《The Legend of the [Place Holder]》 Chapter 0 | The End
Author''s Note: Good evening everyone. This is an original story for me with tropes taken from books and movies that i particularly enjoyed in my own reading. I havent written anything creatively (apart from my dissertations of course) since the creative writing lessons in school and finally have found an idea that is not either a complete rip off of someone else or something i couldnt continue writing. have fun everyone
So dark, and warm, liquid everywhere¡­ Did I fall asleep in the bath again? Noises surround me, but everything is muffled, so relaxing, so soothing¡­ Am I dying in my bath? Too cozy to do anything about this, I will do better next time. Suddenly there are walls around me, pressing on me! What is going on? Leave me alone, all I want to do is drift off into the nothingness! Oh, the walls suddenly let go, time to go back to sleep¡­ zzzz ¡­. OW OW OW again? What is this, leave me alone, is it the paramedics or something? Did someone find me drowning in the bath tub? Are they the reason for all this noise? I can¡¯t think properly, leave me alone¡­ And the walls are suddenly gone again, is this joke? If you are going to save me then do it already¡­ if not, then let me sleep¡­ zzzz ¡­¡­ Wow! What is going on? Am I getting CPR? Is some dude going to kiss me now too? I hope it¡¯s a girl¡­ hhhmmmm female paramedics are hot! Actually, girls in uniform are the best, the more military the uniform the better I always say! Ah it¡¯s getting lighter, I am either finally dying or someone is shining a light in my face¡­ can¡¯t think which choice would be better now¡­ Ahh so bright!!! Who is the torturer shining their flood lights in my face?!? Weird, this gurney is very fleshy, rotates very naturally, has technology moved so far since I retired? There are so many people but ¡­. I don¡¯t see any paramedics, damn! More like I can¡¯t see much at all¡­ Ah what was that for? Here I was just lying there, in my bath, comfortably sleeping, drowning, now you came and got me out and saved me, you shouldn¡¯t be hitting your patient after! What kind of bed side manner is that? ¡°Ahhhh for god sakes what is your problem¡± I screamed. Or at least tried to, it came out very differently. I must be so out of it or, let me think, maybe a stroke and I now can¡¯t even talk? But ¡­ hold on a second, I can think properly, or at least believe that I can think properly¡­ Maybe if someone listened in all they would hear was ¡°Bah, me can think! bah, me can talk too, baaahhh oooohhhh ball!!!¡± ¡­ I hope not at least. Something was wrong, I needed to concentrate. Obviously, I didn¡¯t drown, but this situation is very strange, fleshy gurney, smooth movement, everyone is massive! Or at least I think those are people, could be those surgical robots and ¡­ and the pain I felt was them operating on me? Oh god no! Move head, please move¡­ no my muscles aren¡¯t responding properly, is it the anesthetic? Did they give me the wrong dose? Why am I awake? My arms, and legs¡­ ooooohhhhh!!! Very little movement, but at least that means I am not paralyzed after the stroke¡­ bright side, think of the bright side of life¡­ Get back on topic me! What is going on here? Oh I am suddenly being moved and ¡­ are those arms? Damn Damn Damn, I think I know what is going on! But why me and why do I still have memories. I look up and say: ¡°Nice to meet you mother¡±, or at least attempt to, what comes out isn¡¯t even close. Talina & Co Its been a long day and night, the contractions started 16 hours ago. Thank god this isn¡¯t going to be my 1st child or there would be no way we would have had more. Other than the current ¡­ NIGHTMARE, ¡°Hey, Aaron! Why don¡¯t we name this one Nightallion if it¡¯s a boy or Nightmare if it¡¯s a girl?¡± I sarcastically yell into the other room. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. A man, 182cm tall with brown hair and a trimmed beard. He has these wonderous blue/green eyes that I fell for all those years ago. ¡°Honey, Wife, Ina, you know I love you, but please don¡¯t go giving our next child silly names in this trying time¡­.¡± he replies. ¡°Also, is that a horse pun? How long did it take you to come up with that?¡± he asks incredulously. ¡°What else do I have to do, lie here while this demon spawn of yours tortures me to death, slowly, over 16 HOURS!¡± I shout back at him. ¡°Ina, Ina, Ina, Talina, the doctors and nurses will be here any time now. They said they would arrive just after sunset, and its still only noon, I am sure you can hold out¡± he replies soothingly ¡°Noon? NOON? The sun set 2 hours ago you sheep brained loaf! Get me a nice relaxing chamomile tea. 1st, ow ow ow, this kid is going to be the death of me at this rate¡­ 1st fill the cup with some dragon breath whiskey, then forget about the tea and give me the cup!¡± I shout at him. ¡°What give you dragon breath whiskey? That¡¯s expensive, I might get that for myself actually but for you, that tea sounds like a great idea actually!¡± he replies ¡°oh and there, that must be the birthing team we called. The doctor is the best at child births and best of all, she has cold hands! You will love her!¡± ¡°Hey, you! no get back here! Cold hands? Cold hands? I would kill you here and now if it wasn¡¯t for the baby!¡± ¡°Mom! Mom! The doctors are here! And they said they actually have warm hands so not to fret.¡± My 1st daughter Arturia comes running to my bed and gives me a huge hug, or at least tries to. Her dad catches her as she runs past and swings her around. She is 12 and is getting on in height and will soon start schooling properly, the dear. ¡°Arturia, mommy is in a lot of pain at the moment, you know how she gets when she loses control, you don¡¯t want to get any more fractures do you?¡± Aaron asks our daughter. ¡°Huh, fine dad, I am old enough for reinforcement too, you don¡¯t have to be so cautious, I am an adult now¡± she sulks in return. ¡°Aaron, Talina, what a nice son you have here, he showed us where to store our shoes and cloaks and has led us all the way here. How responsible! How old are you now anyway?¡± the doctor praises Abrail. ¡°I am n¡­¡± he stares into space ¡°Yes! I turned nine years old last summer!¡± he Abrail replies. ¡°Ahh how responsible you are for one so young, but remember young man, you need to remember things for yourself and not have to look things up if you really want to succeed in life.¡± The doctor lectures Abrail. Abrail blushes and hides behind his father¡¯s leg, like a tisor cub hiding from a josam. ¡°Hey doc! Turn that aura off, you lazy oaf, no control, that has always been your problem¡± I needle an old acquaintance. ¡°Ah Talina, I completely forgot why we are here because of this little rascal. And you are right about my control, more so in situations like this. But, I have warm hands!¡± the doc replies. 2 Hours later ¡°And we are done. Congratulations Talina, Aaron, you have a lovely baby boy.¡± The doctor congratulates us. ¡°Doc, he seems rather quiet, are his lungs okay? Sometimes the prohibitions are such a nuisance¡± I ask. Th doctor gives a light swat to the backside of the baby, good thing kids don¡¯t remember their own births, or everyone would hate doctors. ¡°Ahh WaaaoooGaao!¡± the child screams. ¡°Check out the lungs on this one? Nurse? Have we had anyone else this loud today?¡± the doctor asks one of his team. ¡°No this is actually both the longest period of labor and the loudest set of lungs we have seen today¡± the nurse replies. I narrow my eyes at the team helping today. I am all sweaty, Oil in my hair and muscles twitching, trying to regain control of themselves. But these two, these two are trying to flatter me? What nonsense. ¡°Stop trying to flatter me and give me my child already! I have survived enough, show me my reward!¡± I ask the doctor. ¡°Ahh you are right, let me finish wrapping him and here you are¡± he replies soothingly. Ah would you look at that, finally I see the little shit that has been causing me problems for almost a full day. What an cute baby, why would this piece of soft skin, light green eyes, brown hair and plump cheeks choose to torture his mom so? ¡°Its not your fault little one, Mommy will always love you¡± she coos at her ¡°loot¡± after beating the raid boss known as child birth. The baby looks up and seems to recognize his mother and lightly mumbles baby nonsense at her. ¡°AAAWWWW that¡¯s so cute!¡± erupts from the rest of the room. ¡°Hey QUIET! All of you, my precious is trying to sleep here. If one of you wakes him up, you will have me to deal with!¡± I quietly all so quietly threaten them all. ¡°Ah look the mother is back in control of our blood tyrant, she is always like this, each new child is the biggest nightmare, a potential murderer for about a day and then suddenly they are her precious little treasure soon after, guarded like a dragon guards his hoard or a dwarf guards his beer! HA!¡± Aaron replies joyously. Chapter 1 | The Beginning 4 Years Later ¡°Wake up! Hey Alexander, wake up!¡± my big brother Abrail called while shaking me. ¡°You don¡¯t want mom to find you like this on the first day of training, do you?¡± ¡°Urgh, what time is it? It can¡¯t be that time already, I only just went to sleep¡± I replied groggily. I woke up in a room, my room, not an excessively spacious room but as a 4-year-old I don¡¯t really need that much either. The walls were a bright blue with wisps of white in random locations, like the sky that I remember so fondly. It was a very interesting conversation when a child that just started talking asked to have his bright orange walls repainted to something more soothing. Luckily no one asked how I knew that the walls were painted and that the paint could be changed¡­ #whistles unsuspiciously#. Today is the first day of my physical training in preparation for the future. It turns out, much to my own chagrin, that due to my method of transmigration, being born in a body native to my new world instead of keeping the old one, I have to wait for the natural biology of this world. The lining in my lungs that absorbs free mana from the air and the glands that process said mana to make it ¡°your own¡± only develop during puberty. So, another 7 years minimum. ¡°Huh, enough reminiscing, time to get out of bed and do this¡­ ¡°I whisper to myself as I get out of bed. ¡°Now, shower, shower shower¡­¡± I had to specifically ask my dad for this, seems that showers were not invented in this world, children used baths and adults that needed a shower could use water magic, or knew someone that could use it. ¡°¡­ And dressed!¡± I exclaimed, in English. I started talking to myself in English shortly after I started talking in the local language. Everyone thinks it¡¯s my out made up language, and I let them keep thinking it. English is my tie to the previous world that will remind me that doing something like it¡¯s done here does not necessarily mean it¡¯s the best way either. Shower is one example of that. ¡°Mom? Mom? I am ready, is there breakfast or a packed lunch for me?¡± I yelled down the stairs. My mother, Talina, looks out of the living room all bright and preppy, ugh how much I despise naturally morning people. Or is that her time in the military showing through? ¡°Mom, how are you so cheerful so early in the morning? It¡¯s not even 5 in the morning¡­¡± I call to her still a little sleepy. ¡°Well mother has had to get up much earlier than this during her younger days!¡± she replied cheerfully ¡°Though I have been like this since childhood apparently!¡± Ahh one of those people, ahhh how lucky, please let me go back to sleep¡­ no I need to do this if I want to be ahead of the other kids in school. I am sure there are families that started training their kids from the time they could walk so I am already behind. With the ADMINISTRATION the more you can do now the better you will be after it comes into effect. As I walk into the living room I see a set table with eggs and sausage and¡­ is that bacon? Can¡¯t be there aren¡¯t any pigs here, so how? ¡°Okay dig in, breakfast is getting cold and we need to get to the training grounds, at this rate we will need to hurry¡± she commands, must be that military training peeking through again. ¡°Yes mother¡± I reply. She swats me on the back of my head after I say that ¡°Mother huh? I see how my own children treat me now, you watch, unless you change that to Mommy dearest or at least Mom then you will get porridge for dinner¡± she retorts. Ahh there she goes again, making threats and most horribly, keeping them more often than not. How she hasn¡¯t got in trouble with the city guard yet no one knows. ¡°Yes, mommy dearest, you are the best mommy in the world¡± I drone out monotonously. She squints her eyes and peers at me and finally replies ¡°Good there we go, we will work on your tone later¡±. How can she be this cheerful this early in the morning, kill me now. Wait no, I don¡¯t need that flag this soon, is there some wood around to knock on? ¡°Do you need something? And don¡¯t call me by knocking on a table, we are not in a bar and I am not a waitress.¡± Mom calls from the kitchen. ¡°Oh no¡­ I am listening to the sound the table makes, I am almost done and we can go¡± I call back. How we haven¡¯t woken up everyone else in the with all our calling I couldn¡¯t tell you. But it could have something to do with her reputation¡­ Yeah that¡¯s likely it.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. I get up from the table and bring my plate and cutlery to the kitchen and place it in the dish washer, what an odd mix of technologies they have, no general electricity but dishwashers, no cars but airships, no gun powder but they¡­ we do have guns. We walk into the hallway and get ready for the short trip to the training grounds. As we are walking between the house and the grounds, I keep seeing people concentrating on something in the middle of the air and poking in the air. If this was back on earth I would think that augmented reality glasses have advanced to the point of contact lenses, but obviously they don¡¯t have that here, or at least not in the same way and not really bulky too. ¡°Mom, is it true that I will get access to the ADMINISTRATION when I am 6?¡± I ask. She turns towards me with a wondering look, ¡°How do you even know about the ADMIN anyway? Did someone tell you at home? You can tell mommy, she won¡¯t get mad¡± she questions me. Mom is scary! Is this what other people see? Wow note to self ¨C never make mother truly mad! ¡°Well when I was learning to walk I remember you talking to dad about getting extra skill levels in ¡­. Physical control or something like that¡­¡± I reply sheepishly. ¡°You remember that? Well aren¡¯t you full of surprises, first the walls, then the¡­ what do you call them? Show-ers? And then you own made up language? Is my son a genius?¡± She asks coyly. Ahh there she goes playing the interrogator again. This is why I haven¡¯t brought anything else obvious into this world yet, like absorbent nappies for example. That, was a surprise, not a good one mind you but still a surprise. ¡°Well I shouldn¡¯t be telling you this but I guess that cat is out of the bag. Ah there is another saying that started with you isn¡¯t it, what exactly is a cat?¡± she peers at me expectantly, ¡°Anyway, yes, the ADMIN will introduce itself to you on your 6th birthday.¡± She evades, ahh tricky aren¡¯t you. ¡°And what exactly is it?¡± I ask again hoping to get an answer this time. ¡°You will find out, this is kind of a tradition you know?¡± she shuts down my questions. We have been walking for almost ten minutes now, the streets are mostly empty, just labourers going to their jobs, bakers starting up their ovens and adventurers finally falling asleep after a night of drinking. And there are the guardsmen coming to clean these slobs from the streets, yuk. The architecture is distinctly Victorian but the Victorians didn¡¯t have sky scrapers for their air ships to dock to or even had a way to construct the buildings. It was a real sight the first time I came out into the city, a new city. it mostly looks normal like any other city, paved roads, clean buildings but there is no smog, the buildings are taller for the time period and they even have a sewage system and internal plumbing! ¡°Hey! Hey, Harrold!!! You sneaky bugger, this is my son Alexander. You better treat him well. Make sure he is home by dinner, otherwise he is all yours¡± she says while looking at me menacingly. I bet she though she had a loving expression. Scary! Harrold salutes my mother with his right fist over his heart, ¡°Sir! Blood Tyrant Sir! It is a pleasure to see you today. It is an honour for you to give me this task! I will make your son the best soldier he can be!¡± ¡°Harrold Harrold Harrold, I retired, you don¡¯t have to salute me any more or be so uptight. The war is over, we are not in that kind of relationship any longer¡± she replies soothingly. ¡°And I hope you don¡¯t salute anyone on the battlefield like that, you know what the consequences is for anyone that gets their commanding officer killed by saluting at them do you?¡± ¡°No Sir, Yes Sir, I will take that into consideration Sir!¡± Harrold continues the salute. My mother shakes her head and brings me forward to meet Harrold. How does a guy that thin have such a loud voice? Is that a Skill? ¡°Alexander, make sure to follow any orders that Harrold gives you, you wanted this and I agree, this is for your own good.¡± My mother finally transfers my hand to Harrold¡¯s. We walk inside and shortly we are in an open space, it¡¯s brightly lit and already full of training cadets. There are people training with sword and shield, a ranged lance and¡­ is that muskets in the back? It still amazes me that the people of this nation had such a good idea. Not everyone is a great magician, but you don¡¯t need to be able to cast fireballs or ice nova¡¯s or heal to be able to channel mana into the mechanism of the musket. The firing rate is horrible as they still need to load, and the accuracy is horrible, but how accurate do you have to be to hit a column of guys standing 100 yards away from you while the mages slog it out above and around you. The greatest firepower may come from mages and mage knights but to hold a position, to support the supply chain, to guard the rear areas, the mage musketeers are the only option. Any mage can die to a bullet after they break through the reinforcement, and if all you are doing is reinforcing, then you can¡¯t be attacking, can you? ¡°Cadet Alexander! I expect you to follow any order I give while we are in this training ground. There are other trainers that will supervise you while I am teaching the advanced classes. All trainers and people with power to command you will have a green sash¡­¡± he points at the sash stitched into the arm of his uniform, ¡°¡­ around their arm sewn into the uniform. You will keep away from the muskets and stay outside any area with training knights or mages. Is that understood?!¡± ¡°Sir, Yes Sir!¡± I squeak out while trying to emulate his salute from earlier. ¡°Now take off any kit you have that is not part of your training uniform and give them to me, I will store them safely in my office. That includes any food or snacks you brought from home mind you.¡± He says in a commanding tone. As I start taking my outer cloths off and packing them into my back pack he continues: ¡°Good, now the circumference of the running track is 3.14 kilometres. You will now run the full distance as quickly as you can without stopping. If you need to walk the distance that is fine too, but you can¡¯t stop, stopping on the battlefield is a death sentence. Now GO!¡± he commands me to start running. ¡°Ahhh ¡­ fuck ¡­.¡± I whisper to myself and start running. Chapter 2 | Day Dreaming From that day I started going to the training grounds with torturer Harrold every single day. When it rained I joined the other cadets for their running courses outside of the shielded grounds. When someone was punished, we were all punished. So, if you had to do 100 press ups for going into a forbidden area then the rest of the people present have to do 50. If you were given 10 km to run after not checking wither your musket was clean and unloaded before handing it in then the rest of the people present run 5 km. The worst by far: If you did not pass the military law courses, that I still haven¡¯t been given access to by the way, then the rest of the people there have to do jump burpees around the running track, all 3.14km of it. Even if you are not in the class or passed it before. What this does however is bind everyone into classes, and into training halls. Mine is not the only training hall in the city or even in our particular area of it. Kids aged 6 and up go to the training halls for physical as well as intellectual training, if you think to cast a fireball, all you need is to chant some nonsense and then you are all good then I have another thing for you. One needs to do all the calculations for fuel, temperature, duration and distance before shooting anything. Forgetting even one of those could mean disaster for the caster or make it overall useless. For example, forgetting distance means it will explode at the caster, forgetting enough fuel will mean it will go out before it reaches the set distance, forgetting the heat will mean you just sent mana at your opponent. Which can be useful in certain situations but is not advised. So, from the age of 6, kids, both boys and girls study mathematics, history, literature, accounting, law etc. I have been given access to some of these courses and have wiggled my way into getting notes for the rest like military history and military law. Its nice to be young and at the age that people think you are cute and harmless. He he he ¡­ ¡°Hey Alan stop day dreaming and finish your set! We are almost done¡± someone calls at me. ¡°Sir, my name is Alexander Sir, Alan is standing next to you Sir¡± I reply as I get back to doing pull ups. The one yelling at me today is trainer Joff or as I like to call him ¡°Hard ass #3¡±. One¡­. Two¡­. Three¡­. ¡°I don¡¯t care what your name is George, kids like you are a silver a dozen and no one will care what your name is on the battlefield either. Didn¡¯t Major Harrold beat that into you in the 1st month?¡± I hear Hard ass #3 yelling. A number of heads turn towards him as he never gets anyone¡¯s name correct even by accident. ¡°I mean you Jeffrey on doing the pull up¡± he points at me. ¡°The rest of you, GET BACK TO YOUR SETS¡± he finishes with a yell. Everyone in the area shouts at the same time ¡°Sir! Yes Sir!¡±. And pray Joff will walk off to supervise somewhere else. Eighteen¡­¡­¡­ Nineteeeeen ¡­¡­¡­¡­ Tweeeenty! Done, now a short run around the track and off to the intellectual classes. It amazed me the first time I saw the curriculum, the kids here are taught some amazing things from such a young age. 9-year olds are working on differential equations and balancing accounts. History is taught from the perspective of our country and the propaganda that goes along with it but asking about other perspectives is not frowned upon¡­ mostly. In the year I have been coming here I have changed a lot, I can now run the full track without passing out (day 1). I have been doing light weight training too but mostly body weight training as it can get in the way of my natural development, and considering I am 5¡­ at least physically, that is a very good idea. But the one thing I found most enjoyable has been learning about the history of the kingdom and the continent we are in and mathematic. The kingdom is a small and surrounded on all sides by mountains, much like a bowl. We have problems with flooding but you know --- magic ¡­ not that much of a problem otherwise. We are seen as generally a neutral country with a very one of the best universities in this area of the continent. There are other competing establishments in the near area so lots of competition for the development of construction, research, magic and weaponry.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Most of the wars that do occur are not wars as I used to know. You see, humanity has an arch enemy, the Prime Beasts. All animals, mammals, reptiles, birds, humans/ what have you are born with a natural way to convert the mana in the air into magic reserves. Most animals use this mana to forage for plants, to dig their dens, to hunt each other etc. But every so often there is a mutation, instead of the animal converting only the mana that is required to perform the normal tasks, it will keep absorbing it until finally crystallised mana deposits are left in its brain. This inevitably leads to pressure on the brain and due to the location of the deposit, the animals go berserk. They first start killing everything in their eco system, the killing and eating of the being will transfer the mana stored in the victim to the predator. Once the creature absorbs enough mana from the ecosystem the crystal deposits in its brain start to transfigure the normal brain tissue into crystal brain tissue. This gives the now beast a greater instinctual understanding of the elements it has affinities for. The animal will now grow to double its size and will generally gain the colouration of the element it has most affinity to. Dual coloration or tri colouration variants are almost as common as the single coloured. Smack! ¡°Hey Alexander, what did I just read? Please repeat it to the class¡± lecturer Michael instructs me after throwing the chalk at me. That guy is accurate! Note to self ¨C pay attention in Lecturer Michael¡¯s class. ¡°Um, On the 4th day of Vallis the knights of Erodium rode out ¡­¡± I look at Michael attempting to judge his reaction. He does not look pleased at all. ¡°The knights of who? Our kingdom is named Rodium after the 1st king not Erodium.¡± I will give you 1 last chance to change your answer. ¡°Um, Sir, I apologise, I have not been paying attention until now¡± I said with contrition. ¡°Good, that is the honesty that we are looking to train into our future generation. Now for not paying attention you will write an essay for the cause of the last great Prime Beast war and what we can do to prevent it happening again in the future. You will then give a presentation to the whole training hall with your findings. I hope you have a strong enough voice, because if the people in the back cant hear you then you will be getting everyone there press up sets.¡± Michael instructs me. ¡°The rest of you just need to do the essay, and it should be easy because all of you have been paying attention to today¡¯s class. Correct?¡± he asks everyone wryly. Some of the students fidget slightly but no one seems to have a problem with it. ¡°Now as for trying to lie, and to a superior. That is a much greater offense in the eyes of us instructors.¡± Michael scowls at me ¡°for attempting to lie to a lecturer, you and the rest of the class will do the following ¨C Run a circuit of the track, do 100 press ups and 50 sit ups. You will do 30 jumping burpees and 300 meters of lunges. This will be done in your own time, outside of classes or regular training.¡± Everyone in the class winces with dread at the instructions and from the knowledge that the rest of the training hall is going to hate them too. Michael turns away to the other side of the room and asks ¡°Now who can tell me what was the outcome of said war and how we, as a kingdom benefitted from it?¡± All the while the rest of the class is giving me death glares. But they will get over it, it¡¯s not like they have never been given punishment before. Maybe not as severe but so long as we work together we will be fine. The presentation however, I am going to need an someone, or multiple someones that are good with projecting illusions and communications. Michael never said I couldn¡¯t have assistants now did he. After they day ends and we finish working off any extra training someone was given during the day, don¡¯t look at me, I came out of the hall to find my father waiting for me. ¡°Dad, what are you doing here? I thought mum of Arturia will come to pick me up today?¡± I run up and ask him. ¡°Well they are busy getting ready for the evening, and tasked me to come and get you¡± he replies nonchalantly. ¡°What, why, what are they getting ready for?¡± I ask in wonder ¡°did something happen at home or did you get invited somewhere again?¡± ¡°Oh, I see, it seems you forgot all about it. We were wondering what got into you today. Today is your birthday son, we are going to be going to our old headquarters. You realise, its not only your special day, but your darling mother¡¯s too? Ahh the freedom of youth.¡± He turns and starts walking in the direction of home, ¡°Are you coming, your mom will be upset if you are not ready, and we all don¡¯t want to see that now do we?¡± he teases me. ¡°Yes dad, I am coming!¡± I reply while running to catch up with him. Chapter 3 | ADMINISTRATION Today is my birthday, and more importantly it is my 6th birthday or it might as well be! The day to meet the ADMINISTRATION only occurs once per month. And that day is today. Anyway, today is the day I find out about the ADMINISTRATION, what it is and what is involved. I come out of my room and call down the stairs, ¡°Mom, I am ready! What do we have to do? Can you tell me anything in advance? Is there breakfast?¡± As I come to the bottom of the stairs I hear my dad reply, ¡°Your mother is not here, she has something important to do today, to answer your questions in order: We have to go to the university and everything will be explained there. There is breakfast: scrambled egg and sausage, the best I could do.¡± After I glumly sit down at the table he continues, ¡°Don¡¯t be so glum, is dad¡¯s breakfast not good enough? Anyway, we will go to the university and meet all the other kids that turned 6 this month.¡± I look up in surprise though I shouldn¡¯t be now that I think about it ¡°Other people, do you mean the people from the training hall will be there too?¡± ¡°Yes, all the kids, now eat or we will be late!¡±
¡°Here we are, this is the university, this must be the 1st time you have seen it too. I am sure you have seen the towers from the viewing points around town but nothing was ever explained to you.¡± ¡°And I didn¡¯t ask. I have always wondered but it has never been of much importance.¡± I exclaimed while trying to find the top of the towers, ¡°Wow those towers must be 2 or 3 hundred meters tall!¡± ¡°Yes, the towers are 247m tall, about 70 meters taller than the air ship docks! It still amazes me what those architects can do when the builders and the materials have enough mana.¡± Dad explained. ¡°Now let¡¯s go inside, we are running late, you don¡¯t want to miss anything do you?¡± Once inside the main building and past the reception area my father and I were separated, he went to a viewing area and I went to join all the other kids. There were thousands of us. For so many kids to turn 6 this year, the city must be absolutely huge! Or is this from the whole kingdom maybe? The room we were in was spacious, with tall ceilings and carvings of some kind everywhere. Curves followed the joint of the walls and the ceiling. There were what looked like magic circles carved into the walls, are they decorations, some kind of inside joke or actually served a purpose? I guess I will find out eventually. Finally, almost an hour later (we will be late my back-side dad), a member of staff walked into the room. Well I want to say walk but I am sure I didn¡¯t see them come in from anywhere, she just suddenly appeared near the lectern. That¡¯s must have been a Skill, amazing, either its really good or we are all really bad! ¡°Good Morning everyone. Today you will all discover one of the biggest secrets hidden from all of our young people. In the days of antiquity, before our walled cities, before we figured out how to efficiently deal with the Prime Beasts. Back then any child was not named until their 6th birthday, because the likelihood of them surviving to the age of six was so low that it was not needed. As a note at this point, the survival rate of kids between age 6 and 12, when your magic makes an appearance, the survival rate was still only 50%.¡± Everything and everyone were quiet, there was some rustling from kids fidgeting on their seats otherwise, there was no sound. Where was any of this in the histories, how long ago was this? How long has this tradition been going on to engrain it so deeply into the psyche of the nation? Is it the same in the other nations and continents? ¡°Now I will reveal the reason why the survival rate changes so drastically. The reason is because at the age of 6, a system that covers the whole world, every single living being has the ability to use this system and many of the smarter Primal Beasts attack universities to get access to the ADMINISTRATION.¡± ¡°That was the actual reason for the last Prime Beast War. The books are right, it was due to our laxity in not culling their numbers whenever we can and to cross the mountain ranges to constantly cut into their numbers. But the real reason, not written anywhere that a 6-year-old can get access to is: They want access to the ADMINISTRATION, to become on par with the humans of this world. To overcome out numbers and our training with their sheer might.¡± Now everyone stirred, neighbours started whispering to each other. Kids started recounting their essays looking for the clues they missed and now realised why no one could ever get more than 60% for the essay. ¡°Now we will continue with the ¡­ ¡°event¡±. Please, raise the ADMINISTRATION terminals!¡± she said called to someone. Behind her, along the wall rose a multitude of stone pedestals with a glass orb held on top of it. The orbs looked completely transparent and didn¡¯t look like they did anything. ¡°The pedestals behind me hold the ADMINISTRATION terminals. We discovered how to make them thousands of years ago from, at the time even more ancient documents. The ADMINISTRATION is a term that was found on those old documents and we have used it since.¡± ¡°You will all now form up as evenly as you can in front of each terminal, my assistants will be walking around, directing you to the terminals with the least people. We, like you, are excited about this discovery and your reaction to the discovery but please keep calm, and no pushing.¡± There were screams from the sides of the room, hall? Theatre? Assistants were suddenly visible at the side of every row! Were they there all along? I really want to see how they did that! Could I do that? Could I explain how they do it with the scientific method? Could I reproduce it with a tool? I really want to know!!! ¡°That reaction never gets old, forgive me for having fun at your expense. Now once everyone is lined up we, the person at the front of queue will come forward to the pedestal and place both their hands on the orb at the top. Just lightly place them there, pressing your palms to the terminal with all your might is not going to change the results.¡± ¡°Once you are done with the registration you will permanently have access to the ADMINISTRATION anywhere you are in the world and at any time so don¡¯t make your decisions too quickly, instead go talk to your parents and ask them for recommendations. But remember, ultimately the choices you make are yours alone, if you wish to keep the choices for later, once you are more mature and know what you want from your life, nothing is stopping you. Under our laws, pressuring someone to choose how you want is a crime and can be punished by extensive time in the labour gangs. All our roads need to be maintained you know.¡± ¡°Everyone, I thank you for sitting and listening to me until the end. I hope to see you all in the future during your time at the university. Now stand up everyone and make your way calmly and without running to the closest terminal to you.¡± She then turned and walked off just like she walked in, some steps away from the lectern, she suddenly fades and not even the sound of her shoes is heard. That Skill is AMAZING!!! I stand up and look around at the rest of the children already rushing to get to the terminals. Now is not the time to rush but the time to consider everything that we have been told. If there is documentation of this ADMINISTRATION then it must have been created by some ancient civilization¡­ but for what purpose? To fight the Prime Beasts? Or was it to fight something or someone else? Aliens? Gods? What do I want to do with myself in this life? I obviously want to become strong enough that politics no longer affects me, but getting that strong will require ¡­ dedication. I want to be able to support my parents when they get old, but that¡¯s a given, and looking at my parents, I don¡¯t think they will ever get old. Now do I want to pursue technology or magic in this world? Well I have some ideas of how to improve the lives of everyone with things that can be used by anyone, not just magically talented or rich people. Like power plants for electricity to light the streets for example, light magic is nice but not every family has a live-in family member with high light affinity. Revolutionising the guns used by the musketeers is another option but that is a very grey development. Yes, it will be used against Prime Beasts and make the common man and woman be able to deal with the low tier ones but it will also be used against other nations. I have to seriously consider this. Magic would be amazing as we never had it back on earth, but would being a mage be everything I want, or will I still tinker with everything anyway. Magic studies are a full time, every day, every night commitment. There is no time for side projects, sooo¡­ is there another option? Can I combine the 2, magical engineering? Engineering mage? Technomancer? Would I want to be limited in that way, where I can only work with something if its of a technological nature, especially in this world¡­ I think I can choose this later, need to see how this ADMINISTRATION works 1st. ¡°Excuse me, Hello, I am one of the assistants¡­ obviously¡­ Anyway, you seemed to be very deep in your thoughts, there is a queue over on the right near the wall that has the fewest members. If you would make your way there you should arrive just in time for the 1st child to register.¡± ¡°Ah! Th-Thank you, you scared me there suddenly appearing like that!¡± I exclaimed. Looking across the room I can see that I am one of the few people that did not rush off to the terminals. ¡°Thank you, sir¡­¡± I look around, he is gone! Super silent and a little creepy ¡­ okay a lot creepy. As I make my way over to the right side of the room I start to hear kids exclaiming about something, does it hurt? Or are they seeing something amazing? I remember all those games I played instead of studying back on earth, I wonder how close the ADMINISTRATION is going to be in comparison¡­ Are there going to be stats? How about talents? When I learn a skill from levelling, am I suddenly going to know how to perform it perfectly or will I need to practice and research? Bump! ¡°Ah sorry, I wasn¡¯t paying attention, you didn¡¯t run off to the terminals like everyone else, are you also thinking about what you want to be in the future?¡± I ask the girl. She is still sitting in your place, looking down and fidgeting with her skirt. She looks up as if to respond and as soon as she sees me drops her head again. She mumbles something at me but I can¡¯t make out what she is saying. Does she have social anxiety? But what does a child of 6 have to be anxious about? How about I try to get her out of her shell, its not like there is anything else to do right now instead of waiting in a queue.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°May I sit down?¡± I ask her. She looks up again and scoots slightly over the right making some more space on my side. Not sure I needed that space as there is no one else on this whole row but whatever. Once I am sitting I turn to her and ask ¡°So what do you think of the presenter? And the way she made it to the stage without anyone seeing her?¡± She looks at me briefly but drops her eyes again and continues to mumble. Wow this is going to be tough. I have nothing better to do at the moment, so I think I can just sit here and let her get used to being around me, maybe she will respond once she has calmed down. I wonder ¡­. ¡°Um ex-excuse me, h-how long are you g-going to sit there?¡± I suddenly hear a very quiet voice coming from my right. Ah is she finally used to me? How to handle this? We are both just kids so being friendly is the best way, shouldn¡¯t be any misunderstandings. ¡°Well, I am considering what I want to become in the future, trying to visualise my ideal self so that maybe the terminal will sense it and give me the Skills to get there.¡± I respond, ¡°Hi my name is Alexander and I am from this city, what is your name?¡± ¡°Um, m-my name is Rei, short for Alderei, I c-come from the s-south just for t-the ceremony. Please an-answer my q-question, how l-long are you g-going to sit there?¡± I hear a quiet response. ¡°Well I am thinking of going up to start queueing soon but I saw you sitting here all alone and thought maybe you could use a friend¡± Ahh there she goes bowing her head again, I think I ruined it. ¡°I think I will go to the queues now, it was a pleasure to meet you ¡°Alderei from the south¡±, I hope we meet again in the future.¡± As I walk off I can hear her fidgeting, is she trying to follow me? Turning my head, I sneak a peek, ah no, she has a snack¡­ was she hungry? Have I been keeping her from eating all this time? Maybe that¡¯s why she was still sitting there¡­ what a strange girl. As time goes past and I get closer to the front of the queue I can see that something Is going on with the terminals, are they glowing different colours? And what are those symbols? There seems to be an assistant writing things down too so there must be some visual aspect to the registration, or do they have a skill to see the registration details? Like Inspect or Detect or Libra maybe? Finally, after hours of waiting and fretting, maybe I should have gone up from the start, I could be out of here by now! |It is finally my turn. ¡°As a reminder, please step in front of the terminal and place both hands on the orb on top of the terminal. You will hear a slight tingle as the terminal scans you. Now please step forward.¡± I am instructed by an assistant. As I step forward I can feel the air start to tingle slightly. Once I place both my hands on the orb I do feel a slight tingle start from my hands and spread to the rest of my body. Wow this is a strange feeling, like all your nerves fell asleep and are now waking up at the same time. Suddenly, in front of my eyes I see a floating box! Its so surprising that I instinctively try to jump away from the terminal. My hands¡­ seem to be stuck to the terminal, that is a very strange sensation. Now let¡¯s have a look at this screen shall we.
Congratulations for your registration with the ADMINISTRATION
Name Alexander Derroid Race Human Age 6
Level 0 Experience to next 1000 Class Citizen
Available Classes N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Statistics (The base is calculated by scanning your body, mind and soul)
Constitution 12.33 Manipulation 11 Mind 15
Strength 12 Agility 13 Intelligence 15
Stamina 10 Dexterity 10 Wisdom 18
Vitality 15 Endurance 10 Concentration 12
Secondary statistics
Health Regeneration 1 per minute Mana Pool #ERROR
Stamina Regeneration 0.75 per minute Mana Regeneration #ERROR
An #ERROR has been identified in the Mana Pool
An #ERROR has been identified in the Mana Regen
Please wait¡­ Identifying ¡­ Calculating¡­ Resolving¡­ Done
Explanation of Error: The Mana Pool and the Mana Regen are calculated by the proximity of the soul to this time-space and multiplied by the Pool defined by the Mind statistics
Normally there is a 100% proximity of the soul. The calculation would therefore be as follows: 1*(15[intelligence]*10[points per statistic]) there by giving the registrant a total of 150 mana
The registrant¡¯s soul proximity is at 20%. This will limit the registrant to 0.2*(15*10) = 30 mana
The Mana Regen calculation is as follows: (Wisdom / Mana Pool) * 10 = Mana regen per minute
Therefore, user will have (18/30) *10 = 6 mana per minute
Recalculated statistics
Secondary statistics
Health Regeneration 1 per minute Mana Pool 30
Stamina Regeneration 0.75 per minute Mana Regeneration 6 per minute
Skills NB: There are 10 tiers in the Dot rank, 20 tiers in the Line rank and 30 tiers in the Triangle rank etc Everything starts at tier 0, Dot rank ends at tier 9, Line rank ends at tier 19 etc
Athletics Tier 3 Dot Sword Mastery Tier 2 Dot Shield Mastery Tier 2 Dot
Close Quarters Combat Tier 0 Dot Combat Instincts Tier 0 Dot Studying Tier 4 Line
Reading Tier 4 Line Foreighn Language Tier 0 Line Mathematics Tier 5 Line
Talents
High Concentration Tier 0 Dot Due to your natural intellect, you are able to understand and assimilate new concepts 10% faster Strong Mind Tier 0 Dot Due to your past experiences, sudden changes in the environment will no longer freeze your senses
Journals NB: Journal points come from various activities, levelling up your class, getting more skill levels and other hidden activities
Journal of the Newbie 0/10 Journal of Constitution 0/30 Journal of Manipulation 0/30
Journal of the Mind 0/30 Journal of the Tinker 0/25 Available Points 63
Affinities
Fire 20% Water 15% Earth 25% Air 10%
Arcane 10% Gravity 5% Time 1% Space 5%
Light 1% Dark 1%
"Sir, Sir? Are you done? Please move along with the othe kids to the viewing area, you can discuss your talents with you family members. They should be able to explain everything to you then" the assistant waves me to move away from the pedestal so another person can register. "Thank you, this is just so overwhelming that i got lost for a second." I called back as i walked towards the flow of kids leaving the hall. I hope dad will be able to shine some light into possible development and these odd journals. And what exactly is an affinity? Knowledge of the element? Ability to use the element? Do the elements have some kind of link to my emotions maybe? Too many questions and too few answers. WIth the issue on my mana pool, I might have to forgo offensive magic all together, can i create something like the muskets of this world to supplment the short comings? Well that is still at least 5 years from now, I have all the time in the world to find out. Chapter 4 | Skills and Stamina Up Slash ¨C Missed, Down Slash ¨C Blocked, step to the left and shield thrust ¨C heavily parried, Dodge back. We were both breathing hard, trying to feel how our passives improved our motion, aim, balance and the feeling of the weapons in our hands. Alexander was using a short sword and shield, and his opponent, he never got her name, used a heavy hammer. Heavy breathing, ¡°You are very good with that monster of yours, have you been training long?¡± Alexander asks the girl. ¡°My mother is a blacksmith,¡± breath in ¡°I have been helping her around the forge since I started walking.¡± breath out¡± You are not too bad yourself¡± breath in ¡°I wasn¡¯t expecting you to use a shield like that though, is your arm okay?¡± She responded while trying to catch her breath. ¡°HEY!!! YOU TWO IN THE MIDDLE, STOP TALKING AND GET BACK TO SPARRING! IF YOUR STAMINA IS ALREADY DRY I WILL HAVE YOU RUNNING FOR THE REST OF THE DAY!¡± they heard a shout from one of the instructors from our left. ¡°SIR! YES SIR! WE CAN CONTINUE SIR!¡± they instantly stand straight and shout back at the instructor. ¡°Round 3, are you ready?¡± Alexander asks the girl. ¡°Come at me¡± the girl replies. And so, they Sparred
An instructor in a military uniform paces in front of a truly massive group of people, but this is only a fraction of all the people getting this talk today. ¡°So, what have we learnt today about stamina and passive skill use?¡± he asks ¡°You over there with the blond hair¡± he points into the crowd. ¡°SIR! Passive skills use very little stamina as you use them. They actually reduce the expenditure if you have them than if you don¡¯t. I have dagger mastery and use about 50% more stamina than my regeneration. If I used a sword on the other hand my stamina pool will be gone in minutes. SIR!¡± a young girl from the crowd replies. It may not be the exact person the instructor pointed at but so long as he got a reply and a correct one at that there were no ¡­ consequences. ¡°Good! So, using a passive skill increases the duration you can fight. Correct. Using a weapon or performing an action you do not have a passive skill for drains your stamina faster. Strangely enough, unless you are a soldier, no one has a walking passive. Normal every day, non-productive actions do not have skills. Production, gathering and combat actions all have some kind of associated passive.¡± ¡°Now, can someone explain to me how one goes about gaining an active skill?¡± the instructor suddenly turns to the group asks. ¡°No one? Really not one of you knows? Either you are all very smart for your age or your parents really didn¡¯t tell you. Good¡­¡± He keeps looking around, trying to find the kids that are hiding their knowledge. ¡°I think some of you know and need to improve your poker faces. You will need to learn how to hide your emotions better if you want to be successful against Prime Beasts.¡± He continues ¡°So a passive skill is a Skill you gain by training or in other words, repeating the same actions over and over and over again. Correct?¡± he asks the whole crowd. ¡°Sir, YES SIR!¡± is the unanimous response. ¡°However, an Active Skill requires a little more work. There are 3 parts to it ¨C The image of the skill: How you wish it to look, and what it does. The will to succeed with it every single time and an expenditure of extra stamina.¡± A training dummy rises from the ground, to the right of the instructor, as if by magic. The instructor draws his sword and faces the dummy. ¡°For example, the following is a simple diagonal slash using just the passive skill. Notice the sharpness of the strike and its effects¡± He steps towards the dummy and slashes it from shoulder on one side to hip on the other. A deep cut is left in the dummy but nothing more. ¡°Now, as you can see, the dummy now has a shallow gash, this would normally not penetrate heavy armour and would normally be used more as a way to break the timing of the opponent.¡± He lowers his stance, and raises his sword in a two-handed grip next to his right ear. ¡°This is an Active Skill. Notice the differences in stance, build up, visual and the final effect.¡±Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. As his stance lowers, he looks a lot more solid, like no one can push him over and break his stance. The sword starts to shimmer slightly, the shimmer seems to extend from the edge and the tip slightly. Suddenly he moves! The sword follows the same arc as before but this time instead of a shallow cut, the dummy is cut in two and blown back half a meter. He strands back up and sheathes his sword. After turning to the crowd, he continues with the explanation. ¡°As you can see, an Active Skill takes time to enact. Time is needed to get the right stance, time is needed to materialise the very details of the image you use in your mind.¡± ¡°Now who can tell me the affect stamina has on your ability to fight?¡± he suddenly changes topics. ¡°How about you, brunette on the left in the 3rd row? Yes you, don¡¯t try to hide from answering, doing so will have everyone here doing 50 burpees.¡± ¡°sir, I do not know sir.¡± The brunette boy replies. ¡°Good nothing wrong with being honest, good thing you didn¡¯t try to lie or guess incorrectly, other wise you would be doing 100 press ups instead.¡± The instructor replies. ¡°Let me explain, as you may have noticed from your sparring, the effectiveness of your passive skills is reduced in relation to how much stamina you have remaining. So, for example, if your passive skill increases your effectiveness by 5% then when you have 100% stamina then you will also get all 5% of the passive. But if you only have 50% stamina, your passive effectiveness is only 2.5%.¡± ¡°There are talents that can reduce the loss of effectiveness of skills, increase regeneration or give extra points to your pool through raw pool or raw stat.¡± ¡°What does this mean in relation to Active Skills and your effectiveness in combat?¡± the instructor looks around, then points at the girl in front of him, ¡°You, you will answer this one as you seem to be very attentive.¡± ¡°Using an Active Skill drains stamina. So, if you can use an Active skill to attempt to win and then lose because your basic skill is too low. Active skills are not a cure all, they have to be used with care and in the correct circumstances.¡± the girl replies. The instructor stares at her and smiles, an evil smile. ¡°How very conversational of you. What is your name?¡± he asks her. ¡°Sir! Emile Sir!¡± ¡°Well then everyone, you can thank Emile here for this. Reach out with your hands around you, can you touch anyone else? No? Good, now you will drop to the ground in a press up position with one leg raised off the ground. As you do the press up you will extend that leg and as you rise back up you will bring your knee as close to your chest as you can. You will do 30 of them on each side. BEGIN!¡± Once everyone is done with the assigned torture and standing recovering the instructor continues with the lecture. ¡°Finally, before I let you go back to your Mommies and Daddies. We need to talk about journals. The journals are a way for you to develop yourself in the direction desired. Once you have chosen a direction and fulfilled the minimum requirements to step onto that path, they will be automatically available to you from the ADMINS.¡± He continues ¡°Anyone can change paths, but they will have to start at the beginning Journal of that path. So for example, some of you, those extremely lucky or talented will have a journal for blacksmithing, or combat or something else. This is the path you have qualified to follow now. You do not need to finish one path before starting another as there is no end to the possible journals. But they will be much harder to finish with every tier. ¡° ¡°You will all now open your statuses and put 10 points into the Journal of the Newbie.¡± He looks around with a scowl. ¡°I said now!¡± Everyone jolts out of their stupor and opens their statuses. They open the journal window and enter 10 points into the Journal of the Newbie. Alexander looks around, he has been following the explanations so far and attempting to fit all the pieces together. If Active Skills are so costly, how do the instructors get away with performing them so much? Is there a trick to reducing their costs? Something to do with the images used or the level of the skill maybe? He flips over to the Journal window and puts 10 points into Journal of the Newbie. +1 Increase Stamina by 1 +1 Increase Strength by 1 +1 Increase Vitality by 1 +1 Increase Endurance by 1 +1 Increase Agility by 1 +1 Increase Dexterity by 1 +1 Increase Intelligence by 1 +1 Increase Wisdom by 1 +1 Increase Concentration by 1 The final point finishes the Journal: You feel stronger and less of a Newbie, all experience gains are increased by 1%. ¡°This is the end for today but the beginning for your future. There are more mechanics to learn but you will not be taught them here but in your units in the future, out in the world or by your families! DISMISSED!¡± Chapter 5 | Choosing a Craft The sun was just rising over the peaks of the buildings as Talina and her son Alexander made their way into the Production sector of the city. There were blacksmiths on every corner, tailors, fletchers, carpenters, rune crafters, tinkers everywhere. There were so many different people adverting so many different things that it¡¯s had to classify them. There are so many skills, so many possibilities here, this is the reason Alexander hasn¡¯t started any of his projects. He needed to know the common sense of this world, and the best time to acquire it is after the registration. ¡°Alexander, you now have a choice, you need to go around and find a master to apprentice with. Find one that suits you best.¡± Talina explains, ¡°this is all for your own good. You can¡¯t make a future for yourself without some kind of crafting skill. No one can kill all their life, everyone has to have a pastime, a hobby a retirement.¡± ¡°I can see that mom, given my stats and the potential to actually use magic I would like something that I could use to supplement my physical abilities for the future. Can you give any advice?¡± Alexander looks up and asks his mother. ¡°Well you are not strong enough to be a blacksmith quite yet, kids that start so soon are generally from crafting families unlike us, the combat families.¡± She continues with her right hand propped on her hip, ¡°I would suggest something that you can use to alter existing equipment to give the affects you are looking for. You will need affinities above 60 to power most things, but you are pretty smart. I am sure you can think of something.¡± Alexander looks down at the ground and thinks a while, ¡°Firstly, I think we are blocking the road, I know you are THE ¡°Blood Tyrant¡± but we can still be polite right?¡± Talina looks at her son, shakes her head and moves to the side of the path to let the people trying to go unnoticed by. ¡°Secondly, can you tell me what professions the rest of you have already? Maybe I can help diversify the family at the same time.¡± Talina rubs her chin, ¡°Well¡­ As you must be aware by now, I am a mage with very high water, fire and air affinities. With 3 fields of study I really don¡¯t have time for a production profession too so I never took one. I did find that being able to enchant professionally would have saved me a lot of trouble, but the army has one in every platoon so not always an issue.¡± ¡°Your father¡­ well your father is an Alchemist, he uses Beast parts and cores for his creations. It¡¯s a good source of income but he has never sold anything, something to do with his class I believe. Arturia is a Leatherworker and Blacksmith and Abrail is a carpenter and fletcher. You will be seeing them again soon too. Its been a while hasn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°Yes, almost 6 months, he started at the Academy, didn¡¯t he? And Arturia is about to graduate too. I wonder how she is doing¡­¡± I say pensively. ¡°Anyway, that sounds like some good coverage. Can tailors make anything other than cloths?¡± ¡°She has to go on her graduation hunt into the Beast Lands first, then they will graduate, but don¡¯t look so worried, they will be tracked by their instructors. Its not too dangerous, and if something happens, then the army will deal with it! She will be fine¡± she says reassuringly, ¡°It¡¯s your brother I am more worried about. I hope his archery-based magic was accepted by the professors. I know how hard he trained it.¡± Alexander thought for a second about everything his siblings are going through right now and committed himself to catch up with them as quickly as possible! I wonder what Abrail¡¯s stats are like, how much do I have to do to catch up with him, never mind Arturia, but I will catch up and surpass them both, even if my magic is sorely gimped. The family has a nice coverage of trade skills already, we have a blacksmith, leatherworker, carpenter and fletcher¡­ and dad is even an alchemist. So, if I am going to take something that diversifies the family and can supplement my physical skills¡­ For now, I am going to start with rune crafting, I need something that can take the place of batteries or some kind of mobile power source but I can ask around for that. For now, Alexander was set, he needed to find a rune crafter and try to find an apprenticeship that allows him some freedom to pursue other interests too. He looks up to his patiently waiting mother and smiles. ¡°Okay I have decided to start as a rune crafter. I am also looking for something special but I think I can find that on my own mom. Do you know who we can ask, who do you use for your enchanting?¡± Alexander asks ¡°Well, we had people in our platoons as I said before, and since then I have been going to them too so can¡¯t really help you there. But I seem to remember one of them became a civilian a couple of years ago¡­ maybe she can help you. Let¡¯s go, we are looking for Artificer Wendy¡¯s shop. Keep close Alex¡± Talina chooses a direction deeper into the sector and they start threading their way through the street. There are blacksmiths making swords, tinkers working on clocks, punch daggers and hidden weapons, there are tailors making dresses and cloaks, leatherworkers tanning belts and hardened leather armour and rune crafters with rulers, protractors and compasses performing what looks like calculations to align some kind of symbols. Hmmm rune crafting seems to be a very good fit actually. ¡°Ahh where did she put her store? I always meant to check on her but never had the time.¡± Talina stops a passer by and asks ¡°Can you tell me where Artificer Wendy has her workshop at?¡± The passer-by blanches after hearing the name and points further down the street. ¡°If you would follow the road until you see the red alchemist, her store is just around the corner. Ma¡¯am if you don¡¯t mind some advice, take your son to another rune crafter. Wendy doesn¡¯t have apprentices for a reason, she piles them with books and tell them to learn alone¡­ the last one almost lost a hand, thank god his vitality was high enough otherwise¡­.¡± ¡°Thank you, she is still her usually self then?¡± Talina thanks the man and whispers under her breath. ¡°Did you hear that Alex, are you sure you want to go to Wendy¡¯s? Maybe someone more hands on will be better for you?¡± Talina asksIf you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Alexander is actually excited after hearing that he will be able to study on his own. This plays perfectly into his wish to experiment a little¡­ well a lot. ¡°No mom, she sounds perfect. And you know that I like to read so there shouldn¡¯t be a problem. With you are dad around, if I am trying anything too dangerous, I can always hide behind the famous Blood Tyrant, your vitality should be more than enough!¡± Alex responds excitedly. ¡°The¡­ The Blood Tyrant did you say? Um, apologies Lady, I didn¡¯t mean to tell one such as you your business, please excuse me¡± the man is shocked even further, what has he got himself into, why would THE Blood Tyrant stop him on the street? What did he do to get such bad luck? He quickly turns and escapes into the flow of the masses like a salmon in a stream. Well that was odd¡­ I need to find out who my mom is in relation to the kingdom, I can¡¯t stay ignorant for ever. But 1st let¡¯s see Wendy. Alex tugs on his mother¡¯s hand and insists ¡°Lets go mom, Wendy sounds great and maybe I can ask her some questions too!¡± Talina sighs with resignation after that encounter ¡°Okay, okay Alex, stop pulling or you will hurt yourself, lets go we are almost there. I will introduce you and you can convince Wendy on your own while I go check out those cooks. Something smells tasty and its about time we ate.¡± When they finally walk up to the correct building Alexander is surprised, from the outside it looks completely normal but inside it¡¯s completely different. Through the windows it looks like snow is falling¡­ INSIDE the building. Not only that, but there are also swords and daggers floating around, that¡¯s a broom in the corner keeping the floor clean. Wow! This is a world of magic and sorcery, I keep forgetting as its not often used around town, most people don¡¯t have enough control and only really learn offensive spell. Sure, there is construction and its really fast but I am from a world where a 3 story building is common place and not something created only with magic. As they walk into Wendy¡¯s, Alex expected it to be cold as there is snow falling, but it¡¯s nice and pleasant. Is the weather effect controlled somehow or buffered from the rest of the area? Maybe an illusion? Talina looks around but there is no one in the shop. ¡°Tch, who leaves their store unattended like this, anyone could come in and steal everything!¡± Talina states acidly. Suddenly all the weapons that seem to be floating to display their rune work shift to point at Talina, and I am not talking about 5 or 6 but all of them, from every wall and even the broom! ¡°Calm down everyone, I know this one, you don¡¯t need to be so murderous. So, Mrs Blood Tyrant, what can I do for you today?¡± A woman comes out of the back with her head in a book. She has what looks like a white lab coat on with ink stains all over it, there are holes around the hems too. Rune crafting must be messy!!! Talina scowls at the woman, ¡°Wendy, how many times have I said that I don¡¯t like that name. Just call me Talina, or if you really want to give me a title then Talina of the Mists please. Now I am here about my son Alexander apprenticing with you. Can you tell me what you need?¡± Wendy looks at Alexander and considers, ¡°Well my last apprentice quit after almost losing a hand, if you didn¡¯t lose it then what¡¯s the problem, wimp. I hope your kid is not going to be like that too¡­ As for payment? The Rune guild requires all practitioners to have apprentices at all times, the 1st one is free but I get to charge for any after. So, you are in luck.¡± ¡°Okay, Alex, I am going to go find some food, you stay here and get to know Wendy. I hope she can help you with everything you need¡­ Isn¡¯t that correct?¡± Talina arches and eye brow at Wendy before turning away and walking out of the building. Wendy watches as Talina exits the building and then looks back at Alex, ¡°Okay young man, please tell me why you want to be a rune crafter and not a knight or a mage. Normally kids your age, in their 1st year of apprenticeship are kicking and screaming to go practice their skills and level their combat with their friends, but here you are with a gleam in your eyes¡­¡± Damn she is smart! I have to be really careful here or she will notice I am not everything I look like from the outside. Carefully now, carefully. ¡°Master Wendy, I am looking to add some extra oomph to my physical arsenal and rune crafting seems to be the best way for now and in the future. As you can see my mother is Talina, and I am sure she will be expecting some very scary things from me any time now. I do not wish to disappoint her, as you know, no one disappoints her more than once.¡± He starts out tentatively. ¡°That is true, what exactly are you looking for though? Shooting fire out of your sword? Flying? Invisible shield? Those things need years and years of work and levels to get. You won¡¯t be getting it before you magic develops and then it won¡¯t be needed unless you want to make siege weapons.¡± ¡°Well my mana pool and magic affinities are not high enough to be a mage, I am not saying my intelligence stat is low or I am naturally stupid, there is something wrong with my body and my dad is looking into it¡± That¡¯s a lie but I really hope she doesn¡¯t ask mom or dad about it. ¡°For now, I want to add a small lightning affect to my weapons to stun my enemies to give me openings to strike. I don¡¯t need such amazing ranged attacks quite yet, and I think I can come up with alternatives for spells before I am 12. Maybe that will also give me an advantage at the academy.¡± Wendy looks down at Alexander and considers his reasons. Its not like she will say no unless he wants to create a bomb, but its always good to start off those apprentice/master relationships with the correct relationship. ¡°Your mana pool and affinities are too low to become a mage? Well that can come with more stats and the right journals I guess. Okay you are tentatively accepted; w5hat level is your Research and Reading Skills?¡± she asks ¡°My reading skill is Tier 4 Line but I don¡¯t have the Research skill. My Studying Skill is Tier 4 Line too though, if that helps.¡± Alexander replies. ¡°Well I guess it will do,¡± she walks back behind her counter to a book shelf and picks out 5 books from the bottom shelf, ¡°You have 1 week to read all of these books, they are the basics of the 4 basic elements and the fifth book is the application of that knowledge to Rune Crafting. I hope your Mathematics and Drawing Skills are at least Line Rank or you will not have a good time.¡± Alexander grimaced, he has had no need for drawing but he should have considered it before. Ah what a misstep. ¡°I can see by your face that you don¡¯t have one of those skills. Well so long as your Mathematics is good even if you don¡¯t have a skill for it you will be fine. Now off you go, your mother is waiting outside for us to finish. Talina of the Mists my ass ¨C Ha!¡± As Alexander walks out of the shop he is greeted by his mother with a couple of skewers of meat extended toward him. ¡°Everything okay, did she let you become her apprentice? What are those books? Do you need help carrying them?¡± Talina questioned her son. ¡°Mom, thank you for the food! Yes! Wendy gave me a week to study these books but I think I can be done in less time than that and spend the rest of the time drawing. I don¡¯t have that skill yet, thought it wouldn¡¯t be a skill though considering ¡­.¡± Alex replied. Talina covered her mouth and tried not to laugh, ¡°No drawing is not a real skill though there are some classes later that can develop it into a skill. They need materials and lots of mana to do anything with it though.¡± ¡°Is there anything else you need here Alex or can we go home. Oh, give 3 of the thicker books too, don¡¯t want to make people think I am a slave driver or anything.¡± She says while laughing to herself. ¡°Well I would like to get one more thing but it can wait, maybe the books will give me the information I need, and if not a subsequent visit to Master will do. ¡°Ehh calling Wendy Master already, is my little baby in love?¡± ¡°Mooom, stop that, I am not in love with Wendy, I am being respectful, stop making such a scene, people are looking!¡± Chapter 6 | Elemental Core ¡°Master? Master? Are you in there? Please open the door! I have your books!¡± Alexander shouted through the door of Wendy¡¯s shop. ¡°Quite down, who let you call me master, you will ruin my reputation if you think I already accepted you. You will need to do much more than just read a little!¡± Wendy shouted from inside the shop ¡°Please open the door Miss Wendy, I finished your books and its been a week already!¡± Alexander shouted back ¡°Hold your horses, I am coming, I am coming.¡± Wendy walks over to the door and start to open it. ¡°Hey don¡¯t push on the door, my security wards see you are an intruder, and we don¡¯t want anything bad to happen to you, do we?¡± ¡°Ah, sorry yes, you are right, that would be a bad idea. I am just so excited about learning to enchant!¡± ¡°Keep quiet, people are still sleeping for light¡¯s sake. Now come in and put the books on the counter then come into the back.¡± Wendy called behind her as she made her way into her work room. ¡°Miss Wendy, Miss Wendy, the books you gave me were very interesting! Who knew that the air all around us is made up from a multitude of gases that each weight different amounts and that we have to take that into consideration. Or that the earth is actually made up of many, many, many little granules and a mixture of different materials! They were amazing! But the best was the last b¡­¡± Alexander gushed at Wendy. ¡°Calm down, calm down, we will get to that later. First of all, let me get some tea. Its too early for this.¡± She walks into her kitchen and Alex hears water start to boil. While Wendy is preparing her team, Alex is looking at all the equipment that Wendy has in her work room, there is some kind of luminescent ink, what looks like paint brushes, chisels and carving knives, protractors and compasses. So many mundane things that turn into all those amazing enchants! ¡°Okayy, that¡¯s gooood, still too early for this but what can you do with such excited apprentices¡­¡± Wendy sighed to herself. ¡°Okay so tell me what you know about the Elements and how they can be made to enchant a piece of equipment or mineral.¡± Alexander stops gawking and centres himself. ¡°To begin with, the elements are not actually that. They are forces of nature that have gained power through the suffusion of mana. So, each element can be further subdivided into more constituent parts, or can be combined with another to create a different effect. For example, Fire gives an offensive enchant that will burn the target on contact, and Earth is a solid enchant to increase resilience of the durability of the item. These two can be combined to provide an effect where it will return some of the damage when getting hit.¡± Alexander steps closer to a blackboard attached to one of the walls. ¡°Master, may I have some chalk and use this wall to illustrate please?¡± Alexander walks to one of the walls not covered by clutter. ¡°Don¡¯t call me Master yet, you haven¡¯t passed, yes you can use it, just don¡¯t run anything out, I need that diagram for a client.¡± ¡°Thank you, Miss Wendy, as I was saying: Air can be refined and concentrated into lightning, this is not mixing the element with something else but extracting an aspect of the element. In this case it¡¯s the negative charge.¡± Alexander continues drawing on the board. Wendy nods her head and asks: ¡°Okay, what happens when you combine all 4 basic elements together?¡± ¡°The books said that there is a marked increase in instability of the enchant when one combines elements and when one refines elements too. So, for me, combining all 4 basic elements will result in a big explosion probably.¡± ¡°Good at least you managed to work that out without having the need to try it, the last apprentice to try that stunt almost lost his hand in the process, if I didn¡¯t come in at the end to shield him, he would have lost his head instead¡­ Please say any advertising is good adverting but some things you just really don¡¯t want to be known for.¡± Wendy finishes. She walks over to an almost clean workbench and picks up a small bracelet. ¡°Here look at this, and don¡¯t break it, it¡¯s a commission. What can you tell me about this bracelet?¡± Wendy passes the bracelet to Alexander. He brings it closer to his eyes and starts to concentrate.
Bracelet of Minor Elemental Wisdom
Bracelet made by Master Artificer Wendy +2 Wisdom +2 Intellect
Triangle Rank Uncommon Wood
¡°Miss Wendy, this is a bracelet of Minor Elemental Wisdom. It gives + 2 to wisdom and intellect, is of Triangle rank and of Uncommon quality.¡± Alex walks over to a work bench, looks around, the drags a box closer so he can comfortably see over the top. He pulls out a magnifying glass to see the inscriptions. ¡°It looks like the main inscriptions are of water and one other I cannot identify. They are in a chain that loops so that must have some kind of significance but I do not know what it maybe.¡± ¡°Good, using the ADMINS and the tools around you, you are not as dumb as you appear.¡± She takes the bracelet away and hands Alexander the blueprint of the enchantment and the broken-down symbols. ¡°As you can see on the diagram, you were correct about the Water Element being used, and the symbol you could not identify was a refinement of water. When they are in a repeating chain, instead of providing an elemental effect, they provide statistics instead.¡± She explains and continues before Alexander can jump in, ¡°No you can¡¯t keep adding Element symbols to the bracelet to increase stats because of the instability. Adding more of the same symbol only increases the efficiency of the binding to the user instead of the efficiency of the effect.¡± ¡°Miss Wendy, what is this binding you speak of and why would having a higher efficiency of the binding be beneficial, why would anyone do that?¡± Alexander asks perplexed. ¡°Well think about it this way. This bracelet on its own is worth 1 gold marks as it provides stats instead of just elemental effect. That is a lot of money for beginners and let¡¯s be honest, only beginners will be using this kind of equipment. The army provides much better stuff and the enchants are of a higher quality too.¡± Wendy takes a sip of her tea to wet her throat before continuing, ¡°If you have something like this you don¡¯t want it to be stolen right as it cost you a lot of money. Or you have a very powerful item that you don¡¯t want someone to steal. Well the more efficient the binding the more time you have to appeal to the ADMIN to return said item to you in the event of theft or loss.¡± ¡°Wait, wait, wait, by return, do you mean like a teleport, or do they send animals to find you? Do the ADMINS have magic mail or something?¡± Alexander asks excitedly, I didn¡¯t think they had something like this! This world is amazing! ¡°Te-le-port, that¡¯s not a word I have heard before, but I get the gist of it. The ADMINS can translocate items or people at will. We don¡¯t know how they do it, but so long as you have the correct terminal you can go almost to any other terminal that its connected to. I hear the Royal Family has one connected to their estates and the university, just in case they need to escape or beat back a Beast assault.¡± She takes another sip ¡°Enough of that lets continue. You see the number of loops that are on the inscription? Each small loop is 10 minutes, so 6 small loops make up an hour and 12 small loops make up a medium loop. 24 medium loops make up a large one. How much time does a single large loop bind the item for then?¡± She finally asks ¡°If a medium loop is 2 hours and there are 24 of them in a large loop then¡­ the large loop will bind the item for 48 hours or 2 days total.¡± Alexander replies after a slight hesitation. ¡°Good your mental arithmetic could use some work but that comes with practice, don¡¯t worry you will get a lot of practice here.¡± Wendy praises Alexander ¡°So, 1 large loop is 2 days, some items are large enough to have multiple large loops but generally if you haven¡¯t noticed that something is missing after 2 days then you didn¡¯t really need it that much now did you?¡± She takes a sip of her tea, ¡°Now how many loops are on the bracelet, you should be able to see it with you own eyes, don¡¯t need a magnifying glass for this.¡± ¡°Um, there looks to be¡­ 3 ... 4 ¡­ 5 ¡­ 6 ¡­ 12 medium loops on this blueprint.¡± Alexander answers. ¡°Good, now take the bracelet and put some of your mana into it. Each small loop takes 50 mana, at your level you should have 100 mana at least so you should be able to fill this up to 20 minutes and then trickle charge the rest quite easily, and this will train your mana pool too.¡± Wendy hands the bracelet to Alexander. ¡°Um Miss Wendy, remember I told you about my mana pool issues, it¡¯s unfortunate that I won¡¯t be able to charge up at all them minim requirement is greater than what is available to me.¡± ¡°Ah yes you did mention something like that, but I didn¡¯t think is was so severe. Okay let me see, where did I put it.¡± Wendy starts rummaging on another workbench ¡°Ah! Here it is, just the one I was looking for too.¡± She walks back over to Alexander and hands him a small blue stone. ¡°Take this in your hand and put it between your hand and the bracelet. Then when you are ready, channel your mana through the water core.¡± He was instructed. Alexander studied the tiny pebble the size of his pinkie fingernail.
Basic Water Elemental Core
This is a basic water elemental core. It converts provided mana into the water element. It will release a total of 250 mana at a rate of 1:2 before it needs to be recharged.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Recharge time 2 hours Current total = 250
Alexander studied the tiny pebble the size of his pinkie fingernail. This should be just enough to charge 1 small loop. Alexander places the stone between the bracelet and his hand and channels his mana through the stone. A single small loop worth 10 minutes lights up and Alexander is already spent. ¡°Wow hold on there, I didn¡¯t think it would be that bad, are you out of mana already? You need to work on that intellect or complete the Mind journal and soon or you won¡¯t be able to bind anything good. This bind cost was only 50 because of the material. Higher grade Materials cost more mana per loop!¡± Wendy grabs a hold of Alexander¡¯s should to keep him standing and gives him some of her tea, ¡°This should help clear your mind a little and increase your regeneration slightly¡± ¡°Sorry Miss Wendy, I haven¡¯t been completely out of mana yet, this is a very new feeling for me¡± Alexander apologises. ¡°I cant believe that, I thought you would practice after reading the books and get your hand blown off and I would be done with you, what stopped you?¡± ¡°Well, to tell you the truth, it was my mom. She walked in on me when I was about to combine 2 elements to see what would happen and forbade me from doing any more experiments ¡­¡± ¡°Hahaha,¡± she laughed out loud, ¡°I should have expected it, damn kids, no respect. SO what elements did you try to combine?¡± ¡°Well I was thinking of getting lightning by combining two mirror images of air¡­ ¡° ¡°Oh light, thank the light Talina stopped you, combining reversed symbols can lead to very random results. I have seen someone combine 2 negative earth elements to make earth enchants fail and instead they revered gravity around themselves and came down 30 seconds later in a big splat. That was not a good day.¡± No, until you are much older, under supervision by me or another master and are in a specially prepared room, do not attempted to combine reversed symbols. By the way, that is not how you refine a symbol anyway. We will get to that later anyway.¡± She took her cup of tea back and drained it. ¡°Ok come over here, your head should be much better now and so must your balance, grip your sword if you need the assistance of your passive skills,¡± Alexander¡¯s eye went round like dinner plates from that realisation, ¡°Yes, that¡¯s right, not many of your young-uns know about this but it can work like that too.¡± ¡°Okay, you see this shield here, this is my shield for when I need to find a reagent or a core to help enchant. Can you tell what is special about it?¡± She asks ¡°Well it¡¯s a very nice shield and the glow is very interesting too. Wait are those the small loops? I don¡¯t see any large loops, are you okay with only 6 hours of binding on such a shield?¡± Alex asks ¡°You got it almost right, the small loops are actually the medium loops, they are made up of the small loops and are too small to see with the light they emit. As you can see, the thing most people mistake for a glow of the elemental imbuement¡¯s power is actually the duration of the binding. The more densely packed the loops are, the harder it is for a thief to see the duration left and you can also tell the fakes and the genuine articles apart.¡± ¡°Miss Wendy, is it safe to assume that the colour of the enchantments still has something to do with the elements used in the enchanting? For example, this bracelet is glowing a pale blue, while your shield is a very bright crimson.¡± Alexander asks. ¡°Yes, you are correct in that, the colour of the binding enchantment does tell the nature of the enchantment on the item, the brightness and the colour variant does help a lot. But remember the enchant does not glow because it is active but the binding is the thing that glows. Some people will give their items one enchant and will then layer a binding enchant using completely different elemental symbols to confuse and obfuscate their items and give themselves an advantage.¡± Wendy walks over to another bookshelf in your workroom and pulls down 3 books. ¡°Enough for today, you will read these 3 books and use what you learn from them to create a blueprint for a ring that increases stamina by 1. Now off with you!¡± Alexander takes the books from Wendy and puts 2 of them in his backpack, the last he carries in his arms. ¡°Yes Miss Wendy, but before I go, can you tell me if I passed your test?¡± Alexander asks. Wendy sighs and says something about stupid children and for the light to give her patience under her breath and replies, ¡°You have another assignment, I wouldn¡¯t have given you this one if you did not pass the last. You can¡¯t call me master until you can create an enchantment and gain the Rune Crafter path. For now, just do what it assigned, it will come eventually.¡± Wendy replies with resignation. ¡°And remember to fill in your Journal of the Mind, everyone gets it when they register so you must have it already. The after effects can be strange so do it at home with someone supervising.¡± ¡°Ah one last thing before I get going Miss Wendy. Where did you get that water core? Is it from a Beast?¡± ¡°Oh no these basic cores come from Line tier elementals, Beasts cores are of a much higher grade! Now run along¡± Wendy waves goodbye at Alexander as he walks out of the door, ¡°That boy will be the death of me, from over exertion if anything.¡±
¡°Mom, Dad? I am home!¡± Alexander calls into the hallway as he takes off his shoes. ¡°Well don¡¯t just stand there, get in here and tell us how you did on your 1st day!¡± his dad calls back. As Alexander walks into the living room he sees his parents sitting together. His mom head was lying on his dad¡¯s lap and they were each reading something complicated, He couldn¡¯t quite see the titles. ¡°It went well, I learnt a lot and was given another assignment! She also told me that I really need to do the mind Journal or I just won¡¯t have enough mana to do anything, even bind items.¡± Alexander explained. ¡°Ah the mind, do you remember what that was like? Okay sit there on the floor in a meditative position, we will watch.¡± Alexander looked at his status and saw the following:
STATUS
Name Alexander Derroit Race Human Age 6
Level 0 Experience to next level 1000 Class Citizen
Available Classes None
Statistics
Constitution 14.33 Manipulation 13 Mind 17
Strength 14 Agility 15 Intelligence 18
Vitality 12 Dexterity 12 Wisdom 19
Stamina 17 Endurance 12 Concentration 14
Secondary Statistics
Health Regen 1 per minute Free stat points 0 Mana Pool 36
Stamina Regen 0.8 per minute Mana Regen 5.28 per minute
After the last week and a bit since registration, every single stat has gone up by one. I will need to work to balance my mana pool and my mana regeneration but that will take some effort. I need to raise my Wisdom while not raising my intelligence. That will be a hard balance to keep. My skills have also improved a little, so that should keep a nice overhead of journal points in case of emergency
Skills
Athletics Tier 5 Dot (+2) Sword Mastery Tier 3 Dot (+1) Shield Mastery Tier 3 Dot (+1)
Close Quarters Combat Tier 1 Dot (+1) Combat Instincts Tier 1 Dot (+1) Studying Tier 6 Line (+2)
Reading Tier 5 Line (+1) Language Comprehension Tier 0 Line Mathematics Tier 5 Line
Talents
High Comprehension Tier 1 Dot (+1) Due to your intellect being so naturally high, you are able to understand and assimilate new concepts 10.1% faster Strong Mind Tier 0 Dot Due to your past experiences, sudden changes in the environment will no longer freeze your sense
Journals
Journal of the Mind 0/30 Journal of Manipulation 0/30 Journal of Constitution 0/30
Journal of the Tinkerer 0/25 Unused Points 53 (+10)
My skills have also improved a little, so that should keep a nice overhead of journal points in case of emergency Hmmm seems all that training paid off with a few skill levels. There are no new active of passive skills though which is a shame, I should someone get more weapon skills in there just in case I don¡¯t have a choice, stamina is very important. ¡°I am going to put them in now. Be ready¡± Alexander tells his parents and puts in the 1st points +1 Intelligence +1 Wisdom +1 Concentration +0.05 to passive mana regeneration Oh, that¡¯s a nice surprise +10 to mana pool #ERROR mana pool calculation applies ¨C 0.2 *10 = 2 extra mana +1 Intelligence +1 Wisdom +1 Concentration +0.05 to passive mana regeneration +0.1 to passive mana regeneration +1 Intelligence +1 Wisdom +1 Concentration +0.05 to passive mana regeneration +10 to mana pool #ERROR mana pool calculation applies ¨C 0.2 *10 = 2 extra mana +1 Intelligence +1 Wisdom +1 Concentration +0.05 to passive mana regeneration +0.1 to passive mana regeneration +1 Intelligence +1 Wisdom +1 Concentration +0.05 to passive mana regeneration +10 to mana pool #ERROR mana pool calculation applies ¨C 0.2 *10 = 2 extra mana +1 Intelligence +1 Wisdom +1 Concentration +0.05 to passive mana regeneration +5 free stats You have started on the path of the mind, your horizons have been expanded, your senses have become more acute, your mind works faster and your memory has become better. Your mana pool has broken its barrier and strengthened your mana channels, calculate regeneration as if you had 5 more wisdom. Mana pool will need time to recover: Countdown 23:59:59 #ERROR: Due to soul mismatch, mana pool limit has not been broken, any benefits have been removed. Mana pool recovery timer has been shut down as not applicable. Alexander tried to open his eyes, but the light that was fine before now momentarily blinded him, he can smell the food that is in the oven and the sweat on him cloths from carrying those books home. He can hear the birds chirping outside as if the windows were open, his cloths are suddenly too rough! ¡°Calm down Alex, this is normal, you are in sensory overload. Close your eyes and try to meditate on each sense to tone them down. Start with your sense of touch as it is the most irritating I am sure.¡± Alexander gets back into the lotus position and concentrates on removing distractions from his overloaded senses. ¡°Each time you complete a compound statistic Journal, you will experience something similar. For the Constitution, all your muscles spasm as they suddenly become much more effective, some people break bones if their stamina and vitality is not high enough. And the Manipulation journal makes it impossible to pick anything up as your hands, joints and motor control do not respond to your brain in the same way as they used to.¡± ¡°Your problem with the mana pool is actually a benefit in times like this as people that break the 200 mana limit also experience great pain at the same time as their perception is overloaded. That is not a fun day¡± Updated Statistics:
STATUS
Name Alexander Derroit Race Human Age 6
Level 0 Experience to next level 1000 Class Citizen
Available Classes None
Statistics
Constitution 14.33 Manipulation 13 Mind 23
Strength 14 Agility 15 Intelligence 24
Vitality 12 Dexterity 12 Wisdom 25
Stamina 17 Endurance 12 Concentration 20
Secondary Statistics
Health Regen 1 per minute Free stat points 5 Mana Pool 48 (+6)
Stamina Regen 0.8 per minute Mana Regen 8.93 (+0.5) per minute
Chapter 7 | Field Trip Begins ¡°Hey Alexander! Stop tinkering with that sword and come see this! You can already see the camp!¡± Stefan points excitedly out of the front of the carriage. ¡°Hey! Alexander! Hey! Stop ignoring me!¡± ¡°I heard you the first time, calm down. Do you really think its necessary though? I was going to learn how to combine elements next but this came out of nowhere¡­¡± Alex responds. ¡°They do this every year, we were told after registration remember? Supposedly it¡¯s to learn about the world outside the walled cities, camping and the basics of military service post university.¡± Stefan continues. ¡°Its supposed to be perfectly safe and routine but my older brother did warn me to be on guard just in case. This area is not completely safe is it?¡± Ah, so this is a test of some kind¡­ maybe preparedness or teaching us to stay on guard even in ¡°safe¡± places? Hhmmm¡­ Alexander rubs his chin and replies, ¡°No its not safe, we won¡¯t be seeing any Prime Beasts but I am sure there are some Beasts anyway. Keep your weapons with you at all times, even when you go to the toilet.¡± He warned ¡°Oh, the toilet! How are we going to do that? In a hole dug in the ground or something? That¡¯s, that¡¯s just so wrong, we have magic for light¡¯s sake but have to do our business into holes in the forest¡­ I want to go home¡± Stefan whines to everyone around him. Alex sighs audibly, why was he friends with this guy again? Now back to my sword, finally with Wendy¡¯s help I have a decent prototype. The first one exploded, luckily still in Wendy¡¯s shop so not too much damage, the second was too inefficient but finally I have a usable one:
Short Sword of Minor Sharpness
A common sword made by a blacksmith of Rodium. Enchantments done by apprentice Alexander Derroid +1 Agility +1 Sharpness Active Effect: When 100 mana is supplied, a thin sheen of wind surrounds the weapon. This increases the reach of the sword by 5 cm. The extra reach acts in the same way as the base weapon.
Uncommon Tier 0 Line weapon Uncommon Tier 1 enchantment Iron Binding expires in 6 hours 20 minutes Basic Elemental Core charge: 180/250
The sharpness enchantment was done by chaining wind symbols together along the edge of the blade and the extra statistic enchant was placed on the handle. The hardest was getting the active skill enchant to be charged from the basic elemental core in the grip and then to lead it to the blade. Wendy ended up doing that one, seems there are transference symbols too not just elemental ones. Still 100 mana is a lot, I have been practicing with the active effect every time the core regenerates fully. How big is my mana pool now?
STATUS
Name Alexander Derroid Race Human Age 6
Level 0 Experience to next level 1000 Class Citizen
Available Classes None
Statistics
Constitution 14.33 Manipulation 13 Mind 24
Strength 16 (+2) Agility 15 (+1) Intelligence 26 (+2)
Vitality 12 (+1) Dexterity 12 (+1) Wisdom 25
Stamina 17 (+1) Endurance 12 (+1) Concentration 21 (+1)
Secondary Statistics
Health Regeneration 1.2 per minute Free Stats Mana Pool 52
Stamina Regeneration 0.85 per minute Mana Regeneration 4.8 (+0.5) per minute
At a ratio of 2 to 1 I can use the active effect once before having to recharge for 10 minutes and 24 seconds. If I have to use it, I have to make sure it¡¯s a sure kill too! I need to start on another mind journal but Wendy has recommended to save my points for the first tier of rune crafting as it will give me something useful. ¡°Adults¡± and all their secrets, humpf! ¡°Okay everyone, we have arrived at the camp site, get out of your carriage and then clean it up! They will be carrying timbers back and at this point in your training, the wood is more important than you are!¡± A shout comes from the head of the convoy.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! ¡°You heard him Alex, lets do this¡­¡± Stefan grumbles to himself as he starts cleaning up.
¡°Okay you lazy bums! I think I heard someone was excited about this ¡°camping trip¡±, that it will be ¡°just like in the stories¡±. And that got me thinking, if its just like in the stories, then you my dear dreamers will be just like them, you will set up the camp, post sentries, that will be tested by us; forage for firewood; hunt your own game and cook it, all by yourselves. And we, the instructors will be the readers in this little story, with the comfortable, tents, good food, our fires made for us!¡± the instructor from before paces in front of the ¡®lazy bums¡¯. ¡°Now, the tents are all in the pile over there, the forest further along the path has all the food you could want, there is a stream over on the left. The latrines will go on the right, AWAY from our water source! Lights off at 2200 hours. Get to it!¡± Alexander and the other 49 trainees move away from the instructor and start breaking up into teams. 10 people get shovels and go to dig on the right, 15 people go to set up the tents, the other 25 people break up into teams of 5 and go hunting and collecting wood. Alexander and Stefan join a group of 2 other girls and a boy. One of the girls seems to be an archer, and seems to enjoy the wilds; the other girl uses daggers, so she probably wants to become a rogue. She doesn¡¯t look to comfortable here. The final boy also uses a sword and shield, though his shield is more like a big door instead of a small buckler like Stefan and Alexander. ¡°Okay everyone, my father was a major in the royal army. He has taught me how to arrange groups before we came here. My name is Vale and, in the future, I want to earn the Guardian Class¡± the last boy, Vale starts. ¡°What are your names, please introduce yourself and tell us a little about you and your combat style.¡± ¡°Hi everyone! My name is Stefan and I use my mace to slow and maim my opponents. I will aim for the joints of armour, knees, elbows and ankles. I wish to become a Reaver!¡± Stefan jumps in. ¡°Hello everyone, my name is Andra and my mother is a ranger for the kingdom. She has been taking me with her to practice in the wild since I was like 3! As you can see I wish to become a Ranger! So long as you give me a target, you can be sure I will hit it!¡± ¡°Um yes, as she said, my name is Reiva and my dad was in the army. He was a dagger specialist. I wish to become a rogue for now but a Nightblade in the future. My damage is high from my passives but my vitality and stamina is low.¡± Finally, Alexander introduces himself, ¡°It¡¯s nice to meet all of you, My name is Alexander and I use a sword and shield. I don¡¯t know what I wish to become in the future though I would think a combination of magic and blade would be a good start¡± ¡°My father said that a Mage Blade a very weak class, they can¡¯t use any of the high magics because they don¡¯t have the time to study and train their bodies, and they don¡¯t have the stamina to use any of the more refined image-based abilities, again because they don¡¯t have time to study and train. I would choose something else.¡± Vale started to lecture. Uh this boy, ¡®my father this and my father that¡¯¡­ just placate him for now I guess. I will see how it goes with my enchanting first. ¡°Hmmm, I didn¡¯t know that, I will need to think on this longer. When do we even get a class anyway?¡± ¡°Well my father said ¡­¡± Andra interrupts Vale, thankfully. ¡°It can be at any time so long as you have the prerequisite image for your class and petition the ADMINISTRATION to grant it to you through one of the terminals,¡± she explains. ¡°Though I would hold off on that, getting a class means you can start getting experience, and after level 1 stats become really hard to get through training. There are people that train until the end of the Academy who are still Citizen level 0¡± Alexander considers while the conversation moves on from there. Vale seems to be arguing about some point his father made again. Huh So I can wait to get a class and train up my base stats to as high as possible. This world seems to need great images to get the better classes. Can I use something from my old world to create an image so amazing that I will create a completely new class? I need to think on this more¡­ ¡°Alex? Alex!? ALEXANDER!¡± Stefan is shouting in Alex¡¯s ear. ¡°This always happens to you, snap out of it, wake up or the world will pass you by!¡± this finally snaps Alex out of his thoughts and he looks at the rest of the group. ¡°Sorry what? What were you saying?¡± he looks at Stefan. ¡°We were discussing where we should start, Vale wants us to follow the road into the forest and then to take one of the branches like his father taught him to patrol. Do you have an opinion?¡± Stefan fills Alex in. ¡°Hmm well,¡± Alex turns to Andra, ¡°Andra, you spent a lot of time in the wilds with your mom, what do you think we should do. The goal is to get food, If we can catch some rabbits or a deer, that would be best.¡± Andra instantly perks up and replies, ¡°We need to find a game trail then and follow that, we are sure to find something doing that, maybe we set an ambush at a slow-moving stream too¡­¡± Alex looks at everyone else, Stefan is looking at Andra with interest; Reiva is looking around the cleared area with a sort of panicked look in her eyes and Vale is pouting. ¡°Vale do you agree with our only expert of the wilds? Is there something in the army about listening to experts if you are outside of your own area of experience?¡± Vale nods his head once and also looks at Andra expectantly. ¡°Andra, don¡¯t look like you are the prey and they are the predators, you are a woman of the wild. Lead us to FOOD!¡± Alexander¡¯s praise snaps Andra out of her fugue, she nods at Alex and points to the left of the camp near the stream. ¡°Near the stream is a likely place to find animals in forests like these. Vale as our vanguard. Would you lead on?¡± There, now she will make a good leader, good thing Vale is staying quiet too. Ah, what am I standing here for, the others have already started moving. Alexander starts jogging to catch up to the rest of the team while Stefan gives Alex the stink eye. Chapter 8 | Active Skills ¡°Father¡¯s Disappointment!¡± Vale shouts as he rushes at our target¡­ Before the rest of us could get into position. ¡°Is THAT all you can do!? What a wimp!¡± Vale continues to shout at the deer! Everyone else from the group was stunned, it takes almost 10 seconds before Andra shot an arrow at the flank of the deer. The arrow flew well and ¡­ bounced off! How was that possible? This was a deer, it was supposed to be weak! How does an arrow bounce off just like that? Alex rushes out from a bush behind the deer and aims a slash at its left hamstring!
0 Damage (7 (+2 ¨C sharpness) damage absorbed by toughened hide))
How? That should have broken the skin at the least, and the sharpness enchant didn¡¯t help either. This sword was able to cut through wood with no problems! I need to ask to disable notifications in combat too! ¡°Andra aim for its eyes! Reiva! Use your daggers to pierce the hide, don¡¯t slash!¡± Alexander shouts to the rest of the team. ¡°Stefan! Your hammer is going to win this for us! Crush its joints!¡± Reiva stays in the deer¡¯s blind spots and aims at its midriff. With all her weight, and speed she tries to plunge her dagger into the deer! ¡°I did 2 damage! Seems it has 298 more! This is insane!¡± Reiva shouts to the team. This battle is crazy, how does a simple deer give them so many problems? And why is it still here? Deer normally run away when attacked don¡¯t they? Is it somehow different here? Could it be Vale¡¯s shouting at the start is keeping it here? A taunt of some kind? An Active Skill?! ¡°Keep it still, I can¡¯t aim at its eyes like this! Vale slam it with your shield, try to stun it!¡± Andra shouts from the side. Stefan is last out of the bushes! CRUUUNCH! ¡°I got a knee everyone! It should slow down, lets back off and tire it out.¡± Stefan recommends. ¡°Vale, do that thing you did at the start and walk it around the clearing so the rest of us can rest and regroup.¡± Andra says. ¡°Fine¡­ Father¡¯s Disappointment! Is that all you can do!? What a wimp!¡± Vale uses his active skill again and seems to sag, out of stamina? He starts backing away from the deer and walking it around the meadow while the rest of us planned. ¡°Andra, can you make any traps to immobilize it? Maybe blind it too? I know this sounds cruel but no way can we take it down normally¡­¡± Alexander starts off the team meeting. ¡°You are doing really well Vale, think of the training your Stamina is getting from this! You will soon be able to go all day!¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think we have time for that, Stefan can break another joint to do that can¡¯t he?¡± Andra asks. ¡°Well, yes I could but I will need a good run up, so tell me when.¡± Stefan confirms. ¡°Alexander and Reiva, can you aim for the neck? Maybe the both of you could get through its hide there.¡± Andra continues, ¡°And I will try to him its eye and aim for the mouth, maybe I can get lucky too.¡± ¡°Vale? Can you do that taunt again, its been a while!¡± Alexander asks. ¡°Um yeah, I can do 1 more but I will be completely out of stamina after and will be hardly able to walk¡­ Tell me when.¡± He gets as a reply. ¡°Okay everyone, seems the plan is ready. Let¡¯s do this!¡± Andra shouts, ¡°YEAH¡± she gets in reply from everyone else! The group gets into position after their little huddle and planning session. ¡°STEFAN, GOOOO!¡± Andra and Alexander shout together. Stefan rushes at the deer again and aims his mace for the other knee. CRUUUNCH! AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH it screams from the pain; its eyes gleam and it charges Vale with its last strength. Vale takes the hit on his shield and holds his place. Well done Vale! Your father will be proud! Too soon? Get out of your head Alex! It¡¯s your turn!Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Alexander sets his stance to the left of the deer with his sword down and behind him and aims at the neck, Reiva suddenly appears from the other side and stabs her daggers into its other side! She with draws her daggers and nods at Alexander. Alexander is finally ready. He flips open the cover of the core on the grip and spins it 180 degrees to align the runes then places his thumb over the top. This allows him to channel mana into the core and activate his Active effect! A glow appears at the edge of the sword. That was most of my mana. Good thing I trained to overcome this feeling, otherwise I would have passed out already! GOOOOOO! Alexander slashes up with his sword! A furrow is left in the ground and some grass gets cut by the passage of the blade! THUNK! The sword penetrates the thin hide on the neck of the deer but gets stuck in the cartilage of the throat!
37 Damage (83 (+2 ¨C sharpness) damage absorbed by toughened hide))
The deer tries to push Vale out of its way, but with only its fore legs giving it traction and such a horrendous wound it doesn¡¯t have any strength left. ¡°By the Light! The wound is healing! How can it still be alive! Andra! Shoot it through the eye and put kill it!¡± Stefan urges. ¡°Alright, stand back, I need some room for this.¡± Andra steps forward. As she draws her arrow it starts to glow slightly, normally it wouldn¡¯t be seen but the light blocked by the canopy gives just enough darkness to highlight the arrow. Andra takes her stance and aims at the eye of the deer. The deer tries to stand back up, it looks the first knee Stefan broke is almost healed! ¡°TRUESHOT!¡± she shouts as she pulls back the arrow, the glow from the arrow transfers to the rest of the bow. As she lets go, the arrow seems to start turning on its own, acting almost like a drill! Where did she learn that? What kind of image is required to create something so detailed! I am so far behind! THUNK! The arrow buries itself in the skull but is stopped from going all the way through. Its bones are just too tough! The deer looks like it will continue to struggle but finally topples forward.
Combat Results
+1 Agility, +1 Strength, +1 Stamina, +1 Intelligence! +1 Sword Mastery, Congratulations, passive skill gained: Mana channelling Tier 0 Dot
¡°Phew, if it didn¡¯t go down, I don¡¯t know if we could have finished it!¡± Andra congratulates everyone. ¡°Now we know who the MVP of this fight was, c¡¯mon Vale get up! You did a great job, just let us get into out positions before charging next time okay?¡± ¡°Yeah good job Vale, without you that thing would have had us for breakfast¡± everyone congratulates him. Reiva questions Andra with wonder, ¡°Andra? What was that at the end? It was beautiful!¡± ¡°Ahhh I really didn¡¯t think I would have to use it on a measly deer. That was a skill I copied from my mother ¨C Trueshot. It¡¯s nowhere near as strong or as pretty as hers though!¡± ¡°I am surprised you all have skills already, Stefan, you quick movement, that was some kind of Active skill too wasn¡¯t it? And Reiva, the way you suddenly appeared at the end, you have one too, right?¡± Alex asks the rest of his team. ¡°¡¯Winds of Battle¡¯? Yeah it is, I copied it from one of my favourite knights! I think it turned out quite well to be honest though the speed is lacking.¡± Stephan confirms nonchalantly. ¡°What about you Alex, that sword skill was amazing! When did you learn it and why haven¡¯t you used it until now?¡± Stefan questions in return ¡°That¡­ That is not an Active skill. It¡¯s the effect of this sword.¡± He lets the rest of him team examine the blade. ¡°WOW! You enchanted this? You must be amazing! Who is Wendy? Your teacher?¡± Stephan gushes. ¡°Can you enchant something for me too?¡± ¡°So long as you tell me what you want and provide the materials then sure. I would also need to have my master supervise¡­ just in case¡­¡± Alex continues. ¡°Is it that dangerous or are you just that bad?¡± Stefan continues to probe. ¡°I am still very inexperienced, and she needs to check that the item won¡¯t suddenly explode at the wrong moment too.¡± Alex confirms. ¡°Explodes? Yes, please get your master to supervise, I don¡¯t want anything to explode¡­¡± Strefan says aghast. Andra takes control of the situation from Stefan, ¡° Okay guys, I don¡¯t think we can take another one of those, and if the deer was this tough¡­ I hope no rabbits were caught in our snares¡­ that could be deadly.¡± the rest of the party grimaced at the though of that. ¡°Okay, we need to drag this bad boy, back to the camp, I hope another team managed to get something too, this won¡¯t be enough for 50 people!¡± Andra takes charge again. Vale can you grab its head, Reiva take 1 of its fore legs and I will get the other one. Stef and Alex, can you take a leg each?¡± Andra goes about organising the team while everyone regenerates their mana. ¡°Okay! Ready? Set?¡± ¡°PULL¡± everyone shouts together. ¡°At this rate we won¡¯t be back before nightfall¡± Reiva complains. ¡°Keep pulling, this is nothing! I train at home by pulling weighted cart! This is nothing!¡± Vale shouts. ¡°Yeah Vale, about that, we need to talk to the instructors about your dad. To have to create a skill like that¡­ I can¡¯t imagine what your life has been like until now¡± Alexander starts ¡°THREE, TWO, ONE¡­ PULL! THREE, TWO, ONE¡­ PULL! THREE, TWO ONE¡­¡± Chapter 9 | Breath of Mana ¡°Gather up everyone! That¡¯s enough for morning warmup. Now what did we all learn yesterday?¡± the head instructor questions us. ¡°We learnt that you are all sorry excuses for trainees and that your training hall instructors must be incompetent to only show this much progress! And you, what did you learn? You in the back!¡± he points into the back row of the trainees. ¡°Um, the animals also have passive skills and are too tough for most of us to handle?¡± the kid hesitates. The rest of the trainees hold their breath after and answer like that. This is going be bad! ¡°I see, are you talking to your mother, I know this is a change of pace but how are you supposed to talk to your instructors?¡± the Head asks calmly. Everybody else is already cringing and praying this idiot gets his head out of his ass quick! ¡°Uhh¡­ Oh! Sir! The animals also have passive skills and are too tough for most of us to handle, Sir!¡± he realised his mistake and tries to correct with enthusiasm. ¡°Good, that was your only chance,¡± the head sweeps his eyes across the rest of the trainees, ¡°Understood?¡± ¡°SIR! YES SIR!¡± everyone shouts back. Phew, crisis averted! I don¡¯t think I could do anything more after that ¡°warm up¡± earlier. ¡°Okay, so how many of you actually managed to grind down food yesterday?¡± the Head asks rhetorically. ¡°Just 2 teams out of 5 that went out! And one of them only brought a single rabbit!¡± ¡°Now Team Deer, that will be your designation for the rest of the ¡°camping trip¡±, remember it. How did you manage to bring down a deer?¡± The ¡°Deer¡± Team as they are called now exchange looks and Alex is nominated to respond, ¡°Sir, we tired it out, immobilised it and then aimed for its vulnerabilities ¨C the neck, and the eyes mostly.¡± He looks at us with a knowing look, ¡°You also used Active skills to take it down didn¡¯t you? That arrow at the end for example?¡± How did he know? Was someone watching? Damn can¡¯t be so careless in the future or all my secrets will be revealed! ¡°Um¡­ Sir I don¡¯t kn¡­¡± Alex is suddenly interrupted by the Head. ¡°Don¡¯t lie to me, or everyone is doing that little warm up again. Now tell us the truth.¡± ¡°Sir! Yes¡­ we used active skills Sir! They seemed to be the only way to penetrate the deer¡¯s hide!¡± Alex replies with zeal after seeing the promise of punishment in everyone else¡¯s eyes. ¡°Yes, the animals of our world are just as strong or some times even stronger than us. They absorb the ambient mana which leads to strengthened bones and tissues. It lets them run longer, fight harder and survive better.¡± The head continues pacing up and down the line of trainees. ¡°Now, if just animals are this powerful, what can we humans do to improve our selves to combat Beasts?¡± he asks. ¡°You, your name was Andra right? You can answer¡± ¡°Sir, my name is indeed Andra M¡­¡± she is interrupted suddenly by the head ¡°We don¡¯t need last names here, no one is going to be using their family here, including you Vale. Please continue.¡± ¡°Sir! My name is Andra sir, I used an active skill at the end to finish off the deer. I saw no other way to end it quickly and smoothly, SIR!¡± she finishes. ¡°Did you hear her everyone? Active Skills! This is actually the reason we all came out here. You will be going into that forest every day in your team and forging your first Active skill, or refining it further if you already have one...¡± Head sweeps his eyes over everyone again. ¡°You will spend today creating your image, and tomorrow you will go back into your teams and continue hunting. You haven¡¯t graduated from this until each person in your team has activated an Active Skill. That will help you take down the animals here.¡± Head walks off and after ten steps shouts once more: ¡°DISMISSED¡± The teams broke up after that, each person going to their own little area, trying to work out what they need, what kind of image they should use for their first skill or how to reinforce their current skills further. The only sound the trainers could hear was the rustling of the leaves and the grass from the wind, the water rushing in the stream and random shouts coming from the kids who think too highly of themselves Alex separates from the rest of the kids and makes his way towards the river. Maybe he will find inspiration for himself from the nature around him.
I always knew I would need to create an image for my first skill but I always thought it will still be a while yet. That we would be training our passive skills and let me supplement them with my enchantments for that extra kick. Now an image, what skills do I have now anyway? ¡°Status¡±
Skills
Athletics Tier 5 Dot Sword Mastery Tier 4 Dot (+1) Shield Mastery Tier 3 Dot
Close Quarters Combat Tier 1 Dot Combat Instincts Tier 1 Dot Studying Tier 6 Line
Reading Tier 5 Line Language Comprehension Tier 0 Line Mathematics Tier 5 Line
Mana Channelling Tier 0 Dot (+1)
Talents
High Comprehension Tier 1 Dot Due to your intellect being so naturally high, you are able to understand and assimilate new concepts 10.1% faster Strong Mind Tier 0 Dot Due to your past experiences, sudden changes in the environment will no longer freeze your senses
Journals
Journal of Manipulation 0/30 Journal of Constitution 0/30 Journey of the Tinkerer 0/25
Unused Points 35 (+2)
All my passive combat skills increase the effectiveness of my sword fighting. And my sword:This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Short Sword of Minor Sharpness
A common sword made by a blacksmith of Rodium. Enchantments done by apprentice Alexander Derroid +1 Agility +1 Sharpness Active Effect: When 100 mana is supplied, a thin sheen of wind surrounds the weapon. This increases the reach of the sword by 5 cm. The extra reach acts in the same way as the base weapon. Uncommon Tier 0 Line weapon Uncommon Tier 1 enchantment Iron Binding expires in 6 hours 20 minutes Basic Elemental Core charge: 180/250
I already have an active skill on it that can penetrate the hide of the deer here. The best choice would be a skill that increase my mana regeneration for a short time so I can activate it more often. Can I use a stamina skill that increases the regeneration of my mana? I would have to experiment¡­ Now what is mana and what is stamina? I guess stamina a source of energy from the muscles, the inherent internals of the body and regenerate through food and rest. Mana on the other hand seems to be more like an intruder that provides energy to the user in a symbiotic relationship. What does mana get out of this process or is it like air, it has no will of its own but will gain one through the images people give it? Do thought have power in this world? They must, otherwise images wouldn¡¯t be required so much. I need an image that I can use to increase my mana regeneration. It can¡¯t be something I need to sit for, it has to be toggleable and can¡¯t slow me down. Can I use anything from my past world? How did they picture mana? What were those games? I believe it was blue and sometimes multicoloured motes in the air? Can I use that somehow? Maybe a breathing technique of some kind? Didn¡¯t martial artists all say that breathing was the most important aspect of their art. Maybe I can use that here, especially if the Mana is in the air. But what kind of image can I use. It can¡¯t be anything too obvious or flashy. I know everyone makes theirs flashy to intimidate but this has to be hidden. Something I use every day and all the time to train with, to use in combat without the opponent realising what I am doing too. I can misdirect with enchantments for now. Hmmm¡­ Would a vacuum work as an image. If I imagine that my lungs are mana vacuums and each deep breath pull more and more mana out of the air. Yes¡­ that should work well. Now close your eyes and concentrate¡­ The air around me is full of mana, I can feel its energising touch as it passes near me, just out of my reach. There is a void in my lungs, as I open my mouth to breath in for a three count, the mana rushes down my throat and into my lungs to fill that space! I hold my breath for a three count to assimilate all that extra mana and breath out through my nose for a three count. The for mana to escape is too narrow and it all stays inside my lungs until its fully absorbed. Good that is a good image. Now to make it into reality, I have to really concentrate on every action. The feeling of emptiness in my lungs, the need to breath in, that suffocating feeling. Concentrate on that feeling, hold my breath until I need to breath in and hold it still. Capture that feeling of almost passing out from the lack of air¡­ Good now, slowly, very slowly open my mouth, squeeze my diaphragm down, expand my chest, concentrate on the muscles doing all that work to create the biggest space possible for your lungs to expand into. Good, breath in slowly catching and dragging in as much mana as I can into those empty, mana starved lungs of mine. Now hold, hold it all in, don¡¯t let any out, the concentration of mana inside my lungs is so high that it¡¯s trying to push back out into the air around me but I don¡¯t let it go anywhere. I hold my breath until all the mana is assimilated¡­ slowly¡­ slowly¡­ just a little bit more¡­ almost theeeeerrreeee¡­ Exhale slowly, let any excess air and mana escape, but do it slowly as while it passes out of my lungs it can still be absorbed as it passes. Breath out all the way and add that feeling of a vacuum in my lungs again ready for the next cycle. Okay that is a good starting image. I will need to keep doing it until it becomes a skill. Now for the last skill. ¡°Oh ADMINISTRATORS! Grant me this skill!¡±
HEAD Instructor Good all the kids are doing their best. I hate having to be the Demon around them but this world is not as safe as they probably think. Even now in this safe area, the other trainers keep having to go drive the stronger animals and even some beasts from the outskirts of the forest. The things we do for the next generation. ¡°Hey John, what do you know about that kid near the water? I hope someone is keeping the fish away from him. Has no one told them that being so close to water is dangerous? Ah children! Well he will learn.¡± ¡°Anyway, the other kids are doing their best to be as flashy as possible, and all that shouting, but he is sitting there and ¡­. Breathing? Is that it? What could that possibly achieve?¡± ¡°Ah Head! I hear that¡¯s the Blood Tyrant¡¯s kid. He is supposed to be smart for his age so maybe he is trying to work out a good image. You know that the smart kids have the biggest trouble with these tasks. They always over think their image and make it too powerful.¡± John replies. ¡°Ah yeah you are right. Well keep an eye on him and we can leave him be for now. Maybe he will come up with something truly exciting for once and not another Power slash or Fortress defence¡± Head sighs. ¡°Keep up the good work¡± he calls as he walks away to supervise some of the other kids doing their best
Alexander:
Processing.. Accepted... What do you wish to name this skill
¡°Please name it¡­ ¡®Breath of Mana¡¯¡± Alex confirms.
Please set resource used to power skill Currently available: Stamina, Mana
¡°Please use Stamina¡±
Processing... Calculating... Forming... CREATED CONGRATULATIONS!
Breath of Mana (Uncommon) User uses the vacuum of their lunges to draw mana from the surroundings at an increased rate. +0.1 mana Regeneration per minute Used: 5 points of Stamina per minute Each minute used, mana regeneration rises by 0.1 to a maximum of 0.5 At higher Tiers Stamina decreases, Stamina expenditure resets with each Rank. Each Rank increases the base Regeneration and the bonus Regeneration
Phew, finally! I thought I was going to pass out from that. Alex looks around, the sun has set, the camp fires are all almost out, there are kids patrolling and acting as senties. How long did that take? Can''t believe its already so late! ¡°Hey Alex? Are you finally done?¡± Stefan comes from behind and pats Alex on the back. You took forever, I thought you would stay there for the rest of the night too. Go get something to eat and to bed with you! I will take your sentry duty this time but you owe me!¡± Alex stands up and stumbles a little, ¡°Sorry I didn¡¯t realise it would take so long! Sorry for this, I will take your place tomorrow too. Thank you.¡± Alex waves back at Stefan and stumbles off to bed. Chapter 10 | Back to the Hunt Step, step, shudder, step, rustle, crouch, step, crack! ¡°Alexander! Can you keep sneak a little better please, next time instead of getting a silly breathing skill how about learning how to travel silently instead, huh?¡± Andra furiously whispers at him from her leading position. She lifts her fist into the air to signal for everyone to hold while she checks on their prey. Yep, its nervous, looks around and flicking those ears, at least this one is female, so none of those rather deadly antlers¡­ Now how to get closer without spooking her? Is it worth just rushing out instead? No, they need to get Vale just a little bit closer, at least he can be quiet for light¡¯s sake¡­ She creeps back to the waiting group and points at the other 3 apart from Alex and tells them to follow her. She tells Alex to wait and be their rear guard while the rest initiate on the doe. As the others follow Andra, Alexander is doing his best not to activate Breath of mana and waste stamina right before combat begins, he will get his chance soon enough! But she is right, I need to learn to move more quietly, maybe I can get Reiva or Andra to give me some pointers, what to look out for. A city boy in the wild is still a city boy so he didn¡¯t expect much more from himself but being made a ¡°rear guard¡± rankles. From a little bit further voices are suddenly heard, and above them all there is ¡°Father¡¯s Disappointment! Is that all you can do?! What a wimp!¡± That must be vale, things must be heating up right about now. He gets out of his crouch and starts pushing through the shrubbery. I need to get in there and help! As Alexander runs out of the bushes he sees that the doe already with a broken joint, Reiva is stabbing it in the neck trying to bleed it to death, Stefan is trying to break another joint but his normal momentum is missing without his Winds of Battle active. Andra is using the doe¡¯s vulnerable points to train her accuracy on and Vale is doing his best to keep his new defensive active. ¡°Huh, I guess you don¡¯t even need my help, kind of makes me feel useless¡± Alex comments from the side. It¡¯s been 3 days since their skill creation day and they have been hunting the whole time. One their first day they found that having skills doesn¡¯t mean you automatically win. Yes, they had skills before that but the 1st deer¡¯s resilience was such a surprise that everything was a mess anyway. Now, coordinating those skills too longer to learn. One of the most dangerous events was when Stefan charged past Andra just as she was letting go of her Trueshot arrow. THAT was the last straw, it almost came to blows right there until Reiva, the quiet one, cooled everything down by pointing out that the deer was about to kill Vale while they argued. Since then, the timing, coordination and positioning has improved by leaps and bounds. Skills were hitting within seconds of each other and more importantly, they were concentrating on the vulnerabilities. Andra and Stefan would one-two a joint, done enough timed it would weaken it and slow down the deer. Reiva and Vale did their best to bleed it with small cuts and keep its attention away from the others. Alex ended up delivering the killing blow but severing the head when the time was right, otherwise he was severing tendons and muscles. ¡°Not this time, we have it under control, and you finished the last one too quickly that we couldn¡¯t practice our skills on it anyway.¡± Stefan replies. ¡°Now go sit over there, on that rock and watch us do our thing.¡± Alex glanced at the rock to the side of the fight and huffed. I guess I can continue getting used to my breathing. I always thought that it would be easy to change over the new breathing style for everything but seems my image was a little too strong¡­ for now the vacuum is still hurting my lungs. Alex sat down on the appointed rock and started practicing his Breath of Mana. It was tier 5 now and looking at the skill description, the first Rank is not going to be much of an improvement overall either.
Breathg of Mana (Uncommon)
User uses the vacuum of their lunges to draw mana from the surroundings at an increased rate. +0.1 mana Regeneration per minute Used: 4.95 points of Stamina per minute With each minute used, mana regeneration rises by 0.1 to a maximum of 0.5 At higher tiers stamina decreases, Stamina expenditure resets with each Rank. Each Rank increases the base regeneration and the bonus regeneration.
That 0.01 decrease in stamina used is abysmal but I guess that relates to the Rank of the skill¡­ I wonder if I can learn to use it full time eventually? Alex glances to the sides of the clearing they chose and freezes, to the right and on the other side of the combat there seems to be something nosing through the bushes. Its low and sleek with a muzzle and some kind of canines¡­ Must be some kind of predator, but without more information there was no telling what it could be. Alex looks away from the area and starts to stand again, his body thrumming with adrenaline. They are about to be ambushed, and he can¡¯t warn the rest of his team otherwise it will strike and take out at least one of his team. He stood up slowly and turned his eyes away from the exact spot of the ambusher. Walking directly at it is a no go, that could spook it into attacking so he will need to walk with an arc, and he should probably pass by Reiva too to recruit her for his counter strike. Hopefully whatever it is, won¡¯t be able to smell the girl. Alex started slowly, oh so slowly to edge around the near side of the fight to position himself between the ambusher and his team, at the same time he could pass Reiva the signal to follow him in stealth Everything was going smoothly until suddenly it wasn¡¯t! The bear? It sure was as big as a bear, maybe bigger suddenly stood up from its crouch and charged at the team. Maybe Alexander spooked it, maybe it realised that it was the perfect time to attack right after a Trueshot x Winds of Battle combination from our heavy hitters but whatever it was no longer mattered. It was coming and it was HUGE! The rest of his team were just then facing away from the bear but saw Alexander start sprinting at them as if the world was about to end, ¡°Stefan I need a boost! Throw me!¡± Alex yells at a bewildered Stefan. After 3 days of constant combat, he however, does not ask why but instead cups his hands and starts counting down ¡°Two¡­. One¡­¡± Alex steps on Stefan¡¯s cupped hands and jumps while simultaneously shouting ¡°JUMP¡± with Stefan. It was a perfect throw! Alex had activated his sword effect even before he started sprinting, he did it as soon as the height of the thing grew larger at the shoulder than he thought anything around here would be! He sailed through the air with his sword raised about his head for the most momentum his tiny frame could generate! The thing tried to dodge but it never considered Alex to be a threat as it never saw this cub attack. It thought the thing was useless or it would be in the middle of the combat not sitting on the side. It thought wrong. Just as Alex starts his downwards swing, the thing suddenly felt a twinge of self-protection and attempted to meet the cub by standing on its hind paws and blocking with its armoured arms. It worked, but not how the thing expected. Alex saw the thing start to rise onto its rear paws and stand up to block his attack, and probably slash him right after with those wicked claws! He was all that coming in his mind but was already committed this attack. Maybe it was foolhardy, he remembered all his instructors ridiculing aerial based skills. That once you were in mid-air, you were predictable and could only go in an act to your destination. Sure, mages could change their direction but the concentration required was too high to do anything in such a short amount of time. But he was no mage. ¡°FFFFUUUUCCCCKKKKKK!!!¡± He screamed as his hit connected with the beasts left arm(?)/paw(?)/appendage(?) and started skidding off the fur until finally cutting through enough of the fur near its armpit and severing the main pectoral tendon connecting the chest the to shoulder! There is blood everywhere but on Alexander¡¯s sword, the wind sheath blew it all away from the blade and ruptured more blood vessels with pressure blow out alone.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Alexander is only 6, he is now muscular for a child but does not have the amazing mass of an adult or the grip of an adult. If he was a teenager or in his 20s then he would probably have been able to force the blade further down the front of the thing and maybe made it run away from the difference in size after it was injured. For now, it¡¯s a 2.5-meter monster against a 115 cm boy. The cub obviously got lucky and it could crush him, the other cubs and take the kill of the it sought after prey from them afterwards too! Alex gets dragged up after his sword gets lodged in the monster and is then pulled up with it as the thing grabs onto the side of the blade and pulls it out. He manages to hold onto his sword when its thrown to the side like some rubbish but that is all he can do, he lands on the ground poorly and is stunned momentarily. He can hear Andra shouting something in the background, smoothly giving orders to the rest of his party, I hope I gave them enough time to stop playing with the deer and reorganise against this monster. He passed out right there and then.
Uhh, what¡¯s going on, why is my head on fire? What happened? I must have gotten drunk and had some weird ass dream¡­ It was nice though, now time to get up. Alex starts to struggle to get up from the ground while people are fighting around him. Hey! Don¡¯t you see a drunk trying get up here! What are you doing in my hou¡­ Why is there dirt under my hands? I must still be dreaming¡­ ¡°A..x¡­nder! S¡­p ¡­t ¡­ i¡­ Al¡­der!¡± What? What are you trying to say? I can¡¯t hear you properly¡­ My name isn¡¯t Axnder either its ¡­.. What was my name again? In the dream I was Alexander but ¡­ was it not a dream? ¡°Stefan get his back leg! While he is doing that, Reiva I need you to try aiming for its spinal cord, we need to slow it down more or this will be the end! TRUESHOT!!!¡± Ahhh, more voices¡­ Though Stefan ¡­ Reiva¡­ Trueshot? I know all those words¡­ what is going on. C¡¯mon Alex get your head together! Hold on! Alex? As in my dream self? No¡­ I died ¡­ I remember my mother like she was more than a dream¡­ that means ¡­. ¡°Vale how are you doing with that deer? Can you go on any more?¡± ¡°Yes, I can keep going, this thing was slowed and crippled by you all already but I am afraid its will be mobile again soon! We can¡¯t fight both of these things!¡± ¡°Just a little more! Alex will be back with us soon I can see his eyes coming back to life!¡± ¡°GET BACK REIVA!!! IT¡¯S AIMING FOR YOU! YOU MUST HAVE HIT SOMETHING REALLY SENSITIVE BACK THERE!!! OOOFFFFFF¡± ¡°Thank you, Stefan, for blocking it off, I almost didn¡¯t make it. I think I found something that is akin to a tail back there though! Must be really sensitive for that reaction!¡± Reiva? Stefan? Vale and ¡­ ANDRA! I seem to remember something¡­ we were hunting food for the camp and training our coordination when ¡­. Something huge attacked right? Did we kill it? Is that what they are fighting now without me? C¡¯mon Alex! Get your head together! They need you!
TALENT CLEAR MIND ACTIVATED
Clear Mind talent will resuce all stun affects by 10% and increases recovery speed from them by 50% (Tier 0 Dot)
¡°Urgh¡­ I am up! Stop shouting at me!¡± Alex tries to yell at Andra but is hit by a splitting headache. He must have hit his head worse than he thought he did. ¡°Where do you want me?¡± ¡°Help Vale finish that thing off, we need him to recover some stamina and then the both of you need to come and help us here. We are holding it off but its not coming cheap!¡± she replies ¡°Aye, Aye captain!¡± Alex stumbles over to Vale who is still trying to end the deer. Its fast recovery speed and his low attacking power seems to be matched. If Vale stops hitting it then it will recover its mobility and they will all be dead soon after. ¡°Alex! Good to see you! How is your mana? You have been out of almost 5 minutes! I hope you can end this thing fast so I can rest for longer¡­¡± Vale says while trying to back the brains of the doe in with his mace. ¡°No, I can¡¯t use it for another 5 minutes but even if I could, I would save it anyway.¡± Alex replies while getting into position and acquiring his stance. It has been 4 days since the first time he used this action to almost sever the head of a deer. He had changed much but this time he didn¡¯t have the mana to use his wind sheath or the time to wait for it. But it has been 4 days and his whole approach to the move has changed. The first time he just used his arms to swing the sword. Now he was rotating from the toes in his boots all the way to his wrists! All those joints acting as a pulley, doubling the power provided with every joint. This time the blade went all the way through the neck without stopping. The head flew over Vale who ended up covered in the gushing blood of the deer but that was the life of a vanguard. ¡°Pheeewww, give me a few minutes to rest up. You should go ahead and help the others, I will join you shortly¡­.¡± Vale said while trying to catch his breath, ¡°I think I need to come up with a breathing technique too¡­ though for stamina¡­¡± Alex looked around and made sure there were no more enemies in the bushes, waiting for ambush them again. When he does not see any more hostiles, he moves on to circle the monster. He sees Reiva trying to stab her daggers through the back of the monster with little effect so he decides to join her. The improved movement for the slash should also work with a thrust right? Well there is no time like the present to find out I guess¡­. 2 more minutes left for my mana to recover enough though ¡­. ¡°Rei! I am coming up behind you, please don¡¯t stab me!¡± Alex warns the camouflaged girl who shrugs and goes back to her fruitless task of dealing serious damage without getting attention from the monster again. Alex gets into his low posture again and starts his thrust, the movement starts in his toes again and moves through his ankles, up through the knees and the pelvis, to the shoulders and finally to the elbows. The thrusting action and the rotation of his arms makes the sword rotate as it was thrust at the monster¡¯s back. The tip of the blade moves the fur away from the up coming blade and acted like a drill through the outer protective zone. Once it hit the skin at the back it slowed down, but not enough that the motion stopped completely, until that is the blade hit the spine and slid around it into the monster! ¡°RRRRAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH¡± it suddenly roared from the pain! Must have hit something vital there! It suddenly turned around and aimed a slash with its massive claws at Alex. The sword gets ripped out of his hands when the thing rotates and the motion of it being tugged out of his hands also makes it possible to dodge such a swift counter attack. Dodge by getting thrown 2 meters to the side that is! ¡°Reiva! Hide! Its pissed and I am not in reach of it at the moment after Stefan got done with its right knee! Retreat for now and let it concentrate on me!¡± Alex orders the girl! There is no reply from her and after a while Andra feels a tap on her shoulder to tell her where Reiva is currently. Andra sees how the monster reorients on Alex and starts to lumber towards him, Stefan is spent, his stamina is almost non-existent. He can hardly move no less try to hit more joints of this juggernaut! Especially when it¡¯s so pissed! C¡¯mon mana! Almost there! Just 32 seconds more! Alex gets up and goes into a crouch, trying to be ready to evade. The monster comes to rest In front of Alex and raises it¡¯s right paw in the air while keeping its left paw to the side to stop Alex¡¯s preferred escape direction to his sword. ¡°TRUESHOT!¡± Andra shouts and uses the last of her stamina to hit the Monster in the back of the head, trying to make it stumble, or come to attack them instead, waste some more of its time to let her team recover just a little bit more! BANG!!! The force of the arrow makes the monster¡¯s head sway forward slightly, its turns its upper body to look behind it and starts to growl, then turns its head back towards Alex and prepares to end this cub. ¡°FATHER¡¯S DISAPPOINTMENT! IS THAT ALL YOU CAN DO? WHAT A WIMP!¡± Vale shouts as he comes running from behind Andra. Everyone forgot about him once Alex got caught but now he was ready to fight again. His stamina regenerated a little and even if he couldn¡¯t deal much damage, he could take a great beating! His Vitality was naturally insane for his age, all due to his father¡¯s ¡°training¡± regiment. The Monster¡¯s head turns again when it hear¡¯s that call and tries to turn back but something is stopping it. It growls again but starts to move towards Vale. Vale continued to run at the monster however instead of making it chase him. Andra recognises this first and shouts ¡°Vale! What are you doing? You can¡¯t take a straight on hit from it!¡± ¡°It¡¯s a requirement of my skill! I have to hit it once now within 15 seconds or any effect my skill had will be nullified!¡± she hears in response Five¡­ four¡­ three¡­ two¡­ oooonnnneeeee¡­. Okay just enough mana now for this! And with Vale¡¯s help, looks like I can do a final thing! Thank you, Vale! As the monster turned to face Vale, Alex¡¯s sword is suddenly within reach again, its still set to activation mode as he never had time to disable that. Alex takes the handle of his sword in both hands and pours his mana into it! The wind sheath activates inside the monster and does crippling damage! Once Alex feels that the blade is unstuck again the rotates the blade to point the blade towards the heart of the monster and thrusts his sword up! The sword cuts up from behind the monster going through all its unprotected internal organs until the blade finally reaches its heart! The nick on the heart is tiny but it is enough to create extreme internal bleeding for the thing! It eventually bleeds out with the blade still doing more damage to the heart from the after effects of the wind sheath.
CONGRATULATIONS
For defeating an Adolescent Forest Yeti that was more than 30 levels higher than the average of your party you gain double ability growth
For defeating an Adolescent Forest Yeti while everyone in the party was Citizen class gain the title: "First Citizen" - First Citizen increases the speed skills gain Tiers and Ranks by 25%
¡°30 levels ahead? And that title! But more importantly¡­ what do we do now? Can we drag this thing back with us? Everyone sit down, we need to rest whatever happens¡± Andra takes charge again . Phew! I am just glad that worked! I wasn¡¯t sure if I would be able to activate the effect while inside another animal¡¯s magic field. This makes explosive bullets a possibility ¡­ but for now¡­. Stone grenades? Could I create 2 separate ones and tie them together to make a flash bang of some kind? ¡°Hey! ALEX! Get out of your head and help us cook this deer! We are going to need all the strength possible to drag that thing back! It¡¯s way too big!¡± Stefan says after slapping Alex¡¯s back with all his might! Chapter 11 | Stones and Runes It¡¯s been a couple of days since Alex¡¯s team came back dragging the adolescent yeti corpse. Since then, the students have been kept in the camp and trained mercilessly. During one of these sessions Alex walks up to one of the instructors, I think this one is left foot¡­ because he runs fast but can¡¯t dance or something stupid like that ¡­ sheesh. ¡°Sir, I have a question. I would like to practice something with my team but would like to not cause a ruckus. Is there a place like that here, or maybe a one of the instructors is a mage and could put up some wind walls for us? Maybe dig out a cave to dampen the sound?¡± The instructor takes his eyes off of the rest of the trainees and studies him for a little while. Alex is just about to start fidgeting when he gets a reply, ¡°There is such a place, you are not supposed to go there until much later in your training though. I have to talk to Head but we may be able to arrange something for you.¡± he continues to pierce Alex with those gold flecked black eyes, ¡°Does this have something to do with those stones your team has been collecting recently?¡± Wow! He got it in one! Well its wasn¡¯t that we kept it a secret but I guess this guy is more than he appears. ¡°After our last fight I realised that there was more I could do to help my team. We have our skills but they waste Stamina, my team makes hardly use any mana unless they have a trinket or a weapon that needs to be bound.¡± ¡°I see, that incident was a surprise. That Yeti tribe normally leave to the other side of the forest during this period specially to avoid us. That youngster was an exile, you could tell by his longer clays and lack of adornments.¡± He continued to stare through Alexander, what does he see when he looks at me? Does he have a way to appraise me maybe? ¡°I will talk to Head, I want to see what you do come up with.¡± He finishes as he turns away and looks out over the yellowing plains. Soon this area will be under snow this far north. ¡°Thank you, Sir.¡± Alex salutes and turns away from the instructor ¡°Do not worry, I will find you when all is ready, now your chatting is making you lag behind. I so hope you can catch up to everyone else before we have to give extra punishment sets¡± Left Foot finishes. Alex is startled by that final warning and runs back to his position at the back of his team. He is 2 sets of timed hand stands behind¡­ This is not going to be fun.
¡°Watch your footing, trainees, this is our sparring arena. Until you are all much more used to your new stats and skills you wouldn¡¯t be seeing this area at all.¡± Leg Foot explains. Andra is the first to walk through the archway, ¡°Dear Chaos! This place is huge! We are under the training grounds, right? This. Is. Amazing!¡± The area Alex¡¯s team entered is huge, it towers over 50 meters to the ceiling, the ground has a bowl shape like an amphitheatre with rising steps getting taller and taller as they get closer to the walls. The centre is divided into 8 sparring areas with different terrain, there is sand in one, and water and islands in another; there is one with ice even! They are arranged in a circle around a centre arena which is four times the size of the others. This centre one is divided into 4 parts, seems that each section is related to one of the four basic elements. Must be a Mage training area here as none of the current trainees had a way to take advantage of those terrains. ¡°Please follow, you don¡¯t need to gawk, if you don¡¯t get yourself killed before joining the Academies place? Amazing!!!then you will see this place again. The final battle mage exam takes place here you know.¡± Left foot continues past the arena area and through another set of arches. There is more to this place? Amazing!!! As the group walks further through the winding tunnels they see areas for training, barracks, mess halls, fully functional toilets and more, ¡°You are not to tell anyone above about this place. You have been given special dispensation due to your current achievements but don¡¯t think that the merits from them will last long.¡± Stefan turns to the instructor after passing the class rooms and asks ¡°Sir, why do we sleep in tents and hunt animals for food when all this is down here and ready to be used?¡± ¡°Hmmm, how to answer that best for you¡­¡± the instructor strokes his chin thoughtfully, ¡°Well what do you think the purpose of this training trip is?¡± he asks Stefan then turns to the rest of the group as if they are welcome to answer too. Vale is the first to respond, ¡°It is to teach us to respect the wild. That even herbivores can kill us at any moment if we are not careful.¡± Left foot considers this answer and shakes his head, ¡°That is a part of it but it is not the main reason. There is a more obvious and simple reason.¡± Reiva decides to pipe up now while Stefan, Andra and Alex remain quiet, listening. ¡°Sir, it is to show us trainees what the real world is like. Not everyone can have a loving family, a roof over their heads, servants or cooks to prepare meals and a fire to curl up in front of. This training trip is to show the children of the mighty families and those of normal citizens that they will be treated equally no matter whose children they are.¡± Left foot nods, ¡°Yes that is correct, you had almost all of it but not quite there. Yes, it is to show that sons of royalty and street urchins will be treated equally and be rewarded for what they achieved and not what they bought. There is another side to it though, can any of you figure it out? Alex how about you try this time.¡± Alex looks pensive as he considers all the possible options and angles, if it has something to do with the way the children of different social classes are treated then there must be something else too. As a son of Talina, I have seen how people try to pamper me but have to be harsh instead. Vale is from a prominent military family too and Andra, she travelled with her single mother scouting for monster nests. She is not exactly a rich noble but not a street rat either¡­ Ah! ¡°Sir, I believe I know. It is to show us that children of the nobility or the prominent military familes may not be the best choice to lead teams. Often yes, they will be trained from a younger age with tactics and strategy but other times we get naturally born leaders like Andra who end up leading the teams. This training is to show that you are not only not treated the same but that a quality commander can come from anywhere!¡± Alex finishes his thoughts by turning to Andra and bowing slight, which caused her to blush a little. The rest of the team followed suit until Andra was deep red from embarrassment. Those eyes bore into Alexander again, looking for something but not finding anything special, ¡°Yes you are completely correct. Leaders come from ability, sometimes a farmer will gain the rank of general in the army while a child from a noble military family will never get past Sargent. Sergeants are not bad, they have their own skills and uses but you can see my point right?¡± Left foot finishes. The rest of the group exchange glances and finish by all, meeting Andra¡¯s eyes and bowing their heads. She is now the official leader, none of that jockeying by Vale will happen again. Just then they walked up to a dead end, the tunnel was still tall and roomy but the group was blocked by a massive door. The instructor walks up to the door and places his insignia on the door. Lights shoot into the insignia and then out again. They go in a red colour and come out blue¡­ That insignia must be enchanted. And that door? Two elements intermixing, wait is that a 3rd element opening a whole in the solid stone? The number of elements, and the conversion in the insignia is amazing! So this is my future! I love it! As the door to pass through the dead-end swings open, everyone can see that it¡¯s at least a meter thick, some of the girls could use the thickness of the door as a bed without having their head or feet falling over the side. Once they pass through the door and it shuts behind them, the instructor turns to the team and announces: ¡°This is the Magic experimentation section of this facility. Its designed to hold some of the most massive magic attacks known to the kingdom, one of them could destroy the university entirely. A single room can stop 3 of them occurring at the same time!¡±, he looks at Alex again and looks excited. ¡°Now please show me what you needed this area for and why you couldn¡¯t continue to train in the open.¡± Alex looks at his team and then they all look to Andra, she considers the situation and nods her head at Alex. No one complained, or tried to wrestle control of the group away from her. This raining camp really did fulfil its goal, at least with this team. Alex takes the backpack he has been carrying off of his back and pulls out 3 sacks with different markings. Its actually written in English and luckily no one can read it. This also acts as a flag for other people from earth that have made their way here. ¡°Can we please go over to a table, I don¡¯t want to just pour all this on the floor.¡± As Alex asks this, he sees the instructor beckon them to a side room. ¡°This is a planning room for the main laboratory. Put your bags on your table in the middle.¡± Left Foot instructs. As Alex walks over to the table, he starts to untie the backs in his hands. Maybe I should have pulled them out one at a time, this is getting awkward¡­ Ahh there, got one of them, now for the rest. Once Alex in front of the table he starts to pour out the stones from one of the bags while untying the others. What comes out of the first bad is a normal river pebble, smooth, rounded with no corners at all, there are marks all over the stone too done in ink. ¡°Sir if you would like to inspect one of the stones while I finish unpacking these, please be aware that chipping the wax off the stone will make it unsafe, please be careful.¡± Alex continues to open the other two bags while Left Foot picks up one of the stones.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. He looks to be inspecting the stones but is only getting question marks about the item. I surmise that¡¯s because they either don¡¯t work, the Admins can¡¯t see them properly or they have never been used in the past. ¡°Done, here are the others, let¡¯s keep them separate for now too.¡± Alex starts his explanation, ¡°What you have there is a self-accumulating rune enchantment. Once you chip away the wax, a piece of metal that acts as a loop between the storage of the mana and the blocked income rune is released so that too much energy cannot be stored.¡± Left Foot looks intrigued by the design of the visible areas but refrains from chipping away at the wax. Alex continues his explanation, ¡°Each of the different stones is colour coded as you can see, the one in your hand will create a big explosion with the stone as the centre, the stone will shatter when that occurs unfortunately but with better materials it may become reusable.¡± Left foot and the rest of my team mates stop playing with the stones, Left foot was throwing one up with one hand to feel the weight but Stefan was juggling 7 of a combination with Reiva, they were very good but once they heard the words shatter and explosion they suddenly put them down. I sure have no idea why they would do that. Left Foot picks up one of the stones gingerly, ¡°And this green one? What does it do?¡± Alex looks at everyone suddenly paying much more attention to his waste of time and smiles at the rest of the team. ¡°Sir that creates a high-pressure wave from the centre of the stone that can cause people to go deaf from the noise generated if too close. In this enclosed area, it would probably stun all of us for a few seconds. Sir, your stats may be too high for it to affect you too much.¡± Alex looks back down at the stones and picks up the final stone type, its wax is blue like the colour of the sea ¡°This final one is less deadly but can still be dangerous. When it has enough stored mana it will turn release fountains of water, the water pressure is not very high but with enough and with the right planning you an create a bog around your enemy while keeping your own land solid. This is most useful to run away from something stronger or to kill it from range before it can get to you.¡± Left Foot and the rest of the team are starting at this 6-year-old child that has come up with these deadly weapons and is even starting to think tactically about their uses. ¡°I see you have put a lot of thought into this, care to show us a demonstration now?¡± Left Foot looks eager to see how well this turns out, Alex¡¯s team is drooling to get a turn with the stones, if they can master their use, then they might be able to accelerate past their entire year and be at the top of the whole country! What luck that they joined his team! Alex sees all those hungry looks aimed at him and at the stones and chuckles to himself, I hope I have enough to ¡°play¡± with now and use later¡­ can I get supplies from the training camp, all my metal wire is gone from just making these. ¡°With the materials I had on hand and borrowing coloured candles, I was able to make just over 60, almost 70 actually all together. There are 26 of both red and green. The blue I only came up with later and ran out of materials and time¡­¡± Alex starts to divide the stones evenly. ¡°You will get 4 each of the red and green stones, I will keep the left overs in case Instructor Left Foot wants to show them to Head later¡­¡± Alex looks at Left Foot and nods. ¡°You will each get 1 of the water stones as I have fewer samples of those and would like to keep them for any future emergencies, with these we may not have needed to almost die dragging that corpse like last time.¡± He hands 9 stones to each of the people there and sets aside set for himself while placing the rest of the stones into the sacks they came from. ¡°Sir, this will get dangerous in such a small area, please could we go back to the experimental area.¡± Alex asks politely. Left Foot, looks sceptically between the stones and Alex but then shrugs and starts walking towards the door. The rest of Alex¡¯s team is looking at the stones and then back at Alex with questioning expressions then at Andra. ¡°Alex, are you sure about this? If this doesn¡¯t work¡­ well we may have to do clapping press ups all the way out of here. All I want to know is that you are certain about this.¡± Well I am not certain 100% of course but I tested the fire stone outside by throwing it in the river and it seemed to work¡­ ¡°I am as certain as I can be without testing them, there wasn¡¯t anywhere to test them outside either.¡± Alex explains to Andra. She keeps eye contact with Alex for a few seconds but he doesn¡¯t cringe or break contact either. Eventually she nods and turns towards the door Left Foot walked out of. ¡°Let¡¯s Go!¡± Once they are all outside in the experimental area, under Alex¡¯s suggestions they find an area with a neck high blocking all on the kids, for the instructor it was hardly a wall. Left Foot starts the conversation again, ¡°You said that you came up with the red and green stones first and then the blue. Why red and green though? Wouldn¡¯t just the fireball be enough?¡± ¡°Well, Sir, I was aiming for a specific effect. I had actually initially wanted to use light runes but I do not know any yet. Master said that they will come later as they are not as useful as one would think.¡± Alex gets back to explaining, ¡°First let me show you the 2 way of using the stones, there is the, what I call, passive and active setup.¡± He pulls out a red stone and shows it to everyone. ¡°First you need to chip off the wax to make the enchantments potentially destructive. Now the passive setting is to not touch the mana siphoning rune under the wax and just throw the stone where you want the effect to occur.¡± He gives the stone to the instructor to inspect, ¡°Sir could you look at the markings, it will take about 2 minutes for enough mana to be absorbed before the enchantment will go out of control and explode. Can you please throw it as far away from us as you can one you are done looking?¡± Left Foot takes the stone gingerly from Alex and inspects the new runes previously hidden by the wax. ¡°Does it matter how far away it goes?¡± he finally asks before starting to throw. ¡°Well 30 meters should be enough time for us to get behind cover but 50 would be better.¡± Alex replies and watches as the stone goes sailing in an arc even further than that. ¡°Now the second way to activate the stone, and I call this way as, ¡°Active Detonation¡±. You chip the wax and the wire away as before but this time you pour mana into the stone. To start a safe amount shout be around 30 mana. Once it¡¯s in there you have about 5 seconds to throw the stone at the target you want to burn.¡± Alex presses his finger on the centre rune or a red stone he was displaying the actions on and throws it with all his might. The stone lands close to 20 meters away, a respectable distance for my age. Stefan looks in the direction of the stone and then back at the stones in his hands. ¡°And what happens if you enter more or less mana than 30 into the stone?¡± he asks wondering if his guess was correct. Wha6 has Alex come up with, this could change so much! Alex been waiting for that question. ¡°Well if you add more mana then you have less time to throw, and if you add less mana then there is a greater delay. Now we need to crouch down in case there is shrapnel from the fireball.¡± In the near distance a fireball suddenly takes shape from the centre of the stone, the sudden change in temperature causes a shallow bang to be heard by everyone and a scorch mark that swiftly disappears is the only evidence there was something there. ¡°Those floors will self-repair against anything below magus rank. Having it need to regenerate even a little is already a sign of great potential.¡± Left Foot explains to the glum Alex, that was a little anti-climactic, well there is the wind stone still charging. ¡°I see, well those are the basic runes and the material couldn¡¯t hold much of them without self-destructing anyway.¡± Alex sighs in relief, so there was that in this room too? ¡°Did you notice how the stone started to glow brightly just before exploding?¡± Alex looks at the people around him, ¡°Well that is one of that is a weakness of my knowledge. There should be a way to convert the full mana of the stone into final output instead of being wasted on light just before exploding but I don¡¯t know it yet.¡± Vale points into the distance and exclaims, ¡°That green stone looks like its starting to glow brighter now! Is it about to explode?¡± Alex and everyone else turn towards the direction Vale pointed in and saw that there was indeed a brightly glowing stone in the distance. BOOM! A wave of wind pressure passes the kids and their instructor. Left Foot looks nonplussed by the sound or the wind and looks sceptically at Alex as if asking ¡°Is that it? Why did you waste my time?¡± Alex quickly attempts to reassure the instructor, ¡°Sir both of those effects were pretty far way and we still felt the pressure from all the way here. Optimally the green stone has to be used within 5 meters of the target and the red stone has to hit the target. However, ¡­¡± Alex stops talking and turns his head away, ¡°No, nothing Sir, that¡¯s too dangerous to be playing with, I don¡¯t recommend doing that.¡± ¡°Trainee Alexander, you will let me be the judge of that, now what is so dangerous to do that will make this a valid weapon that needs to be trained with?¡± Left Foot starts to question Alex. ¡°Sir I really should not be telling you, you will need to directly order me to tell you as it will pout your very life in danger. I do not wish to have the blood of my instructors on my hands, I am too young for such responsibility¡± Alex replies innocently. ¡°Too dangerous? I am level 18 you know? I have fought might beasts and even duelled with some of the royal guards and they were never too dangerous! You will tell me what I wish to know¡­¡± Left foot looks at Alex as he keeps hesitating. ¡°Sir, please order me to tell you how to do it or Head might have my ¡­. Um¡­ head ¡­¡± ¡°Fine, I order you to tell me how to do the other method and you know what happens to people who disobey orders form instructors!¡± There I got my get out of jail free card, just in case something goes really wrong. Alex looks like he hesitates for a second or two longer and finally answers. ¡°Sir, the optimal range to use both the stones is 5 or so meters as I mentioned before but the best way would be to use both stones at the same time. If you remove the wax on both the stones and place them back to back, then channel the same amount of mana into both stones and throw them within 5 meters of your enemy. The then best thing would be to look away and get behind something for protection.¡± The instructor scoffs at Alexander for telling him that he will need to be protected from such a low tier enchantment, even if there are two of them. Instead he stepped over the wall and walked a little bit away from the rest of the group. Alex looks on with trepidation, I needed to test the combined effect on a live target but I was thinking a stuffed target not one of the instructors. Oh well I hope his Vitality is high enough to tank this. Alex hears a voice coming from a little distance away and looks in the direction of the instructor ¡°So, all I need to do is to chip away at the wax and put in 30 mana and throw them 5 meters away from me? Is that it?¡± ¡°And hide sir, if not then cover your eyes and ears and shout as loud as you can so the pressure doesn¡¯t kill you.¡± Alex calls back. The instructor looks back at Alex for a little while and then shrugs to himself as if saying ¡°Kids, what do they know about the adult world¡± He chips the wax off of both stones and places them back to back between his pointer finger and thumb. The stones start to glow faintly then he drops them just 5 meters away from himself expecting little to no effect. Oh this is going to suck! ¡°EVERYONE, GET BEHIND THE WALL WITH YOUR EARS COVERED AND YOUR MOTH OPEN!!!¡± Alex has time to shout as he assumes that exact position. The rest of the team look at him for a fraction of a second and follows suit. What they have learnt out hunting is that sometimes someone has expertise that the rest of the team doesn¡¯t have. Just as they finish getting into position and placing their hands over their ears and opening their mouth the world suddenly explodes! BBBBBOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!! WHHHOOOOOOOOSSSSSSHHHHHHH!!! Patter¡­. Damn I hope the instructor survived, and that patter is rock chip and not human chip. The rest of the team exchanges horrified glances then inspect their stones for problems and accidental activation, just in case. Once they confirm no one has active stones then stand up again and look over at the instructor. He is was flung back and skidded all the way to the wall, all that¡¯s left of his cloths are burnt patches, the rest is shredded. He even has stone shrapnel all over his front, luckily nothing in the eyes or that would have been bad. And he is completely out cold ¡­ now how are they going to get out? Chapter 12 | Affinities ¡°So¡­ you are telling me that the reason one of the instructors is out cold and only now waking up is because of those little stones you were collecting from the river?¡± Head asks the group standing in front of him. They were back in the camp, it took them a while to clean up their casualty, to work out how to get out of the experimental area and then drag/carry Left Foot back to the training camp without any of the other trainees seeing them. In the end Reiva had to go and get Left Hand to carry Left Foot in while they were diverting attention with a very public reprimand. Once that was over with, Head and the team went back into his pavilion for a lengthier debriefing. Everyone apart from Alex turns to look at Andra for guidance on how to answer this question. Andra on the other hand was trying to catch Alex¡¯s eye so he could take over as the ¡°inventor¡± of the items. Maybe not the best way to lead but as she was learning, leading is about making mistakes and learning from them, so she would learn from this too. Alex finally looked at Andra, nodded and met Head¡¯s look, ¡°Sir, that is so. I do not know why the stones acted so differently when Left Foot used them when compared to when I tried them in the river earlier.¡± Head appraised Alex then looked at Andra and minutely shook his head as if telling her that what she did was not the way to go about being a leader. Properly reprimanded, Andra blushed and bowed her head promising not to throw a team mate under the carriage again. Once he looked back at Alex he continued, ¡°I believe I know why the affect of the stones by Left Foot was so much more ¡°active¡± than when you tried it. And you should all learn from this too¡± he swept his eyes across the rest of the team who were paying very close attention now, ¡°The reason there was a difference is due to his affinities.¡± Alex was surprised, he didn¡¯t think that would be the reason, he thought maybe it was an interaction between the oxygen in the air propagating the fireball further in the shockwave of the pressure wave. I guess it could still be that but I never considered affinities might have something to do with it. ¡°Do you know what affinities are?¡± Head looks at Reiva to prompt her to answer. ¡°Sir, I believe like the word¡¯s meaning, it¡¯s the ease with which one can perform a magic with its element. For example, a person with affinity in the 60s will be able to perform similar magic as someone with affinities in the 30s but with a lot less mana used.¡± Reiva attempts to explain her partial knowledge. Head angles his head to the left as if considering and slowly nods. ¡°Yes, that is part of it, but that¡¯s very much a surface explanation. There is a deeper reason for the different and is also the reason for the difference in effect too.¡± He sweeps his eyes back to meet Alex¡¯s and continues. ¡°You see, what Trainee Reiva has said is indeed correct, someone with a higher affinity will find it easier to cast the same spells versus someone with a higher affinity but it is not a thing of talent but multiplication.¡± Alex is stunned, multiplication and not talent? What does that mean? Can you be extremely knowledgeable and talented with an element and never have enough ¡­ what does it multiply anyway? Mana is mana¡­ not like you can create something from nothing can you? Head looks on and starts to smile slightly before smoothing his face again, be stern, be stern. ¡°I see you are confused. I am sure you are thinking about mana as any student that just joined the Academy. That mana is a constant immutable substance that doesn¡¯t change. ¡°1 mana is 1 mana is 1 mana¡± right?¡± he enquires of the team with a glance. Alex has a thoughtful look on his face, Stefan is confused by the conversation, Reiva is trying to understand but doesn¡¯t quite get it; Andra is almost there trying to remember something her mother said on the subject years ago and Vale is looking on with boredom, he is going to be a Guardian and doesn¡¯t need mana for anything. Head sees all this and follows all their thoughts by the animation of their faces, ¡°Wow we need to work on these kid¡¯s poker faces some time before they joint he international society in the Academy¡­¡± Head resets himself again to look at Alex, ¡°So have you got an explanation for me yet? No? Okay, I will give you a clue. What is 1 mana and how do we measure it?¡± he asks Alex and sees the cogs start to turn as if a missing piece was finally slotted into the mechanism. Alex has a look of wonder in his eyes and starts talking to think through his reasoning, ¡°Well, I think what you mean by that is that what we see as a unit of 1 is a measurement done by the Admins and is mutable but it is only mutable once we can start converting neutral mana into elemental mana during puberty.¡± He pauses, looks up at the ceiling of the tent and continues. ¡°From your clue I can surmise that the meaning of 1 is mutable. Do the affinities give you more mana of a specific type? Bu then wouldn¡¯t your mana pool be all over the place, it wouldn¡¯t be a single number any more but however many affinities you have.¡±Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Head nods at that as if agreeing with his reasoning, ¡°You are getting there, of course some of this is not understood by us either, as an example ¨C why do we not have multiple mana pools when we develop to convert elemental mana. Let me give you another clue, someone as smart as you should be able to understand it. What is the difference between neutral mana and Elemental mana?¡± Alex¡¯s hears the clue and stops rubbing at his head, he sharply looks up and asks, ¡°Can you tell me how high Left Foot¡¯s air and fire affinities are?¡± Head seems to pause at this and considers. Eventually he replies ¡°I can tell you that he has more than 40 in air and more then 50 in fire. I hope that is enough for you.¡± Alex ponders this for a second then replies ¡°I think I understand! Elemental Mana is more effective than neutral mana at the job of the element it is. So, fire mana is better at working with fire than neutral mana. I assume that once you start converting neutral mana into elemental mana you are no longer able to choose the mana type used? Path of least resistance if you know what I mean.¡± Head keep looking at Alex silently wishing the trainee to continue and work it out for himself. ¡°Then that means Left Foot had to use fire mana to charge the fire stone and air mana to charge the air stone. And if the effectiveness of elemental mana increases depending on the affinity then¡­ From the viewed effects it must be 10 affinity to 1x increase. So 20 affinity would be 2x increase in efficiency¡­¡± Head nods at that and interrupts, ¡°Yes, if it was 10 to 10 or 10 to 100 then you would have destroyed the mountain with your little stone. Sorry for interrupting you, I think Vale was falling asleep and I needed a way to shock him awake there. Please continue.¡± Everyone looks to their right to see Vale pale as a sheet from that little ¡°shock¡±. ¡°Ahem, as I was saying,¡± Alex continues, ¡°As the conversion rate is 10 affinity to 1x increase in efficiency then Left foot had more than 4 times efficiency with air and more than 5 times efficiency with fire. No wonder the effects were so different. So, the 30 of so mana pushed in at activation was the cause of the difference as the rest of the mana siphoned from the air wouldn¡¯t be affected. That is still something I hadn¡¯t considered.¡± Head nods his head in affirmation, ¡°That¡¯s correct, there are some misconceptions in there that you need to work out yourself to become a better mage in the future and I won¡¯t get into that now.¡± He continues while meeting the eyes of everyone else in the group. ¡°I will let you use these stones for now as you have neutral mana but Alex, be aware that they will become useless later. You can¡¯t alter the amount of mana needed to fracture the enchantment and release the energy stored but a real mage can change the amount of mana they feed into a spell to either produce a small fire ball the size of your fist, or if your affinity is high enough, a big fireball the size of a house.¡± Alex nods his head, he had also considered this and many more things but his knowledge of runes is too small still, he didn¡¯t even know about the storage or transfer runes before Wendy had to show him and its not like there are easily accessible books for this either. Alex looks up again with another question, ¡°Sir I originally wanted to use Light elemental runes instead of fire but I did not know them yet so I had to choose fire as an alternative. If its Light and wind could it still be useful in the future? It is supposed to be anti-personnel mass stun instead of an offensive attack.¡± Head stops whatever he was thinking about and looked back at Alex, ¡°Mass stun you say? How would light and sound do that? Wouldn¡¯t you need to hit them with something to stun them? Like a rock to the head for example?¡± Ahhh damn too smart for my own good, slowly, vaguely now tip toes around this. ¡°Well¡­ Sir, I remember going to the crafting section of town and hearing those big mechanical hammers hitting anvils and if you get too close they make your ears ring and make you feel a little unsteady right? And have you ever had someone turn enchant lights on too quickly in a dark room? The way your eyes suddenly sting and make you try to close them to protect them?¡± Alex continues as he tries to judge Head¡¯s reaction to his explanation. ¡°Well after our fight with the Yeti I thought we needed a way to slow it down or stun it so we can get away next time instead of almost dying.¡± Head nod at this reasoning and takes over, ¡°So you thought if you combined the two affects you could create something cheap and easy to carry to help your team to get out of dangerous situations?¡± Hearing this reasoning Alex starts nodding his head. Its as good of an explanation as any, I can¡¯t tell them that I was trying to reproduce a flashbang, now could I? ¡°Yes sir, it was exactly that and I also thought they could be spread behind us as we ran away to catch the pursuer unawares. They glow like the sun when they are about to go off but they are still going to work even if the chaser knows about them right?¡± ¡°Okay I understand what happened now, I will talk to Left Foot about this and his behaviour after hearing your warnings. You don¡¯t have to worry about him punishing you for this.¡± Head wrapped up on the debriefing. ¡°Now please leave the pavilion, I have a report to write about this.¡± All together the team replies with a hearty ¡°Yes Sir¡±, they turn around and leave the pavilion with relieved expressions. They didn¡¯t get punishment duty for any of it! Chapter 13 | Shades and Bargaining Head: After the kids left, Head continued to work for another 5 minutes to make sure no one came back in after them. ¡°Shade, you can come out now. Which Shade are you anyway? Have we met before?¡± Head asks the air around him. A person cloaked in black slowly materialises into view as they walk from the edge of the pavilion to the side of Head¡¯s table. ¡°No, I am afraid we have not crossed paths before but our files from other Shades that have worked with you only say nice things so I expect us to get along well¡­¡± A deep voice comes out of the cloak. The Shade is robed in a black cloak with some kind of enchantment that doesn¡¯t allow anyone to look in but gives perfect vision out. It is rumoured that the cloak also hides a great assortment of weapons and is armoured against physical and magical attacks too. ¡°So, what do you now see why I asked you to be present instead of searching for that Yeti tribe? Was it worth it to the king and the university do you think?¡± Head enquires politely. You have to be polite with the Shades, they speak with the king¡¯s voice and in his name. But when they are on duty they give up their individuality too. There is no glory or honour for a single member. All accolades go to the order and they hunt their own rule breakers more stubbornly than the royal guards protecting their charge. The voice continues but it seems to have changed slight, how do they do that? ¡°Yes, I can see how this could be useful even to us. No one has ever thought of such crude enchantments for disposable items. This could be very useful¡­¡± As the Shade talks his figure seems to flow from a muscular man of 190 cm to a slim woman 160cm tall. The voice also shifts with the changing figure. ¡°I believe we can use this but you know how the ADMINS deal with people that steal intellectual property. You will be heavily fined and debuffed by them if you do not take the items in combat or by announcing the theft in the open.¡± Head cringed at that, he had heard about the exorbitant mana fines and they even inform the original owner of the knowledge if it¡¯s taken in a way that breaks the rules. ¡°And I hear that if the knowledge is from a child then it is held in trust until they reach maturity until any form of rule to taking the knowledge can be used.¡± The shifting of Shade¡¯s form and voice always made Head a little queasy but it was nothing new. Shade tilted its head, or at least the hood tilted a little. ¡°How about we just ask him, don¡¯t have to deal with any of this circumlocution either and no problem with the ADMINS. And maybe we can teach him about the world of adults at the same time?¡± ¡°Yes, that would be best, do you mind hiding again so I can get an aid to get him, thank you.¡± Head concedes. As he calls for an aid as the Shade starts to vanish again, slowly blending in with the white cloth of his pavilion. Alex: Alex runs up to the pavilion again and rings the small gong outside to inform Head that he has visitors. Shortly a call from inside is heard urging him to go inside. This pavilion is amazing. I didn¡¯t get a chance to look at it properly last time as it was so rushed. How are the walls still so white? And where did all the rugs and painting come from? Is that a liquor table in the corner? ¡°Sir, you wished to speak to me?¡± Alex stops in front of the table and starts to salute. ¡°At ease Alex, please take a seat. I would like you to meet someone that works for the King. Shade, would you please say hello?¡± As Head finishes, Shade starts to materialise again while walking towards the seated Alex. ¡°Alex, do not be afraid, you see Shade is an agent of, well, Shade. They are an organisation created by an ancient queen that saw that even if she was the best monarch to her subjects, there are some things that still need to be done in the dark. The Shade organisation came from that.¡± Alex watched as Shade made its way to the other seat and sat down. ¡°Sir, and Shade, may I make some observations and deductions about Shade? I understand that telling anyone about Shade¡¯s existence will likely lead to me having an ¡°accident¡± correct?¡± Head seems to be taken aback by such a suggestion but Shade seems to bow slightly at the assertion. I think I might have to show some mental prowess again, not too much but enough to make them think they are going to be bargaining with someone too big for their britches at least. This call back is obviously for the designs of the stones though why they bother and not just steal them is something to wonder about later. ¡°Yes, I assumed so. Can I start of by noting that the skill you used to hide and reappear is the same one as the skill used by the Registration Ceremony leader at the University?¡± A nod of the head from Shade. ¡°The way your figure is changing must be some kind of illusion, either you are not really present where you appear or you have a way to alter my perception of scale?¡± The Shade moves slightly and the chair creaks and moves a little too. ¡°Thank you for the confirmation. You are actually present but you have some kind of enchantment or skill that can alter my perception of you without me being able to detect it. This is more likely an enchantment as it would be easier to make it have a basic proficiency for newbies to the order than to have a skill that develops and is slightly different for everyone. That way everyone else can¡¯t tell the difference between a newbie or a veteran Shade correct?¡± The Shade seems shocked a little but how it was visible no one could tell, it didn¡¯t move or jerk or anything and with no face to view there was no way anyone should be able to tell but Head could see it, and for some reason so could Alexander. Who is this boy? ¡°Ah apologies if that was a secret you wished to keep from the rest of us, I did not mean to violate some kind of rule. I believe that is all, please could you tell me what you wish of me? Is it to get the plans for the stone enchantments?¡± Head had been watching the two interact but now even he was stunned by such deep vision from this 6-year-old. Head looked at the opening of Shade¡¯s hood but received no response so continued, ¡°Yes we can see some very interesting uses for your stone enchantments and would like to develop them to use in our army and by special actions units like the Shades. All we need is your permission and a sample and we can take it from here.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Ah that is what they want, then I did guess right but they seem to assume I will just give it to them. Hmmm how to spin this slightly to my advantage? Ah I will use that ¨C honesty and a splash of excitement! ¡°Sir I would love to just give you them but I was hoping we could come to a deal, with the Shade here, they can probably act as a witness to the deal too correct?¡± Alex looks at the Shade still sitting in the seat across from him. The Shade seems to relax slightly but still sits with its back straight and legs together. It nods exaggeratedly as a small motion may be hidden by the enchantment and this is a time to be serious. ¡°Okay, so the Shades are the king¡¯s voice and act in his name so they can be witness to this deal and put his honour on the line, right?¡± Alex looks back at Head. He seems shocked again, Head never considered Alex would say something like that! The shame! Though he would do the same in his place too. ¡°Okay so you have a guarantee, now what do you want?¡± Head starts. ¡°Sir may I interrupt. Please let me finish, you seem to be asking me, a child for permission so there must be some kind of law that prevents you just taking the knowledge from me. This means that I have a little more power than normal but if I don¡¯t want to become an enemy to the university, the army and the kingdom I can¡¯t really ask for anything too special. So, all I really want in exchange is free unrestricted access to the rune crafting section of the university library and a supply of materials of materials to experiment with. Maybe there will be something else you would wish to buy from me in the future too? How about first pick goes to the university and the army and then I will look in the public domain after?¡± Alex finishes. Head and the Shade exchange glances again, who was going to teach who about being an adult? The Shade shakes its head in the negative, that is too much for just the stones and Head nods. The exchange is silent but the meaning still gets across to all three of them. ¡°That is too much, how about one day access per month to the library, you will get no resources but will still have to come to the army and the university for first choice?¡± Head says in a final commanding tone. That is much too low, I am sure I could show the stones to mother and she could make a better deal but how about I try to bargain some more first. Don¡¯t want to turn these people against me but more importantly, the family. ¡°Sir, Miss Shade, I do not believe you are bargaining fairly. You are going to exchange stones that could change lives for one day of library access and I still have to give you first pick to anything in the future?¡± When the Shade hears Alex call it Miss Shade it seems to stiffen again. Alex notices the stiffening and seems his guess was accurate, ¡°Miss Shade, when men relax they generally spread their legs a little, it is subconscious. Women on the other hand will keep their knees together even when relaxing.¡± There is no response from Miss Shade but it turns its head towards Head and nods slightly. Seeing this interchange Alex decides to bargain a little, maybe he can get something out of this and not be branded a rebel. ¡°Sir, Miss Shade, how about this: 1 day per week access to the university library for rune crafting and 25% of all profits you or whoever produces them later will be given to me in the form of a trust fund that can be used to buy materials to experiment. Most of all I would like for my identity to remain a secret. Can¡¯t have anyone know who I am as I don¡¯t want assassins after me from internal and external sources¡± Alex looks at the Shade who seems to nod in reply. ¡°Alex, that seems reasonable to be honest, but the 25% of all profits may be a little high considering we will have to do all the work to produce and distribute, how about 3% instead? As for your identity? Until you are of majority and agree to use your own name, then an alias will be used anyhow. We will have to come up with one or you can come to us after you have thought of one.¡± He looks Alex straight in the eye and asks, ¡°Agreed?¡± 3% is much more than I could ask for considering how unilaterally useful the flashbangs will be and what other effects they will develop. The core idea is putting an enchantment on the stone and not what enchantment so that¡¯s good. As for the alias, I will have to think of something that is not related to weapon production. Yes, this looks agreeable. ¡°Sir, please confirm that we are bargaining for the idea of putting enchantments on stones or other consumable items¡­ Correct?¡± Alex makes sure, making assumptions makes an ass out of you and me and all that. Assume is Ass u me. ¡°Yes, I will confirm that any enchantment that is produces that is placed on a disposable item that is used by the military will give you a pay-out of 3% if anyone in the public sector uses the same idea, to make something else then we cannot provide you with anything from that but we will stop anyone outside of the deal producing anything not for the military for the next 3 years. Is that all of your concerns covered?¡± Head asks. Alex considers the news but is more than happy to confirm for the three-year lockout on other people, by the end of the 3 years he will have other things out and everyone else will continue to play catch up. ¡°Yes, I agree with those terms. Is there a contract to sign or anything? A blood pact maybe?¡± he asks. ¡°No there is no contract, really we didn¡¯t even need the Shade but it was nice of you to consider it worthy. Now we write the conditions out and read them out to the ADMINISTRATION like how you would create a skill.¡± Head responds. Once all the niceties were finished with, the wording was written out and debated, changed and rearranged a couple of times and everyone was happy Head and Alex took turns reading the contract to the ADMINISTRAION. Once that was done Alex received the following notification:
CONTRACT FOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CREATED
Rodress Alphain and Alexander Derroid have agreed to a binding contract to use Alexander¡¯s intellectual property before his age of majority.
BINDING PARTICULARS
1. Access to rune crafting library in the University of Rodium ¨C 1 day per week 2. 3% royalties paid to Alexander for any production of an enchanted consumable item for the army 3. No one else is allowed to use the idea for 3 years 4a. This is a binding agreement to the kingdom as a member of the Shades is present to vouch for the Ruling Monarch¡¯s position. 4b. This is a binding agreement to the world as the owner of the intellectual property is below the default age of majority.
Head and Shade: Sometime later, after Alex left back to his team and to get ready for the night watch. Head and Shade look at each other and Head starts, ¡°Did we just get fleeced by a child? That deal was much too good? 3% and 3 years? He got everything he wanted, didn¡¯t he?¡± Shades cocked its head at an angle as if considering, ¡°Yes it seems so, I think it was my fault too. The initial ¡°reasoning¡± about me was supposed to put us on our back foot and make us chase him instead of him chasing us for a better deal. We have been totally had, hopefully he will use the experimental money to come up with something truly amazing in the future that will vindicate us.¡± Head nods at that, yes, there is always hoping; he then asks the Shade, ¡°Was he right about your gender? I had noticed your posture but never considered it was anything apart from extreme training or an illusion.¡± Shade seems to consider how to answer and suddenly starts to fade from view, a voice is heard as it walks out of the pavilion, ¡°The Shades have no name, they have no gender and they speak with one voice. But he is an interesting child, he may be the youngest to have a folder with us apart from the children of the aristocracy.¡± And then it¡¯s gone as if it was never there. Head seems to sink into his seat just a little and starts talking to himself, ¡°So the Shade was a she this time, and what he said about the illusion enchantment seems to have hit a mark too. Was this actually a new recruit for the Shades? And to identify its gender. Just who is Alexander Derroid and What will he do in the future?¡± Chapter 14 | Final Test After a month of daily hunting for food, skill gains, sentry duty, physical training and general survival training out in the wilds for both the little princes and the street rats. Finally, they were ready to go back to their separate cities: teams that were finally in sync with each other would be breaking up. The same groups of trainees would be unlikely to be chosen to go to the same place for the yearly training camp but there are many other opportunities, there are a limited number of Academies for one and finally there is only one university, but you need to be exceptional to reach such a peak Alex and his team sat around a fire telling stories about what they most appreciated from the training camp and preparing for the final test before they are able to leave the next day. Later they would strategize some more and finally exchange contact details with each other in case they were travelling near each other. After 3 weeks of team therapy with Vale they also finally broke his reliance on the approval of his father. This unfortunately caused his taunt skill to shatter as he couldn¡¯t see the strength of the image he used before. But it was no longer needed anyway as they all could either dodge, parry, block the attack, or blind them with fire stones. And interesting use for water stones was discovered one fateful day which engulfed the whole camp into a single water fight with eventually the children all teaming up against the trainers. There were 50 children but the 5 instructors could use magic so it worked out as being pretty fair. Apart from the team, no one else that they knew of knew where those enchanted stones came from and who the mysterious Enki was. Eventually the team each had a visit from a Shade who explained that they were some of the few people that knew of Enki¡¯s real identity and giving out such knowledge to anyone, including family would cause extreme problem for the whole family. Reiva attempted to sell the information later but found all the people that were willing to buy the information dead and a note left behind: ¡°Thank you for your hard work, Your friendly neighbourhood Shade.¡± She never attempted to reveal such information again. Enki¡¯s simple idea swept through the military and even reached the upper tier mages of the university. If they could have an item that could be used while they defended against opponents to break a stalemate it was seen as a wonderous advantage. That delight was squished by the Shade Order which did not want other kingdoms getting a sniff of this tiny development and to save using the stones unless they were used in a time of war. They will however be used by kids on training activities in the wild for escape and evasion purposes. Hopefully this would misdirect any spy reports for the usefulness of the items. This was they could continue to test and experiment with the stones and make everyone else believe that they were only expensive training aids, nothing more. Eventually the furore around Enki disappeared into the subconsciousness of the kingdom until his next big reveal but that will come later.
The next day the final test was revealed to the trainees, they have been brainstorming the last couple of days for possible clues and strategizing for as many possibilities as possible with so little information It was a combat test as many people had guessed. All you had to do is touch the opponent¡¯s belt once. The point of the test was to prove your team work and leadership for the leaders, not your combat prowess, your skills or stats. To pass you have to show real commitment to the success of the team instead of glory hunting. Unfortunately, even after a month of constant training with your team, some teams and some leaders never had to learn that lesson. Andra and her team were the 7th in line for the attempt and they were all preying to get Head as their opponent as he would be the greatest challenge and would allow them to do unlock their full potential. They were not allowed to view the other team¡¯s combat attempts so as to not from each the other teams but they were also not guarded and nothing was said about breaking rules, scouting the enemy or anything like that. This is why they were sitting in a tight circle to make it look like all 5 were sitting there while Reiva was off ¡­ Scouting. Andra feels a hand touch her shoulder three times and stands up to stretch her legs, when she sits done, Reiva is sitting with her too. ¡°So how did it go? How close did you manage to get¡¯?¡± she finally asks. ¡°I couldn¡¯t come closer than the ridge, some of the other scouts from the other teams came over the ridge and were instantly caught. From what I could hear, they would be kept away from their own turn and only allowed to join after 1 minute as if they had died.¡± Reiva shakes her head as she explains. ¡°I could have sworn they could see us up there even with the camouflage skill.¡± At this point Stefan interjects, ¡°So what can you tell us about Head¡¯s combat style? Is he as amazing as we assumed? Can we finally go full out? Let¡¯s be honest, for the last week we have been soloing our targets. The only real challenge now would be another exiled yeti and I really don¡¯t think we would have an issue with one of those.¡± Vale and Alex both met Reiva¡¯s eyes and also nod as if asking ¡°Tell us?!¡± Reiva however looked at Andra for confirmation. Once she gets a nod from her she begins. ¡°It was very strange. Head didn¡¯t seem to move but no one could approach him, the other kids started tripping and getting in each other¡¯s way before even getting close to Head. Eventually they would be told something and would leave. I don¡¯t believe any one of them has passed yet but they are allowed to leave to the carriages anyway.¡± They all stare at her until she suddenly blushes, looks at the ground and starts to fade from view until Andra finally snaps out of whatever she was thinking about and places her hand on Reiva¡¯s shoulder in an encouraging manner. ¡°Don¡¯t worry Reiva, we don¡¯t blame you for not getting closer and I am sure the guys are actually extremely excited about what you said instead of scrutinising what you told us.¡± She turns to the ¡®guys¡¯ in the team and repeats herself, ¡°Right guys?¡± The guys, Alex, Stefan and Vale, all snap out of whatever they were thinking and dumbly nod at Andra, ¡°Reiva I don¡¯t think they heard a thing we said since you finished. Boys!¡±
It was finally their turn and the stress finally hit them all. They each obviously had different reactions to it though. Alex was fiddling with his sword and kept counting the effect stones. Should I use the sword ability? Could it be too dangerous? Maybe use the stones as delayed traps too? I hope we don¡¯t hurt him too much after this! ¡­.. I hope we can touch the belt ¡­¡­. Just let us pass the test¡­ Flip up, spin around, flip down, One, two, three ¡­. Andra had a similar reaction but she was ranging distances instead and counting her arrows. Should she be using the armour piercing set or the blunt force set? Can she use the sharp set as feints or would that be too obvious? Reiva was constantly fading in and out of view while meticulously counting her own enchanted stones, fake stones, caltrops she had one of the trainers provide a week or so ago. Her knives were nice and sharp now too though she didn¡¯t think she would use them for more than blocking and parrying whatever head does. Stefan stood near the middle of the group just banging his mace against his shield in rhythmic beat. Three¡­ Two¡­ One¡­ Thump¡­ Three¡­ Two¡­ One¡­ Thump ¡­ It set a nice tone for the upcoming combat and was a focus for the rest of the team to psych themselves up to. Vale was stock still. He was standing and looking at Head directly in the eyes before searching the rest of his body for obvious weapons and tells. He was the most serious of the team and was not worried about what tricks if any to use. His only role was to take the hits for his team and give them openings to try to get that belt. He would do everything he can to let his team pass this test even if it was grabbing onto Head and holding him down as best he could. After a short while Head Finally spoke, ¡°You have been the best and most balanced team of this session of training and I hope you have learnt enough from our time out here to trust your team mates. I will preface the start of combat with the rules and a piece of advice. First of all, you see the square we are in?¡± everyone looked around, where did the stone come from? Was it always there? They hadn¡¯t noticed from the nerves, too unprepared. ¡°Now if you leave this square you will be counted as killed and will no longer be part of the team to pass, if the rest do. However, if you are knocked out while still in the square you will be counted as dead only after 5 minutes and will still pass with the rest of the team. Now the piece of advice. You have to come at me with everything you have. Go for killing blows and maiming hits because that is the only way you will make me move or even make attempt to touch the belt. Is. That. Clear?¡± Everyone from the team gulp hearing that pronouncement. So, they were not strong enough for Head to even move huh? The eyes of Alex, Andra and Reiva slowly clear. They no longer have to worry about not hurting Head too much. Stefan is still beating his shield but with a slightly faster rhythm ¨C Two ¡­ One¡­ Thump¡­ Two¡­ One¡­ Thump¡­ Andra switches the shorts around and mixes up for load out to better take advantage of the more dangerous pieces. She looks at Reiva and something seems to pass between them, and then they nod to each other. Vale is still looking intensely at Head, judging and shadow fighting him in preparation for their test. Alex seems to have relaxed now, if he can¡¯t even hurt Head then he doesn¡¯t have to worry about using some of his more ¡­ interesting tactics. He also starts up his Breath of Mana to build up the regeneration stacks without wasting too much stamina.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Head sees all of this take place from the eyes of the kids opening, their heads rising, their breathing slowing, their postures straightening. What a strange reaction to have when told they needed to fight to kill. These kids were truly special! He flicks his eyes to his left at the corner of the arena behind the kids and flicks his eyes back. The observer he asked to see this is still there, the blade of cut grass floating 2 cm of the ground s the proof of that. ¡°BEGIN!¡± Head yells!
They have been preparing for this for more than two weeks since the incident with the enchanted stones but never knew it. On that day the team finally had its final weapon and while Alex could enchant Andra¡¯s arrows too he did not have the materials to do it properly. The stones were easy but metal was another story. The arrows had their own natural amount of mana as metals conducted mana just like electricity for some reason. The team slowly got into a cross formation with Vale at the front, Alex on the right and Stefan on the left; Reiva was in the middle of the cross being covered by the bulky nature of Vale¡¯s equipment and finally Andra at the back where she could coordinate the rest of the team and work to distract Head with killing bolts. Suddenly the front line starts to run job forward with Vale outpacing everyone, Alex and Stefan stay a little way behind him and Reiva is still blocked from view by Vale. As they get closer to the barrier that no other team has managed to breach Vale shouts and starts to sprint forward. This is his new skill to replace Father¡¯s Disappointment ¨C Furious Charge. He will charge forward at the target in front of him. The louder his voice the faster he will run the more likely the enemy in front of him will not move. Head would not move so Vale could finally test himself to his loudest scream. ¡°RRRRAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHH¡± and out paces the rest of the front line. Stefan is trying to keep up with Winds of Battle but is still outpaced! Alex is impressed but has no time to really appreciate what is going on now. He pulls out a fire stone from his pouch and activates it with 15 mana. This should set a 30 second timer on the stone, with his other hand he pulls out a set of unenchanted stone with wax coverings and throws them at Head. As Vale suddenly hits the Barrier that stopped everyone else he grunts and continues to move forward. There is something in the barrier with head and Vale, he seems to be pushed back slightly and a sound of wood hitting metal can be heard. The shield is bucking back and forth and Vale is about to lose it but he is not alone! Stefan rushes in behind vale and around him. His Winds of Battle skill evolved to have another effect once he reached Line rank. It could have something to do with an improvement of the image or the reduction of strain on his body but now instead of only moving in straight lines, he can, for an expenditure of more stamina, change the direction of his sprint forward without slowing down. Vale created the chink in the armour and Stefan took advantage of it to strike directly at Head. He hid behind Vale on his charge at Head and now takes advantage of the surprise. He gets close to hitting Head but something knocks him out of the way. Something seems to be whirling around Head so fast that it can hardly be seen or maybe it¡¯s just very thin? While Stefan and Vale are up close with Head, Alex is sending him a surprise too. The feint stones were a diversion and create too many targets for Head to track especially with Vale and Stefan right there in front of him to concentrate on! The activated fire stone is still in Alex¡¯s hand. Once he sees Head¡¯s eyes flick to Stefan to parry hit attack, Alex throws the fire stone up as high as he can so that it lands close to Head on its way down. Andra is already firing her blunt arrows trying to map the area of disturbance around Head. Any arrows going over him are ignored and any arrow going too low skids completely past him without notice. Either he can control which arrows are hit depending on their chance to hit him or the effect of the area is only around him from knee height up to the top of his head. Andra stops shooting for a second to tie an air and fire stone to two arrows, activates them with 25 mana and shoots them to pass beneath the area of effect. The arrows are clumsy and un balanced but that is actually a benefit at the moment. Finally, Stefan is thrown back and Vale follows shortly after, Head sweeps his eyes across all the stones and moves to remove the arrow stones and clear away some of the dummy stones too. ¡°Ah¡­ those sneaky kids, they know I have seen the possible dangers of those stones and know that some of them take so long to take effect. I can¡¯t leave any stones near me just in case, taking my eyes off them means I can¡¯t parry and they used that to make me move¡­¡± he considers with chagrin. ¡°Smart kids¡± he almost purrs. He looks up again and sees Vale and Stefan helping each other to get up, Alex is throwing more mixed stones and activating his sword with his other hand. Whatever they were planning is coming soon. Ah and there is Andra, Miss Team Leader charging her Trueshot. That could be dangerous if it actually hits him Head thought. Now where is Reiva ¨C A stone comes falling from the sky just in front of Head, if he didn¡¯t move away from the kids to clear some of the stones he would never have seen it. Its shining like the run and Head can¡¯t even look at it directly, no less see the type of runes used. He starts to bring his arms to swat the stone away at the same time he jumps back slightly to avoid the damage from the knockback if it¡¯s an air stone t ¨C BOOOOM The stone explodes just before Head¡¯s hand can strike the stone and push it away from himself. He couldn¡¯t close his eyes or his hybrid skill would stop working so he turned his face way from the stone but not soon enough! The light from the fireball still blind shim for a second and the natural blinking to clear his eyes interrupts his skill. All around Head there is a sudden whoosh sound as if whatever was spinning around him lost control and went flying off into the distance. One of the sticks passed between Vale and Andra without hitting either. That was too close! The kids were not just watching what was going on, they were already acting as the fireball exploded better than they could have hoped, they were initially hoping for the stone to fall from the side of Head to deafen one of his ears and distract him but this way whatever was interfering with Vale and Stefan was now gone. Vale set his shield and starts running at Head again and started his charge again only once Stefan caught up with his Winds of Battle skill. Alex was on Vale¡¯s left now too falling steadily behind but his sword was now glowing a little and an elemental air sheath is now present. That the rest of his Mana but he already has some more fire and air stones prepped in his quick access pouches. They take 90 seconds to charge passively so there is time for some sneakiness. Vale is getting really close to Head, only 5 meters away now when he hears a voice from behind him, ¡°VALE!!! NOW!!!¡±. Vale stops his charge and side steps a second later to let pass a glowing, spinning arrow! That is the Trueshot that Andra was charging previously is what Head realises. Just before it hits Head, he turns his body side on and leans back a little to let the whole thing past. This gives Vale and Stefan an opening to get really close to him and to start pressuring him from both sides. A spear appears but no one has time to wonder where it came from. It could have always been there rotating around him for all they knew. Did it matter? NO? then ignore it for now and keep pressing! Head is suddenly searching with this eye, where is Reiva, he hasn¡¯t seen her since the beginning of combat all that time ago? What has it been? 15 seconds? 20? These kids are good! Head doesn¡¯t have time to look for Reiva as Andra is already preparing another Trueshot and Alex is coming in with that dangerous feeling sword of his. With the boosts in his stats after this month what used to be a nuisance is now a formidable weapon. Alex comes rushing in from Head¡¯s other side that is open now that Stefan is on the right getting parried by that deadly looking spear and doing his best to take hits on his shield. His arms and legs are bloody from all the cuts he lets through from Head though. He can do better with some more training. Alex is suddenly close enough to pierce with that sword of his. C¡¯mon Head you can¡¯t be distracted like that! That sword has to be number one priority, he can take a hit from both Vale and Stefan so long as he stops that sword! Vale suddenly presses forward too and presses the spear to head¡¯s body with his shield as it passes to parry Alex on his left. Head is truly in danger now. Maybe the first time ever against kids that were this young. What good children but Head can still parry with his other hand. It¡¯s dangerous to do parry an enchanted weapon barehanded but it won¡¯t be too bad, its still a tier 1 enchant for light¡¯s sake. The combat is noisy, fast and heavy. While there are 3 kids in the front row trying to pressure Head, Andra is in the back charging her Trueshot for its final diversion. Just as Alex is about to be parried she shouts ¡°GUYS!!!¡± The kids in the front line break apart again to let another Trueshot past to put more pressure on Head. As it passes the slightly surprised Head, he is slightly off balance, he took a step just a centimetre too far back and now his centre of balance has broken. Vale, Alex and Stefan see this minute mistake on their trainer¡¯s part and capitalise on it! They each aim for a different killing bow ¨C Alex is aiming for the large arteries in Head¡¯s right leg with a piercing attack, Stefan is aiming for the side of the head with his mace and Vale is going for a crippling shot aiming at the Head¡¯s front knee. Head sees all of this and is pressured into dodging again, from an already unbalanced position he has to lose even more to avoid all those attacks! He doesn¡¯t know what it is but something catches his attention approaching him from behind, he starts to look back but Alex is already throwing slightly glowing stones at Head, trying to keep his attention on them. But the feeling from behind is much more dangerous for some reason. When did they get something behind me? I cleared all their traps or was it another falling stone? No this is coming from distinctly down. A dagger suddenly appears behind Head and is aimed directly at his kidney! The other dagger is stealthily still moving towards the waving belt. His 6th sense is suddenly blaring alarms at him that he has to stop playing around or he will really be hurt by this. He no longer has anywhere to go and his posture is too unbalanced to keep playing around. He suddenly vanishes and 5 thunks are heard behind each of the team. The ¡°light¡± taps knock all the kids out and Head is relieved for his life. The other team taking the test also stopped to watch. They had goose bumps after watching that. The precision, the lack of communication and yet the team fought amazingly well, blocking for each other, parrying for each other, feints from 1 person created real attack opportunities for others. The trainers were impressed too but they were also a little scared¡­ what would have happened if that team fought them? Would they have been able to win too? Maybe? Head looks around the arena and sees the decoy stones all around, some of the activating stones needed to be thrown away before they caused harm too. Now to clean up the kids before passing them. The audience Head requests fades into view on the side away from everyone else and whispers, ¡°Before you congratulate yourself too much, have a look at your belt.¡± Then fades away as if he wasn¡¯t there. Head looks confused for a second then looks at the length of the belt. At the very end there is a shallow cut splitting the fabric of the belt. The shape of the cut looks like a dagger and the only one to use them is ¡­ He looks around and spots a girl lying behind where he was standing¡­ Reiva. So, all of this was just an act? Yes, they came at me with all they had and ready to sacrifice themselves to pressure me just to give that girl and opening. And even she distracted my senses from the belt by aiming one of her daggers and my kidneys for another killing blow. What amazing kids. I expect great things from all of you. Status / Changes I want to make So as some of you have noticed I am not using certain aspects of my setup like i should, journals for example or Alex''s childhood. On the note of the journals - It''s a good idea and a nice system if implemented well but thats not for me ... not yet at least. Maybe in a future fiction i will do something about it I am also going to get rid of the talents that never came into effect or mentioned after though i will be moving clear mind to be a skill instead. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. I am also thinking of aging Alex to atleast 9 and keeping the childhood chapters as intermission chapters early on. They, for some reason are harder to write for me than progression chapters. Finally i am thinking of cutting out the early age chapters and putting them in later as interludes (C1 and C2) but that depends on whether they still fit into the restructuring or i could use anything from them later. Redo the Registration chapter to be in the form of a baptism (non religious in this case unless the Admins are gods [I am not going that way] but after multiple millenia they could be considered such by the denizens) for young children.