to test that out.* With the other bear, he quickly sat down and began using his magic. Instantly, the bear''s bones came out of it''s body. The bones went back into the shape of a bear before they began to change. The hips and legs became bipedal, and the ribs became smaller. Spikes poked out of the spine And on the jaw two large tusks, each at least 60cm long appeared. It''s left paw changed into a large one sided sword while it''s right hand gained several large claws. Infusing a bit of mana into it, he saw it come to life. "My lord, what do you require of me?" - ??? *Yes! I can still create my Bone Minions. And this one seems to be the strongest one I''ve created by a long shot. The others wouldn''t last a second against him. Not only is he able to run close to 30 meters per second, but he is by far the most intelligent.* Still smiling, he quickly got rid of the Minion. They would be useful, but not right now. Now happy, he stared into the sky. Looking at the stars, he felt a feeling rise up inside of him. He couldn''t quite describe it, but it felt like a mix between anger and determination. As the feeling rose up in him, his chest began to shine.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Quickly taking off his shirt, he looked at it. Located on his chiseled abs was a rune he had never seen before. At first he thought it was a glyph because of how complex and crazy it looked, but in the end it was a very thoroughly made rune. Just looking at the rune he felt a pressure he had never felt before. Whatever was up there, whatever put this rune on him, was leagues, no, universes above him. Just a rune written by it gave off a feeling powerful enough to freeze Sear in place. If he ever came face to face with it, his very being would freeze and cease to exist before the magnificence of the power. As the glow died down and disappeared, a barrier sprang up around Sear. Then, a few words appeared in his head. |||This is the best I could do without anyone finding out. The mana density within this sphere is over 100 times higher than the rest of your world. Absorb it, and purify yourself. This barrier will only last for a day. By then you should get to 50% with your first purification. Good luck, and when you are more powerful seek me out...||| As the voice died down, Sear immediately got to work. He didn''t know what did this to him, or why, but he wouldn''t turn down the opportunity. Sitting down and concentrating, he felt the mana around him. It was so dense he could even see some strands of it flowing around him. Closing his eyes, he began to purify himself. As he did so, he kept a part of his mind sensing the mana around him and seeing what was happening. Maybe that way he would find out why the storm happened last time he began purifying himself. As he began, he finally saw why. As he purified, his inner mana would become denser too, but his max would also increase. It didn''t just become denser by compressing his old inner self, but by absorbing large amounts of mana from the surroundings. Slowly, he began to use purify larger and larger portions until he got to 25% done purification. At this point, Around 80% of the mana within the sphere had been absorbed. He knew that when it ran out, he would start absorbing mana from outside it, which would lead to the strong beasts coming at him once again. Luckily, it seemed that this shield around him would protect him for a full day. By then he would most likely be strong enough to fight whatever was waiting for him. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As the sun rose from the distance, Sear was nearing completion. Around him were a variety of beasts. The wolf from before was there, staring at him from a small hole it had dug to sit in. There was a being made of pure water, that resembled a shark. Those two were both around 180 units and the 15 other beasts around them were above 100 but below 150. None of them talked or got in the way of each other. Due to the amount of mana being absorbed by Sear, they knew that they would need to work together to have a chance of victory. As they watched, the sphere exploded outwards, releasing a dark purple smoke from within. As the smoke came in contact with trees and the ground, it slowly ate away at them. From within the smoke they could see a shining figure. As the shining went away, the smoke dissipated. There stood Sear. His pitch-black iris''s, now a vibrant purple. His pupil changed, now instead of circular was a three sided star. Seeing him, all of the beasts got into positions and prepared for anything. Looking inside of himself, he realized just how much he had grown from the 50%. When previously he was above 200 units, he was now easily above 2,000 units. Looking at the beasts in-front of him, he sneered. They were weak. In total, they had around 1,800 units. Too bad Sear was still above that. Smiling, Sear began. His body, at one point in the middle of a crater, the next point on the other side of the battlefield. As the beasts turned around, they watched as 8 of them, all below 150 units, fell to the ground. Not finished yet, Sear began to draw a rune. Luckily, due to his partial purification, he became much better at drawing runes. A 26 rune glyph sprang up in the air, before glowing blue. The beasts could do nothing but watch as 10 sphere of pure light sprang out and shot through the beasts. Each orb seemed to have it''s own mind, and they also worked together. Though they couldn''t kill a beast on their own, they would group up in 3''s or 4''s and barrage a beast from all sides. After 6 more beasts fell, Sear canceled the ability. All that was left were 3 beasts. Sear smiled, before the three disintegrated. While they were watching the orbs, he had created his purple smoke and sent it into their body in a dormant state. As the rest of the beasts died, he went and gathered their corpses. He put 5 of the corpses to the side. He would absorb them later. He could feel that his body was going to undergo another transformation with just a bit more mana. For now though, he used earth magic to find some ores. Scanning down a good 100km into the planet''s core, he found what he was looking for. Just outside the molten core was a rock made of a pure green ore. Pulling it out of the ground, he shaped the ore into a ring. Creating an extremely small cut on the ring''s inside, he wrote a rune. it was the same one used to attempt creating a storage ring. Writing the rune, be began infusing it with mana. In one hand was the ring. In the other purple smoke began to seep out and cover the bodies of the beasts. As he watched, their bodies were completely absorbed. Instead of absorbing the mana though, he transferred it into the ring. As the looked into the ring, he was surprised. Even with all of that mana, the ring only had a space of 25 cubic meters. Happy that he at-least had that, he put on the ring before moving over to the other bodies. Quickly looking into his inner self, he looked at how he would naturally progress. Currently, he would gain 0.5% completion per day on its own. If the speed kept increasing, he would most likely finish the first purification within 2 months. Absorbing the bodies into himself, he felt himself pass the barrier he had been close to. Looking inside himself as he fell unconscious once again, he say his mana: 2,315 units. Chapter 32 Waking up, Sear looked into himself and saw the difference. Whatever these barriers that he passed were, he had apparently passed through two of them at once. Not only was his physical strength at least 100 times more powerful than before, but his body also became more durable. he was certain that he could be slammed into by a war-hammer wielding paladin and not even budge. Not only that, but his mental capabilities also increased. His vision, sharper than an eagles. His ears, able to discern the difference between the rustling of leaves and the rustling of grass. His nose, capable of smelling the difference between one mountain to another. His touch, able to feel even the smallest of grooves. His taste, making it possible to taste the very air. His mind, capable of processing things tens of times faster. *This is good.Very good. I am slowly getting closer to the top of the food chain. Now then, I guess I should go kill that lightning beast that sent me here.* Using his mana sense, that now spread over 500 kilometers with ease, quickly expanding to 1000 kilometers before he found what he was looking for. Taking a second to figure out how to hide his even stronger aura, he crouched down before jumping. Without even using air magic to either help speed him up or get rid of the air resistance, he sped away. With that single step, he quickly broke through the sound barrier.(Speed of sound roughly equal to 340 meters per second at the sea level. Or 1225 km per hour) Now using his air magic to boost his speed, he quickly went Mach 2.0 before his foot even hit the ground. As his foot came in contact with the ground, he put all his force into pushing off. As he blasted off, a large crater was left where he just stood. Now going over 1000 meters per second, he began flying. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A quarter hour later, Sear could see what he was coming towards. If one looked at the map of Gruflumlor, they would see that towards the end there was a singular mountain, the tallest one of the continent. At the very top was a citadel owned by the Church. That''s what he had seen with his mana sense. He knew that roughly 600 kilometers past that was the ravine where he learned how to better use his black magic, and 100 kilometers west of the ravine was the city he had ownership of. Had. Passing over the vast ocean separating the two continents, he soon found himself flying over the citadel. He had just remembered someone that he wanted to meet. Father Simons, the very man he had fought back in the ravine, that almost took his life those 4 years ago. He has sensed the man''s mana, though it seemed to have grown in strength, almost doubling. The strongest person in that place though was someone else. He had a strength of 11 units, which while comparable to Sear was nothing, making him the now second strongest human on the continent. If Sear could even call himself human at this point. Dropping down inside the citadels walls, Sear was assaulted by the magics of over 100 "Holy Mages". Too bad that the magic didn''t even scratch him. As the people around him screamed and scrambled, talking about an intruder, Father Simons, the other Fathers, and the strongest man there, who Sear assumed to be the Grand Father, or Pope, came out. As they came out, he released a small portion of his aura.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Instantly, the weakest of the people there, the servants and lower-tiered mages and warriors fell unconscious. Everyone else was either close to fainting, or on the ground, incapable of moving. As for the Father and the Grand Father, they were all kneeling with their arms helping them stay up. Even the Grand Father had fallen down on one knee. As they looked up at him, Sear could feel the surprise in Father Simons face. "Y...you..." - Father Simons "Ah yes, it is me. It''s been a few years since we fought has it not Father Simons? I can see that you''ve doubled in strength since then. I''m actually surprised you even survived the collapse of the cavern." - Sear "Wait, the collapse of the cavern. Father Simons, this is the dark mage you fought?" - Grand Father ??? "Y...yes G.Grand Father Ja...mes. Thi...s is the mage." - Father Simons "You damned dark mage! I should send you down to the pits of the underworld for attacking us!" - Grand father James With that, the man began a transformation, not unlike the one Father Simons had undergone. As his robe changed into a glowing white color, feathered wings sprouted on his back. A 5-pronged trident in his hands, his strength quickly increased to 18 units, allowing him to stand up, though with difficulty. "Now, now. Is that any way to treat your superior?" - Sear As he said that, he quickly doubled the amount of aura he was letting out. As most of the others fainted, and some of the already fainted died, only the Fathers and Grand father were left. The Fathers were now all on the floor, on the verge of fainting, while Grand Father James''s special ability allowed him to only kneel. "I am much too powerful for the likes of you to attempt fighting me. Even now, this is not even 1/20th of my aura, yet the ''strongest'' man on the continent kneels before me. At this point, I am more like a god than a human. You may call me narcissistic, but what can I say, with power, comes arrogance." - Sear "Now I will make this simple. I only want two things. The first thing, is that all members of the Holy Order stay away from me. If they don''t I''ll just destroy the entire order. Secondly, gold. I want 1000 kilograms of gold given to me. Don''t say that that is insane, as I know you guys have well over 100,000 kilograms. Such a small amount is nothing to you. I will wait here as you guys go get me it." - Sear As he let his aura disappear, the men quickly began moving. Well, everyone except Grand Father Simons. He just sat there on the ground, with a blank look on his face. As they quickly brought out all of the gold, Sear put it into his spatial ring. Happy with that, he began to walk away, before hearing Grand Father Simons scream. Looking back, the man had a mad glint in his eyes. "How could you! A mage of death like you is hated by the heavens! This is an impossibility! I will kill you here!" - Grand Father Simons As the man got up, Sear smirked. "A mage of death? Oh no, you have me confused. I don''t use death magic as my main magic. Here, let me show you true death magic." - Sear Pointing a finger at Grand father Simons a rune began to get drawn in the air. Once the glyph completed, a beam of pure black shot out of Sear''s finger. As it came in contact with Grand Father James, the onlookers saw what true death magic looked like. On the ground below the beam, the grass quickly withered and decayed. If there was a piece of marble, it quickly began to crumble and break into hundreds of small grains. As for Grand Father Simons, he began to quickly age. Every second, he seemed to age at least a decade, before his body shriveled and all that was left was bones. Even the robe had decayed. Even Sear''s finger, had slightly decayed. Up to the first joint on his index finger all that left was bone. While it would heal in a few hours, it managed to hurt him, even with the glyph having runes stopping it from hurting the one who fired off the beam. Smiling, Sear began to float up into the air. Once he was 200 meters up, he created a solid platform of air behind him. Putting his feet on it, he pushed off, breaking through the sound barrier and quickly leaving their sight. If it wasn''t bad enough, the Holy Glass that made of the citadels windows all cracked by the energy that came out of the blast created by him passing the sound barrier. Looking into the distance, Father Simons could only think about what he had fought. Chapter 33 As Sear was flying away from the citadel, he soon found what he was looking for. He had been following a road for a good amount of time to try to make his was to the next time or castle to get even more gold. Even though he now had enough to buy well over 600 square kilometers of land, it wouldn''t be enough for what he planned to do. Down on the road was a caravan of merchants. He could tell because of the amount of guards that there were. Not enough for royalty to travel, but more than a mercenary group would need. Without even lifting a finger, all the bodies fell to the floor, unconscious. This is what happened when he released even a miniscule amount of his aura in front of normal people. He used enough to not kill them, but they would be hurting for a long time. Swooping down, he quickly took all of the coins that he could find. It would be weird for him to walk around with no money other than bricks of gold. He also took one of the guards clothing and weapons after making sure that there was no emblem on it. While he wouldn''t be going around all sneakily like, he still wanted to keep some sort of privacy. Looking on the map, he soon found what he was looking for. The nearest capital city to him was the city of Lufador, in control of the royal family The Florents. They controlled an empire that spanned roughly 1/10th of the continent, which meant that they would have a good amount of gold and some equipment that Sear could take. Quickly orienting himself towards the city, he took off. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In less than a minute, Sear had stopped flying, he was currently just outside of the city walls. In the distance he could see the gates to the city. *Well then, I guess it''s time for me to begin my plans.* Those plans, would turn out to be to conquer the continent. Once he found out that he could still use his skeleton warriors, and that he could make them much stronger than before, he realized that taking over the continent would be easy. All he would need are a lot of bones. And that''s easy to find in a city with over 50,000 people. Especially if they are all dead. The reason why he stopped outside the city and not inside is because the graveyard was nearby. Quickly going over to it, he closed his eyes for a second before 5 skeletons appeared before him. All five were 4 meters tall, and had a greatswords in their hands. Each sword was 5 meters long and was stronger than enchanted silver-steel. On their backs a tail appeared. It was covered in spikes capable of piercing through iron with ease. Over all, they would be like berserkers, which is what he needed to find more bones. While this graveyard had a large amount of bones, he realized that the more bones you put into one skeletal being, the higher their potential would be. Sighing, he watched as they all came to life. ""What can we do for you our lord?"" - Skeletal Berserkers *Good, they work.* "Go terrorize the city, kill all of the guards and than start killing the people, but stay away from the palace. That place is mine." - Sear ""Yes lord."" - Skeletal Berserkers As he watched, they all went to go do their work. He had limited their use of mana to some basic offensive earth magic. He wanted them to learn on their own. But what he gave them, was an incredible body. They could run at 1/10th of his max speed and had enough strength in their arms to punch a hole in steel. *I kind of feel bad actually. To these people, these berserkers will probably look like their worst nightmare, but I plan to make them the weakest people in my army.* As Sear casually walked towards the city gates, he took in the sight in front of him. The 20 meter tall wall had multiple holes in it, and their were fires burning across the town. Blood was splattered everywhere he would look. Every soldier he looked at had been either cleanly cut in half of their armor was so dented that it looked like they never had bones to begin with.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Another thing he learned was how good it is to absorb a human body. He would leave the bones, but the blood and meat would all be absorbed by his mist. He didn''t know why, but a human always gave over 0.01 units of mana when absorbed, even if they couldn''t use mana. That''s not a lot, but when you consider the fact that there are around 50,000 people in the city, it would be easy for him to gain over 50 units from it. It''s not a lot compared to him now, but slow growth is still growth. Soon, he came to the palace. In front of him was a group of royal soldiers at at least 500 strong. Even for one of his berserkers that would be hard to fight against without taking some damage. Smiling, he simply let out his full aura over the entire area of the palace. He smiled as he watched the men instantly collapse. Some of them had their bones crushed to dust and bodies turned into pulp. Luckily for him the bones didn''t need to be intact for him to use them. Further away, the palace crumbled and collapse in on itself, but no dust rose up. His aura was strong enough that now it even held a gravitational force over other things. Closing his eyes, he used earth magic to sense where all the gold was, and pulled it all towards him. Some of it was shaped like ornaments or decorations, but he changed them into the shape of bars. Soon, he had absorbed all of the gold in the palace. Turning around, he realized his aura was still on. He quickly turned it off, and walked back to the outskirts of the city. Unknowing to him, his aura had such an effect that the entire city got pushed down a few centimeters into the ground. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back at the edge of the city where he first walked in, he found his five berserkers, and he could already see differences in them. While making them, he had made it so that the more people they kill, the stronger they become and more intelligent they become. Two of them had become smaller and their swords thinner. He could see that they had a larger concentration on mana on their legs and feet. They were slowly becoming more speed based. Two of them got bigger. One''s sword had gotten smaller while a shield appeared on his other hand. The other one just became bigger, along with his sword. The last one stayed the same size, but he changed the most. His sword completely dissappeared. Instead, what was there was a staff with a small blade at the end. When looking at him Sear could tell that the reason for his change was the amount of people he killed with earth magic and his understanding of it increasing. They were all also at least 10% stronger than before. The reason he gave them such good potential was for what they would end up being, his commanders. The other troops would also have great potential, but they would change much slower than these. He wouldn''t be surprised if the other skeletal berserkers he created would have to kill over 10 times the amount of people these did to change like this. For now, he decided to call these guys Stage Two Skeletal beings. back while they were berserkers they were stage one. Their next change would be stage three. "So, have have you five been?" - Sear "Very good, my lord." - Skeleton Mage "Can I kill more people lord?" - Skeleton Advanced Berserker ""We have killed everyone with our superior qualities my lord." - Skeleton Scouts "I am ready for your next command, and will carry out your will my lord." - Skeleton Shield and Sword *Perfect! Their personalities are already beginning to pop up. This will make everything much more interesting. Now to name them.* "Well, you guys did a good job, and now that you have somewhat developed, I''ll name you. You, mage, will be called Ilodis.(Pronounced Ee-load-is). You, larger version of the berserker, will be called Yrol(Pronounced Ee-roll). You, shield and sword, will be called Klod(Pronounced Load). And you two scouts will be called Flint(Pronounced like the word flint) and Grev(Pronounced Gree-ve)." - Sear "Now then, Ilodis, I want you to go and uncover any large packs of buried bones. The graveyard was too small for a city as big and old as this one, so this is sure to be a mass-burial site somewhere. Flint and Grev, I want you two to go scout outside the city and make sure nobody comes close. Klod, you are coming with me. Yrol, you begin breaking down the walls of the city." - Sear As they all left on their own, only Klod was left. "Now then Klod, you will be my general. You will train and command the normal army to the best of your ability. I''ll find some books on battle strategy as soon as we go to the next city. For now, come with me while I create an army for you to command." - Sear As he walked back to the center of the city, he sat down and closed his eyes. As Klod watched, thousands, if not millions of bones flew towards Sear all at once before stopping and clumping into a ball above him. The ball split into 1,000 smaller balls and took the bones took the shape of the berserkers. The bones condensed down until they got to a potential Sear would allow. Now just infusing mana into them, they all came to life. They were exactly the same as the other berserkers, just with less potential and growth. Opening his eyes, Sear spoke. "Now then Klod, I have put in their minds to listen to you and the other four as superiors but with you as a bigger influence. Of course I wam above all of that, but for now, what happens is by your verdict. Chapter 34 AN: Really quickly just want to explain the was his purification and mana increase. He had his mana pool, which could run out. It''s max is, for example, 2,500. That means if he uses all his mana he will have 0 units of current mana, but his max will always be the same. If he absorbs something and gets the mana from it, he can choose whether to fill his pool or increase his max. Now for purification. There are multiple stages, ranging from un-purified, which in his inner self it will be a very dark liquid, to fully purified, which is a bright white liquid. Currently, he is 50% un-purified and 50% through the first stage of purification. So for now his liquid is still a very dark gray, but not as dark as the un-purified. Hope this helps you guys understand, as I''ve been wanting to explain this for a while now. If you have any more questions tell me in the comments. END AUTHOR NOTE ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| A few hours had passed, and Klod had beaten some sense into the army by then. He split them into 5 companies, with 200 berserkers each. As they evolved he would slowly teach Klod how to balance the fighters, stealth fighters, and mages to balance the companies. Those five companies equated to a battalion, and he would need 4 more battalions to create a full brigade. From there he would create 2 more brigades and create a full division. But for now he didn''t have enough bones. A full division would cost him over 750,000 corpses. Hopefully he could get that in the next week. After getting a full division, he would begin increasing his armies power by infusing the already made soldiers with more bones to increase their potential. Luckily for him, though this city was the capital, it had a small population. Most of the people were either craftsman or merchants. Some of the cities in the Florent''s lands had well over 300,000 people, and the largest city, that he knew of, had well over 1,000,000 people living in it. That city would be equal to over 10,000 units, which is over 3 times his current, which is at 2,919. He gained around 500 units from absorbing everyone in this city. *Why didn''t I do this earlier?* Taking a loom into his inner self, he saw why it was a bad idea. The mana he absorbed was only partially purified. It seemed to stay with the percent completion. If 50% of his total was purified, then when he absorbed mana 50% would be purified. Leaving his inner self he went back to thinking about the city. The only reason he didn''t attack them is because of how strong the city is. There''s a good reason why they are able to keep such a city without anyone taking it over. It was controlled by The Mage Theocracy, which was a large group of very powerful mages that believed that their power came straight from god. While those "powerful" mages where actually quite weak, the city wasn''t. The walls were made of reinforced iron and stone, each over 100 meters tall and 20 meters wide, created by earth mages. There was also a large focusing crystal, an object capable of absorbing large amounts of mana and unleashing it all together in one shot, at the center of the city. Even without all of that, the city trained everyone to use magic. Even the peasants learned some magic. Now to mention the middle and upper class. Just thinking about the amounts of mana he could absorb from their bodies made him want to do it, but he knew he was still a bit too weak to do it. As he kept on thinking about what to do next, he saw Ilodis. "Do you have any news?" - Sear ''Yes my lord. I have found and excavated out a large burial site. There seems to be around 200,000 corpses there. Some bones are missing, but you still have enough to create an even larger army." - Ilodis "Good. Summon the other four and tell them to meet me there. You go too." - Sear Instantly, Sear''s body vanished as he flew towards the burial sight. He had sensed it earlier, but decided to see how useful his men would be, and they seemed quite good. As he arrived, he saw the pile of bones. *Good, with this I should be able to create a full brigade. Too bad it will take up all of the corpses. Soon, he would have more corpses than he would know what to do with. But that would be in a while. Concentrating, he once again created the berserkers. By the time he finished, the five had appeared behind him. "I will be leaving to explore around a bit. For now, it is up to you five. Outside the city you will find a large arrow made of steel pointing towards the direction to the next town. I will be back in 4 days. By then, have the city destroyed. Take all of the corpses and bones out and stack them somewhere else. The city has a population of 150,000. It won''t be enough for you guys to evolve once more, but it will slowly help. Now I will be going." - Sear He suddenly launched off again, flying away. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pov Change - Ilodis *My lord has told me and the others to go take over the city. It shall be done. For now I will bury this city.* At the same time he went away, the other four also went. They all knew what they had to do. For now, Flint and Grev couldn''t do much, but they would be useful once the army became more intelligent and needed to sabotage. Yrol and Klod went to go train the soldiers.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. As Ilodis appeared outside the city, he used his earth magic and began dragging the walls underneath the ground. After a few minutes, the walls were gone. As he continued, the houses all slowly sank, and finally the ruined palace and the streets were dragged down, leaving a massive patch of un-grassed dirt. He walked over to where the others were. Now that they had a full battalion, Klod decided to give each of them control of a full battalion, which consisted of 1,000 berserkers. As they all took charge, they began to run towards the next city. They all ran full speed, and due to be skeletons had no fatigue and needed no supplies. Within hours, they were there. It was around 1 AM currently, but luckily Sear also gave them near-perfect night-vision. Looking up at the wall, Ilodis began to plan. *15 meter high walls. 25 drum towers(AN: circle towers built into the wall) spaced apart around 500 meters apart from each other. Battlements on the entire wall. A 100 meter long portion of the wall can be submerged in 10 seconds, but Yrol can destroy it in less. So I shall simply kill as many as I can.* As he told his ideas to the others, they agreed. Within a minute, Yrol was at the wall. Swinging his sword in a 270 degree arc, the men stationed on the wall could do nothing but watch as a portion of the wall at least 30 meters long got blasted away. He quickly moved and soon 250 meters of the wall were destroyed. With Yrol, Klod, Ilodis, Grev and Flint at the lead, they 5,000 berserkers blasted into the city. As alarms rang out, all that could be heard was the crunching of bone, blood-curling screams, the sound of wood splintering and stone being crushed. Ilodis would simply cause spikes of stone to shoot out of the earth and impale people, other times collapsing houses on top of them. Very rarely did he actually hit someone with his staff, but whenever he did their body would fold in half before being launched into any nearby person with enough force to break the walls once more. Yrol would simply swing his sword in circles, sometimes even deciding to just walk around as he span around. His sword would cut everything in half, whether it be swords, buildings, or people. Klod was going around cutting and shield bashing people. Grev and Flint would move so skillfully and quick that before people knew it their heads had been cut off. The other troops were all basically doing the same thing, swinging their sword and using faint magic at any opportunity. In their minds all that there was was one command, kill. By the end of the hour since the attack began, everyone had been killed. Now that everyone was dead, Ilodis had created an area that everyone could stack the corpses they found. *Now that everything is done, I shall wait for my lord to arrive.* -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pov back to Sear As he launched off from the city, Sear oriented himself towards the town he had ownership of. He intended to deal with the lightning elemental now. By now he was sure that he could kill it. He would put all of his mana into creating a shield around him. He would then begin to purify himself for as long as the shield holds out against the elemental. Hopefully he would be able to fully purify this first level so that he could move on and see how hard the next level would be. At this pace, he should be there in two hours. He took this time to figure out how to configure the runes to allow him to create a shield that would work for as long as he had enough mana to sustain it. When he arrived to the town, he saw what was left. A crater. The area around had been completely destroyed. Luckily for him, he would now be getting revenge. During the two hour trip he had been able to find a way to make the shield. He would use 7 glyphs to make it, and in the end it would be almost unbreakable as long as it had mana to sustain itself. Once it runs out of mana it will collapse. He drew it on the ground by him and then infused his mana into it. The shield sprang up around him and he immediately began to purify. After 5 hours he had gotten to 68% purification. After 10 hours he was at 90%. After 24 hours he was at 99%. After two full days, he was still at 99%. He could feel himself on the very brink of finishing. For some reason, this very last piece of mana wouldn''t purify as quickly as it should have. Not only that, but the elemental appeared a day ago. It had a strength of 600 units. The highest he''s seen other than himself. By now, the shield had a spiderweb of cracks on it. He could tell that he barely had an hour left. After an hour, a few seconds before the shield broke, he broke through the first stage. He suddenly felt as his mana cap exploded to wondrous heights. It kept going, before stopping at 4 times its original. He now had an amazing 22,000 units. Looking around with his mana sense, he was surprised. Without knowing, he had absorbed a huge amount of mana from the land. He was currently in a crater 5 kilometers deep. All life within a radius of 25 kilometers of him was dead, and he could feel that the mana density in this area was barely 1/100th of its normal. No wonder it took so long, this place was already running dry. Another thing he felt was that he was about to change again. Just like the past 2 times where he fell asleep and changed drastically, he was about to do it again, but first the elemental. As he kept looking around, the shield finally cracked. With it came Sear. He launched out of the remains of the shield are barreled into the elemental. He suddenly remembered one thing. Though his mana cap had increased, his body was still the same as it was before. The only thing he could count on now was how much stronger his mana would be. Since his mana was now purified once, it''s raw energy went up. The same amount of mana used to create a ball of fire 1 meter across could now create one with triple the ball''s mass. The elemental quickly sprang away from him and coiled itself back as it did that last time. The only difference now, was that Sear was prepared to fight it. Creating a glove of his black and purple-type mana he punched forward. As the two collided, the crater beneath them grew even more. Pieces of rock over 1 cubic kilometer in size were floating off of the ground. The ground beneath them cracked and ravines hundreds of meters deep and thousand long formed. The clouds above them began to spread away from them. Lightning over a meter thick formed from their fists and flashed about in the air. The air near them trembled and quivered as if to try to run away from them. Sadly for the elemental, Sear''s strength was too great. Suddenly, The glove exploded forwards towards the elemental, surrounding it. Mist appeared where the mana was and ate away at the elemental and its core, and soon nothing was left. With that extra 600 units with him, Sear was happy. He could now consider himself the strongest person in the planet, hopefully. As the rest of the debris fell from the sky, Sear created another shield with his now overabundant mana and fell unconscious, about to undergo a change for the third time in who knows how long. Chapter 35 As he awoke, Sear was attacked by a series of pains coursing through his head. Whatever transformation he had undergone had changed him more than the past two times combined. Looking around, he realized just how much stronger his mind had become. As he saw a leaf falling from a tree, he could tell with just a glance how long it would take for it to fall, what path it would take, even how long until the gust of wind 300 meters away from him reached the leaf. His mind felt like it become hundreds of times faster in processing power. His thoughts went much faster now, and he felt like he could design a city in his mind in a matter of minutes. His eyes had also changed once more. He now had a five-pointed star instead of a normal iris. His eye color had changed to a deep purple. His entire body had changed. The very cells that made up his body had changed, becoming smaller yet somehow tens of times more capable. His very genetic makeup refined itself slightly. Whatever had happened, he was almost certain he could no longer be considered Human. *This is good. Now I am close to the peak. I can feel it closing in. Now I just need to test a few things.* Closing his eyes, he looking into his inner self. The liquid was now a slightly lighter shade of black than before. It was still the same size as before, but now it was much denser. He now attempted to do something he hadn''t done in a long time, submerge himself. He remembered back when he was still in the cavern, he had submerged himself and he felt a barrier deep down. Even trying to get there gave him pain like he had never felt before. But now, he was thousands if not tens of thousands, of times stronger than he was back then. Letting himself slowly sink, he was amazed. His body moved through the liquid like it was air. After ten minutes of it, he finally felt some resistance. After an hour, he felt like he was moving in water. After two hours, he felt like he was moving in thick syrup. By now, he felt quite a large amount of pain flowing through him, but it wasn''t enough to brake his concentration. Opening his eyes, he sighed. Whatever that barrier was, he felt that he still wasn''t any closer than back then, even though he had gone much, much deeper than before. Now for the next test. Going back to his inner self once more, he tried purifying a very small amount of mana, 0.1 units worth. Instantly, his body seized up as he began convulsing, blood coming out of all his facial orifices. He let go of the mana and laid there, his thoughts running wild. *This pain, its even greater than why I tried to purify my entire mana pool. Even though I used a miniscule amount. Seems I''m still much too weak to attempt another purification.* Letting his body heal, he soon got up. Looking at the ocean in front of him, he decided to test his new physical power. Without imbuing himself with mana, he took a stance, and punched out. The very crust of the planet shook as the water got thrown back. Waves thousands of meters high sprayed out into the ocean, his punch excluding such force that he could make even the ocean run. The clouds above him all dispersed, leaving a clear sky for as far as he could see. His punch caused a sonic boom so loud that anything near him, be it trees, or small mountains, were blown away. Even his skeletal warriors, which were over 7,000 kilometers away, could hear the noise created by the punch. Cities near him got turned into pure powder. Across the world, tsunamis spread and created havoc. Volcanoes across the entire continent erupted, letting out ash that spread across the skies. Earthquakes roared through the land, created humongous divides and cracks along the ground. Any being, either weak or powerful, cowered in fear as the land itself quaked under this monstrous power that had been unleashed. All of that and Sear just watched, smiling. As he was about to turn around though, he felt something he hadn''t felt in a long time, fear. Pure, primal fear that came from the most basic of instincts. But he knew he couldn''t run from it. Turning around, he saw what gave him such fear. Standing before him were two beings of which he had never seen before. They were lizardmen. To be precise, they were the ones that were keeping an eye on him ever since he broke underwent his very first transformation. As he watched, the shorter one waved his hand. Instantly, the planet calmed, the ocean came back to it''s normal position. The cracks in the earth were closed back up. The mountains that were blown apart were placed back in their normal positions. The volcanoes absorbed all of the ash they had let out and closed back up, going back to sleep. The clouds came back to the sky. The only thing that remained the same were the broken cities. "Well then, little one, it seems you have finally broken through." - Small Lizardman "You probably have many questions, so for now come with me, and I will answer them." - Small Lizardman Before he could say anything, he found himself else were. He was sitting on a chair, seated by a table. Across from him the two lizardmen also sat down. "Now then. I am known as Prodikous. This here is Frentalize. He doesn''t talk much but that is okay. He is currently at the second realm, tenth stage, while I am in the third realm, third stage. Currently, you have just undergone your transformation into a Continental Human. Basically, when any species gets to the first realm, fifth stage, as you have, they become Continentals. Since you are a human you are a Continental Human." - Prodikous "WHen you become a Continental your entire body changed, down to the genetic code. You basically undergo a rapid evolution. Each time you break through a stage, you undergo a small evolution, but every five stages you undergo a large evolutionary change. For example, I have undergone 4 large changes, and so has Frentalize. The difference is I''m only two stages away from another evolution, while he is 5." - Prodikous "Do you understand everything so far?" - Prodikous Luckily, with Sear''s new mental capabilities, he was able to think it all through much quicker than before. If he was still normal, it would most likely take a few days for everything to be understood, but luckily it took him a few minutes.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. As he understood, he nodded. As he did so, he felt cold sweat crawling down his back. This entire time, he hadn''t moved from his position, as the fear was still there. "Good. Now that you understand, I will explain a few more things. Firstly, the stages and realms. For now I will only tell you about the first five realms. By the time you reach past that, if you don''t die before that, you will know whats above. The first five realms have ten stages each. Once you reach the top of the tenth stage in each realm, you will move of to stage one of the next realm. But to break through from one realm to another takes a lot of work." - Prodikous "That keeps going on to the fifth realm, but above that it changes, but you don''t need to know that for now. Now then, whats next. Ah Yes! Once you become a continental you will unlock a soul weapon. A Soul Weapon is a weapon materialized straight of our your very being. Take mine for example." - Prodikous As he opened his hand, a staff appeared. It was a deep blue color, and there was a Icosidodecahedron(32 sided polyhedron) at the top of it, and had faint white waves coursing through it. "Everybody has a different soul weapon. Mine for example is this staff. I would tell you what it does, but that''s giving away something about yourself that can come back to hunt you. Each soul weapon has abilities that become apparent as you go from one realm to another. I have 3 abilities for the 3 realms, you will have 1 ability since you are in the first realm. To get the weapon, close your eyes and imagine yourself." - Prodikous Sticking his hand out, which was still shaking from fear, he closed his eyes. Imagining himself, he began to look over who he was. Now that he thought about it, he really didn''t know. He was just trying to become the strongest, and when he thought he was getting close, he realized just how far he actually was. He was angry, angry at the fact that there was still so much to go. Angry that he would have to waste even more time fighting against pointless idiots. His anger grew, and he felt something forming in his hands. He kept at it, fueling it with his anger. Soon, he felt himself run dry of emotions. It was as if his emotions just died away. Opening his eyes, he saw his weapon. A sword. Or better yet, something that resembled a sword. it was in the shape of a sword, but it seemed to not be fully solid. The sword would change shapes, from a normal broadsword to a scimitar to the weirdest bladed weapon he had ever seen, which split off into two edges near the end. Gripping it tighter, he attempted to keep it at a normal shape. The sword finally stopped changing at the shape of a scimitar. It was black and purple, and very detailed. The hand-guard was shaped like a dragon''s mouth, with the blade coming out of the mouth. The actual hilt was perfectly shaped for his hand, but that''s to be expected, as it was made from him. It was still not quite solid, and had faint purple lines swirling off of it''s edges. Looking at it, he attempted to change it''s shape once more. It now resembled a katana. He changed it one more time, and it shrunk down to a curved dagger. He tried to change it to a staff, but it didn''t work. Seem''s like it would only change into bladed weapons. He tried to put it away, and was amazed when it suddenly disappeared from his grasp. "Quite an interesting ability. I''m sure that could be put to much use. Now then, for the rest of the information you need. Firstly, purifying your mana. Once you get to the fifth stage and unlock your Soul Weapon, you have to also begin purifying your soul weapon. This is done by only fighting with the weapon. Until you finish the first stage of purification of your soul, you won''t be able to purify your mana. This is the way that the laws of the world work." - Prodikous "So you have to learn how to use your weapon in better ways. The more ways you learn to use your weapon, the faster it will purify. With a weapon like your''s that can change shape, I''m sure you will be able to do many interesting things, which would lead to you eventually purifying your soul very quickly. Also, there is no limit to soul purification like with mana. Soul purification can keep going with no limits unlike mana which need soul to be equal to it." - Prodikous "Now then, I will send you back to the planet. In six months, I will come to pick you up once again. The reason for this is that you will be sent to Exile. Exile is a separate dimension created by the strongest gods to ever have existed. It is roughly the size of a mega-galaxy. It is not a bunch of planets though, it is a singular planet. Exile is roughly 60,000,000,000,000(60 trillion) times larger, even though your planet has a circumference of 51,201 kilometers. I''m sure you can imagine just how large it is. it is infested by all kind''s of creatures. The planet is also split into 4 sectors. Sector 1 has creatures from Realm 1 to Realm 3. Sector 2 has creatures from Realm 4 to Realm 8. Sector 3 had creatures from Realm 9 to Realm 15. And finally Sector 4 has creatures from Realm 16 to Realm 30." - Prodikous *R...realm 30? He''s realm three and with a wave of the hand he basically made my planet go back to normal, and there are things that far above? I though he was one of the strongest...* "If you don''t mind me asking... what''s the highest realm?" - Sear "The highest ever recorded was Realm 99. The thing, or shall I say Universal Being, was trying to get to Realm 100, but to do it he needed extremely large amounts of mana, and to do it he attempted to absorb a few universes, which didn''t sit well with a few large groups of gods. Around 10,000 gods from Realm 80-90 attacked him, and they managed to kill him. But roughly 97% of them died in the process. Currently, the highest realm of a living person is realm 96. And they''ve been alive for a few billion years." - Prodikous "But for now I think that''s enough. I''ll send you back to your planet. Prepare yourself to go to Exile. You have six months." - Prodikous In an instant, he found himself looking back at the ocean he destroyed. *I have to become stronger. If that being wanted to absorb a universe, then it must be extremely powerful. I don''t know exactly how large a universe is, but it seems to be thousand if not millions of times bigger than a galaxy. This will be hard. I want to train my soul too, but everything on this planet is most likely too weak. Unless I hold back tremendously, which I might do. I might also fight again my skeletal minions while holding back as they are many times stronger than normal humans.* Crouching down slightly, Sear jumped forwards, imbuing himself with mana and using air magic to fly at the same time. He quickly went Mach 25 before flying back to the city he told his minions to take. While he can''t purify his mana anymore, he can still make his mana pool grow. That means he can still go up in stages and realms even if he doesn''t purify. On the way, he encountered a small village being raided by bandits. Quickly landing in the middle, he took out his sword. The bandits rushed him while screaming in a language he didn''t understand. *Now that I think about it, how come I could understand their language?* Holding back his strength to that only a few times stronger than a human, he changed his sword into a dagger. Blocking a horizontal strike aimed at his neck, he slipped forward while slicing the man''s neck open. As the body fell, he changed his weapon into a katana and spun around, slicing two more men''s heads clean off. Enlarging the weapon, it turned into a greatsword. With a swing of it, tens of mens were launched away. As he finished the swing, a man attempted to stab him in the back. At the last second, he stepped to the right while changing his weapon into a scythe shaped weapon and stabbing the man in the chest. As the fight continued, he continued changing the weapon into different shaped. Every time he killed someone, he would change the weapon, even mid swing. In a few minutes, he had already gotten used to the fighting. In a few minutes, all of the bandits were dead. He absorbed their bodies for their miniscule amount of mana and blasted off again. In his inner self, something had changed. Above his mana pool, was a large circle. It was mainly black, but on some parts of it, a lighter shade could be seen. The purification of his soul had begun. PURIFICATION STATS AND MANA STATS Mana Units: 22,102 Mana Purification: 1st Stage: 100% Complete 2nd Stage: 0% Complete Soul Purification: 1st Stage: 0-10% Complete Chapter 36 Unlike last time where it took him two hours to travel from his minions to the city, eve with the breaks he took in dealing with bandits and wild animals, he only took 40 minutes. If he didn''t stop, he could have been there in less than 5, but he needed to purify his soul. He needed to become as strong as possible in as little time as possible. Soon he arrived back at the now destroyed city. Looking around, he saw his troops. It seemed that none of them evolved. He landed by his five minions and looked at the pile of bodies in front of him. Absorbing the blood and flesh and leaving the bones, he gained 200 units. Before his minions could say anything, he used all of the corpses, which amounted to 500,000 and infused each of the five with 100,000. He also got rid of the army and infused the five with 1,000 of their bodies. The five quickly went into a cocoon as they underwent yet another evolution. *I was going to take my time with this, but it seems like that won''t work very well. I want these five as strong as possible so that I can fight them together and increase my soul''s purification. If i can finish my soul purification within these six months and get over 5,000,000 units, I''ll be happy.* It was a long shot, but if he managed to purify quickly while at the same time absorbing many humans, he could make it, just barely. A few minutes later they came back out. Ilodis became sleeker, his staff becoming larger and his skull extending backwards. On his head two large horns protruded upwards. Yrol became even larger. He was now 4 meters tall. His sword was the same size, but now he had two of them. He gained a layer of "armor" which was actually just more bone covering his bones. Klod''s shield turned into a Tower Shield and He also gained some armor, though his wasn''t as thick as Yrol''s. Grev became smaller and his elbows, shoulders, and knees has sharp protrusions coming from them. Flint stayed the same in shape, but Sear could see that he gained a large insight into using shadows and darkness to his advantage, as well as magic to create darkness. They also all became much smarter, now having their own personalities. "You five, get ready. I have 6 months to become as strong as possible. I want each of you to evolve once more to become strong enough that the six of you could fight me without me turning you to dust. Ilodis, take this map. I want you to go around throughout this entire country and slaughter everyone. After destroying the cities, pile all of the bodies and bones and cover them in dense stone. I will go around to absorb it. After destroying this country, you 5 should be able to evolve once more. For now goodbye." - Sear "Wait my lord..." - Ilodis As he began to speak, Sear left once more. The force from his speed launched them all away in different directions. Getting back up, they were scared. Before, their lord was already powerful, but now, he has godly to them. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As Sear was flying, he decided to expand his storage ring. Putting more mana into it, he kept going until he had almost run out. It now had about 700 cubic meters worth of space inside. Still not that much. But hopefully after going to exile and leaving he will be able to have at least 1 cubic kilometer(1,000,000 cubic meters) worth of space. After a few more minutes he made it to where he wanted to be. The Thieves Guild. Looking at the sewer entrance he had gone into a few years prior, he felt nostalgia. Too bad nothing would stop him from becoming stronger. He had been bullied too much when he was younger, and that would never happen again. Walking into the sewer, he knocked the entrance down and jumped in. Looking around, he saw a lot of new faces, but also remembered a few of them. One of those people was Limbo. He had a new scar on his face, going from his left cheekbone to his chin. Greb was also still there. "Who are you!" - Limbo Limbo immediately took his knife out, and everyone else in the thieves guild also took it out, prepared to attack anyone who charged into their home. "Cmon Limbo, you don''t remember me? How about me Greb? We did have such a good fight?" - Sear Once he spoke, the two seemed to realize who he was. "What are you doing here? I kicked you out years ago! Don''t tell me you think you alone could get revenge?" - Limbo "Revenge? No, I could care less. I''m actually quite thankful that you kicked me out. If you didn''t I wouldn''t have become as strong as I am now. But I am in need of training, so I guess I will fight." - Sear Smiling, Sear summoned his soul weapon. As he did, many of the thieves gasped, before charging at him. Sighing, Sear began. He tried to only incapacitate them by cutting their tendons or knocking them out, but a few of the times he forgot how fragile humans were and their bodies got cut into pieces. After a few minutes of fighting, he was done. He didn''t have even one scratch on him. The only people left were Limbo, Greb, and the other high up members. "Now then, I don''t want to kill them, so I''ll heal them. But I still need more practice." - Sear Though absorbing them would help, he decided against it. Earlier, he was right. Limbo kicking him out was the reason he became this strong. If he stayed, he would have never become like how he is now.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. He quickly healed all of the men, but let some of his aura out. Instantly they were all out cold. Turning around, he charged at Limbo. He quickly got surrounded on all sides, yet even still they couldn''t manage to hit him. He kept constantly changing the shape of his soul weapon, so they never knew what to expect. he kept the fight up for ten minutes before he saw them get tired. Jumping out of the circle, he used some of his strength to circle them and cut at all of their tendons. To Sear, it felt like he was going in slow motion. For them, he was a blur. As he healed them, he heard Limbo speak up. "How...how have you become so powerful?" - Limbo "This? Powerful? You''re mistaken. I barely used any of my power. Even if I used my full power there are some things that can kill me without me knowing. Well, thanks for the training. I''ll be back later." - Sear He quickly left a bar of gold on the table from his storage ring. He quickly left the city, and when he was flying he looked into his inner self. Seeing the floating orb, he wasn''t very surprised. He knew that there would be something that would show his soul. Somehow, just by looking at it he could tell how far purified it was. After all of his fights he had gotten to 10% purified. As he flew be continued fighting. At this point, he had no real location he wanted to go to. He just wanted to keep fighting. After two more hours, he checked his completion. 13% percent. Either it was slowing down because he was fighting against weaklings, or it was because it naturally sped down as he went on. Maybe even both. Decided to test the theory, he decided to fly back to the insect infected island and the place where he had learned runes. There would be things there that could give him a small challenge. Speeding up to full speed, flew across the lands. A few hours, and a few more fights later, and he had finally arrived. Spanning his mana sense outwards as far as he could, which now could cover the entire planet, as it spread 25km in each direction. Looking over the planet with it, he frowned. There was something with 780 units of mana on the opposite side of the planet from him. It was a dragon. Looking at it, he realized what it was. It was one of his creations. Was. Back during the cavern when he accidentally created a dragon and it escaped from him, apparently he somehow put a dragon''s soul into the bones and thus it escaped. Forgetting about it, he looked at what his minions were doing. It seemed that by now they had killed over 2,000,000 people, and had amassed around 5,000,000 corpses. They would each probably need 5 million to evolve to the next stage, so he left it. But the 20,000 units did seem very appetizing. But not yet, it would only make it harder for him to hold himself back while fighting. For the next full day, he fought anything above 1 unit. Some of them were insects, some were giant wolfs. Whatever they were, they were killed and absorbed by Sear. Looking back into his inner self, he saw that he was at 23%. It seemed that the reason it slowed down was because he was fighting weak things and because it naturally slowed down. Seems like he would actually need to make his minions stronger and fight them if he wanted to increase it any more. For now, he had a dragon to fight. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few minutes later, and he was knocking on a mountain. Literally. It seems like the dragon created it''s home inside a mountain, so he needed to get rid of the home first. Punching forward, the mountain exploded. He didn''t use his full strength, as he didn''t want to destroy the world. As the mountain blew away, he heard a gurgling roar come from below. "WHO DARES INTRUDE INTO MY HOME! I, THE GREAT ZEDRIN, KING OF DRAGONS, DARES TO BE OFFENDED!" - Zedrin "Oh quit your yapping. Your voice is annoying and so are you. I had completely forgot you existed. Luckily now I can fight you nicely." - Sear Zedrin flew up and got parallel to Sear. "Ah, it''s you. Puny human who attempted to resurrect me.Not only did you destroy my home, but you dared insult me! For that, I condone you to death!" - Zedrin As Zedrin raised one arm to bat Sear away, he just stood there, smiling. Then suddenly, the arm vanished. Well actually, it collided into him. He felt his body crash into the ground hard enough that if the mountain was still there, it would have been destroyed again. *How is he so damn strong? He is only at 780 units... DAMNIT I''m dumb. I was measuring his mana. I have no idea how strong dragons actually are. If we had even levels, he could wipe the floor with me!* Picking himself off of the floor, he imbued himself with mana and summoned his sword. Jumping up, he quickly circled around the dragon''s neck. Luckily for him, because of the dragon''s size, it was quite slow when moving it''s whole body. Slicing into it''s neck, he was astonished at how little he actually did. There was a small cut, maybe the width of his arm on the dragons neck. But it still didn''t bleed. The cut didn''t actually go through scale fully. It''s defense was too strong for him to kill it that simply. Flying back, he began using magic. Above him, a glyph appeared in the air. As it appeared, the dragon seemed confused, not knowing what it was. Once he finished creating the glyph, Sear launched it. "Hail of Death!" - Sear As he yelled, the glyph contracted into itself. Following a bright light, there were hundreds, if not thousands of balls created out of death flying through the air. As Sear pointed at Zedrin, the balls flew forward. They were fast. Though he managed to avoid a few, most still managed to hit him. Where they hit, the scales seemed to slightly crumble and crack, some even turning to dust, revealing skin beneath. As Sear began flying forward, the Zedrin roared. His claws gained a red outline and his body seemed to become faster. As Zedrin swung an arm at Sear, he used him sword to deflect it to the side. Though he deflected much of the blow, it still managed to spin him in place. As he got oriented again, he saw another claw coming towards him. Knowing he wouldn''t have enough time to dodge or try to parry, he changed his soul weapon into a greatsword and blocked. He used air magic to keep him in place as to not get blown back, but it almost collapsed. Just as Zedrin was about to retract his claw, Sear saw that on the claw one of the scales had turned to dust. Quickly bursting forwards, he changed his sword into a long rapier, easily 3 meters long, and stabbed it into the claw. Before the dragon could even roar, Sear had already changed his weapon shape once more and stabbed it, this time with a toothed-greatsword. As he yanked it out, more flesh was pulled out of the dragon. Thinking it was going well, he let down his guard, only to be smacked by another claw. Once again, he got slammed into the ground. He had 3 horizontal slashes on his chest, but luckily due to his stronger body, they weren''t too deep. He would be able to keep fighting. PURIFICATION STATS AND MANA STATS Mana Units: 22,302 Mana Purification: 1st Stage: 100% Complete 2nd Stage: 0% Complete Soul Purification: 1st Stage: 13% Complete Chapter 37 As the two continued to fight, they slowly began to wear each other out. Zedrin had lost one hand and had hundreds of cuts on his body. He was blinded in one eye and his mana had run out long ago, leaving him to fight with only his physical capabilities. As for Sear, he wasn''t in much better shape. Though he hadn''t lost any limbs, he was cut in many places. Alongside that, his endurance was running low. He knew he wouldn''t be able to keep up for much longer. The dragon''s endurance and strength were truly at levels only capable of dragons. *Damn, I wanted to finish this with only my soul, but it seems I''ll have to use mana.* Unlike Zedrin, Sear had used very little mana. Even now, he was still almost full. But he would need all of it for a final attack. He created a shield around himself as on of Zedrin''s claws connected with him. The shield held, but he let himself get blown back. Hell, he even sped himself up. As he was launched a few kilometers away from Zedrin, he prepared his attack. Sending his weapon away, he put both of his arms up, palms pointing at the sky. Instantly a glyph appeared. The only difference from last time was the size. Before, it''s diameter might have been 100 meters. But now it had a full kilometer. That''s the amount of runes he needed to make it work properly. Seeing it, Zedrin attempted to fly towards Sear. But as he began thousands of chains covered in black fire came out of the earth and wrapped around him. They didn''t hurt him, but pushing against them felt like pushing against the entire planet. Because that''s what he was doing. Those chains extended down to the planets core and were connected to it so moving the chains would mean attempting to push the planet. As he struggled, more and more chains wrapped around him, before slowly pulling him downwards. He began thrashing about, thinking he was about to get buried, but once his back touched the floor, the chains stopped. By then, Sear had finally finished casting the spell. He would have used normal magic and not runes, but he found that runes were more powerful, but they also took much longer for things are large as this. "Magnitude." - Sear The very air around Sear trembled as he poured his remaining mana into the glyph. Suddenly it floated upwards above the dragon, and disappeared above the cloud cover. And then it appeared. Falling through the skies, pushing the clouds away, a meteor fell. It was cone shaped, and sped up the more it fell. Seeing it, Zedrin stopped struggling. He knew he couldn''t fight against it. Seeing it, Sear was happy. It might seem like he would be scared of destroying the planet but he actually wasn''t. The hardest part of the spell wasn''t creating the chains or the meteor, it was creating a dome that can cover the area the meteor falls and then reflecting the energy right back to where it came from. If the cone fell onto Zedrin, the force of the meteor and all of the earth being displaced would collide against the shield, and be sent right back to where it came from, Zedrin. For the chains, Sear made them out of his own magic. For the meteor, he just created a very, very, large cone of dense stone and make it fall from the sky. That much is simple if you think about it. The hard part was makig it so the shield could hold the energy within and manage to reflect it. He smiled as he watched the meteor collide into Zedrin. A large, blue dome appeared around the area of impact, and soon all that Sear could see what a blinding white light. Opening his eyes, he saw what he wanted, the meteor had killed Zedrin. Smiling, he ran over to it''s body. He quickly began to absorb it, into his total. He would refill his mana pool, but it would do that automatically. He wouldn''t waste 780 units like that. Looking into his inner self, he found out how much he had improved. He was currently at 23,405 units and his Soul Purification was at 67%. The fight against the dragon really did improve him quite quickly. He didn''t absorb the bones, knowing that it would help his minions. Instead he stored them in his ring before flying away. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Somehow, during these past three days, his minions had been able to absolutely destroy the country. He had around 200,000 units worth of human bodies to absorb, along with over 100 million corpses to add to his minions. Instead of rushing through, he went slowly. He would still need mana to imbue his minions, so there was no point in rushing. Mid-flight, he kept thinking about how fast he was gaining strength. It was quite scary honestly. He didn''t know whether other people or beings could absorb mana like his mist or whether he was gaining too much strength too fast. He needed foundations. While he had some from his time before he became quite powerful as a young kid who had better weapon skills than most professionals have when they die, he didn''t know what he would need for his future, just that it would be more than he currently had. After thinking about this, he decided to try something dumb. Creating an orb of air around himself so that he wouldn''t suffocate, he flew into space. As he got further and further from the planet, he could feel himself speeding up, no longer bound by gravity or air resistance. He smiled. While on land it would take him just under two hours to fly fully around the planet, it would now take him under 20 minutes. As he began to go back into the atmosphere, he created a shield around himself as he himself heat up due to the air resistance. Soon he was back by his minions. He slowed down and landed by the five, which were just standing in a circle looking at the pile of corpses and bones. "Good job you 5. With this we will be unstoppable, at least on this planet." - Sear "Thank you my lord. Will you be imbuing us with the bones once more?" - Ilodis "Yes I will. With this final evolution, you five together should pose a small challenge for me, which should be enough to help me continue to purify my soul." - Sear "And it seems you four don''t talk much huh?" - Sear "No master." - Klod Shrugging, he took the dragon bones out of his storage ring, splitting it into five pieces, he imbued it into each of them. But that barely did anything. For the next two hours, he would condense all of the millions of corpses down into 5 orbs, before imbuing them with the orbs. Suddenly, Sear watched as the five quickly gained power and mana, going from 50 units, to 500, and then to 1,000, before stopping. A dark cocoon appeared around them, before burrowing itself into the ground. it would most likely take a while for this evolution.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. Leaving them as they were, he began to absorb all of the bodies. In a few hours he was done. After absorbing all of their bodies, he realized that he was quite close to undergoing another transformation, but he didn''t want that. It would make holding back even harder. Looking into his inner self, he took note: 265,701 units. If he kept absorbing humans at this pace he could reach 5 million in just over two months. The only problem being, there weren''t enough humans. Nowhere near the 500 million he would need. And making human''s go extinct would probably make Prodikous just show up again. And he didn''t want that. The only sensible thing for him to do is get to 500,000 and then begin to purify. Now that he could fly into space, he wouldn''t need to worry about things attacking him. It also seemed like those two lizardmen watched over this place so he doubted any god would come and attempt to kill him, if they even care about his miniscule mana. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Five months, 3 weeks later... *Hmmm, 4 days left until they come back to pick me up. I''ve taken a liking to those five over this time, but I guess I can always come back after Exile. At least I hope that there is an exit.* During these past almost 6 months, Sear had never stopped. After his minions awoke, he fought with them for two months straight before he finally finished the first stage of purifying his soul. After that, he quickly went around and absorbed whole cities until he got to the 500,000 units he wanted to be at. Since then, he had been flying into space for a week at a time, purifying. Whenever he came back, he would continue to spar with his minions, this time limiting himself to using 2 different weapon shapes per fight. By now, he was 18% through the second stage of soul purification, and 37% through the second stage of mana purification. After reaching the second stage of soul purification, his speed slowed down even more, to less than a percent per week. As for his mana purification, it was also quite slow. Not only did he now have much more mana, but since he had no purified mana at the start, he had to begin purifying with extremely small amounts. Even now he couldn''t purify more than 20,000 units at once, and even then it would take a long time for him to purify those 20,000 units. Currently, his mana pool was a staggering 5,607,204 units. He had reached where he wanted to be and passed it with flying colors. He had also undergone two more transformations. One at 270,000 units, and one at 5,300,000 units. His next one would most likely be in the hundreds of millions. During this time, he also hadn''t used his full strength, with fear of damaging the planet. He knew he couldn''t shatter the planet with his fist, but he could leave a crater a good 200 kilometers deep, and crack the planet''s crust. His minions hadn''t undergone another transformation. At this point, he didn''t know what to do with them. He wasn''t sure if he could take them with him or if they would be forced to stay. If they would be forced to stay, he would just come back to pick them up. He had also, monthly, expanded the area of his storage ring. He didn''t know the exact number, but if his calculations were correct, which they probably were, then he would currently have around 315,000 cubic meters. A third of a cubic kilometer. He continued to purify until the very last day, reaching just under 39% completion. Since they still didn''t show up, he went over where the five were. "You guys!" - Sear He called out to them, and they all ran to go up to him. "Good day milord." - Ilodis For some reason, after his evolution, Ilodis had taken to calling Sear milord. He acted somewhat like a very loyal butler, only much stronger. "Hey boss." - Yrol Yrol had become more carefree and even more berserker-like. The more people he killed, the happier he would get. After every slaughter they would find him jumping around singing about cutting people up. "Hello sire." - Klod Klod was the weirdest out of them all. He seemed to have the least self-control, easily letting himself go crazy during fights, but out of fights he was a whole different person. ""Lord."" - Grev & Flint Grev and Flint, though changing in completely different ways, acted much the same. Maybe it''s because they both evolved into the same type of berserker off of the beginning. "Now then, I will be going in a few hours. Make sure you don''t get killed while I am gone, though I''m pretty sure that''ll be hard. Every month you can travel to every village and city to accept the ritual. If they don''t accept, then turn them into the ritual. Also, if you see the humans gaining power quickly, kill them all except for 100 million people. You guys will still need them to evolve." - Sear During these past few months, one of the things they had done to the cities not destroyed is ask for rituals. These rituals were basically they would bathe in the blood of sacrifices, slaves, or prisoners. The few times people didn''t accept, they would get cut up and used. After finishing talking to them, he flew off into the distance, landing on a small floating island he had created. Well "small." it was roughly 6 kilometers wide and 15 long, and he had used glyphs drawn into the rock itself to keep it afloat. With the amount of mana he was put into them, the island should stay afloat for a few hundred thousand years at least. Sitting atop the island, he waited, staring off into the sky. After a few seconds he felt a presence at his back. He began sweating again, but this time the fear wasn''t as strong. "Well, well. You sure have improved since last time. Managed to jump up to the 7th stage within a few months. Though the methods were a bit weird, I can''t deny that they were good." - Prodikous Turning around, he spotted Prod. Different from last time, he was wearing a deep blue robe and had the staff in his hands. Sear could tell that he also became much stronger. In the time it took Sear to gain 5,000,000 units, the man had gained a few trillion. But that''s to be expected, as he was much stronger. "Now then, I''m a few hours early, but this is a good time to explain a few things and help you along. You will be going to Exile, as I''ve told you before. The land is absolutely giant. Currently, there are only 1 trillion people on the planet. If the land was split evenly between them all, everyone would have around 2.8 septillion(2,800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) square kilometers of land to each other. That means you will find many creatures to improve with. The entire place is extremely dangerous, and is mainly used to weed out the weak from the strong." - Prod "If you see a bright white pillar, go towards it as fast as possible. It is a portal out of the realm. Once you go through it, you will be sent to the main hall of the group that governs the area of land you came from. So, once you escape, you will be sent to the main hall of the group I work for. From there on you will be allowed to join them or venture out. Luckily for me, I managed to find a portal out within 4,000 years. I know of some that take over 400,000. Good luck to you, and come out stronger." - Prod "Also, before I forget, here''s a tip, you don''t need to fight to increase your soul purification." - Prod He tapped his staff into the ground, and a portal appeared beside him. Motioning to it, Sear stepped through. Prodikus POV------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ *How did he jump up two stages in such a short amount of time¡­ It took me over 2 years to go from Stage 5 to Stage 6, and he¡¯s done it and jumped up to 7 in 6 months. His absorption ability is extremely powerful. I would kill him to not let him become stronger, and see if he had an artifact that allowed him to absorb mana like that, but if I allow him to live and the higher ups find out I helped him, I¡¯ll get many benefits¡­* PURIFICATION STATS AND MANA STATS Mana Units: 5,607,204 units Mana Purification: 1st Stage: 100% Complete 2nd Stage: 37% Complete Soul Purification: 1st Stage: 100% Complete 2nd Stage: 18% Complete Chapter 38 As he walked through the portal, he looked around. The ground and sky were red. The sky a blood red, while the ground a orange-like red. Looking into the distance, that''s all that he could see. One thing he felt was how little mana there was in the air. Trying to purify here would be like when he had to get the last 1% on the first stage purification. It would be better to just absorb any creatures and save the purification for the future. When he spread his mana sense out though he spotted something. 100,000 kilometers to his right was a creature with around 1,000,000 units. it was shaped slightly like a bear, only about 1 kilometer long. Seeing it, he took out his sword and launched forwards. In half an hour, he had arrived. Using his earth magic, he caused large curving pillars of stone to jut out from the ground and collide with the creature. While they didn''t do much damage, they did manage to push the creature around a bit, causing it to lose balance and fall face first into the ground. Gripping his soul weapon, he changed it into a 100 meter long blade and swung downwards. The blade penetrated a couple meters into the beasts neck before getting caught in its muscles. He quickly made the blade toothed, and yanked backwards, tearing flesh and muscle out of the beats''s body. As he did so, the beast roared, and the ground shook. Stone walls, thousand of kilometers tall, sprang up around Sear, boxing him in from the light. There was no sun, so he didn''t even know where the light came from, but he left that for later. As the walls came together around him, millions of iron spikes shot out towards him. Quickly spreading his arms out, he created a shield. Just as he managed to project it around himself, the first metal spike collided. The spike evaporated when it came in contact with the shield, but slowly more and more spikes began to make contact. After a few minutes of holding on like that, he got tired. Using his own earth magic, he sprang up walls of stone hundreds of times denser than iron around himself. Gathering air magic between his palms, he let it all out. The spikes slowed down and even began to go back to the walls where they came from, the wind powerful enough to fill up such a large space. Once he finished, he quickly ran over to the nearest wall, which was a minute''s travel away, before punching a hole through it. His physical strength, which he hadn''t used in a long time, came out as he not only destroyed the potion of the wall in front of him, but destroyed the ground in front of him for hundreds of kilometers. Jumping out, he saw the bear-like creature standing there. Summoning his sword once more, he imbued it with water magic. As he swung the sword, a large, boomerang shaped crescent blade launched off of the sword towards the bear. It quickly stomped it''s hind foot down, causing a wall to appear before it. The attack collided with the wall, turning it into very thick mud. While he did this, he prepared his next attack. Throwing his sword into the air, he prepared another glyph. A glyph, as large of the one he used to kill Zedrin appeared above him. It all condensed down into a circle. As the blade fell through the circle, it changed. The blade became hundreds of times longer, while still weighing the same. Before, when he changed the weapon to 100 meters long, he felt it weight him down. But with this glyph, and not it''s special abilities, he was able to surpass the weight. He gripped the sword''s hilt, which was shrunk down to his size took a stance. The sword was over 300 meters long, yet it''s far end moved faster than even Sear''s eye could see. That''s the power of a 300 meter long weapon that weighted the same as one 1 meter long. Swinging it, he smiled as pieces of the bear got ripped off. After a few final grunts, and an attempt to entomb Sear underneath a mountain of metal, the bear finally died. Smiling, Sear walked over to the beast before absorbing it. Looking into his inner self, he smiled, seeing the one percent increase in his soul purification. *If i just run around fighting beasts, I should be able quickly increase my soul purification and my total units should also go up very quickly. I won''t purify here, but I''ll see how high up I can get before I have to leave. I;m pretty sure I am one of the only people with a ability like my mist that can devour things and turn it into mana, so If I stay here I should be able to gain large amounts of mana fast.* *He said earlier that when we come out we will be taken to the main area of the group. Knowing how greedy people are, I won''t be surprised if they try to take my ability somehow. I must become stronger in order to escape from them.* Imbuing himself with mana, he launched off at full speed, using his mana sense to try to find any other beast. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One day later... *Damn, he wasn''t kidding when he said this place was large. By now I could have gone around my old world at least 100 times. All I see is the same damn barren wasteland. Red rocks, red dirt, red sandstorms. Wait, maybe it''ll go faster if I''m in space...* Changing his trajectory, he flew straight u through the atmosphere. As he felt himself begin to heat up, he collided with something. He got launched off of it at the same speed he hit it with, launching him back down at the ground. Stopping his descent, he looked at what he hit. There, all over the sky, was a barrier. It was invisible, but when something collided with it, you could see faint traces of distortion.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. *Damn... Seems like they were serious when making this...* Flying back down, he continued his journey around the barren wasteland. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5 days later... *Finally, I''ve found another creature. It has..... nevermind. I can''t fight that* The creature was shaped like a crab, and had 6 wings attached to it''s back. When he tried to measure how many units it had, he couldn''t. It wasn''t that it didn''t have any, it was that the number was so large he couldn''t fathom it. The creature was multitudes stronger than even Prodikous. And that''s not mentioning its most likely heavenly defense. *First thing I find in who knows how long, and it''s something that can kill me by breathing on me. Thankfully it seems to be sleeping now. I should leave while I can.* Making sure not to create too long a noise in fear of waking it, he sped off to another direction. If those creatures would be the things he had to fight, then he was much too weak currently. And that thing was also probably just in the Third Realm. Anything above that and he would be like a current of wind trying to push a mountain. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another week later... "Damn this!" - Sear Screaming, Sear flew down and began punching the ground with his full strength. Quickly, craters began to form on top of other craters. Soon, the area around Sear was completely destroyed. He had probably dug down a few hundred kilometers, but nothing changed below the ground either. *Damn. When the guy said he was stuck here for 4000 years, I thought he was kidding. Its been 13 days, and I''ve seen the same shit over and over again. Didn''t he say something about not having to fight to improve soul cultivation? How the fuck do I do that? Damn it... think...think. Wait, Yes! I can finally do something while moving.* He quickly summoned his weapon and began running full speed. As he was running, he began swinging his sword and cutting into the ground. Soon, he was changing shapes and flipping in mid-air while keeping his momentum. *He said creativity helps, so if I keep cutting things in different ways I''ll slowly improve.* He continued this for a few hours, slowly adding more and more weapon shapes to his techniques. One thing he had found, was that when his soul purification went from one stage to another, you gained a small ability. His was to be able to create extremely large weapons, as he had with the 100 meter sword. Since he didn''t know how to use it very well, he decided to practice it while moving. Even if this didn''t purify his soul at all, it would help him learn how to better fight with his weapon. And that''s just as useful. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After a few days of continuing that, he noticed a change. His purification didn''t change at all, but he still had hope. But what did change, is how he moved. He could now alternate between large and small, scimitar to dagger, almost seamlessly, and his movements became more fluid. Stopping for a bit, he sat down by a rock. While his mana would never run out while flying due to his regeneration, his stamina wasn''t unlimited. A few days of doing what he did and even he would have strain. Sitting there, on that rock, he began to think of the past. If it would really take this long for him to leave, then everyone he knew would probably be dead. Hell, his minions would probably have evolved once more. If he ever made it back, the world would probably look completely different then how it is today. *I would leave as soon as possible, but I''m still too weak. No matter what, I won''t leave before reaching the Fifth Realm, even if it takes me a million years.* Closing his eyes, he laid down. Setting up an alarm around himself, he decided to do something he hadn''t in a long time. Sleep. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Kill...them...alll...you know...you want...too" - ??? *Huh!* Awoken from his dream, he looked around, wondering what had just talked to him. He was dreaming of his life back at the village he came from. The village he was thrown out of, the village that thought he was hell incarnate. And then that thing... whatever it was, told him to kill them all. *Am I going insane? Damn... I guess it''s better to not sleep.* Getting up, he took out his weapon once more before continuing to do what he had been doing. At certain times, he would stumble, maybe didn''t pay attention to where he was going and would trip on a rock, ending up tumbling across the barren ground. After a few more hours, he decided to have some fun. He wanted to get stronger, but if he didn''t take any breaks than he would end up going crazy. Placing his hands on the ground, he flattened the area around him. Using nature magic, he created grass and trees. On one side, he created a lake using water magic. A few meters away from the lake, a large palace made of dense iron built itself out of the ground. Around the small forest and lake 10 meter tall walls sprang up all around, connecting to the palace. He slowly walked over to the lake and created a chair made of tree roots, before sitting down and closing his eyes, relaxing. *You know, this isn''t actually that bad. If i do this every now and then while training, I should be able to keep myself sane. Only time wil...* As he was talking, he felt someone staring at him. Turning around, he found who it was. A bipedal being, with 4 arms. It had sculpted muscles, and in all four of its hands there were dual-sided swords. He was wearing black scaled pants and nothing else. But that didn''t scare Sear, what did was his power. It was nonexistent. Somehow, they could completely hide their presence. He didn''t even feel the natural fear he felt because of Prodikous''s greater evolution. If the person wasn''t standing there looking at him, he wouldn''t even know he existed. "Hmm. Here I thought it was some strong being deciding to create their own town. It''s just an ant. Here''s a tip, don''t do this again. The stronger ones will believe you''re trying to create a group, and they will kill you. If you''re not part of a group, go towards that hill over there. There''s a town 50,000,000 kilometers away from here. Tell them LL sent you." - ??? Before Sear could even say anything, the area around him was flattened. Even to his eyes, which could see and process things slower than a millisecond, everything happened in an instant. The palace, the trees, the grass, and the lake, just disappeared. And the person, without even making a sound, vanished. *What. The. Actual. Fuck.* After just sitting there for a few hours, and taking everything in, Sear decided to move. If people like that existed around here, he would need to be in a group. The town the guy talked about was just over a week away from Sear if he flew, so that''s what he did. He was currently much, much too weak to go solo. PURIFICATION STATS AND MANA STATS Mana Units: 6,610,500 units Mana Purification: 1st Stage: 100% Complete 2nd Stage: 37% Complete Soul Purification: 1st Stage: 100% Complete 2nd Stage: 19% Complete Prologue - Arc 2.5 Quickly flying off into the distance, Sear thought about how he couldn''t sense anything from the person. Even the natural aura of a higher being was gone. Not only that, but what would take Sear a minute to make disappear went away faster than even he could see. That person was obviously of a much higher realm that himself. *I''ll have to be careful at this town. I don''t know how high up he is in the order of strength. He told me to say LL sent me, so hopefully that means that he has a good position.* He continued to fly away, leading a trail of dust behind him. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After a few days, he could finally see a town with his mana sense. It was surrounded on all sides by trees at least 10 kilometers high. The trunks were massive, and it would take multiple thousands of people to fully surround it. It''s branches spread over the land, completely blotting out the sun and making the entire place dark and uninviting. Looking further underground, he was surprised at how deep the roots actually went. They went straight down a good 40-50 kilometers, and and then suddenly stopped. Looking closer at the area they stopped at, he found out why. A large cavern, completely filled with water. It had a large opening in it, and in the water he could see that there were desolving corpses of beasts. He saw a few bears like the one he fought before, and also saw a 200 meter long centipede. All of these beasts, while dissolving, were allowing their mana to leak into the water. The water had more mana than even Prod. Finally understanding why the trees were so tall, he continued forward. Finally, after a while longer, he saw the outskirts of the city. In a large clearing desolate of trees, a large wall had been sprung up and covered something with a dome. The done was a few kilos in diameter and Sear believed it to be the town. The only problem being that for some reason his mana sense couldn''t go into it, but he did find multiple openings. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Happy with his discoveries, he soon made it to the edge of the forest. As he stepped into the darkness, he felt tens of presences appear around him. Instantly, he had to create a shield to protect from being obliterated. Though the shield managed to partially block the attack, it still shattered, and the arm that punched him still connected with his body. He got flung away, and his body collided into one of the trees. Surprisingly, the tree didn''t break, nor did it even crack, but Sear''s bones did. Feeling one of his ribs sliding out of place, he quickly pushed it back and waited for the people who ambushed him to come to him. After a few seconds, his rib was reconnected, not fully healed, and they appeared. There were 11 of them. Two were lizard-men similar to Prod, 5 were the same species as "LL" and 4 were some kind of half animal-half human. The first one to speak was one of the lizard-men, the slightly bigger one. "Who sent you here?" "I was traveling, and someone told me to come here to the town. He told me to saw ''L.L. sent me." He quickly responded, and saw a deep concern cross over his faces before he sighed. "L.L. huh. Alright then, lets go." Before he had a chance to say anything, the man had grabbed him and began running through the trees. They were going at speeds so much faster than Sear had ever felt before that his body was flopping in the wind, even though he had tried to stand normally multiple times. In two seconds they were at the walls of the dome he had seen before. With a wave of his hand, one of the beast-man created an opening in the wall, and they all walked in. Chapter 39 As he was pushed into the walls, he was amazed. The town that was inside was amazing. Bright lights everywhere, people all around talking or sparring in other areas. Something like this on a planet like this was insane to him. At the same time, many people looked at him. While they didn''t stop doing whatever they were doing, he knew that they were confused. Looking at their strength, most of them were at the mid 2nd realm to late 3rd. "Come on. We don''t have time." Expecting the man to grab him and start running again, he braced his body. But instead, the man just walked casually. Now that he thought about it, nobody inside of here was using their full strength. If they did, this place would have been destroyed. Even him, at the 7th stage of the first realm was strong enough to basically destroy a small planet if he went all out, much easier for those here who were past the third realm. As he followed the man, he continued looking around. The place was pretty organized, all "shops" on the main streets with all the residences on the smaller streets. At the very center of the town was a large building. From inside he felt two voids of presence, similar to the man who he expected to be at the fifth realm. Those two and him were probably the high-ups in this town. In a few minutes, they were at the entrance to the large building. There were two guards around the fourth realm stationed at the door. The man besides Sear nodded, and they knocked on the door three times. After a few seconds, they opened the doors. They walked in, and Sear could see two men. One was a human like him, except around 2.1 meters tall. The second was another lizard-man, closer to three-meters tall. They were sitting on two throne-like chairs, with an empty one raised above theirs. As they came closer, the men all knelt, and Sear did the same. These people could destroy him with a breathe. "My Lord, this man has stated that L.L. has sent him." - Guard Upon hearing this, the two men sighed before speaking. "Please leave us here." - Human Man As they left, Sear stayed knelt. "Get up. If L.L. sent you, we have to agree with him. Not much we can do to go against him. Now then, we are the Desert City Saints. We rule around 10% of the Qrolis Desert. The planet is split into different landmasses. The lowest level are the deserts. Next are the forests, and lastly the mountainous and a volcano poulated area. Each of these areas have been split into smaller areas. The Qrolis Desert for example, is only 0.2% of the entire desert on the planet. So we control roughly 0.02% of the planet. Do you understand so far?" - Human Sear nodded quickly, and the man continued. "Every month, there is a time where the mana in the air becomes incredibly dense, and all over the planet people take that chance to purify their mana. During these two days, nobody fights. Even the beasts focus on purifying. Luckily for you, its in a week. During the times we don''t purify, we either purify our souls by fighting with our weapons, or we create armors from the bodies of the beasts we kill. That''s basically it. Also, every now and then you will go out in groups to hunt beasts or we will go as a large group to take over more territory." - Human "One of the guards will lead you to your residence. You have a week to improve your soul purification before the day comes. If L.L. sent you, you better do good." - HumanIf you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The two men left into a back room, leaving Sear and the guards in the room, just standing there. After a few seconds a lizard-man came up to him. "I''ll take you to your residence. If you have any questions, ask me on the way.My name is Delis by the way." - Lizard Man "Okay, thank you. My name is Sear." - Sear The two left the room, and after a few minutes Sear decided to start asking some questions. "Why are there more non-humans than humans?" - Sear "You''re probably from a human-only planet, so let me explain. On some planets, there are more than one prominent species. In most cases, humans are there, but they have naturally worse magic potential than others. The most abundant would be us Qrulqins, lizards basically, since at birth we already start half-way to the first stage of Realm 1." - Delis *So, humans are quite weak huh. Might explain some of the looks I was getting.* "How often does a portal out appear?" - Sear "There are always billions of them present at once, but most of them are in the higher-Realm areas. Here, you''re lucky to find one every 15 years, and even then people fight over them before they open. In the higher up areas, you can probably see multiple in the sky at all times. The people up there are gaining strength, not trying to escape." - Delis "Before the portals open?" - Sear "The portals appear exactly one week before they open. That means that opposing factions will have one week to fight over who will manage to take over the areas. At low Realms, thats a big difference, as one Stage to another Stage can make a huge difference, but according to L.L once you get past Realm 5 the difference between Stages becomes extremely small in terms of actual strength. The physical gain slows dramatically, but your mana continues to go up, but mastery over mana is more important than actual amount." - Delis "The only big differences between strength past Realm 5 is every 5 Realms, when people go through evolutions. Just like how at Stage 5 of the first realm you become a continental, at the first stage of Realm 2 you became an Worldly. Then at Stage 5 you become a Galactal. Then every five Realms your race will evolve quickly and rapidly to better suit your fighting style. This doesn''t always mean more strength, but may be things like better reflexes, faster mana output, etc." - Delis *This is... a lot to look over. I guess I should try to get as much information out of him as possible.* "How do these evolutions work?" - Sear "Once you get past the Stage requirement, the next time you sleep, your body will evolve. They say it goes through around 1,000,000 generations each time, or about 20,000,000 years of evolutions for humans, in a single night. When you wake up, your race will be naturally above others. That''s the reason you can''t sense the power of those above the fifth realm. Their race, compared to those below the fifth realm is so much higher that our minds forcefully block out their power so we don''t overload and die. That overload gets smaller quickly, so a Realm 6 going against a Realm 11, there will be a very small pressure exuded." - Delis "Last question. Where do I go to train?" - Sear "At the outer edges of the city, there are training circles. They have a gravity field on them that makes everything 1000 times slower, so in a diameter of 100 meters, you actually move 100 kilometers if it was normal. This is mainly so that you don''t destroy the city when training, because even you can destroy this place once you''re inside." - Delis "Well, we''re at your house. Enjoy the night, and train well the next few days. If you need any more help, go find me at the Southern gate." - Delis With that, Delis walked away. Sear looked up at his home. It was on the sixth floor of a building a few kilometers from the city center. Opening the door, he spotted a nice bed, a large desk with enough space that you could lay 3 of him on it, and a cloth chair. Sitting down on the chair, he closed his eyes and began to think over everything he had heard. *Large difference from Realms 1-5. Smaller difference from Realms 6-other. Realm 6 going against Realm 11 isn''t weird. Evolutions can change many things. Evolution goes extremely quick. Humans are quite weak. The top 3 are all above Realm 5, and L.L. must be even higher than 5. He told me to join for a reason. Every month mana density goes up by a lot. Gives people time to train. I can train my Soul Purification in the training circles the other times. Make it easy to fight without destroying everything. Portals are more common in higher areas. L.L. told me to join for a reason.* *I need to get stronger.* Chapter 40 The night went by quietly. He could hear a few people fighting in the rings, but other than that most people seemed to be laid back or relaxing. He was going to sleep, but with all the evolutions he had gone through, his need to sleep had decreased to 1 night of sleep every 2-3 months. His body could keep up the rest of the time. He had spent his time thinking up plans for his growth and future. If he wanted to leave Exile, the best way would be to gain strength to the point that he could go to the higher up-areas. *If what the guy said is right, then the higher realm beasts in the area, the higher the amount of portals. I could most likely go to Realm 3-4 with all the corpses in the lake down below, but I''d end up getting killed by the higher ups. I guess I have to wait for L.L, as apparently he had me join for a reason. For now I''ll try to improve my soul cultivation without fighting like Prod said, but I''m not sure if I''ll be able to.* He quickly summoned his soul weapon. Looking closely at it, he began to study how it flowed from one design to another. He looked at how it changed, how it flowed simply from one type into another almost effortlessly. He saw how even when he wasn''t changing it, it managed to flow almost perfectly, as if waiting on his command. He changed it quickly, slowly, looking at it. One thing that he noticed is that it made no unneeded movements. All the random flowing and what-not actually helped it change shape much more quickly. Slowly watching it, he began to change it in a different manner. Before, he would just picture the new shape in his head and let it change. Now though, he imagined it flowing into shape. In the blink of an eye, it had changed. While before it took a quarter of a second to change, which in fights for people as fast as him is a very small amount, it now changed faster than he could see. Looking at his Soul Purification, he was amazed. This one technique, if you could call it that, raised his Soul Cultivation by almost an entire Rank. He was now at Stage 3, with 3% done. Last time he checked he was at Stage 2 20%. *Well, Prod wasn''t lying. If i keep finding new things, I may get good enough with my weapon that I won''t need to be near someone Realm.* Now that he had broken into the next stage, he looked at it once again. He could now see even smaller lines within the very flowing patterns. Each of those lines interacted with one another to cause the flow to go into a certain way. When he changed his weapon once again with his imagination, this time slower, it still went to fast for him to see. *Well. I guess the would be ways to block gaining power too quickly.* Happy with what he had gotten, he left his residence, walking towards one of the nearby training fields. As he was walking, he saw that most of the people didn''t pay attention to him anymore, as if he was an ordinary person there. Soon, he made it to the training yards. The people seemed to be moving slowly, but he knew now that it was just because of the gravity placement. These people were also probably not going all out, as 100x gravity probably had little affect on people of the second realm.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. The fields were split into different sections, for each Realm, and then each Stage. Currently, the highest ranking people practicing were 2 Realm 2 Stage 4''s and one Realm 2 Stage 5. The two were both fighting against him, but he still managed to easily hold them back. Looking on the Lower-End, there were some people in Realm 1 Stage 5(This is really repetitive so I''m going to use 1:5 instead. First number is the Realm, second is the Stage.) These people were weaker then Sear, but should still pose some competition if he chose to fight both at the same time. He would fight someone at his stage, but the field was empty. He walked over to training field, and once he got close to the boundary, the two stopped fighting and looked over at him. They looked at each other for a few seconds, then nodded. They backed up to one side of the field, and Sear took it as the motion to enter. As he stepped into the circle, he quickly moved his arms around to get a feel for how much harder it was to move with the 100x gravity. He took out his soul weapon, and after a few swings, he leaned forward and got ready. Sear could feel the other''s eyes looking at him. Since this was the first time they had seem him fight, they wanted to know how he would do. A few seconds passed, and then the two came forwards. One had a gauntlet on his left hand that extended outwards into three very sharp claws. The other had two curved daggers in his hands.(Karambit like, just longer.) *Both can probably send ranged attacks with swings of their weapons. Dagger-guy strikes faster but weaker, gauntlet guy most likely had strong but slow attacks. Gauntlet guy probably also uses his empty hand to send out hits ever few seconds.* Done with his observations, he also moved forwards. He was currently using 1/10th of his strength, as he had no idea how hard to go against someone of a lower rank. As the two neared, they each took a different direction, Gauntlet on the right, Daggers on the left. His Soul-Weapon was currently in the shape of a scimitar, so he chose to charge the gauntlet man. He quickly intercepted the man. As he swung horizontally, the man used his gauntlet to redirect the strike upwards while jabbing forwards with his empty hand. Seeing this, Sear quickly leaned backwards, dodging both the strike and barely dodging the dagger. While he intercepted the gauntlet guy, the dagger-wielder moved behind him, waiting for the opportunity to strike. As he dodged both strikes, Sear quickly kicked sideways, hitting the dagger-wielder in the chest and sending him a few meters back. As for the other man, he began to send strike after strike at him. Though he managed to block a few and dodge others, some still managed to nick him. He slowly pushed the guy towards the edge of the field. Seeing this, both men began using their Soul-Weapon''s abilities. The dagger-wielder threw both daggers forwards, and chains formed from the edge of the handle towards his hands. The other guy quickly slashed forwards, and three black waves quickly pushed towards Sear. Sear decided to also get a bit more serious. Quickly changing his SW(Soul-Weapon) into a great-sword, he intercepted the three slashes and hit the gauntlet guy with the flat of the blade, launching him out of the field. With the rest of his momentum, he spun around and blocked the two daggers with his sword before grabbing the chains and pulling, sending the dagger-wielder towards him. As the man was still in mid-air, he couldn''t do anything to block Sear''s punch, which knocked him out of the ring. Putting away his SW, he walked out of the ring. Looking around, every was staring at him. They had obviously seen his sword change shapes mid-battle, so they wanted to know what type of SW he had. Quickly walking back to his room, he saw that his soul-cultivation had increased by another percent. Chapter 41 Like that, another day had passed. He had continued to think about his SW and how he would make it even stronger. he wanted to get to the Top of this Realm within a few hundred years at best. HE had overheard some of the people at the Third Realm talking about how they had been here for 120 years already. Getting to the 30th Realm, though it would go faster with his absorption ability, would probably still take a very long time. More time than he wanted to spend. He wanted to go back to his home and get his minions back. Hopefully in a thousand years they would have evolved another one or two times. While thinking about this, he also thought about what the highest Realm was. According to what Prod said, someone had tried to absorb an entire universe to try to get to Realm 100. Though a universe seemed massive. He said it like as if it was a very small object in space. There were likely hundreds if not thousands of universes that he would be able to either absorb or purify in. That was another question he had. How would the mana purification work with so many people around? Surely the mana would run out, unless it is constantly being sent out by the planet. There also had to be a max amount of mana in the universes, and with enough time and space, surely someone would be able to absorb it all. Either that, or there had to be something giving mana to the whole world. Then came the thought of where the mana that thing, that had enough mana to power something this large, came from. Surely such an existence would also have to end up getting that mana from somewhere. Wherever they did, it would also have to come from something else. It was a repetative cycle of endless gaining and giving. With this time to think, he quickly fell into a trance while staring at his Soul Weapon. He stared at it for a few hours, just following it''s movements and watching it slowly flow from one form to another. After a few hours, he finally realized what he had been doing, and got up. If anything, all that time of watching had almost allowed him to memorize how the weapon changed from one form to another. If he kept like that for another day or two, he would surely be able to fully memorize the pattern and be able to fully take use of the changing shapes. Until then, this would do. Walking outside, he walked around for a bit, just admiring the view. It had been a while since he had enough time to do this, as he was constantly trying to become the strongest being on his old planet. As he was doing so, he quickly felt something enter his mana sense. He had kept it turned on in the background of his head at all times, but unless he felt a large threat or saw something moving extremely quickly he would ignore everything going on. His mana sense extended its full 200,000 kilometers, but whatever was moving was going so fast that by the time Sear had noticed them, they were only 150,000 kilometers away. *To be able to move 50,000 kilometers in under a second. What type of being could be this powerful?* Focusing more on it, he soon found out. It was the same being that was called L.L. *He''s... strong. Too strong...* For a while there, Sear even felt fear. To see just how strong someone above the FIfth Realm was, was quite scary. In another few seconds, and the mana trace quickly disappeared. Sighing, he closed his eyes and walked forwards. Instead of walking though, he bumped into someone. Without looking up though, he already knew who it was. There was only one person so far that he knew of that could scare him without even letting a miniscule amount of their aura out. L.L. Looking up, he indeed confirmed his thoughts. "So, I see that you did what I told you to. It''s a smart idea of you to come here. There are very few others who wouldn''t kill you if they found you outside. Continental bones make some decent low level armor if you know how to use them properly. Well enough with that, you probably want to know why I told you to come here, correct?" - L.L.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Sear could do nothing but silently nod his head. Though L.L. was hiding all of his aura, Sear''s senses still told him to run away from a being as powerful as this. "Well here''s why. The other''s probably can''t sense it, as they''ve only recently gotten into the Fifth Realm, but when you do, your mana sense becomes incredibly stronger at picking up small details in others. One of these details that I saw, was the release of mana. The release of mana is a lingering kind of gas that comes off of someones body as a small, yet steady rate made of mana. It only occurs when someone has gained a large amount of mana at once, for example purifying during the monthly sessions. The difference though is that your''s is much thicker, meaning you gained a much larger amount of mana compared to your previous amount. This mana release is hard to stop if you don''t know about it, but usually goes away after a few days." - L.L. "The reason I asked you to join, is because you managed to gain this much mana that fast. Even if you could only do it every year or so, once you get strong enough the amount of mana you could gain would be massive. Now then, tell me, how did you gain this much mana?" - L.L. As he said this, L.L. sent out a very small portion of his aura. Instantly, Sear was forced onto his knees. He could feel some blood at the back of his throat. He had to answer, or he would most likely be killed before he would every be able to gain strength. "I...i have an ability... that lets me absorb things...I...gain their mana...through this absorption... I absorbed... a beast that had... 20% of my...total mana...that...must be the reason...for me to have this...mana release." - Sear As he answered, the aura quickly vanished as quickly as it appeared, and Sear quickly gasped for breathe before getting back onto his feet. "Hmmm. That''s quite a powerful ability. FOr now take this. I''ll go talk to the others about you, and if you can prove your loyalty we may just give you a fourth realm beast to absorb." - L.L. Hearing this, Sear was incredibly excited. What he needed was strength, and it was being given straight to him in the form of a gift. As L.L. vanished though, he left something behind. Quickly looking at it, Sear was shaking with excitement. It was the core of a Realm Two beast. it had enough mana to get him to around the 3rd Stage. Quickly grabbing it, he put all other thoughts away as he ran home and began absorbing it. The orb was quite big, with a diameter of over a meter, so he had put it in his ring. Taking it back out, he got ready to absorb it, small piece by small piece. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Main Building of the Town| "So you''re telling me, that this ability lets him absorb the corpse of a being and gain all of it''s mana? Do you realizehow strong someone is capable of becoming with that ability? All it would take is the blown-away hand of someone at the 90th realm, and once he absorbed it he would be launched to that level. We have to kill him before he gains too much strength!" - ??? "Look Kren, I''m telling you, if we manage to gain his loyalty we can quickly gain another 4th realm user. I won''t boost him to the 5th realm, as then he would be much harder to fight, but we lost one of our fourth realm fighters a few months back and we need another one to replace them. If he does end up escaping Exile, imagine having him as an ally. While it might take e one of us 3 tens of thousands of years if not more to get to above Realm 50, he can do it in a day if he''s lucky." - L.L. "Kren, I also think it would be useful to help him for now. Even if we get him to the fourth realm, the difference between us and him will still be massive, not counting L''s seventh realm strength. If L thinks its a good idea, I''ll go with him." - ??? "Mmmmm. Fine. We can get him to the fourth realm, but that''s after we gain his trust. We can decide his tasks later. For now, have you given him anything?" - Kren "He has the core of a second-realm beast. I''ll give him that much strength for now or he''ll just die within a few weeks. But if we''re going to have him do anything, it has to be before the attack. We need to attack the Kill-Joys within the year to expand our territory." - L.L. "Speaking of the attack, how do you think it''ll go?" - ??? "I''m almost certain they have 2-3 people at the early stages of the sixth realm, but I should be able to take them on my own. They are extremely careful, so they kill anyone before they get to the fifth realm, so you guys should also be strong enough to deal with most of their people. They have more fourth realmers than us but with you two there, it should be pretty even. For now, let''s get ready for the monthly purification. I''m on the verge of another stage up." - L.L. "And as for the new kid, his room is already covered in a Sight-Stopper, so he is safe." - L.L. Cover! Hey guys! Sorry for not posting in a while! I''ve been preparing to publish the first book in a few months. One good thing that came out of that was that my cover was made! This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. It was made by winroot123 -http://forum.royalroadl.com/member.php?action=profile&uid=23449 Heres his profile incase you guys ever need some art done! I''m still going to be editing the first 24-25 chapters and I''ll update them on RRL, but the actual published version will still be much more well-written. I also made a Patreon, in-case any of you wanna help me out. https://www.patreon.com/AuthorZono Thanks for reading! Published! Hey, guys! I just published the first book of Searful on Amazon! It has chapters 1-26, all edited and corrected formistakes! If you guys want a copy, go here:https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/1521483116 <== Copy and paste into browser. Kindle and Paperback version available!Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Thanks for supporting me! PS: now that editing and publishing are over, I''llfinally be releasing chapters again! And now for some spam, because the chapter has to be at least500 characterslong like cmon RRL thatspretty annoying. Arc 3 - Prologue Looking at the orb in front of him, he got ready. Placing his left hand on top, he slowly began letting out a small amount of mist. Instantly, his mind was overcome by pain. He grunted, his body heating up and slowly expanding as it took in the mass amount of mana. It was impossible not to grunt, as even a small piece of the orb had more mana in it than he had in his entire body. Having the amount of mana in his body forcibly doubled, tripled, and then quadrupled in a matter of seconds was one of the most painful things Sear had ever experienced so far, but he kept going. As he went on, the pain lessened, as he wasn''t doubling his mana capacity every few seconds. The only downside was that he wasn''t even 1% done with the orb. Gritting his teeth, he released more mist, letting a shallow scream pierce the air before enduring it again. He felt himself pass by the Stage barriers, and his mind slowly became drowsy, the aftereffects making him want to sleep. Before that could happen though, he released more mist, allowing the pain to keep him awake.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. His body was now larger than before, not because of him passing through stages, but because his body couldn''t store all of the mana seeping into him. His skin turned red, his body heat well above the boiling point of water. Small trails of steam lifted off his body and clouded up the room. Two lines of blood fell from the corners of his mouth, his body failing to keep itself intact. Still though, he endured, pushing forward, before feeling his body quickly collapsing back to its normal size. His body quickly regained the size and collapsed again, and pulsed like that 10 times, before collapsing back down. He felt his absorption of mana increase, as he finally made it into the second realm. With the pain greatly lessened, he quicky devoured the rest of the orb, pushing him into the Second-Stage. His eyelids fluttering, he collapsed on the floor, his body undergoing a great change. Chapter 42 Far away from the city, a meeting was transpiring between two beings. One of them, a short, girthier fellow who happened to be fully furred. He was wearing hide pants and was bare-chested, a large axe resting on his back. The man opposite of him was tall, easily three times the height of the furred being, with thin limbs that seemed like they were fit for a squid. The being was fully bald, no hair appearing on any pore of its body. It had two large round eyes, and 5 holes on its face. One mouth, two ears, and two nostrils. The bald beings spoke up first, "Sir, the preparations are almost complete. We''ve trained 5 more 4th Realmers and one has almost broken into the 5th Realm." The furry being took a second to think before speaking. "That''s good. It will help get rid of the small fry and clear out the area. But we will be needing more Realm 5 and above people. He, will be a very hard target. I doubt even the people he rules the city with know his true strength. This is like a game to him, but we must show him that we are not to be underestimated, even if he is well into the Teen Realms." "I will advise the Trainer then. How many more soldiers would you like to have prepared?" "Make 3 more 4th Realmers. Get one to the 5th Realm. Choose one of our trusty workers and get them to the Sixth Realm. Once that is all done, get a squad of 20 people to go out looking for new arrivals. We are sure to fins some interesting abilities throughout the masses, even if all of them are weaklings." The bald being bowed before vanishing from sight. The other being sat down, sighing as his bottom hit the floor. "I have to make it to the Tenth Realm before we attack. Otherwise I won''t even last a minute against him." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When Sear awoke, he felt different. Light, like gravity didn''t have an effect on him anymore. He tensed his body, feeling all of his muscles respond with a never-before seen speed. He felt the raw power emanating through his body. It was invigorating. He wanted more of it. *I''ve been boosted to the Second-Stage of the Second Realm(2-2) because of that orb. I have to gain those peoples trust if I want to gain strength faster. I won''t allow myself to be stuck in this world for the next millenium. But before that, I should go purify. It seems like the monthly time is here, and I want to make as much use of it as possible.* Sear left the room, his body seemingly cutting through the air instead of pushing against it like before. His control was miles higher, and as he ran through the city he would quickly change directions without acidentally creating a crater. His movements were smoother, his body was getting used to his new power. He was still going slow, not wanting to go full speed and slam into the barriers on the outskirts of the city. He made it to the door in record time, before quickly leaving the barrier and running through the forest. He began picking up speed quickly, his body quickly passing his old max speed and then doubling, tripling, quintupling it in a heartbeat. He was out of the forest before he could even blink, the terrain passing below him, only allowing a red blur to be seen. He continued on this way for an hour before stopping.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Extending his mana sense out to it''s furthest, which he didn''t even know the size of anymore, and seeing that there was nobody nearby, he began to purify. The mana in the air around him began to swirl, a light blue hue surrounding his body as the air began to pulse. With each pulse, more and more mana began to move. One kilometer, ten kilometers, fifty kilometers, 100 kilometers. Soon, all the mana within half an hour''s run from where he was started moving towards the sky above him. The blue hue surrounding his body turned into a mist as it slowly began to spiral upwards towards the sky. As the mana arrived at the center above his body, it began transferring downwards in a density so high you could see a small blue stream flowing into him. Stretching out from the top of stream was a spider-web of highways were mana had come together to slowly move towards the center. The ground beneath Sear quaked just a bit, the pressure in the air around him increasing tenfold. He continued to sit there, absorbing mana. Within his inner world, he was slowly purifying more and more parts of his mana sea, which had swelled to an unimaginable point. Most of the mana he absorbed from the orb was unpurified, so he was basically back at the start of the Second Stage of Mana Purification. He didn''t mind this though, as it would not take long before he would be able to purify all of it. Like this, time passed, the spider-web of highways slowing becoming shorter and shorter, all being infused into the center before being sent down into his body. The stream, now a few centimeters thick, pulsed every few seconds, more and more mana being sent down into Sear. Soon, the stream dried up, leaving Sear sitting at the center of a small crater, caused by the high levels of mana being absorbed in the area. Opening his eyes, Sear exhaled, his diaphragm fully extending. He stayed there, simply looking around, before getting up and stretching. He still wasn''t used to his new strength, and he had to make sure his body didn''t suffer due to that. *I managed to get 5% of the way through. Slower than I''d like, but it''s some progress. Another one of those and I should be on the border of getting to (2-3). The orb got me pretty far through the second stage already. I wonder how long it would take normal people to get to this level of power. If they could only do this once a month, then it would easily take a couple years to get to this level, while I got it in less than a month, even if by unconventional standards.* *Either way, I have to get stronger. The highest Realm people on this world are in the 30''s, while outside there are monsters so far above that that they could probably kill everything on this planet within the day. For now, I''ll see how everything goes with L.L. If I can get him to trust me more and give me more orbs, I should be able to quickly power-level to a realm even higher than his.* *Now then, I should be going back.* As Sear prepared to take off, he felt someone appear behind him. Turning around, he saw L.L.''s familiar face. The two stood still, looking at each other silently before Sear spoke up. "What do you need?" "I see that your process went well. You''re ability truly works wonders. Before we go back to the city though, I want to see you fighting. There''s a (2-1) nearby that you could fight. I''ll let you absorb it, as I doubt that it would do much for you at this point." "What type of beast is it?" "You''ll see that when we get there. You can go on ahead, I''ll stay at your speed." After being told what direction it was in, Sear prepared to fly. Beforehand though, he created a series of glyphs that would increase his speed and cut down on wind resistance . Stepping through them, he launched into the air. The area he took off from earlier now had a large crack running through it, the ground not able to absorb the force from his takeoff. Smiling, L.L. following behind, without causing a massive crack to appear. Sear slowly went higher and higher, feeling the air resistance cut down even more, his speed continuing to rise and he began to pour more and more mana into flying. He was already going more than twenty times his previous fastest speed, and kept increasing. It was exhilarating for him. Never would he have thought, as a small farm boy, that he would get this strong. It made him chuckle, his thinking about how he used to wish he was a god so that he could punish those that hurt him. Now, he could probably destroy the entire planet, he was even more powerful than those gods he dreamt of. he was probably even more powerful than the ''god'' that the people of the planet believed in. He was probably just another overseer of the planet who wanted to be a little too intertwined into his planet''s life. Chapter 43 A faint breeze passed through the area, dust particles being lifted off the ground and pushed around the area. Large stone pillars extended towards the sky, like hands trying to grab the stars. Atop one of those pillars a beast sat lumbering about, taking its time to groom the thicket of fur along it''s body. A few hundred kilometers away, Sear and L.L. had stopped to prepare before the fight. This would be Sear''s first time fighting something at the Second Realm, so he wanted to make sure he would be able to win without getting to heavily injured. Not only that, but he couldn''t disappoint L.L.. He was Sear''s path to power after all. He quickly came up with some combinations of runes that would normally overtax him and added even more to the mix, trying to make the strongest spell he could. If he could finish this thing off in a single move, then he would. After some preparation, the spell was created. He didn''t test it, as it would alert the beast, but he did make sure that there was a 99% chance of it working. The spell would create exactly 943,201 spears of mana. They would be split between different elements and focuses. Some would be made for armor penetration, some were made for raw kinetic force, some were made to explode into fragments and spray the enemy down. This attack by itself would cost about half of his mana, so it should be more than strong enough to take down the monstrosity before him. And it truly was a monstrosity. A spider, with 12 tentacles for legs. Furry tentacles. It was a nightmare. Sear could barely understand how it managed to stay off the ground with tentacles for legs. Looking at L.L., Sear nodded before taking off. He quickly got within 10 kilometers, where he set the runes off. Above him in the sky, a massive halo of over 250 runes stitched together formed. Different colors lit up the halo in patterns, each part standing for a different element. The beast, noticing the runes, growled. A shock-wave of air blasted towards Sear but he put up a shield before it got close. He held the spell for five seconds until he finally finished inputting all of the mana required. The halo flashed before disappearing, replaced by exactly 943,201 spears. Raising his hand into the air, one of the spears flew into it. Breathing in, he stepped forwards and launched the spear. The land surrounding the spear''s trajectory was vaporized. It flew with speeds that even L.L. found it impressive for a Second Realmer''s attack. The spear struct true, slamming into the monstrosities legs. it didn''t even move from the blow, just simply looked at the spear now sticking out of it''s legs. It seemed to be confused. It felt so much mana go into an attack and this was all it did? At least that''s what it did think, until the rest of the spears started moving. All together, the remaining 943,200 spears launched downwards towards the best, each going close to half the speed of the one Sear had thrown. Seeing this, the spider growled before a large ball of water encompassed it. The ball was over a kilometer in diameter, but quickly shrank down to barely covering the spider''s body, but with much greater density. The first spears arrived. They plunged into the ball and went right through, speeding into the the beast''s side. The thick carapace of the spider was able to sustain the first few hundred spears, but as time continued to pass more and more spears were being sent into the beast. Some of the spears hit the tentacles, and with their armor piercing capabilities were able to do much more damage to those. After the armor piercing came the flak spears. Upon impact, they would break into small parts that would spray into the wounds caused by the other spears. These all had different elements attached to them, so some would burst into small blades of ice, while others would burst into hundreds of small fireballs. The beast screeched as the water ball surrounding it exploded outwards, taking thousands of spears with it. It was bleeding badly, most of it''s tentacles with holes and one large gash on its side that had been the main focus for all the flak spears. Two of it''s four eyes were destroyed, adding more blind spots to it.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Sadly for it, the spears continued to rain down. Overall, the battle took 10 seconds. The only thing remaining now was a pile of flesh and blood on the floor. Flying close to it, Sear summoned his mist and brought it over the beast, absorbing it''s energy, along with its core. "Well, that was something you don''t see very often. Your attack took too long to charge, you would have died before being able to use it. A good shock-wave could have defeated all of your spears if it had enough range. You focus too much on summoning magic. You could have probably killed the beast with a slash of your weapon if you had used magic to help you. Overall, not bad for the 2nd Realm. But you still have a lot to learn." Sear listened attentively. He didn''t know how long L.L. had been alive for, but he was sure to have much more experience in fighting than him. He sat there thinking for a bit, trying to tinker with the glyphs in his mind to find a way to make the spell work better. While against one enemy it probably will never be his go-to attack, against large groups it would be deadly. Opening his eyes, he saw that L.L. was gone. In front of him was a small silver disk with a arrow on it, sort of like a compass. Spinning it around, he saw that it was pushing him towards the direction of the city. *This''ll help me get back. But I think I''ll take a quick vacation to go fight things. I need to get my Soul Purification to Stage 3 before I can purify my mana anymore. Time to go grind again.* -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back at the city, L.L. had gone back to talk to Kren and Jar. After reviewing over Sear''s runes and abilities, he had come up with ways that the power could be used. *I want to have him by my side. With a power like that I could get someone near my strength. Kren and Jar still believe that I''m at the seventh realm. Please, the leader of the Kill-Joys is at the ninth realm. Do they really think I would attack them without being stronger? But either way, I should probably leave for a month before we attack. I''ll need to be plenty far away when I break into the 15th realm so that they don''t notice anything.* *I think I''ll also leave Sear out of the fight. I''d rather him not get caught up in it and have a chance at dieing. I''ll probably just kill everyone at the fight before taking him and taking him into the Inner-World. He can quickly gain Soul-Purification while still mana-purifying while we are there. Since he''s with me nobody should try anything. Less than 100 people there over the 10th realm anyways.* *For now though, I just have to get rid of everyone here and take him with me.* After making it back to the center, L.L. was joined by Kren and Jar. Kren was the first to speak up. "So? How strong is he?" "Strength wise, he can compete with someone maybe a stage or two higher than him. Pretty good considering how major the changed between the stages are in the first few realms. Skill-wise, he didn''t use his soul-weapon, but his magic capabilities are something else. He uses runes to an efficiency I haven''t seen before. Even I can''t combine as many runes as he did. The only problem was how long it took him to actually cast the spell considering it used a majority of his mana. If his body gets better at mana manipulation he may be able to become a Higher Magician." The two sat there thinking for a bit before Jar began to talk. "If he can become a Higher Magician, shouldn''t have one of the major groups already know of his location? I doubt it would take anymore longer than a week for an expert to travel across Exile." "I don''t know. I haven''t asked him anything about where he came from or how many realmers were on his world, but I doubt it was much. If anything, he may be the only one. He doesn''t have the experience nor the knowledge that most people from Realmed Planets have. That or the overseer''s chose not to involve themselves in the world, which may also be true. Either way, if anybody was coming after him, they would have already been here. The only other possibility would be that they want him to improve on his own, but with his mana absorbing abilities and the possibility of becoming a Higher Magician I doubt they would wait. If anything they would break him and force him to become a member of the Upper Echelons." This time it was Kren who spoke up. "You think we could get him to trust us and work for us? If anything we could take over his mind. His body is the one who has the ability not the other way around." "No. If we take over his mind he won''t lose the mana absorbing powers but he would lose the possibility of turning into a Higher Magician. for now, let''s take it slow. We need to see how he improves for now. We''re still not planning to attack for another 6 months and I doubt they would attack us back." "Fine, but if something happens and he turns on us its your fault." "Whatever you say Kren. Either way, I''ll be leaving right before the next purification week. I''m going to be trying to speed up my training and don''t want to take mana from others in the vicinity." "With that. Meeting over." Apology and New Story Well its been 18 months? Maybe? Well close to that. First of all, let me apologize for the readers who enjoyed this story back when I updated it. As the story went on I progressively got more and more tired of writing this story. It started off as a simple fantasy story where Sear would gain strength, fight the church, and eventually create his own church and be the god-like figure for it. Thats it. Instead, it turned into some half-assed cultivation story that had 99+ realms for him to reach and he was already somehow influencing entire planets at 250 pages into the story. At the time of writing Searful I had just gotten into RoyalRoad truly and as I read more and more genres, I attempted to incorporate them into Searful, but all that did was lead to a clusterfuck of ideas. As time passed I began to hate this story and stopped writing it, and stopped writing in general for the next full year. A few months ago I had finally felt the want to write again, though neither this story nor Ley World felt right to me. It suffered from similar but different issues and I also stopped enjoying writing it. On top of both stories being massive messes of ideas, I never had a plan with them. I came up with things as I wrote and never really tried to create a story which led to so many plotholes.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Due to this, I began a new story. I''ve spent 5 months simply planning it and the characters out before I even started writing and as of right now I have around 150 pages of it written with 70ish on RoyalRoad. I''m enjoying writing this story so much more than I did either of my other two stories, and I plan to see it through. Though Searful and Ley World will never be continued, if you enjoyed my writing I hope you''ll enjoy my newest story: Aeternalis. It''s a litrpg story with a few changes to the whole skill/system workings. Skills don''t give you boosts as they level up, they simply show how good you are at something. An issue I had with Ley World was how I had to calculate how each skill percentage boost would affect everything that happened to the characters. I also felt that percentage boosts wouldn''t work well as its not a VRMMO story, its a real world that had litrpg elements to it. If you do decide to read it, I hope you enjoy. https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/25734/aeternalis