《Mournebane: A world of swords, magic, monsters and dungeons》 Prologue: The Awakening ¡°Would you like to transport to MOURNBANE?¡± Laurence didn¡¯t have much choice in the matter. Considering his house was already a smouldering pile of rubble, and all of his possessions were destroyed except the clothing he had on his body,¡°Yes¡±would be the best answer. Obviously, he chose this. After he tapped¡°Yes¡±, he was enveloped in a brightly shining white light. Once Laurence was able to see again, he took in his surroundings. Gently rolling hills in a large, grassy plain took up the north, or so he assumed. Around the rest of him, there was a dense forest, with noises of wild animals attempting to survive in the harsh world. He then saw at the top right of his vision, there was 3 grey lines infront of a slightly transparent golden circle. Laurence tapped the air around the button, and the right side of his vision instantly filled with choices, varying from¡°Character Stats¡±to¡°Skills¡±.He tapped the air around the¡°Character Stats¡± button, and the middle of his view was taken up by a screen only seen before in games.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Character Name: Laurence Cole Charcter Age: 26 Character Race: Human Gender: M Ranking: Z (Ranking goes from Z to AAA+) Level: 1 Strength: 10 (Rating: Weakling) Dexterity: 10 (Rating: Snail) Constitution: 10 (Rating: Glass) Intelligence: 10 (Rating: Below-Average) Wisdom: 10 (Rating: Incompetent with MANA) Charisma: 10 (Rating: No-Charm) This is how all Humans started. Even those thought of as¡°Superhuman¡± were considered a weakling by [Him]. Laurence closed the menu, and sat on the grass pondering what to do. -Perhaps I should go to a town?- He thought, and he checked his vision again. Sure enough, in the top left of his view there was a Map. He tapped it to see a full view of the world. There were settlements near him, so Laurence set off on his journey towards the towns. The First Chapter: How I survived an encounter with an AA+ ranked monster (1) The new world unfolded before Laurence. There were calm rivers flowing along the plains, no other people or animals to be found. Beautiful rock formations lay atop hills, with many of the stones having characters the Laurence could not comprehend on them. He assumed these were not to be meddled with, so he left them alone. On his journey to the nearby village, which was only a few miles away at this point, Laurence saw a cave, with brightly shining torches lighting the way in. The entrance was fairly large, and took up a large amount of a hill¡¯s peak, and had detailed inscriptions along the sides of the walls. He decided to enter the cave, as he needed a short rest due to the 4 hour trek on his way to the settlement. Once Laurence entered the cave, there was already a camping site set up, with small but sturdy beds set up against the walls. The was also a warm fire, it¡¯s flame dancing as if enjoying every moment of its life, lightning the cave in a very beautiful way, with shadows occasionally filling the spots where the flames radiance once danced. After he had a 15 minute rest, he decided to explore the rest of the caves inside. After around 30 seconds of walking deeper into the cave, Laurence found a door with purple torches on the sides of it. Various details were inscribed onto the door, with maze like carvings flowing through the stone. An ominous aura could be detected from the door, however Laurence did not know what an aura was yet, and he hadn¡¯t unlocked the aura stat yet either. A decrepit chest was found by the side of the door, it¡¯s contents not yet known. He decided to open the chest, releasing a mass of dust and cobwebs from the inside. Among all of the useless items that gathered over time, there was a book with the title of¡°The Art of Magic and it¡¯s many forms¡±. Laurence couldn¡¯t help but laugh at the ridiculous title, as he knew well that magic did not exist. Clearly, he still thought of this as a dream. Despite the books ridiculous title, he still decided to open it. There were countless words among the pages, however all Laurence could see was a box full of text, that said ¡°You have found out about magic! The affinities, magic attacks, magic defenses menus have been unlocked. Additionally, you have unlocked the Mana bar, which is located directly below your Life bar.¡± After reading the words Life bar, yet another info box appeared in his vision, which this time said ¡°Congratulations, you have found out about the Life bar! This is located directly below your level and above your Mana bar¡± After reading level,yet another info box appeared in his vision ¡°Congratulations, you have found out about Level! This is located next to your Mini-map¡±. Laurence was dumbfounded. There were six new things for him to investigate in his view, however, he first opened the Affinities menu. ¡±Welcome to the affinities menu! This is where you can find out your magical affinity. Your magical affinity: Time (Master 0, Development: 0.000000%) (Affinity Rarity: Unique [Only one person can have this affinity]) According to your affinity, the Magic Attacks and Magic Defenses categories will show your current abilities with your magic. Time affinity is a special case, as with every 1% development point you acquire, you receive a new spell and previous spells will be heavily buffed. At 100% Development, you can evolve your Affinity to Time (Master I). This will increase development requirements, however the spells of a Mastered Affinity are far far stronger than the previous Mastery.¡±The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Laurence could not even begin to imagine the amount of time it would take to evolve this Affinity to Master I, since he thought casting one spell would raise the Development by 0.000001% (Note: You would have to cast 1 million spells to raise the Development by 1% if this was the case. Thankfully, this is not the case, as this is only Laurence¡¯s thinking). He proceeded to scream out it a extremely excited manner ¡°UNIQUE TO ONLY ONE PERSON!!! HOLY SH*T, I CAN FREEZE TIME NOW¡±. Laurence hurriedly went to the Magic Attacks menu, and opened it post-haste. Welcome to the Magic Attacks menu. Underneath this text are your current magical attacks. Time Freeze 1 (Time frozen for 0.5 secs through your perspective. Devlopment: 0.000%. With each 0.1% development time frozen increases by .1 seconds. You are not restricted by anything within frozen time. Every time you use this spell, development increases by 0.025%) Laurence tried this immediately. ¡°TIME FREEZE!¡± He cried out, and as he finished saying freeze, a distorted noise was heard across the entire universe, signifying the frozen time. The flames dance rehearsal had ceased, the flame locked into place through Laurence¡¯s power. Clouds no longer moved outside. Trillions of living beings across the universe were instantly frozen in place, without even having a chance to think about it. Colour drained from the landscape, creating a land of pure grey. Laurence took a step forwards. Still nothing moved across the entirety of space. Then the frozen time ended, and another distorted sound was heard. Flames began their rehearsal once again, clouds moved as if nothing happened. All life began to return to their normal functions, and colour returned to the landscape. Laurnce was shell-shocked. He had just seen everything in perfect stillness. He now knew this wasn¡¯t a dream, such a thing couldn¡¯t happen in a dream. Laurence finally understood. This was not a dream, this is his new reality. After around an hour of coming to acceptance that this was his reality, Laurence checked his affinities development rate. He opened the menu and what was shown on screen was¡°Time (Master 0, Development 0.010000%)¡±.He now knew that every time he used Time Freeze, his development would go up 0.01%. This meant he only has to cast time freeze a hundred times to get to his next spells in both attack and defence category. A pop-up appeared in his vision that said he could view the remaining time that was frozen in the top middle of his vision. He checked, and sure enough there was a green counter showing 00:00:00.00 (Note: Hours, Minutes, Seconds, Milliseconds. Each has 2 zeros respectively). Laurence thought of how cool it would be if he could have an aura that surrounded him showing his power over time. Finally, this unlocked the Aura Visuals Selection Screen (Note: I¡¯ll refer to this as AVSS in the future), Aura Power, Aura Emanation, Aura Visibilty and the Aura stat. However, before investigating the AVSS, he checked the Magic Defenses screen. Welcome to the Magic Defenses menu. Underneath this text are your current magical defences. Barrier of Time 1 (Time will reverse to before based on the Development of the Barrier. If the attack has a Development of higher than the barriers, no defence will be applied. Development: 0.000% Currently your defence will reverse time by 1 second. Every time you get 0.001% to your Development, your barrier will reverse time by 1 extra second. You can choose the amount of time reversed. You are not affected by this reversal. Development increases by 0.001% every time the barrier successfully reversed time) This seemed like an extraordinary defence to Laurence. He would be able to reverse time to before an attack even occured! He casted Time Freeze again to raise Development, and the Development rose to 0.05% for Time Freeze itself, and 0.02 for the actual Time affinity. Suddenly, at the entrance of the cave he heard a deafening growl, capable of making cracks in the cave by itself. Laurence moved to the campsite to investigate, and he saw a ebony beast waiting at the entrance of the cave. He hid beneath a bed, and waited for the beast to finally notice his presence. The Second Chapter: How I survived an encounter with an AA+ ranked monster (2) A cold aura enveloped the cave. Light was consumed by the beast that stood, waiting for its prey to appear. It¡¯s aura alone was powerful enough to cause cracks within the caves solid walls. The beast was covered in ebony. If it wasn¡¯t aggressive, it could be described as quite beautiful. Its name is Asunshei. It¡¯s ranking is AA+, a legendary beast that could topple an entire country on its own. Asunshei is the last of his kind, and is the most powerfulEstreapseonan ever to be born into [His] planet. Asunshei, unlike most monsters, has an affinity, which is calledK¨­rudo, an advanced version of the Cold Affinity. K¨­rudo is an unequally balanced affinity, which concentrates on attacks rather than defence, however, it¡¯s power is great enough that the extra defences are unneeded. This affinity also has the ability of extending its owners lifespan tremendously, which is how Asunshei is still alive at 40,000 years of age, 4 times an Estreapseonan¡¯s lifespan. Due to Asunshei¡¯s extremely long life, it¡¯s Development on K¨­rudo is (Master 8)(74.923362074% / 100.000000000%). Asunshei radiated a sense of superiority over all other life forms that trek the [Lower Plains]. And one of the life forms that could feel it¡¯s glory was currently hiding from it under a bed. Laurence Cole is currently hiding from Asunshei, who was creeping into the cave. WheneverTime Freeze came off it¡¯s 5 minute cool down, Laurence invoked its power so he could move, even if it was the slightest bit. Asunshei was gradually coming closer to Laurence. Laurence¡¯sTime Freezehad 30 seconds before it was off cool down, and he must use the window of opportunity that his ability gives him. Asunshei¡¯s ebony armour was a wonderful sight to Laurence, who had never even glanced upon something like it before. Finally, Laurence¡¯sTime Freezecame off cool down. Asunshei was about to look under the bed that was currently disguising Laurence. At the critical moment, Laurence invoked his power and started to make a mad dash to the exit. The colour drained environment of stopped time granted him 0.6 seconds, as he had invoked Times power for the fourth time. He managed to make it out of the campsite by the time colour returned to the environment. Asunshei¡¯s acute hearing allowed him to immediately dash after Laurence. Asunshei¡¯s K¨­rudo was invoked, blocking Laurence¡¯s escape from the cave, and Asunshei¡¯s speed skyrocketed, making him appear as if a blur was chasing Laurence. A deep cut from Asunshei¡¯s three sharp claws developed on Laurence¡¯s body, causing extreme pain to him. Dark red blood dripped from Laurence¡¯s wounds, bones sliced in half were showing from within the wound, and three chunks of squishy flesh flopped onto the floor after Asunshei¡¯s claws ripped them off. Laurence toppled over, unable to withstand the sheer pain caused by Asunshei, and he was ready to accept his own demise. Already Asunshei was preparing to attack again, this time ready to strike a vital spot.
Within the [Lower Plains], a distinct scream rang out from the [Forbidden Cave].Kailee Jackson, a young 17 year old girl, heard this. Her location was only around 20 seconds away from the [Forbidden Cave], so she immediately rushed towards the cave. Due to her unnatural speed, she managed to make it to the entrance of the cave 10 seconds before a normal person could have. However, Black ice was blocking the entrance. She immediately knew what was going on within the cave, and sliced through the ice wall with her Katana, found within the very same cave. There was a bloody mess on the right side of the entrance, a nearly dead human with chucks of his body scattered around the cave. Asunshei, a beast Kailee knew well, was feeding on a small chunk next to the runic door. She immediately activated [Silence], a part of her Affinity known asSuterusu, an advanced version of Stealth. She quickly snuck into Asunshei¡¯s cave and grabbed the human¡¯s ragged body, and carried it to the nearest town.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Calling upon any healers within the town, she received help from one of the more experienced healers in the town. He only had the basic Heal affinity, but he had reached Master 10 with it. This was an amazing feat, as he had to cast 1 trillion spells for 1% at Master 9. The humans body was carried straight to his infirmary, where he attempted to heal the body back into its normal state. Due to the extremely overpowered Master 10¡¯s [Ultimate Restore], the human males body was back to normal within a matter of a few seconds. Of course, this ability had a massive cool down of 5 weeks before it could be used again, but the human was obviously an important figure or going to be an important figure if Asunshei was solely targeting him.
Laurence woke up, with a young girl on the right of him and an adult male on the right. He immediately invokedTime Freeze and got off the bed that he was laid upon. As soon as Time returned to its natural course, the girl and male looked in shock at him. Of course, this was only natural. A figure who could freeze time within [His] world hadn¡¯t appeared in over 10 million years. The man and girl didn¡¯t know that he had frozen time just then, so obviously they thought his affinity wasSup¨©do saidai, the most powerful version of the speed affinity, which could cross the entirety of the [Lower Plains] in seconds. The girl began to speak, ¡°Hey, you, are you alright? You had a close encounter with Asunshei back there¡±. There was a slight nervousness in her voice, as she was still astounded at Laurence¡¯s speed. ¡±Asunshei? What¡¯s that? You mean the ebony beast I encountered back there?¡± Laurence spoke in a deep tone, showing no emotions. The man on his right spoke, ¡°Asunshei is the name of the AA+ ranked monster that Kailee got you away from. It¡¯s rarley ever seen attacking a single target. Who are you, and are you of any importance to the kingdom? What¡¯s your affinity...?¡± The man continued rambling on with questions that Laurence could not answer, however he decided to answer the first 3 out of sheer curiosity of how they would react to his affinity. ¡±My name is Laurence Cole, and as far as I know I am of no importance to this kingdom. My affinity is one that stops time, reverses and accelerates time¡± The man was in utter shock. Time? That ridiculously powerful affinity hadn¡¯t been seen since the 1st Civil War! He needed to find out whether he was really telling the truth or not. ¡°Prove it. Extinguish the fire on that candle over there, and return to the same spot. If you affinity is really time you can easily do this, no?¡± Instantaneously, the fire was extinguished. Nothing showed that Laurence had moved. The clocks hands did not move even by a second. Laurence spoke in a calm tone, ¡°See? Proven.¡± The man was in a state of shock. He was on the floor, trying to process everything that had just happened. The man spoke, ¡°Y... you really shouldn''t be so calm about t... that affinity you know?! Time hasn¡¯t emerged for nearly 11 years! You¡¯ll have to report to the adventurers guild, no the magicians guild, no, you have to go to the royal family! This is of extreme importance!¡± ¡±I¡¯d really rather just sign up to the adventurers guild thanks!¡± Laurence¡¯s calm tone deteriorated after hearing that he¡¯d have to go to the royal family just because of his affinity. He assumed that there were more like his though, ones of extreme importance, something like Space or something that could freely manipulate reality.
Laurence was led to the adventurers guild, where he had his abilities, stats and affinity checked by some kind of machine. All adventurers in the guild hall looked at Laurence with a face that seemed frozen in fear when his affinity was announced. His adventurer rank was G, much higher ranked that the usual starting rank of Z. All of this was because of his affinity. Adventurers asked for demonstrations of his affinity so often that he couldn¡¯t appease all of them due to his cool down The guild master of the current building eventually had to drag Laurence along to the Royal Capital. A long, 4 day journey was ahead of him, to find out the true importance of his affinity, Time.