《Armageddon: A New World》 Prologue(Proofread) (My second FF! hope my writing has improved! Have fun!) Proofread by: wannabeproofreader and daylius I remember that day like it was yesterday. Two kids running on the streets, under the watchful gaze of the night moon. ¡°Zeph! Wait for me. You are too fast. I can¡¯t run anymore¡± the 13 year old girl in a black yukata complained whilst panting heavily. She was somebody any person would undeniably depict as ¡®cutest girl in the world¡¯. Her shoulder length hair was swaying in the gentle breeze in the starry night. Her white face was reddened due to lack of oxygen but anyone who saw her would instantly cuddle her. The cute girl stood still with her petite hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. ¡°You are slow Naoki, that yukata slows you down even more. Didn¡¯t I tell you not to wear something so flashy?¡± I sighed, shrugging my shoulders. Looking at the girl I couldn¡¯t help but smile. Her petite yet cute figure and the way she was panting with reddened cheeks made my heart flutter. Walking towards the girl I flicked her forehead with my fingers. ¡°Fueh!¡± making such a cute sound the girl jumped backwards a little, her slender hands covering her forehead. With teary eyes she glared at me, those eyes were threatening me of an imminent danger. Smiling at her gesture, my hands involuntarily stretched forward making the girl shut her eyes in fear of more pain. But my hands moved to her head patting her gently. Naoki opened one of her eyes to see what was going on with a timid expression. I smiled once again at the cute thing in front of me. ¡°Hora! Let¡¯s go. The fireworks are going to start¡± I stretched out my hands so that the girl could hold on to it. A smile broke out of her lips and she held my hand tight with hers. I turned back and walked gently dragging the girl in black yukata. Naoki and I were on our way to the yearly fireworks festival that we always attended. Unlike the previous years, this was the first time that we were going to the festival alone. Usually either one of our parents would have joined us. This time it was just us, we both had cried and begged our parents to let us go. With a few dramatic events they finally allowed us. It was an all-out war for survival. With all that said the two of us are now on the way to the festival. A twenty minute walk through the lanes and we finally reached the place. With innumerous stalls set up, the ground was like a bee hive. Woman and men were everywhere, some in yukatas while some in traditional clothes with couples, families, and friends. The stall owners were all trying their best to attract customers. Some of the stalls were busy while some others hardly had any customers. Different types of food, games, and so on were on display so there were like a million stalls. The people were like water flowing in between the stalls, slowly. There was laughter everywhere I looked. The very smiles on the faces of the people was refreshing. ¡°Naoki! What do you want to do first?¡± ¡°Um!¡± Naoki pondered for a while and said ¡°I want to eat, I am hungry¡± ¡°What? You want to eat? Of all the things we can do here that is the thing you want to do?¡± ¡°Yes. I want takoyaki!¡± Naoki replied. ¡°This girl! Fine come on¡± sighing heavily I grabbed the girl once again by her hands and walked towards the stall we normally go to. ¡°Oji-san¡± I called to the owner of the takoyaki stall. ¡°Oh! It¡¯s you two. Where are your parents?¡± ¡°Its just us two this time oji-san¡± ¡°Ho ho, a date eh? It is so nice to be young¡± the owner said laughing out loud. The word date caused the both of us to blush. We had been together since we were born and so we were always together thus I was considered her boyfriend by the entire town. ¡°Oji-san give this girl something to eat, or she will eat my head¡±. I said, poking Nao¡¯s head which made her kick my leg and then bite my hand for teasing her. ¡°See! She has started with my hand!¡±. She let go of my hand and then turned away pouting. The owner laughed and gave us the takoyaki. We then bid farewell to the owner and moved to the next stall. An hour or so passed and now we moved to a place where we could watch the fireworks in peace. Separated from all those who came, we sat down on the ground looking at the starry sky and waiting for the hanabi to start. Everyone present was looking at the sky waiting for the fireworks. The time had come for the fireworks to begin. But there were none! Ten minutes later and nothing happened! The people began to get rowdy. There were shouts from all over demanding the fireworks to start. It was among all that ruckus that it happened. From nowhere, a light flashed, bright and warm. The whole sky was lit up like the sun had suddenly moved closer to the earth. All the people including me and Naoki were blinded. After one good minute, the light began to fade! Our vision If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.began to adjust itself slowly and the things around us began to become clear. We looked up to the sky and were dumbfounded! The starry sky which was there moments ago was no longer visible. Dark clouds now covered the sky, the moonlight was hardly escaping the clouds. We stared at the dark clouds in astonishment. We looked far away to the horizon but all we saw were the same dark clouds stretching all over the night sky. The people began to panic. Naoki grasped my hand tighter. My heartbeat began to rise. I looked around me but in the dim light there was not much that I could see. I tried to call out for help but the people were busy protecting themselves. Panic began to hit my little heart. I was now sweating profusely and on the verge of tears. Naoki was on the ground and was already crying. ¡°Naoki. Don¡¯t cry. It¡¯s alright. I will take you home now. Get up¡± I pulled her up and then began walking towards the group of people. Before we could reach them, the sky shone once again blinding us again. We stopped and closed our eyes to protect us from the light. Once the flash died out we heard a roar like sound echoing all throughout! The sound was so loud that I involuntarily placed my little hands on my ears. I looked up at the sky to see where the loud noise was coming from and once again I froze. There were cracks here and there in the dark cloud. The white moon light which was supposed to be coming out of those cracks was not present. Instead a red light escaped those cracks. And the next moment the light stopped. This was followed by black fumes coming out of the sky. The fumes were coming out from everywhere, the dark sky was slowly dissipating. In an hour or so the night sky was back and the moonlight was bright as ever. But the black fumes were still hovering over the sky. The fumes then began gathering at random spots. Each spot was miles away from the other. I could not believe what I was seeing. It was as if those black fumes were alive, they gathered at places which were of equal distance from each other. I questioned my eyes while my brain was searching for explanations. ¡®How can the distance between them be so precise? How are these things gathering towards each other? What the hell is going on?¡¯ As if to answer my doubts, the fumes then began to mold themselves into a rectangle, the top part of the rectangle was not straight but an oval. ¡°A door?¡± I spoke without realizing that I said that out aloud. Naoki looked up at me and then at those black fumes. The fumes began to solidify slowly. After what seemed like an hour, there in the air was a humongous black door, floating all by itself. The doors had carvings of some beasts, humans, and something else too. Those beasts and humans were piled up on each other, on top of them were beings with wings, above them were some things which looked like humans but had fangs and claws. And so there were many life forms which I had never seen, not even in mangas and animes. ¡°Vampires, Werewolves, Angels, Demons, Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Demons!¡± I counted the races I knew among those carvings, there were still more than ten races other than the ones I named. But what fascinated me the most was that, above all those piles of races, there was a man in armor standing with a sword and a shield in his hands. It looked as if he was the one that had slain all of those below him. But what caught my attention was not that. When the entire door and carvings were pitch black, the man alone was covered in white as if he was absorbing the surrounding moonlight. Once the door solidified it began to descend to the ground. Slowly, as if to not hurt the surroundings the door came down. When I looked around once again, I saw there were other huge doors far away and they too were descending. In minutes the door touched the ground without even the faintest of noise. In the year 2021, March 13, in the blink of an eye, the Earth that I knew came to an end! ---***---
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Arc 1- Chapter 1: Into the Abyss(proofread) Proofread by: wannabeproofreader and daylius -a few hours before- In every school, throughout the world, there exist three types of students. What? You did not know? Fine I will tell you. First type are the offenders, and naturally there exist victims of these offenders and finally bystanders. Ah, now you get it. The offenders are those who like to bully other students, what people call delinquents and the kind. The victims are what you have already guessed, the one¡¯s being bullied. As for bystanders, they are in the majority. People who refuse to take part or join any one of the side in fear of their safety. Now you might be wondering why I am explaining all of this here. Well it is because I belong to one of these so called types too, specifically ¡°the victim¡±. From the time I was 15 years old, my body changes were off the charts. Not that I grew into a monster of extreme proportions or anything, but my hair color changed for no apparent reason. My normally jet black hair began to shed it blackness and transformed into something that one only gets by dying, blue. You heard it, blue like the very ocean we all love. Unlike the ocean my blue hair was not loved much. And this blue hair has got me into troubles that are way off the margin. So as I was saying, the victim, me is now currently under assault by a group of three in the backyards of my school. With my back to the school wall and blood flowing out from my nose, I had already gotten a good amount of beatings. My uniform was torn here and there, my face covered with bruises and yet I refused to succumb. The three boys were on their limit too, they were panting heavily. So was I, my struggle to break free from their claws had caused me to run out of stamina. Even so I had managed to land a few hits on them against the hundreds of hits I got. ¡°You persistent bast*rd, I am going to break you apart¡± their leader shouted with a coiled fist. ¡°Yeah yeah. Three people ganging up on a weakling like me and you still say such retarded lines. Pathetic¡± my pride caused me to lash out, such a stupid pride. I spat out the blood that was accumulating in my mouth and then glared the leader and smirked. The three of them snapped and approached me for another round. I was too tired to defend myself and was now lying in wait for the painful doom. ¡°That is enough! To beat down a boy like this. Are you even humans? You three meet me at my office.¡± With the remaining strength in my body I looked at the person who just spoke and I saw a female in a black dress with an ID hanging in between her large chest approaching us fast. My senses failed to recognize the woman¡¯s face and I slowly lost consciousness. The next time when my eyes opened, all I saw was a white ceiling and a spinning fan. To my right and left were white curtains. I felt the softness of the bed on my back and I understood that I was once again in the school infirmary. My right hand involuntarily moved to my right to pat the head which was always there every time I was admitted to the infirmary. But this time, there was no head. A burning sensation developed inside my heart. Well after all she was and is my first love. Naoki was not there, with her wet and teary eyes and cute face to scold me like always. Even though the pain inside my heart was warning me of something, of a danger or may be a great evil I paid it no heed. Had I listened to my heart and looked for her maybe I would not have lost her forever. ---***--- -present- I was running, through the empty streets of my town with no destination whatsoever. With a face sullen with bruises and tears flowing from my eyes I screamed my lungs out. The pain would not subside, the burning would not fade. Whatever I did, I could not forget those moments. They played in my mind like a loop. Naoki¡¯s lifeless body and the blood spurting from her wounds. My body became numb at the visuals in my mind. Dropping to my knee I buried my face into my eyes and cried once again. ¡°It¡¯s all your fault, you damn black door. If you never existed, if you never existed¡± my sad heart was now being occupied by rage, pure rage. Rage at the thing that had taken away my very important thing, my very reason for existence, my first love. Getting up on my feet I rushed forward, to the huge black door that lay in the middle of the town. My rage was clouding my senses and my intellect. In minutes I was at the vicinity of the door. There were fences set up around the door guarded by the military themselves. Tents were set up around the door for the military and scientists to reside. From the day the door materialized throughout the world, scientists have tried to crack the mysteries of the door. The same was going on at that particular door in my town too. Men in military uniform carrying guns were keeping watch, prohibiting entry to the town¡¯s people thereby protecting them too. Men in white uniforms were running here and there with weird equipment and stuffs which I had not seen before. Not minding them I rushed forward, to the black door, to destroy it with my hands. I screamed and lunged forward alerting the men around. The alerted men rushed towards me. Some stayed, pointing their guns at me while some rushed at me to stop me. And yet I ran forward, my hate filled eyes still glaring at the huge door which seemed to smile at me viciously. My eyes did not see the men around me, my ears did not hear their warnings, and my body did not feel their restraining arms. With all my might I strode forward dragging whatever was trying to stop me. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. I walked forward a few steps when I could no longer move my body. It was as if hundreds of chains were binding me to the ground. I struggled, screamed, cried till my body gave up. The restraints did not go away, I lumped down to the ground with dead eyes. The rage subsided and my will to live was dropping too. It was then I heard someone talking. My ears picked up fragments of the person¡¯s voice. ¡°Boy¡­¡­¡­.spirit¡­¡­..door¡­.inside¡­.¡± when I heard those fragments, my body began to move once again, it was like my body was being re-energized. ¡°What did you just say? What about the inside of the door? Tell me you basta*rd¡± I shouted. ¡°What a lively child. Martin bring him in, let us see what he has got. Oh and put him to sleep¡± the man spoke to someone in a military uniform beside him. The military man nodded and then approached me. ¡°I am sorry boy¡± saying so he buried his knee into my abdomen. The impact was so high that the sheer pain made me fall to the ground, my consciousness fading away. ¡°Naoki¡± I called out to the emptiness in my heart. ---***--- ¡°Ho! Waking up already¡± was the first thing my brain registered when I was waking up. The pain in my abdomen was still rampaging throughout my body preventing me from getting up. My eyes slowly opened up to the world and I saw the face of the man before looking directly into his eyes. For some reason I did not lose my nerve, there was a strange calmness that I did not understand. ¡°We drugged you so that you won¡¯t berserk like before¡± the man who seemed like he was too old said while he was wearing a white overcoat. ¡°Let me introduce myself. My name is Richard Burn, you can call me Burn. I am the head researcher of this research squad and the leader of the group. Nice to meet you boy¡± I kept silent and stared at the old man, recollecting what happened before and why I was in such a situation. The first thing that struck me was Naoki¡¯s body. The recollection caused me to almost throw up. Somehow I managed to resist my body and then I looked at the old man feebly, trying to distract my mind from the loss of a precious person. ¡°You have spirit boy. To rush into a military area and to even call the head researcher a basta*rd. Ha! It is so good to be young.¡± I again remained silent, not knowing what to say to the old man. I looked up at the ceiling of the tent I was in. my eyes were blurry with the tears that were building up. ¡®Naoki¡¯ I thought to myself. ¡°Do you want to go inside?¡± ¡®What did he just say, inside? Inside of what?¡¯ Even though my brain knew what he was talking about, my heart refused to heed. I again looked at the man and asked, ¡°Inside of what?¡± ¡°Inside that huge black door boy¡± My eyes widened! My body stiffened. Power surged throughout my body. The calmness of the drugs could no longer keep me chained. Gathering all my strength I shouted, ¡°I want to go! Please let me go. Please¡± shouting I approached the man with my hands shaped into fists. ¡°Calm down boy. That is why you are still here. Welcome to the Abyss boy¡± ---***--- ¡°Sir Burn! Why did you promise the boy something like that? Why send him in when the best of the world were not even allowed to?¡± asked a man in military uniform. ¡°Aron, which of these do you think is the stronger emotion?¡± ¡°Pardon?¡± ¡°Let me finish Aron. The desire to become famous by exploring the door or the desire to exact revenge on the door?¡± ¡°Revenge on a door? That is unrealistic sir. I am afraid I cannot understand¡± ¡°Sigh! Aron, for the boy, the door is something that took away a precious thing, like parents or may be lover or friends. What so ever it may be, he has lost something to it. How? We still do not know. There are many mysteries to the door. Rather than saying it is unrealistic think of it as the drive to live. So what do you think?¡± ¡°Desire for revenge will be stronger¡± ¡°Correct. Those so called best in the world only desire more money or more recognition. They do not care the least about the research¡± ¡°Then is it not the same for this boy too. He seems to not care about us either¡± ¡°Correct again, but his desire and will are stronger than the rest. He will do fine. The previous ones we sent were failures. This time we must succeed. Are the preparations ready?¡± ¡°Yes Sir, everything has been prepared just as you asked¡± ¡°Good¡± Burn replied while his mind was in turmoil. ¡®Boy, do not die¡¯ [align=centre]---***---[/align]
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Arc 1- Chapter 2: Armament(proofread) Proofread by: wannabeproofreader and daylius ¡°Boy wake up. That is enough sleep¡± Once again I woke up to the voice of an old man which was, to be honest, annoying. Reluctantly I opened my eyes and there lay before me a man in his eighties or so in casual clothes and a white overcoat. The man was grinning at me, the face made it even more annoying. ¡°Boy, your parents are here. Go meet them and tell them your goodbye¡¯s¡± when the man said these words I stared at the man, confused, wondering if he had gone insane after years of research. As if lightning struck me I stood stunned. My memories of yesterday were slowly blooming inside my small mind and then I understood perfectly what the old man was saying. ¡°We have all your stuff here, of course they¡¯re brand new. Freshen up, eat something then come to my tent. Ask one of the soldiers, they will show you the way to my tent. You have 30 minutes to finish preparing¡±. The old man then walked out of the tent leaving me alone in the tent. I stretched my body and then got up from the bed. When I looked around, I saw things a normal person would have in his room like a wardrobe, a nice bed, a TV set and some others. What surprised me was to the left of the tent was a door like thing. Well a door with a zip to be precise. I walked towards it still half awake and yawning. I pulled the zip down and was once again stupefied. There was a bathroom beyond the zip. A complete bathroom with wash basin, shower and even a bathtub. The surroundings were covered by the same tent as my bed was. ¡°Who are these guys?¡± I smiled inwardly and proceeded to the refreshment process. As the old man had said, I completed everything in 30 minutes. Wearing one of the shirts and jeans from inside the wardrobe I walked outside of the tent. The morning sun, as if to say hello, shined brightly lightly blinding my eyes. I hid my eyes from the morning sun with my left hand and then walked forward to one of the soldiers to ask for directions to the old man¡¯s tent. The soldier wished me good morning which I returned politely. When I asked for the directions, he accompanied me to the tent then bid me farewell with a good luck. I took a deep breath and then I walked in, ready to face the wrath of the two gods of my life, my mother and father. ¡°Hi mom, hi dad¡± I initiated the conversation. Both dad and mom turned their heads to look at me. Mom ran towards me and hugged me hard, already weeping like a baby. I hugged her back and patted her head. My father on the other hand was calm, he approached me slowly, his eyes looking into mine all that time. I froze, a fear was developing inside me. ¡°Anna move¡± dad dragged mother to the side and then looked at me. Slap, slap, slap, slap And so I was hit a number of times till my face was as red as an apple. I stood still, endured the pain, holding back my tears. ¡°You will come back home with us young man and you are grounded for the rest of your life¡± ¡°No dad. I am going to look for Nao¡± Slap ¡°Naoki is dead you idiot¡± Slap slap slap. ¡°I do not want to hear your opinion, you will do as I say¡± ¡°No dad. I cannot. I am going after Nao¡± ¡°Again with that. You saw it too did you not, the body and yet you say you are going after her? Where are you going to search for her? In hell? Heaven? Have you lost your ability to think too?¡± ¡°Nao is not dead. The damn door took her¡± ¡°The door took her? And you want me to believe that?¡± ¡°I know what I saw. I don¡¯t need anyone else to believe. You are not my real father and mother after all¡± I lashed out, my anger building up. I froze, I slapped myself a hundred times in my mind. Cursing myself for the stupid things I said. My father once again lifted his hands. I closed my eyes in wait for the pain on my cheeks but nothing happened. Suddenly I was hugged, hugged by strong arms. ¡°Why? Why Zeph? Are you not happy with us?¡± father was hugging me hard, he was now sobbing. I hugged him back too, tears already running out of my eyes. ¡°I am sorry dad, I am sorry. I love you both but please trust me I saw it clearly.¡± My father remained silent and kept hugging me, my mother too approached us and hugged us both. A few minutes later both of them stood back. Father looked at me intensely for a while then walked towards the door. ¡°Zeph, come back with her, come back alive. I will not forgive you if you die. Even if we are foster parents, we love you as a real father and mother. Anna let¡¯s go¡± ¡°Dear, our son. I can¡¯t-¡± ¡°Anna, our son has made up his mind. We must support him. Let us go¡± My mother began weeping profusely. My heart ached seeing the woman who had taken care of me as her own child for fifteen years crying in front of me. My body felt as if it was on fire, my tears ran out uncontrollably. I looked at my weeping mother without saying a word. ¡®Ah I made mother cry because of my selfishness.¡¯ ¡°I am sorry mother, but I have to go. I promise I will be back¡± saying so I walked out of the tent not wanting to see my parents being torn apart by my selfishness. ---***--- ¡°Boy it is time. Come with me¡± I nodded at the old man and walked outside of my tent along with him. ¡°You will need some weapons. Which do you prefer? A gun or sword?¡± ¡°I have never used either of them before. But I think guns will be useless since I won¡¯t be able to refill my ammo so a sword will do. And if possible a bow please¡± ¡°Why a bow? Isn¡¯t a gun better?¡± ¡°Not likely. The bow is very deadly if you know how to use one.¡± ¡°And do you know how to?¡± ¡°Yes, I have been taking lessons for some time, so I prefer a bow. Besides I can recollect the arrows which I use and so I literally will not run out of arrows¡± ¡°Suit yourself. Well then let us head to the weapon storage unit. This way boy¡± ¡°You have a weapon storage here? Why?¡± ¡°It is a military encampment boy, don¡¯t ask stupid questions¡± ¡°Ah that is not what I meant. Why do you have bows and arrows in the weapon storage? The military does not seem to use them¡± This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it ¡°Ah, that is what you meant eh. Well the swords and bows are for people like you who try to enter the door.¡± ¡°There have been others?¡± ¡°Of course. Did you think you were special or something?¡± ¡°Oh! So what did they find out?¡± ¡°We do not know¡± ¡°You do not know? What is that supposed to mean¡± ¡°It¡¯s supposed to mean that we do not know what is beyond the door. Not even one of those who entered has returned, not even one.¡± ¡°Not even one. No way¡± ¡°Do you still want to venture forth?¡± Burn asked looking deep into my eyes, searching for an answer. I could not help but smile for some reason ¡°Old man show some faith in me. Who do you think I am?¡± I said giving a heroic pose which made the old man chuckle. ¡°Very well boy. You will be given a sword and a bow with 20 arrows. A state of the art battle suit, a first aid kit, a video recorder and food for a couple of weeks¡± ¡°Battle suit? Like those in anime and manga?¡± my eyes were shining, I was too excited at the fact that I will be given a battle suit. ¡°No no. Nothing flashy like that. A transparent nano material battle suit. In fact it is one of a kind and you are the first one to use it. The suit will absorb damage to a limit and also strengthen your body parts making you three times stronger than your normal body. You will be wearing the battle suit inside your casual clothes. Your clothes too are something unique, something reserved for the military, sturdy, and stretchable. Made from special artificial fibers the clothes and suit are virtually indestructible. Well a nuclear attack will destroy it, you will die if something like that happens so no need to worry about the clothes then. It has a built in HD video recorder in various places which are practically indestructible. This cameras will record everything and store it in a hard disk which is inside the sole of the boots you will be given. There are no wires so do not worry about messing up the connection. The first aid kit is stored in the side pockets. It has a few bandages, cotton rolls and a medicinal spray. They are more than enough to treat a minor fracture. That too is state of the art technology, use it wisely. The clothes will have holsters for a sword and retractable bow and a quiver for the arrows. That is all we can give you. The rest up to you boy. Here we have reached the storage area. Come in¡± The old man gestured me to enter another tent which was much larger than the other tents and also heavily guarded. When I stepped inside my eyes almost popped out. Stacked on a number of tables and shelves were hundreds and thousands of guns from handguns to shotguns to sniper rifles, everything the army needed. Towards the end of the tent were swords, a large number of them in different sizes, colors and types. My mind was going blank but I kept it intact with much difficulty. Looking around and admiring the guns I walked towards the swords. Even though I did not know anything about swords there were things I knew like choosing a sword of correct size and weight. Too light and the sword won''t deal much damage against tough opponents, too heavy and I won¡¯t be able to wield it. So I tried out swords which seemed to be the correct length for me. There were wide varieties of swords like the long sword, the broadsword, the rapier, the sabre, the talwar, the katana and so many others I had never seen. Choosing a sword when you don¡¯t know anything about swords is nearly impossible and so I asked the old man to ask someone to choose the best sword for me. The old man came forward, looked at me and then looked around. Then he took a sword from the collection and passed it to me. ¡°For your height a long sword will do though your strength may not be enough to wield one¡± ¡°Then why give this to me?¡± ¡°You have the battle suit that will do those things for you, so no worries¡± ¡°Now as for the bow, we only have one bow here. A retractable recurve bow, once again one of a kind. You know that there are no retractable recurve bows. This one was made for some special purpose which was then dropped. So what should the arrow length be?¡± ¡°30 inch carbon arrows¡± ¡°Very well. Well then here is the bow, arrows and the sword. The battle suit and the clothes have already been delivered to your tent. Go to the tent and get ready.¡± I nodded and walked to my tent to get ready. ---***--- My mind was on cloud nine. The me right now was nothing short of a hero from a fairy tale with a sword and arrow quiver on my back. The retracted bow resting in the holster on my waist. The battle suit was the coolest of them all. Just like the old man had said the suit was transparent, like a second skin. When I wore the top portion of the suit, it felt like the suit was merging into my skin and becoming my new skin. The pants also felt the same. Once I wore it completely a power surged through my whole body making me feel like a hero who just unleashed his inner power. No no, don¡¯t go labeling me as a chuuni, I am a healthy middle schooler with a healthy mind. Once I wore my clothes which was a shirt and pants along with black boots, I walked out of the tent. Outside the tent, the old man was already standing while waiting for me with a half burnt cigar curled between his thick lips. ¡°You look handsome. Too bad there are no girls here. Let¡¯s go boy. Hell awaits you¡± ---***--- (do you guys like my ff? is it to your liking. the next chapter will do justice to the title, a new world will come)
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Arc 1- Chapter 3: Chamber of Luck(proofread) proofread by Daylius In front of me stood a door as black as void, humongous and gore. The view left a distaste in my mouth as memories of a loved one being taken away ran amok in my turbulent mind. I stared at the door with hatred and disgust, with my fist shivering with rage. ¡°Now, now boy. Calm down. So shall we begin? Have you got all the things you need? ¡± I nodded at the old man. Equipped with weapons and armors of the highest quality I stepped forward, each step determined to bring down the entire door. I approached the door and stood before it alone and gazed at it. Written on the door was, ¡°Thou who wish to enter! Thou who bears the desire to venture Be warned of the perils that befall For the world beyond this gate is hell But for the hero with the golden face Everything is nothing but a gentle embrace Will you rise or will you fall Show us with your soul¡± ¡®What the hell are those cheesy lines?¡¯ I gasped out, shocked from the dramatic verse on the door. The moment my mind read those words, the door opened up in front of me. My body tensed and my hands gripped the bow and arrow. My eyes focused on the opening door laying in wait for an enemy to appear from the other side. But nothing came. The door opened up and all I saw was a long corridor stretching endlessly. With a drawn bow I walked forward my eyes wandering all over the place in search of anything or anyone. Once I was inside, the door slowly closed plunging me into darkness. Before I could panic the corridor was lit up by a strange light and to my surprise there was another door a little further. The infinite corridor which I had seen before just turned into a very short hallway with another door at the opposite end. But this door was different, it was a golden door with no carving on it. Just like the black door there was something written on it. But they were written vertically downwards, from the left to the right it read as, ¡°Dost thou wish to pass? Dost thou desire to pass? Dost thou want to pass?¡± I was again shocked. ¡®Why was the same thing written thrice?¡¯ my brain was confused. I understood that if I had to pass I would have to choose yes but I felt something was off. ¡°If I choose yes then what would happen, I mean the yes can be the answer for all three at once. So that means a single question would have been enough if the answer were to be a single yes. Then it means I have to choose one among the three. But how?¡± I once again read the three lines. The verbs were different in all three so I came to the conclusion that only one of them is correct. ¡°Wish, desire and want. Wish and desire are similar. Of the three want sounds stronger and shows that passing through the door is a must. While the remaining two do not symbolize that I must pass through.¡± Clenching my fist I decided to go for it, ¡°I want to pass through¡± I shouted. There was silence throughout and then slowly the door began to open. The door opened up to a room which looked like a sphere, lit up very well. I walked inside the room and slowly the door closed behind me. When I looked around I was surprised for I was not alone in that room. There were fifty or so others. But what surprised me was not the number of people but the type of people. In the spherical room were what humans of earth thought existed in myths and fantasies. From humans to elves to vampires to mermaids there were people of different races. When I had first seen the door years before, the gate had carvings of these creatures but never once had I believed that they really existed and so right now I was flabbergasted to meet those mythical creatures face to face. I stared at all of them for a while, some stared back at me while others ignored me. It took me a while to regain my sense. Once the initial surprise faded I once again observed the surrounding. At the far end of the room was another door but it was much smaller than the previous two others. Every now and then a person would open the door and call out one of us. The called out person would then enter and disappear. From this I understood that it was some kind of interview or so. I then looked at the door from which I came from, at regular intervals the door would open and a new person would exit from it. Every time the door opened a different creature would appear and so I understood the door was connected to different worlds of different dimensions. The thought of remaining never crossed my mind, not even once. All I thought about was finding Naoki. What felt like hours, passed by silently. Every time a person entered the smaller door, the larger one would open up and another person would get in. The smaller door opened once again and the person gestured me to come in. I walked towards the door and then walked in to another spherical room. But unlike the previous one, this room had had mirrors to my left and right. The floor looked like a chess board, no it was a chess board for pieces of white and black were arranged on both sides of the room. I counted the number of squares and it equaled to 64 just like that of a chess board. But something was odd, the positioning of two of the pieces was wrong. The white side had the position of the knight and rook to the right of the king mistaken. Their places were interchanged. Normally in chess, the rook should be at the end and the knight should be before the rook but here the knight was at the end of the pieces. I thought that it was a small mistake as the remaining three were in the correct order. I ignored it and then looked around, at the middle of the room was a table and two chairs on both sides. On one of the chair was a strange man sitting on one of the chairs. What made me say he was strange was the way that he was dressed. It was a typical business suit but the colors were what made it seem strange. The left side of his suit was white while the right side was black like it showed two sides of the same coin or like yin and yang. I stared at him for a while. The man stood up and bowed at me. ¡°How very Japanese?¡± I shouted at the man, mocking him. ¡°Welcome Mr. Zeph, Welcome to the chamber of luck¡± ¡°Chamber of luck? Such a flashy name. So now what?¡± I asked indifferently, which was a surprising thing for me as I was not sure why I was so calm. ¡°Ah, such a straight-forward person. Here, we decide whether to let you live or die. That is all¡± ¡°Live or die?¡± I questioned the man, still calm. ¡°Yes. We will have you answer some riddles or puzzles. Answer them correctly and you will live, or else¡­¡± the man trailed off. He then looked at me with cold eyes which warned me of imminent death if I tried anything funny. ¡°For this purpose we have administered a drug to you which refrains you from panicking and so you are able to choose your answers calmly. As to when it was given, you have been inhaling the drug for hours, in the room you came from. So let us begin, the first question is, what gets broken without being held?¡± ¡°Eh? A Riddle?¡± I asked. ¡°A riddle decides what my future becomes?¡± I was surprised but still the effect of the drug made me calm like the clear water. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. I was never good at riddles and so I had no idea what the answer for the question was. And then something happened, a memory of the past flowed into my mind. ---***--- A girl and boy were waiting for the fireworks to begin. But as minutes passed there were none. When the sky shone brightly, the girl was so scared that she held on to the boy¡¯s arms. The boy held her tight and observed the sky when the sky split up and a dark fog descended which then turned into huge doors. The scared girl was now tearing up and scared. The boy too felt scared but the girl beside him made him not show his fear outside and so he held her hand tighter and whispered to her, ¡°Don¡¯t cry Nao, I will protect you. I promise¡± ---***--- A body laid on the ground motionless, the girl¡¯s heart no longer beating. A boy sat on his knees hugging the lifeless body of the girl, weeping and screaming, calling out to the girl. ¡°Nao, wake up. Wake up Nao. Don¡¯t leave me.¡± The boy screamed at the top his lungs. ¡°I am sorry, I am sorry. I could not protect you, I could not keep my promise, I am sorry¡± ---***--- My face was sweating. Things I did not want to remember were now flowing freely in my mind. ¡°Promise¡± I said. ¡°Correct. Now to the second question. Are you ready¡± the man asked, with the drug inside me to calm me down. I nodded. ¡°1. Answer A. 2. Answer A or B 3. Answer B or C There is only one correct answer, which is it?¡± A logical question this time. I am really bad at riddles but logical questions are easy. Three answers and only one is correct. If 1 is correct the one then 2 will automatically become correct too as both 1 and 2 has A in it. ¡°Answer B or C¡± ¡°Correct¡± And so I was asked puzzles and other stupid questions which I answered some way. I had no idea how many hours passed. There was a clock in the room but the clocks hands did not move a bit, it showed 9 o''clock the entire time. I was getting tired of all those questions. I glared at the man with anger which the man understood and then suddenly spoke. ¡°Here is the last question¡± I was excited when he said that next was the last question and with glittering eyes and sharpened ears I awaited his question. ¡°There are two doors, one to your right and one to your left. Please choose one¡± when the man finished talking, there was a rumbling sound and out of nowhere there were two doors at both sides, behind the chess pieces. ¡°Eh?¡± the sudden trick made me dumbfounded as I looked at the doors to my right and left. ¡°You want me to choose one of them? What happens if I choose the wrong one?¡± ¡°I will leave that to your imagination¡± the man replied indifferently. I once again looked at my left and right. The white pieces were to my left while the black to my right. While I was looking at both sides alternatively, it struck to me. I looked at the white knight which was misplaced. The knight in chess was a special piece, unlike the other pieces which travelled in straight lines, knight loved like the letter L. Then once again I looked at the clock, the hour hand was on 9 while the minute hand was on 12. I smiled at the man who seemed surprised by my sudden gesture. ¡°I choose the right¡± I said calmly. This again caused the man to freeze. ¡°Can you tell me why you chose right Mr. Zeph?¡± ¡°Normally in chess, when the players starts playing, the knights could move to two positions. But here, one of the knight, the one that was misplaced can only move to a single point that is to its left. When it moves to the left the path it traces is of an inverted L. Next the cloth there too shows an inverted L.¡± ¡°In that case should not your answer be the left door?¡± ¡°Yes, that is what people normally do because that is precisely what your black and white suit tells them to do. Is it not test administrator? Black at one side, white at the other. Most would think of this as a mirror effect, two sides of the same coin. I too thought of it so. But then it clicked to me, a mirror image will not undergo a color change so that meant you wearing the strange dress was not for aiding the candidates but to trick them¡± ¡°Why would I trick them? Besides not everybody would assume my suit to describe a mirror effect.¡± ¡°Ho! Still not admitting it eh? Fine, I will play along. Every single person who comes here will think of your dress to symbolize a mirror¡± ¡°And why is that?¡± ¡°Because of those mirrors you have to my left and right. When I first came to the room, I hardly noticed the table and chairs, my attention went directly to the mirrors and chess pieces. This was to induce the idea of mirrors into my brain, a visual trick. Once the candidate saw the mirror, he would automatically assume that your suit to symbolized a mirror. But in truth, it does not symbolize a mirror it just shows two opposite colors. And so when the chess piece and clock gave left as the answer, your suit showed the answer to be the opposite of left, the right. So I choose the right door.¡± The man stood up and then clapped. He was laughing and clapping. ¡°Wonderful. It has been ages since some body as smart as you came through. All those idiot would come and choose left or right without even thinking, mongrels. You my boy are smart. Let me introduce myself, I am Workondil Alror, guardian of the chamber of luck and the master of this level. You have passed Mr. Zeph. Now please wear this on your wrist¡± The man thrust his arm forward, on his palm was something like a watch with no dials or display. ¡°What is this?¡± ¡°This here is a gardisto¡± ¡°A gardisto? What is that?¡± ¡°You will understand once you pass through the door. All I will tell you now is never lose it. Ah, before you go, here is an advice, what you search for will come to you when you reach the peak. Now go boy, a new world awaits. ¡± The advice made no sense to me and so I did not take it seriously. Getting up from the chair, I walked towards the door to my right in search of the thing that I had lost. ---***--- (hope you like it. kindly review my ff. enjoyyy)
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Arc 1- Chapter 4: Lost in the flowers(proofread) proofread by Daylius When the door opened, I walked not even hesitating, not even thinking, I walked with my eyes set on the path ahead. When the door opened my feet moved, and I walked beyond the new door which had just opened. The door lead me to another tunnel, which was short and I could see light on the opposite end. And so I walked till I was at the exit. When I was almost at the exit, my gardisto watch began to vibrate causing me to panic for a moment. It took my weak mind a bit time to calm down. I looked at the watch closely, the vibration was still going on and this time the center of the watch was emitting a red light. My left hand moved towards the red light and then the light began to shine brightly. And then something that shook my entire body happened. The freaking watch began to emit a blue light and a table appeared in front of my eyes.
Welcome OUTSIDER! This watch here is your manual as well as your save slot. We understand that it might be hard for you to believe what we are saying but we ask you to believe everything you are about to read. This manual is what will explain what this world you are in now is as well things you will need to know to survive. Before we explain things, we shall first measure your basic potential. Depending on your physical and mental states, your potential will be measured and depicted in the form of a table. We shall now proceed with the scan and so we request you to stand still for a moment. Thank you
INITIALISING SCAN
INPUTTING VALUES
SCANNING
OUTPUTTING DATA
GENERATING TABLE
COMPLETE
STATUS
NameZephireRaceAlien Human
LevelInfant(1)DesignationNone
FaithNoneGuardianNone
Affinity????Existence????
Health: 500Mana: 100
Strength: 30Agility: 30
Stamina: 17Vitality: 10
Wisdom: 10Intelligence: 19
Luck: 10Prestige: 0
I was stunned. In front of my eyes was a table which showed me various details about me, measured and described in numerical values. I was re-reading the table and suddenly it was replaced by a new one.
This watch will show you different tables which contains different information and so do pay attention to it. Also the watch acts as a slaving slot, that is if you happen to die, you will be revived at the nearest checkpoint, just like in the games. But, you will be revived only for 10 times. After the tenth time, your death will be irrevocable.
Now let us move to the various aspects in the table. First about your race. Since you are from an outside planet, you are an alien to this world. But you will be treated with zero hostility since you have the watch on your hand. And so this watch acts as your identification, distinguishing you and those of this world. Same way the watch can be used to identify other alien beings. Different races have different colors and so their races can be found out by the watch. You have the freedom to travel to any place in the world as long as the watch is with you. But if you become a criminal you will lose that privilege and will also be hunted down by hunters.
We have designed this table to appear similar to the ones in those virtual reality games that your planet has but with some changes. And so as you are already aware, the level shows your ability or power as a whole. The higher the level, the stronger the person, just like in your games. But, the difference here is the word ¡®infant¡¯. This describes your current power. That is compared to the people in this world you are only as strong as an infant. As the numerical value reaches 10, the term will change into child. In short as you grow stronger, your term will change. In order to make it more interesting we will not tell you about the remaining levels.
Designation defines your social standing. That is how much important you are to the world. if you accomplish a number of great feats your designation will change to something new which we shall not specify now. Similarly, if you do things which are harmful, your designation will change accordingly. Better designation means a better life in this world.
Faith shows which faction of god or devil you worship. There are numerous gods and devils in this world and depending on whom you choose you get their blessings as well as access to their respective churches. The higher your faith the better your blessings
Guardians are entities which live inside you and protect you. They live solely for the purpose of protecting you. Even so, not everyone can have a guardian. One must be accepted by a guardian or else you will have no chance of getting one. There are different types of guardian, they too have level which are different from you aliens as guardians are beings of this world.
Affinity or elemental attraction. As the name says, your attraction to a particular element. The same as the one in your games but at the same time different too. Unlike in your games, the number of elements in this world is infinite. Nobody knows how many elements exist as every day a new element is born. Every being in this world has an affinity for elements. Some has affinity for one while some may have for two. But no creature exist that have affinity to none. The highest possible number of affinity is two.
Existence is the most important thing in this world. Existence is what people of your world calls as spiritual energy or chi and so. At this point you would ask is not mana the same as existence. Not at all. Mana is something you receive from the world around you, your body absorbs mana from outside and then stores it in your body. That is why one runs out of mana when he uses magic or so. But existence is different. It is the power of your spirit and will, your own power. Existence is produced by your own body and so it never runs out. Unlike mana, the amount of existence never changes. Every time you grow stronger, your mana may or may not increase, but existence is stable, it never changes.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
For the rest of the table, we believe that you do not need an explanation. Every time you level up, you will be able to increase them by five. Now we shall move on to the details about the world you are in. This is Anwol, one of the world in this vast universe, similar to your earth. We are what the people of Anwol calls as god, sadly we are nothing as powerful as gods. We are spirits, spirits that watches over the world without meddling in the affairs of the mortal world. Not because we are immortals or gods but because we are powerless to help them. This world, like yours is a place where different types of beings co-exist. Here you will find things that you won¡¯t find anywhere else. A world where anything is possible, a world where everybody is truly free As to why you are here and what you must do, that is something we cannot tell you. For now we ask you to take the affinity test in the nearby city. Walk the path your heart desires.
¡°Ho! Something is not right. The description does not explain the carvings on the door. If saving the world was the objective then why show a carving which showed a golden person standing on top of the rest. and powerless spirits is a load bullshit, and the thing about being truly free seems suspicious. Something is not right, I need more info.¡± My mind was not convinced with the explanation given to me. If the explanation was true, then why was there a need for a table which showed me my status? I walked towards the exit, thinking about the explanation I was given. As I reached the exit bright light blinded my eyes that had been in the dark for a while. My hands involuntarily covered my eyes to protect it from the light. As time passed, my eyes adjusted to the light and I could see what was in front of me. Stretching throughout the horizon of the land were various kinds of flowers, yellow, blue, red, black, white and other colors, a valley of flowers. The exit was the same as the huge black door that was in my home town. The moment I got out, the door had disappeared indicating that I cannot go back the way I came. But still I did not despair for my desire was not to return home but to remain here in this new place till I found what I had lost. I walked forward, not wavering, I walked and walked endlessly. The food in my bag and the suit I was wearing helped me walk a long distance. Night fell and all I could see were the same flowers. The next day too was the same, I walked endlessly till night stopping here and there once in a while. The third day, my spirit began to break. Seeing only flowers around me was making me panic. I often thought of stopping the pointless travel, but staying in middle of the flowers made me move forward. And so almost a week passed, I still had food for another week or so, but my water source was about to dry out. That day, my eyes were greeted by a change in the scenery. ¡°Buildings, buildings¡± I shouted out loud. Near the ever stretching horizon ahead of me were building. Jumping with joy, I ran toward the buildings with my new found vigor. Even after running at my full speed, it took me another two days to reach the place. When I was near to the place, I was dumbfounded. Unlike the villages and towns in the games, what was in front of me was a city with tall buildings, just like the modern day cities of our world. Surrounded by huge walls made of some metal, the city was as big as Tokyo or so I thought. Excited with the view I ran towards it. In another hour or so, I was in front of the gate which too like the wall was made of metal. For once I thought I was back in my own world. ¡°Hello¡± I screamed out loud. ¡°Who goes there¡± came a voice from above. Even though I was expecting a reply, the sudden voice freaked me out. When I calmed down I replied. ¡°My name is Zeph, can you let me pass? I was just summoned here¡± ¡°An alien? Show me the proof?¡± ¡°Proof? Ah¡± I lifted my right hand so that whoever was talking could see the watch on my hand. But there was no reply from the person. Instead, the huge gate began to separate. I walked in slowly, looking around. Once I was inside, the gate closed and I heard the voice again. ¡°Welcome to Ironforge, the city of metals. Please take the wallet in the container to your left and drop a little blood on the bag to form a contract with it.¡± I was surprised with the sudden request but nevertheless complied with it. I took the wallet from the container which had a needle too in it. I pricked my hand with it and then dropped my blood on it as asked. The wallet absorbed it and then my watch vibrated once again. Another table appeared before my eyes.
Ownership of wallet confirmed. The wallet now belongs to you. Nobody other than you is able to use this wallet. Amount: 10 Anw gold, 10 Anw silver, 10 Anw copper
¡°What the¡± I shouted out surprised. The amount of money was large. As a gamer I could tell that the amount of money was indeed high. I placed the wallet in my pocket and then asked who ever that was talking to me, ¡°How can I undergo an affinity test?¡± ¡°Affinity test? All you have to do is apply for the test at the Alien Welfare Office. Walk straight from here till you reach a white building. The Alien Office will be the third building to your right. Show them your gardisto and you will be allowed to enter¡± ¡°Thank you, whoever you are¡± ¡°Welcome¡± the voice replied. Content with the new info, I walked straight in search of the alien office, with burning vigor. ---***---
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Arc 1- Chapter 5: The affinity test(proofread) proofread by Daylius ¡°What the hell is this place?¡± I blurted out unknowingly. Numerous pairs of eyes stared at me in surprise. I was now inside the Alien Welfare Office, commonly known as AWO. The office had only a single store and looked really small from the outside. I had expected it to have at most two rooms. But when I turned the knob and opened the door what was ahead of me was way off from what I had imagined. The interior was twenty or so times larger than what was supposed to be. Inside the large room there were numerous glass cubicles and in each of the cubicles had a person sitting in front of a table. When I carefully observed them, I understood one thing. There was none of the same race. It was then it dawned on me that humans were not the only aliens. There were elves, dwarves, giants and many other races that were considered aliens, just like me. So each cubicle was dedicated to a particular race. And so I searched for a human among the lot and finally found one. I walked towards the cubicle and when I approached it was already occupied. The human official in the cubicle was busy with another person, explaining things to the one in front. I waited for a while, standing near the wall. Almost an hour later I was able to get my chance. I walked forward to the official and bowed lightly. ¡°Welcome to the AWO. My name is Andrela, a resident of this world. How may I help you?¡± ¡°Hello, I am Zeph. I am new to this world and so I thought that I could gather some information here, mainly about the affinity test.¡± ¡°Ah, a newcomer. It is good to see more and more people striving to become a hero. First let me explain to you about the world you are in now. Anwol is a world of might and magic, where even the lowest insect has the ability to manipulate mana. This world is different from the world you are from but similar at the same time. Since there is no magic on Earth, it might be hard for you to use and manipulate mana. But do not worry, that is because it takes time for the mana in this world to seep into your body and fill the mana chamber inside you, so kindly wait for at least a week. Breathe in fresh air and feel the robust earth. That is do not stay in your room too much. Spend your time outside to increase the rate of mana absorption. Any doubts Mr. Zeph?¡± ¡°That means it is impossible to survive without magic in this world?¡± ¡°Not at all. Even if we say everybody is capable of using magic, there are people who have so low mana capacity that they cannot even conjure the simplest spell. Such people usually master weapons to climb up. So do not worry too much about it¡± ¡°Ho! Ok.¡± Zeph was not convinced but still remained silent and let the official continue. ¡°Now let me explain to you about the affinity test that you wish to attend. An affinity test is conducted once in every six months. The next test will be on two days from today.¡± ¡°Two days? That¡¯s soon. What will happen if I take the test now?¡± ¡°As I already told you, your mana chamber is being filled and will take a week or so to completely filled. As you are still absorbing mana, the test will give an inaccurate reading. Say your mana capacity is 9 out of 10, if you take the test now then the reading will only show your capacity as 2 or 3.¡± ¡°Oh! I see¡± my mind was already in chaos, wondering whether to take the test now or not. Seeing my dilemma the official continued. ¡°That alone is not the problem. Since you mana circulates throughout your body, it determines the affinity you will get. The affinity can only be measured correctly if your mana chamber is full. For example, suppose your true affinity is tornado. If you take the test now the result will show your affinity to be wind¡± ¡°Is wind bad? Can I not use air to create a tornado? ¡± ¡°Not. You got it reverse. If your affinity is tornado, then you can use wind, breeze, gale and anything related to air. But if your affinity is breeze then all you might be able to do is use a very little wind. May be like a handful of it.¡± I nodded. I could not care about the affinity any less. No matter what the result showed his goal remained the same, get back Nao. ¡°The third drawback is, you will be admitted to a weak school¡± ¡°EH? Come again!¡± ¡°If your results are poor, you will have to go to the school at the bottom of the hierarchy. Before I tell you more about the school I have to tell you about different categories of mana, affinity and existence.¡± ¡°Wait a second. What is this thing about school?¡± ¡°School? You don¡¯t know what that is? Don¡¯t you have schools in your place?¡± ¡°I do. But why the hell should I go to a school?¡± ¡°To study how to use magic and sword of course. Is it not obvious?¡± the official was a little sarcastic. I was dumbfounded ¡°Is it necessary to attend one?¡± ¡°Of course. There is no way around it. Everyone in this world must go to school. If you are worried about the fees and other expense, do not worry you can apply for a loan here. And if you score well in the affinity test you might even get a sponsor.¡± ¡°You said everyone has to go to school, right?¡± ¡°Yes, every one. There are no exceptions.¡± That made me happy. If it was compulsory then the chances of me running into Nao was high, this was what my mind was dwelling up on. And so I urged the official to continue. The official nodded. ¡°Let us first go for the mana capacity.¡± ¡°Just a second, my watch shows that my mana as hundred. Then why should they test my mana? ¡± ¡°AH. That value is the mana every living being possesses. Something like the basic amount. The test measures the upper limit, that is, up to how much your mana value can rise. Mana capacity is denoted from a scale of 1 to 30 and 10 being the normal value for humans. Elves have a normal value of 13 and so. Let us leave the other races and talk about humans. Suppose your mana value is 10, then that means your mana capacity can reach up to a maximum of 5000. That being said, alien humans have a normal value of 15, a capacity of 7500. Ah, and the normal value for all alien races is 15, thus none of the races can be considered superior or inferior.¡± As soon as the official stopped talking, my watch vibrated and a tab opened up before me.
MANA CAPACITY
1 to 5very low(mana= value* 125)
6 to 9low(mana= value* 250)
10 to 15ordinary(mana= value* 500)
16 to 19special(mana= value*900)
19 to 23extra-ordinary(mana= value*1300)
24 to 27supernatural(mana= value*1600)
28 to 30divine(mana= value*2000)
¡°Why is it so uneven? And what is with 30? 2000 times 30 equals 60000. What the hell is that mana? Is there anything with such a level?¡± ¡°Of course, that is why it is in the table. Right now, 28 is the highest value and that belongs to a elven mage called, Alhotern, king of the elven continent¡± ¡°Eh? You meant elven kingdom, right?¡± ¡°Not at all. Right now, you are in the human continent. Similarly there is an elven continent and a few others¡± ¡°Don¡¯t tell me there as many continents as the races here?¡± ¡°Not at all. Let me see¡± the official then began counting her fingers one by one and then said, ¡°There are nine continents.¡± ¡°Nine!¡± I was speechless. I had considered this world to be similar to those VR games I had played and so I had thought that there would be a maximum of two continents. ¡®But nine? How big is this planet?¡¯ I asked myself. ¡°That aside, let us continue. The highest value of 30 was attained by only a single person, the previous hero, Ginvit, you know the one holding the golden sword. Other than him some magical beasts are said to have mana value of 30.¡± ¡°So, only a person with a value of 30 can become the hero eh.¡± ¡°Not necessary. It was said that Ginvit¡¯s mana value was 21 when he took the test. Later he increased it 30 by some unknown method. Many tried to find out how to, but none succeeded and now it is considered as a myth. Now let us move on to affinity. Similar to mana capacity, affinity too is categorized. There are hundreds and thousands of affinity. No one knows how many. It is impossible to track down the number of affinities. So the affinities were categorized as follows¡±
AFFINITY
AIRWind, Breeze, Gale, Tornado
WATERStream, River, Sea, Ocean
EARTHSoil, Pebble, Rock, Mountain
FIREBurn, Flame, Phoenix, Inferno
LIFESpirit,Being
¡°Andrela, why is there no lightning?¡± ¡°Because lightning is considered as the combination of air and water¡± ¡°Oh. I understand. In short, there are four basic affinities, each having four types. The rest are considered to be the combination of two affinities eh¡± ¡°No, it does not need to be two, it can be combination of all four or may be any three. For example, consider the affinity wood. From what you said, it should have been a combination of water and earth, right? But no. Wood is part of a living group, trees. So for wood affinity, three basic affinities combine, earth, water and life.¡± ¡°Life, now that you mention it, why is life the only one with two sub affinities?¡± ¡°Ah, spirit and essence? ¡®Spirit¡¯ represents death and ¡®being¡¯ represents birth. There are no other life affinities¡± ¡°How many affinities can I have?¡± ¡°Ah, the highest so far is five, a person got all five basic affinities. But that has a great drawback.¡± ¡°Drawback? Is it not good to have more affinities?¡± ¡°Not at all. What you said would have been true only if the affinities retained their original power. When a single person attains more than two affinities, the power level decreases.¡± ¡°I do not follow Andrela¡± ¡°Listen carefully. Suppose you have any three of the affinities, say earth, air and water. Now take water, suppose you get ¡®sea¡¯ affinity. Even though your affinity is ¡®sea¡¯, your water power will be only at the level of stream or river¡± ¡°Ah, so that makes the person weak. Is there no way to increase the power?¡± ¡°Train your affinity for years and it might reach it¡¯s true level. That only is the method. Oh and training as in real combat¡± ¡°So unless we fight an enemy with the affinity there is no chance for it grow. I see, since his power level is low his chances of survival is low too. That is what you mean eh?¡± ¡°Correct. Fighting weak opponents does improve your affinity, like by 0.01% per fight. While if you fight against a person little stronger than you the affinity increases by .9% per fight. This because fighting against a weak guy does not make your body break it¡¯s limits.¡± ¡°This world is so complicated. My head hurts¡± ¡°What are you saying? Next is the most exciting part, existence or essence¡± ¡°Why is it so important?¡± ¡°I believe you already know what existence is and how it differs from mana?¡± ¡°Yes I do.¡± ¡°Good. What makes affinities is the combination of these two. The more existence and mana you have the better affinity you get. This is the reason why there are innumerous affinities as the amount of existence and mana in each person differs. When I say so, you might ask that should not guys with same amount of mana and existence get the same affinity. What you are thinking is true. If there are ten persons with mana and existence of value 5, they should be getting the same affinity but instead their affinity varies from air to life. The affinity you get is determined by the flavor of the essence and mana. When you live in a hilly region, the mana and essence has the flavor of earth and so the affinity you get is earth. If you live near a river where the flavor can be earth or water, the stronger flavor turns into affinity. This does not have to be true always. Those with all five affinities are born because their existence and mana does not have flavors¡± This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°Is that why existence is important?¡± ¡°Not even close. Existence determines your physical and mental attributes, your resistance to attacks, your ability to grow, your potential. And so there are many other things. But the most important is, the level of existence determines how strong you become when you evolve¡± ¡°Eh? Am I pokemon?¡± ¡°What¡¯s pokemon?¡± ¡°Nothing. Andrela, I can evolve?¡± ¡°Of course, did you not read about it in the guide? About how when you hit level ten, your power term changes from ¡®infant¡¯ to ¡®child¡¯?¡± ¡°Ah that. I did read. So that is considered as evolution eh¡± ¡°Yes. As to how much your powers change cannot predicted. So the better the existence the stronger your abilities. Here, take this medicine¡± ¡°What is this for?¡± ¡°This medicine opens up your essence chamber¡± ¡°Opens up?¡± ¡°Yes, normally the essence chamber is closed for humans. People who practice martial arts open them with their own methods. Here we give this medicine for the purpose. Once you have this medicine, it will take a week for your body to circulate enough essence to fill the chamber. The essence value ranges from 1 to 26. For those of this world, 7 is the normal and for aliens the normal is 10. ¡±
ESSENCE
1 to 3Inferior
4 to 6Low
7 to 10Normal
11 to 14High
15 to 18Exceptional
19 to 23Superior
24 to 26Godlike
¡°With this we have now finished the explanation, now to the topic about schools¡± ¡°Just a second, Andrela. What about guardians?¡± ¡°You won¡¯t be getting a guardian any time soon so don¡¯t worry about it¡± ¡°Why is that so?¡± ¡°Well a guardian is something rare. Every living being has a guardian. But only some forms contract with their master. Guardians are prideful and divine beings, they only appear in front of those who they consider worth protecting. No matter how strong you are, if you have even a speck of darkness in your heart your guardian will not ever appear before you. Since I already told you this much, I will tell you one more thing. In the history of this world, only 6 were able to form contract with their guardians and so I advise you to keep your hopes down on getting one¡± I nodded, I was not that interested in one but asked her anyways to get more information. ¡°Once you finish the test you will be scouted according to your existence and mana values. Well, instead of size schools there are only three. This is because, the last category of students do not exist, means those with essence value 24 to 26 and mana value of 28 to 30. The number of students with exceptional mana and essence value are low and so for students above the normal mark are all scouted by a single school.¡±
SCHOOLS
Itiferth AcademyVery low talent, Low talent, Normal
Edelnerry AcademyHigh talent
Aduxria AcademyExceptional, Superior, Godlike
¡°Andrela, what happens if I get an ¡®exceptional¡¯ essence value but an ¡®ordinary¡¯ mana value?¡± ¡°In such cases, you will go to the school which accepts ¡®normal¡¯ student. In short, if your mana and existence value are of different levels then you go to the lower value determines the school you attend.¡± ¡°Is that so?¡± ¡°Yes. With this I have explained everything about the test¡± ¡°What about the duration and fees?¡± ¡°Ah, I forgot. Two years of compulsory education in Itiferth, Three years in Edelnerry and Five years in Aduxria. If you wish you can still continue studying. The fees must be paid annually, and each school has different fee structure. 200AG (Anw Gold)/year for Itiferth, 600AG/year for Edelnerry and 1500AG/year for Aduxria. That said for Edelnerry and Aduxria students, the kingdom pays half the fees if the students are willing to join the army. Most of the student of those schools are often sponsored by rich nobles¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°Why you ask? If the student they sponsor becomes somebody famous or gets a high position in the army, then that means the noble¡¯s house gets more fame. Also the nobles can ask for the help of those students in time of crisis. That is what I think. None of those nobles will show their true colors to the outside world so I am not sure. You will be living in dorms provided by the schools. And as for the fees, you can earn money by working during free time. The alien office will support you for the first year of your schooling.¡± ¡°Support? How?¡± ¡°We will loan you the money you need if you are ready to repay us twice the amount by the end of two years.¡± ¡°What happened if I can¡¯t repay¡± ¡°All your status will be revoked, like achievements, awards, properties and you will be banned by most of the countries. Everything will be returned if you pay thrice the amount after the allotted time of two years¡± ¡°I see. A double edged sword. Thank you Andrela¡± I stood up and bowed at the woman and then walked away. On my way to the office I had already found a couple of inns were I could spend my days till the test. I booked a room for two days, which cost me 4AS (Anw Silver). Then I ate a light dinner and the medicine then went off to sleep. For the next couple of days I wandered around the city without doing anything special. Finally the day of the test arrived, Andrela had given me the location of the test which was a little away from her office. I knew that my results would not be accurate but I did not mind. I wanted to find Nao and bring her back, I did not care in the least what level of power I had and which school I will go to. I reached the place where the test was to be held, it looked like an arena. An arena for gladiators, that was what came to my mind when I when I say the building from the outside, a colosseum. ¡°What the hell? Why is a roman structure in middle of a fantasy world? Sigh¡± shrugging my soldiers I approached the entrance where there were two separate queues of people. One of the queues had only children while the other were made of both children and adults. All types of races were occupying the second queue and so I understood that the queue was for aliens while the first queue was for natives. I could see the poor and rich standing in queue for their test. The children were accompanied by their parents and were being encouraged by them. That made me feel nostalgic. I missed my parents very much. But I could not think about them much as voice of an old man rang all over the place. ¡°Stand in line, the test will now begin. Aliens to the right and the natives to the left. Do not mix up¡± I went and stood behind the second queue in wait for my chance. Ahead of me were more than fifty people so was the case behind me too. Those who entered the colosseum were seen to exit from another way and each of them were holding different colors of paper, three colors to be exact. When I saw that, I understood that each color indicated a particular school. Some were crying while others were laughing out loud. Hours passed and finally I was summoned in. I walked in timidly for I could hear the chattering of thousands. Every time there was a tests, many came to witness it. Some came for the thrill while others came to scout potential candidates. When I walked in to the huge arena, I was welcomed with a round of applause. On the middle of the arena there were three separate platforms on the ground. A man in white robe stood near them. He gestured me to walk forward. ¡°Name?¡± ¡°Zeph¡± ¡°Age?¡± ¡°Fifteen¡± ¡°Race?¡± ¡°Alien Human¡± ¡°How long have you been here?¡± ¡°Two and a half days¡± When I answered the last question he glared at me and then asked, ¡°Did the AWO official explain to you the consequences of taking the test before the required time of one week passed?¡± ¡°She did. But I still want to take the test¡± ¡°Do not regret it boy¡± ¡°Step on the platform to your right¡± I stepped on it just like I was asked. ¡°This platform will measure your mana value. Close your eyes. Then picture the energy of the surrounding flow into you¡± I did exactly as told. It was pretty much easy. The man has no idea how many anime and manga I have gone through. Ufufufu. Closing my eyes, I picture the energy in my surroundings flow through me. I have done this many times when I was much younger. But this time it was difficult for I could really feel something flow into me. A minute or so passed and then I was asked to open my eyes. The old man had a look of surprise in his eyes. He then called out loud, ¡°Mana value 13¡± ¡®What the, why is he surprised? It¡¯s just normal¡¯ I thought to myself not comprehending the reason for the surprise in the man¡¯s face. ¡°Now move to the second platform. Let us measure you existence value. You just have to stand still and concentrate on feeling the energy inside you¡± As ordered, I closed eyes and the tried to feel the energy inside me. For some reason my entire body began to feel warm and I felt as I was not touching the ground, like I was flying. ¡°Essence value 10¡± ¡®Good, I am normal. This way I won¡¯t stand out. Now for the affinity. I wish I could use lightning. It would be so cool.¡¯ ¡°Boy, now on to the last. Just stand there. Drop a blood on to the hole on the platform and step out.¡± I was given a needle for the purpose. A small prick and a drop of blood oozed out of the wound in my finger. I dropped it into the hole and then stepped back. The platform gave off a glow with a mix of colors and then died out. ¡°5 basic affinities¡± That was a disappointment. Even though my essence and mana value were decent, the affinities I had were not. As I had five basic affinities at the same time, my spell power will decrease a lot. ¡°Normal¡± the robbed man shouted and then turned to me, ¡°Boy, if you had taken the test the next year you could have easily gotten into Aduxria. Why are you in a hurry?¡± ¡°There is someone I must find no matter what and so I cannot waste even a second, even if I am branded as failure by the world¡± ¡°I like you boy and so I will tell you this. Train well! Now off you go¡± I thanked the man and walked out. At the exit of the arena, another man in white rob approached me. ¡°Hello Mr. Zeph. My name is Holdos, the principal of Itiferth. I am here to recruit you to our school.¡± ¡°Hello Mr. Holdos. Thank you, when can I start?¡± I asked flashing a smile. ¡°Please come here in two days with the prescribed fee of 200AG and then we will officially proclaim you as the student of our school¡± ¡°Thank you Sir. Then let us meet in two days¡± I bowed and walked away. A new life awaited me. ---***---
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Arc 1- Chapter 6: Calmor and the guide(proofread) proofread by Daylius ¡°You boy! Wait¡± As soon as I exited the arena I was grabbed by a hand which startled me. I looked back to find the owner of the hand that grabbed me. A man in his late forties wearing some expensive outfit stood behind me, panting like crazy. The man¡¯s face was pale and it made me feel uneasy for some reason. ¡°Are you okay mister?¡± I asked out of courtesy. ¡°I am fine. I am fine¡± the man straightened himself and had now stopped panting. Puffing his chest the man spoke, ¡°I am Nodin, a noble and the leader of the Calmor house¡± ¡°Hello Mr. Nodin. I am Zeph, nice to meet you. Now that you seem okay, I shall excuse myself¡± I bowed a little and turned around to walk away. ¡°Wait boy, listen to me for a minute.¡± ¡°What is it Mr. Nodin? I am in a hurry¡± I was getting impatient. ¡°I am here to bring you under my house, feel privileged boy¡± ¡°Don¡¯t need it¡± I refused the old man blatantly as I knew involving with nobles would make my future painful. ¡°Wait, please¡± the tone of the old man turned from prideful to feeble. ¡°Please, you are my only hope¡± ¡°Sigh! What is it? What do you want?¡± ¡°All I need is you to carry the name of Calmor house. Nothing more¡± ¡°Why me? I am just a normal student. You can find students that are of much higher tier.¡± I was getting annoyed and so replied a little forcefully. ¡°I cannot afford them. My house is on the verge of collapse and so the most I can do is sponsor a normal student like you. Please Zeph, please come under my house, I will sponsor the entire school fees¡± ¡° Wait! What is in it for you if I bear the name of your house?¡± ¡°The house¡¯s reputation and influence increases for every successful adventurer the house produces. You do not have to do anything special for the house, just wear the house crest that is all. For every achievement you earn the house gets credit for it and thereby making the house stronger. It is a good deal for you. Rather than being a puppet to the strong houses in the future you can become the benefactor of my house and live freely.¡± ¡°I can always turn down the offers of these houses, what is the big deal?¡± ¡°Of course you can turn down their offers. But once you do so they see you as an enemy and will try their best to hinder your life with all their might. If you join my house now, by the time you are a successful adventure, my house would have become strong enough to keep the other houses away from you. How about it? Just wear this ring and the clothes with the emblem of the house. That is all¡± For me the deal felt good. If I were to go under his wing I would have the freedom to anything I want. The chances of being targeted by other houses also gets nullified. ¡°Fine Mr. Nodin, I will do as you say¡± ¡°Thank you Zeph. I will take care of the rest. Please come with me, we can stay in my house till you leave for the school. The emblem and other things will be delivered to you later on¡± ¡°Of course. Since you are now one of the members of the clan you get to live with us. You will be basically like my son to the outside world and so looking after you is my duty. Besides I have to introduce you to the others too.¡± ¡°Huh! Fine, I get it. Before that let me visit the AWO and the inn I had been staying.¡± ¡°Very well. I will be in the arena. Come find me once you finish your business¡± We then went our separate ways. I sighed cause of the sudden developments. I slowly approached the Alien office. It took me a little more than ten minutes to reach the office. Once in, I walked to the cubicles for human. I was expecting Andrela to be busy with another client but that day she was sitting on her chair with a bored expression. ¡°Why do you look so bored Andrela. You look so un-cute¡± ¡°Who are you calling un-cute¡± Andrela hit me on my head, pouting! ¡°I am sorry Andrela, goddess of beauty. Please forgive me¡± I joked. She smiled and asked, ¡°So how is everything going?¡± ¡°Everything is fine. I passed the affinity test, got admitted into Itiferth and got sponsored by Nodin Calmor. A hectic day¡± I said shrugging my shoulder. ¡°You idiot, why did you take the test? I told you that it will one week for your mana and essence to fully develop.¡± ¡°Skip the test and wait for another year doing nothing. No way in hell. I am happy with the results.¡± ¡°Such a troublesome boy. So, what was the result?¡± Andrela asked with a pained expression. ¡°Mana 13 and essence 10. I got all five affinities. I had hoped I could get a lighting based affinity, sigh¡± I finished talking and looked at Andrela. The girl stared at me with her jaws open and widened eyes. ¡°Andrela? What¡¯s wrong? Andrela! Andrela¡± I called out a couple times. After a few minutes she returned to normal. ¡°Mr. Zeph, do you remember what I told you about taking the exam before the required one week?¡± ¡°Yes I do. You said, it will take one week for my powers to fully develop. So if I take the test early the results will be a little lower of the original power value. What is the big deal? I bet my original mana and essence value must have been something close to 15 or so. Besides it is a good thing that I don¡¯t stand out much. Going to Itiferth is better as I won¡¯t have to fall prey to the house politics of this world. This was I can dedicate my time to things I want to do¡± ¡°What nonsense are you spouting? Close to 15 you say? You were here only for three days, not even half a week and your values are already close to the higher power level. Mana value of 13 and essence value of 10. Had you taken the test once your mana and essence chamber filled up completely I am sure you could have easily scored a value higher than 20. You could have gone to Edelnerry or Aduxria.¡± ¡°It is fine Andrela. I do not crave the attention of others. My goal is to find someone I lost. As long as I can find her nothing else matters¡± ¡°You are indeed a troublesome guy. Did you tell anybody about the fact that you came to this world only three days before?¡± ¡°Yes, only to the man in white rob who was conducting the test¡± ¡°That explains why the Calmor house took you in¡± ¡°What do you mean?¡± ¡°Well, I am guessing the one who was overlooking your test was the one who informed the Calmor clan. And the leader of the clan rushed to you to secure you before it was too late.¡± ¡°I might be in the higher power level, but now I am a normal student. Why go after a normal student?¡± ¡°That is because the Calmor clan is the weakest in the continent. They used to be pretty powerful in the olden times but right now they are nothing special. They lost all their power, territory and influence. All that is left is the clan manor which is in this city. I believe that they hardly have the resource to support you. It is like they are ready for gamble betting everything they have on you.¡± ¡°Sigh! So in short things will get troublesome for me. Such a pain in the ass. Andrela can I ask your office to loan half the amount of the fees.¡± ¡°Eh? Why? Did he not say that he will sponsor for you?¡± ¡°He did, but from your description I think he will have trouble with money. So lend me 100AG, I will ask him to pay it back by the end of the year. This way he will get more time to earn money or maybe I can accomplish something to help his house¡± ¡°Were you not telling that you did not want to associate yourself with nobles and their houses?¡± ¡°Well I did! If I abandon an old man in need then she will smack me on the head and run away again¡± ¡°You are too nice for your own good. Fine here is the money.¡± Andrela extended a card to me. ¡°What is that?¡± ¡°This is your bank and also identity. It is called Anwol card or Anca in short¡± ¡°Wow cool¡± ¡°The card will have your name, your age, the clan you are affiliated to, your designation and also the amount in your bank. The card can be used to withdraw money from the AWO all around the globe. Since the card has your photo in it, only you can use it too. Give this card to the principal, he will be having the means to collect the money. Anything else?¡± ¡°Nothing more! I guess this is goodbye Andrela¡± ¡°I guess it is so. It was nice having you here. I pray you find what you are searching for¡± I bowed at the smiling lady and walked out of the alien office. I then headed to the inn I was staying to gather my stuff and then vacated the room. All I had to take was the bow and sword which I had left behind for the test. In an hour or so I returned to the arena. There the man who had agreed to sponsor me was waiting impatiently, his face was pale like before. I could not help but sigh at the man. One look at him and it was clear as day that the man had undergone hell to reach the state he was now, a fighter. ¡°Mr. Nodin¡± I called out loud so that he could notice me. Like a baby who got a new toy, the man¡¯s face brightened and he rushed to me. ¡°Zeph, you came. Woah! What is with that sword and that strange thing? ¡± ¡°Ah these are the weapons from my world, they were given to me as means to protect myself. And this thing is a bow¡± I let the bow expand to its normal form by unlocking the locking system. This startled Nodin and he backed away a little. ¡°What a strange looking bow. Truly fierce. Now keep it away and come this way.¡± ¡°Where to?¡± ¡°To my manor of course¡± Nodin walked ahead and I followed. A little away a horse carriage was on standby for us. He asked me to get in and then the carriage moved. The scenery outside the carriage changed from huge buildings to smaller buildings and then to a big garden. At the middle of the garden was a pretty big house, something fit to be called manor but it was poorly kept. The garden hardly had anything beautiful in it. A fountain that was dry and dirt lay in front of the manor. The carriage stopped in front of the manor and we got out. I was suddenly welcomed by a man who seemed like the butler. We then walked inside with Nodin in front and the butler behind me. The insides were huge but plain. It was obvious from the looks that the manor had sold out almost everything the manor had to survive. For once I felt bad about Nodin. We walked for a while, entering and exiting different rooms and finally stopped in the dining hall. Though the manor looked poor, the dining room was a different case. Designed with great beauty, the dining room was decorated with special sculptures and paintings. The dining table was really long and the table and chair exerted a dignified aura. The silver cutlery arranged on the table were sparkling as if they were brand new. ¡°What is with this room? Why is it so different?¡± ¡°Ah! Well this one room has always been like this. It has always been like this, and my father had told me never to alter the things in this room. And so till now the dining hall is the only thing that shows the majestic life the ancestor of my clan had once lead.¡± ¡°Ah! You are back dear. I hope everything went well?¡± Hearing the voice I turned towards the source of the direction. From a different door a lady and girl walked out, the way they carried themselves clearly indicated that they were the lords of the manor. ¡°Let me introduce you to my wife and child Zeph¡± Nodin then pointed at the lady, ¡°This my wife, Gloria Calmor and the child next to her is Fiora Calmor¡± I faced them and bowed gently, ¡°Hello madam! I am Zeph, nice to meet you¡± ¡°Dear, we are going out for a walk. We will be back soon. Come my sweet heart¡± the wife then dragged the little girl who was looking at me curiously. I smiled at the girl which made her blush and turn away her head. ¡°Sorry about that. My wife is not particularly fond of aliens¡± A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. ¡°No problem. So where will I be living? You do remember that I have to pay a visit to the principal in two days, right?¡± ¡°Ah! You do not have to worry, I remember¡± ¡°Good. Here, take this¡± I then handed over the Anca to him. ¡°There is 100AG in it, use that to pay half of the academy fees.¡± ¡°No, I can¡¯. I promised to sponsor you, I can¡¯t be taking money from you¡± ¡°Take it already. Listen, if you take this 100AG then you can save another 100AG after my school expenses right? You can use the money for yourself. Don¡¯t worry about it, I will be fine¡± ¡°But how will you pay back the loan?¡± ¡°Do not worry about those things. I got a year to earn the money I need. Meanwhile I want you to make good use of the money you save¡± The man looked at me as if I were god. I could not help but sigh at the expression on his face. The next day my clothes were given to me, all of them had the symbol of the house, a huge upside down sword with something like an eagle sitting on it. I found the symbol strange for some reason but left it alone after a while. Two days passed away quickly. Nodin met the principal of the academy and then explained that I will be taken under the Calmor house. And so it was decided that all my uniforms will have the symbol of the Calmor house. Another surprising thing that occurred was that my name was changed to Zeph Calmor. Since the name sounded cool to me I let it be. The principal then handed over the invitation to the school and also a guidebook which had the rules of the school written in it. That night I spend my time reading the guidebook to gather more information about the school I was going to spend the next couple of years at. The guidebook explained the various aspects of the academy. While reading the guidebook I noticed a strange fact, that was the duration of a day. Instead of the 24 hour margin like on earth, the days in this world were lengthier, 30 hours. Another interesting thing was that each week was made of eight days and a month consisted of 32 days. What surprised me even more was the name for the eighth day, it was named as HOLIDAY. I could not contain my laughter for a while. ¡®Hmm, really different from earth¡¯s calendar. Every month starts with a Monday and ends with a Holiday, exactly 4 weeks. So a year equals twelve months which equals 384 days. Hm! Interesting. So as per the calendar in this manor, today is 26th of the last month of the year. Let us see the month is called ¡®The month of the Goat¡¯. Is it based on zodiac signs? Well whatever. So the opening ceremony is on the 1st of the New Year eh. Good thing I was sent here in time for the affinity test, thank you old man.¡¯ These thoughts ran through my mind as I was lying in bed reading the thick guidebook. It was written that a student has to remain within the academy for at least two years to be able to attend the final exam which certified one as a full-fledged adventure. It was also written in it that, the number of years one can study in the academy extended up to 8 years after which he will be forced to drop out no matter what. This upper limit was same for the other two academy. But the minimum was much higher. This was because, the students of higher power levels were given more thorough lessons than those of the normal power level. For a student of the normal level, to gain more knowledge than what his academy taught he had to attain it by himself while it was spoon fed to those of higher levels. The guidebook explained the layout of the academy. There were three blocks which were named peculiarly. A student had to go to each block at least once a day, such was the way the schedules were arranged. Every day compulsory 9 hours of tutoring was given to the students, and except for the Holiday, all other days the students had classes. Magical studies, physical abilities, enhancing classes, these were the three main subjects a student had to study. Each of them were broken down into numerous subjects. The classes started at 7 in the morning and ended at 5 in the evening. Magical studies spanned from 7am to 10am. The magical studies would contain mainly learning spells which aligned with one¡¯s affinity. If I should give an example, consider the affinity ice, ice is made by cooling water, so it is made from air and water. In a magical studies class, the student will be taught how to use ice, water and air spells. The catch was that only basic affinity spells could be taught. That meant if a student had complex affinity which was made by three or more affinities then he could learn spells of those basic affinities. And so every day a single basic affinity was taught. That meant I will have to attend the classes five days consecutively while others only had to come when their basic affinity classes were conducted.
Magical Studies: Basic affinity lessons
MondayAir
TuesdayWater
WednesdayEarth
ThursdayFire
FridayLife
The magical studies also taught how to improve mana control and also taught weapon enchantment. So every student could enchant their weapon with their complex affinity as well as basic affinity that is a student who can use ice affinity can enchant their sword with ice, water and air affinities. This might make it seem that every person of the world are very strong, but the reality is much harsh. The level and power of enchantment depends on their essence value and so student with lower essence values do not attend the classes for enchantment and control. So the first and third Saturdays of a month students were taught enchantment while the second and fourth Saturdays were for mana control lessons
Magical Studies: Enchantment and control
1st and 3rd SaturdayEnchantment
2nd and 4th SaturdayMana control
The last division of magic studies were reserved for academy toppers were they were trained personally by the principal. For the remaining students it was self-study.
Magical Studies: Specialty
SundayFor selected students
Then comes the second department, Physical abilities which spanned between 10:15 am to 1:15 pm. The lunch break lasted forty five minutes. Similar to magical studies, physical ability classes to were classified into many subdivisions. Everything from close combat to ranged combat was taught, different martial arts, strength and stamina training and so. What piqued my interest in this was the term ¡®special weapons¡¯. Every Friday of a week the students were taught how to wield this ¡®special weapon¡¯ but nothing was told about what this ¡®special weapon¡¯ was. And so I had no other choice to bury it inside my mind.
Physical Abilities: Weapon Training
MondaySword
TuesdaySpear
WednesdayMaze
ThursdayBow
FridaySpecial Weapons
The physical ability classes included essence control too. This came as a surprise for me initially as I had considered it to be covered under magical studies. But then I understood why it was included in physical abilities. Essence like our organs and muscles are part of our body and so acquiring control over essence fell under physical abilities. The last two days of the week was dedicated for Essence control and exertion.
Physical Abilities: Exertion and control
1st and 3rd SaturdayExertion
2nd and 4th SaturdayEssence control
Initially I had assumed that ¡®exertion¡¯ was nothing major but when I saw that separate days were scheduled for ¡®exertion¡¯ classes I could not help but wonder what it was but again I had no way to satisfy my curiosity as nothing was mentioned about it in the guide. And once again similar to magical studies, the last day of the week was reserved for academy toppers.
Physical Abilities: Specialty
SundayFor selected students
Finally the academic day finished with three hours of enhancing classes from 2pm to 5pm. The so called enhancing classes seemed special to me but I could not find anything more about it in the guidebook. All that was said that every student had to attend the classes regardless of their affinity or power status. The guidebook then gave me the list of staffs and their respective departments which I ignored immediately. Then came the thing what I was looking for. The yearly academic tournament. At midway of every year, the academy held a tournament between the students of the academy regardless of which year they were. The tournament was a criteria to choose students who would then be sent to participate in a showdown between the three schools. But from what I gathered, the participants who were gathered never attended these showdown as they knew that they could not compete with the other two schools. The guidebook had the list of winners of these showdown and when I went through it I understood that out of the 437 showdowns between the academies, my academy had only won once. Which in itself was a legendary achievement, if I could say so. I then skimmed through the remaining pages as there were nothing but gibberish in those. Once I finished reading, I then tried the new uniforms I was given. All the uniforms I had had the house symbol on it. The uniforms were cool, with red with black striped shirts and black trousers which I found very cool. There were ten sets of uniforms which was too much for a normal student but I guess in an academy where magic and sword fight were allowed ten was a small number. While I was busy admiring the uniforms, a sudden knock at the door startled me. It took me a while to regain my composure. When I opened the door, the butler of the house bowed at me and asked me to have dinner. I complied and followed him to the dining room where as usual the mother and the daughter were absent. Nodin then apologized to for his wife¡¯s and daughter¡¯s rude behavior, just like all those previous times. And so my days of boredom continued. Days flew slowly and then came the day when I was to set out to the capital of the human continent, Academia. ---***---
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Arc 1- Chapter 7: Itiferth- School for the weak(proofread) PROOFREAD BY DAYLIUS The month of the goat, day 30. The day for me to set forth for the academy had arrived finally. Nordin had woke me up early, like a dad would his son. He had then urged me to get ready as soon as possible. Once I had finished with my morning routine, we then set off to the city in the horse carriage in which I first arrived to the manor. When we reached the city, we walked towards the arena where we were supposed to assemble. The arena where I had my test was now in my view and near it i could see a sea of children and older people. We walked towards the arena and we could hear a person in white robe, similar to the guy who had overseen my test, shouting. "Students of Aduxria to my right, Edelnerry in the middle and Itiferth to my left. Stand in a single line. You will be taken to your respective schools by the headmasters of the respective schools. And do not bother trying anything funny. Once the announcement was over the students began forming line and so did I. I bid my farewell to Nordin and walked over to the area where the students of Itiferth were to align themselves. It took a little while for the students to form a line. I looked to my left and I could see the students of the other two schools. The line for Aduxria only had six students while that for Edelnerry had a little over fifty or so. Compared to them my line was overflowing with students, what you would call a swarm of bees. I estimated there to be more than two hundred of us. The line stretched endlessly in both directions. While I was busy with my thoughts the headmasters of the school moved themselves to the start of the line. The three then began to chant some spells. From what I could hear, they were chanting the same thing. The chant was short and when it finished, I could see the air behind them distort and warp. Soon the air split and ripples began to form. In seconds there was what a gamer would call a portal in front of us. I was shocked, a portal! That was something that I had only seen in games and movies but to see it in real life was shocking. But before I could bring down the wave of emotion and astonishment inside me, the headmasters spoke together. "Welcome students, please enter one by one" One by one the students disappeared inside the portal. The other two lines had finished within an hour or so but mine moved like a snail. The constant standing had begun to cause pain in my legs. The same applied to the others as they began to sit on the ground but were soon forced to stand by their own parents. ''Sigh!'' I sighed with frustration, cursing the fate and gods that made me stand in such a long queue. It took another couple of hours for my chance to arrive. We were served lunch by the men in white robes. Some students had brought food while some had not. For those who did not bring anything like myself, we were provided a loaf of bread and some water. I finished my lunch as soon as possible and walked forward to the portal. I wanted to get to the other side as soon as possible but before I could enter it, I was stopped by a hand on my shoulder. Looking behind me, I saw three of the headmasters together and that I was stopped by Aduxria''s head master. "Is there a problem Mr. Holdos." I asked not masking my frustration. "Nothing at all you Calmor. My friends here just wanted to meet you. It seems they want to have a chat with you." "Sigh!" I could not help but give off a sigh which amused the headmasters. I then faced the two and asked, "Hello Sir" "Hello Zeph" the one who talked was the head master of Aduxria. " My name is Morgod, and this here is Ternof. We heard you took the test before you met the requirement for an alien. Is it true?" "Requirement? There was a requirement?" I was confused for a moment but suddenly things became clear."Ah you mean the requirement about the days. Yeah i did. I took the exam on the third day after i was given the mana pill." After I finished saying my line three looked at me like I was some exotic animal. I looks at Morgod in his eye not knowing the reason for there morbid expression. "Is something wrong? I was told that taking the test before the required days was allowed." "Of course there is no such rules but normally people would wait for the pill to finish its job. Why were you so eager to take the test and enter the school in such a rush." "I did not want to waste a year doing nothing. I was told that the only way to learn how to survive was taught in schools. So I had no other option but to take part in the test. And now here I am as a student of Itiferth." "Is that so. In that case let me come to the main reason we wanted to talk to you."saying so the two headmasters stretched a letter each. The letters had the symbol of the respective school and my name on them. I stared at them for a while and then back to the two who were stretching them. "We would like you to transfer to either of our school. Your potential and ability is not something that should be trained by those of Itiferth." The last statement took me aback. Till now I had thought the three of them to be friends but the way Morgod denounced Itiferth showed me that things for not like what I though. "I am sorry. I am not interested. I do not have the financial ability to afford your schools nor does my clan" "Ah. Do not worry. If you join either of our school you will be taken under a different clan which is much better than the one that is sponsoring you." "My answer is still no. I do not like either of you. Everything is fine the way things are so I will stick with Mr. Holdos and Itiferth. I believe there is nothing more to discuss about, then I shall take my leave." I gently bowed my head to Holdos and turned away from them and walked away. I could hear the chatters of the students who were watching all the things that were transpiring. "You will regret it boy, turning your back at me is the worst mistake you could have committed." I paid him no heed and walked. People like him that saw others as pawns to increase their fame and might were the ones I could stand the least. Clenching my fist, I walked into the portal not minding the gazes I was receiving. ''So troublesome'' was the thought that ran through my mind for I was sure things would soon get hectic. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. ---***--- The other end of the portal led me to the front of a huge but rusted iron gate. On both sides of the gate were equally huge stone walls. Above the gate, on an arc made of stones was carved the writing ''ITIFERTH ACADEMY'' ''Rather than the gate of a school I would say this looks like the entrance to a haunted mansion.'' Looking around I saw the children who had arrived before me were being asked to stand in lines of five. In front of each line, there were five women dressed like the witches in the movies I had seen. The only difference was that rather than the dark coloured robe which was the normal attire for witches in the movies, their robes were all light coloured. The colour of their robe for some reason reminded me of the five basic affinities. I too followed suite and arranged myself in the leftmost line. The woman that was governing my queue wore a white robe, to her side were women in blue, yellow, brown and the last one was green robed. From what I saw I could gather that the colour stood for air, water, fire, earth and life. Once every student were transported the huge gates opened up on its own like it were being pulled by a strong pair of hands. The huge gate flung open and the five woman began to walk gesturing us to follow them. On the other side of the gate was a huge open space and in the middle of the space was a worn out fountain which was as dry as a desert. I could see a number of mansion like building which were hardly maintained. There were patches of green here and there in the open space and so were stoney paths which ran here and there. I could hear occasional growls and roars which I assumed was some kind of beast. We stopped walking and now were in front of the fountain. To my left and right I could see a single building which was separated by another wall. ''Hm? A separate wall for each of them. Also why so far from the other buildings ahead of me. Storage? Secret buildings? Special classes?'' While my mind was spinning tales on its own I did not notice the headmaster standing before the assembly of new student. I was brought back from my mind castle by a loud and sudden greetings. "Welcome young ones. Welcome to Itiferth academy. As you already know I am Holdos, the head master of this academy. With me here are the head of the different affinity departments. While you remain a student in this academy you will be under their supervision. Similarly each weapon departments too have head whom you will meet eventually. For now please follow these ladies. They will show you the way to your rooms." After he finished his short introduction the headmaster flicked his fingers and another portal opened up behind him. As he walked in, the portal closed leaving us students to the five women. Once the headmaster had left, woman in white stepped forward, she stretched her hand and on it was a swirling ball of air. The ball of air was swirling at a fast pace on her hand as if it were a tornado. Every student including me was astonished by the show. She then suddenly clenched her hand making the ball vanish. "Hello every body, my name is Betsy, as you all might have already guessed, I govern the Air Affinity Department, AAD in short. I will also be in charge of the first years too. So if you have any problems you will find me in my office is in the A block. Every one of you have been provided with a map of the academy. Do look into it so that you can find your classes and please do not be late." She then stepped back and the next one stepped in. This lady in blue had bubbles of water surrounding her which were floating in the air. Suddenly the water bubbles turned into fine needles then back to bubbles. With bubbles still surrounding her she spoke. "I am Celitia, head of the Water Affinity Department and also the one in charge of second years as well as the boys dormitory. So you boys will be seeing me a lot. And so the introduction continued with each showing a fraction of their powers. The next one to come was the one in yellow. She was called Deanna, head of the fire department and in-charge of the girl dormitory. After that was the head of the earth department. She introduced herself as Isabella and the one in-charge of those who wished to continue their studies after the compulsory two year education. Finally was the one who was the head of the life department, named Leann. Leann was in-charge of finance and also things regarding the yearly tournament. With the introductions over, we were split into a group of boys and girls. Then Celia asked the boys to follow her while the girls followed Deanna. We boys were taken to the building which was surrounded by the walls. The left one belonged to boys and the right one was for girls. This solved the question about the existence of a building surrounded by separate walls. Celia led us into the building. The door opened into to a large hall which was well furnished, contrary to the exterior of the building. The hall had paintings and sculptures everywhere and the walls of the room looked as bright as the morning sun. The hall had a number of doors and there was a pair of stairs at the other end. We were asked to align ourselves in the huge hall and she spoke again. "This is where you will be staying till you graduate. The dormitory has five floors. You will be living in the fifth floor. All your belongings have already arrived and have been placed in your respective rooms. Each room is big enough to accommodate three of you. Each room has a name plate which has the names of the students who are supposed to occupy it. Now take the first door to your right and walk in. Have some rest, tomorrow we will be having another round of affinity test along with a test to check if you are compatible with a guardian. That is all." ---***---
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Arc 1- Chapter 8: Second test9(proofread) proofread by Daylius
Dyward Thorwys
Iudis Scius
Zephard Calmor
The name plate on for my room read so. I looked at the door and was astonished to see that there was no handle to it. There was no keyhole or anything on the door. I look around and see that the students were just standing infront of the door and the doors opened on their own. Following suit I too stood before the door and looked straight at it. "Welcome! Please name yourself" A sudden voice startled me. I scanned around in search for the source of voice but could not find any one. So I decided to go ahead and answer it. "Zephard Calmor" "Voice has been registered. Authenticating. You may now enter." And the door opened on its own once again giving me a shock. Timidly I walked in and found a really spacious room with three different beds, three cupboards, a bookshelf, a furnace, and all sorts of things. The room was kept neatly and well furnished, decorated with paintings. I walked in, looked at the three different bed which was kept well. The cupboards were arranged next to the respective beds and they had names of the student marked on it. Mine was towards the end of the room and so I carried myself towards it. I stood in front of the cupboard and saw that there was no handle on it. I called out my name once again. The door opened on its own and in it were my uniforms and other clothes. My weapons too were lying in one of the compartments. Other than for that, my cupboard was empty. I closed my cupboard and then approached the book shelf. My eyes ran through the different titles and I randomly took one out. "Guardians: A beginner''s guide" I flipped open the pages and I saw the pictures of different guardians which resembled griffons. Before I could read about it I heard the door open once again and two boys came in. The two were as tall as me but one had a milder complexion than mine. I placed the book back and walked towards them. The two saw me approaching and stared at me wide eyes. "Blue hair" the two exclaimed with wide eyes. Those two words caused me to freeze. Those two words had always haunted me for a long time. Ever since my hair had shifted from black to blue, the life I led had transformed to hell, being bullied and insulted. But I had forgotten all of those. Ever since I had come to Anwol, none had asked anything about my hair being blue. But now those words had found its way back to haunt me. I stopped my approach and stop still. With clenched fists and closed eyes I stood in wait for the insults and mockery to flow out of their mouths. " We have a celebrity among ourselves Davy. I can''t believe it. Its a pleasure to meet you Zephard Calmor. My name is Iudis Scius. Friends call me Iud." said the boy with the milder complexion. He wore a dress which looked new and had jet black hair and blue eyes. With a face which was a little stiff but manly and long eyebrows his lips were stretching giving a bright smile. "My name is Dyward Throvits. You can call me Dave or Davy." My heart froze for more than one reason. Not only were they not ridiculing my hair, they were referring to me as a celebrity. I freed myself from the shock and asked them. "Wait! What do you mean celebrity?" "Huh! You don''t know? Dude you are famous now. The star of the academy." "I don''t understand. Why am I a star? I don''t remember doing anything worthy to be deemed as a star." "Of course you did. You are the only person in the history of Anwol to have turned down an offer from Aduxria to stay in Itiferth. You think that is a small thing? Hell no. Had it been me I would have accepted without a second thought." "What is so great about Aduxria. I did not like the attitude of that headmaster. He just wanted me for his own advantage." "Right now only you would say those words. You better be careful. Jealousy and envy are dangerous emotions." Iud finished saying and then stretched his hands towards me. I took his hand and shook it while I introduced myself. "The name is Zephard Calmor, call me Zeph" "Alright Zeph. Tell me something first. Is it true that you got sponsored by a noble?" Davy questioned me. The question was unexpected. I was hesitant but nevertheless answered him. "Yeah. I was brought in by the Calmor family. They said they would sponsor me. But they themselves are broke. So I don''t think that its a big thing." "What are you saying. There have been only a very few students of this academy that were ever sponsored. I say even less than ten." Iud exclaimed. "It is a big deal. Being brought in by a noble gives you special privileges no matter how powerless the clan is. The fact that you are from a noble family itself can place you in the top ranks of the academy." Dave said supporting Iud. "There is a ranking system here? There was nothing mentioned about a ranking system in the guide book." "That''s strange. Normally such things are mentioned. Never mind. Iud will explain it to you as I am bad with explaining things." "Here is how it goes. There are a total of three rankings. Each academy has an individual ranking. Then there is a common ranking for the three schools. And finally a world ranking." "What''s the use of these ranking?" "The individual school ranking is decided by the mana and essence value. The higher the value the higher your ranking. If you are the son of a noble your ranking increases greatly. The school ranking also increases based on your academic performance as well. Your rankings are also influenced by individual matches." "Individual matches?" I enquired. "Yes. You see students can fight against each other in a match which is approved or under the supervision of a teacher. No lethal moves though. New students are at the bottom of the table. But if you are from a noble family then things change. Right now the academy has almost a thousand students. We being at the bottom and you being a little above six hundred or so. Hundred and above are considered high rankers and the first ten are the elites." "I see. A school ranking. Then what about the other one. Common ranking was it?" "Yes. Also called academic standing, this ranking compares the power level of the three academies into one. You know a means to show that we are inferior to the other two. The test is influenced by the individual ranking, the main tournament as well as approved battles. Similar to the other school ranking there are high rankers and elites in this too. The first 200 are high rankers. The first fifty are elites and then the first ten are called kings. They possess a certain level of authority among the other students. Sadly none of the students from our academy has ever made to even the higher ranks. The highest rank an Itiferth student got was 320 which itself is considered impossible by normal standards." "Seems troublesome. These so called kings, what''s so special about them?" "We don''t know. All I know is they are crazy strong and comes from the top ten noble family. Of the ten eight are from Aduxria and the remaining two from Edenberry." "Speak about being mysterious. So I am guessing world ranking includes all the adventures in the world and the number one being the strongest in this world." "Exactly. To the three different rankings there is one thing common to them. Achievements, this the main factor which influences your ranking the most. If you complete a quest then that is considered as an achievement. The higher the quest difficulty the bigger the achievement points and proportionally the higher your ranking increases. Even us students can do quests. The academy has an adventure guild were quests which are considered appropriate for a student is given. You can select the quest you like and on its completion achievement points are granted. Currently there are fifteen quest levels which provides achievement points starting from F to SSS. But we students are only allowed accept quests upto difficulty D+. The higher rankers can accept quests of C+ difficulty while elites are allowed to do B+. And as you probably would have guessed the ones with king rankings are allowed to do A+ quests. Pretty cool right?" As soon as Iud finished explanation my watch began to vibrate and a window appeared before me. ''Ding''
You have gathered new information. Tabulating information.
Quests and points
SSS100000points
SS75000pionts
S50000points
A+25000points
A10000points
B+5000points
B3000points
C+1500points
C750points
D+500points
D300points
E+200points
E150points
F+100points
F100points
The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Adventurer Level Up
God1000000points
Empreror700000points
King500000points
SSS300000points
SS200000points
S150000points
A100000points
B60000points
C30000points
D15000points
E5000points
F0point
"Wow Zeph. That is so cool. You aliens get such a cool thing. I wish I could get one. I heard it shows your status too." Davy shouted in ecstasy. "You guys don''t have one? The how do you know your status?" "We are given a tablet which shows the status on it. Its called info pad. Its the same size of an anca but expands when we call out for the status." Iud said pulling out and showing me his status which were pretty much similar to mine." We then talked about various stuffs and then decided to retire to our beds. The next day was a big day after all. ---***--- The next day I woke up to the sound of an alarm. Opening my eyes I sat up on my bed, stretching and yawning. I looked at the two beds to my side and found them empty. The clock showed the time to be six in the morning. Getting up I walked towards the bathroom which was attached to my room to freshen up. By the time it was seven I was ready wearing my new uniform. The two came in at that time all covered in sweat. "Where did you go to?" "Morning exercise. It doesn''t hurt to be fit. You seem all ready for school. Wait for a while. We will get ready soon." The two were ready by eight and the three of us headed downstairs. The canteen was on the ground floor. A huge hall with tables and chairs arranged neatly. There were waiters dressed in white and black ready to serve us the morning breakfast. We grabbed a plate and got ourselves a couple of sandwich and some juice. We finished it quickly and then walked towards the exit. The guide in our hands had informed us that the new students had to gather infront of the boy''s dormitory by nine on the first day. When we were out of the dormitory almost all the new students were standing in line and waiting for Celia to arrive. The three of us not wanting to be late ran and placed ourselves at the end of the line just like the rest of the students. While standing and waiting for the teacher to arrive, I scanned around and I saw the senior students exiting the dormitory. Their uniforms had a different colour and a different vibe too. Some even carried a weapon with them. They looked at us with cold eyes and were murmuring something to each other while pointing to our direction. The wait in the line did not go for long. Celia soon came out of the dorm and stood before us. She then wished us a good morning and then gestured us to follow her. The group walked behind her as she headed towards the A block. The academy had three main buildings for the academic purposes. The rest of the buildings in the campus were normally off limits to the students. For example the forest in the northern end of the academy. This forest was a prohibited area but was used as a means to test the strength of high ranking students as well as to help them increase rankings. The entrance to the forest was blocked by a wall and the only gate to it was heavily guarded. Then there were stables for low end monsters who were used as pets by monster tamers. Monster taming was a pretty popular course in Itiferth. As the students themselves are weak compared to the students of Aduxria and Edenberry, students of my academy used pet monster to decrease the power gap even by a little. Even though monster taming is allowed the other academies do not encourage it as they consider using monsters is an inferior way to win. Typical pride of the higher society, right. And so the academy had couple of stables for these pets. Then there were other buildings which I did not know. The three main academy blocks were erupted side by side resembling the shape of a trapezium which had its base removed. The A block was in the middle, the B block being to the left and the C block to its right. In the middle was a large stadium like building which looked to like a football stadium to me. I guessed that that would be the venue for the tournament. In the vicinity there were other buildings too which I could not recognise. Celia took us into the A block an led us through a flight of stairs taking us to the top most floor and again to a hall which had a number of small small partitions. The halls was divided into small rooms by a thin separation which was black coloured and like that there were almost thirty or so rooms in that single large hall. Celia stopped and turned towards us causing her bosom to jiggle a little. "I want you to enter these test centres one by one, finish the test and come back. There are thirty five centres and so thirty five of you will be taking the test at once. The results will be notified to you immediately and will also be recorded. Please be quick as the girls will be arriving soon. Now please begin." Since me and my buddies were at the end of the line it took us a while to enter the center. The first batch took almost fifteen minutes to finish the test. I had to wait an hour to be able to take the test. Once inside the small center, the center lit up and I could feel a strange presence in the room. The room was covered in colourful light and was so bright I had to shut my eyes tight. The moment I shut my eyes I heard a sweet and feminine voice which startled me. "Hello child. Please keep your eyes shut till I ask you to do otherwise. My name is Arthra and I will be guiding you through the test. What is your name child?" "Zephard Calmor" "Oh! That''s a rare sight. Its been a while since I had a named one visit me. Calmor house, such a sad thing that its just shadow. Off with those things, let us continue. We shall begin with mana test followed by essence test then I will check your affinity and then your compatibility with a guardian. Are you ready? Keep your eyes shut and just sit still." I replied with a yes and kept still. My hands felt another hand holding it gently, clasping them tight. I could feel the warmth of the hand as well as its softness. My body felt a slight shiver followed by a comforting warmth. My heart beat sped and my head hurt lightly. The hands that caught my hands were not covering my face which caused me to blush lightly. The hands but now felt much colder than before. And the coldness spread throughout me. In a while the hand disappeared and the pain and coldness subsided. "You have great power boy. Power enough to change the world''s fate and yet your heart is weak. So weak that even a falling leaf could kill you. Get stronger child, the things you have to do are a lot. Open your eyes slowly and gently son. Its a pleasure to have met you." My eyes refused to open for a while. But when it did the room was empty and lifeless. The colour and presence had faded leaving me all alone in the room. In my hand was a piece of paper which read as,
Mana Value25
Essence value23
AffinityMatter
GuardianLevel 8
---***---
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Arc 1- Chapter 9: Magic spells and Sword technique(proofread) proofread by Daylius "What the hell dude?" Iud shouted out loud in my ear. "What are those values? Not to mention a level 8?" "Calm down Iud. Don''t shout" "Okay, I am sorry. I freaked out. But seriously dude. A mana value of 25 and essence value of 23? Why the hell are you even here? With those value you are strong enough to rival the elites of Aduxria if not the kings. Not to forget the level 8 guardian compatibility." "Iud. Just calm down will you? Just tell me something. What does the level eight mean?" "Sigh! Fine. A guardian''s power I describes by its level. A level one is basically powerless. As the level increases the stronger the guardian. The highest level guardian is of level 11. The level 8 which you got means you are compatible with guardians of any level from 1 to 8. It also means that if you were to come in contact with a guardian of level 9 or higher you would not be able to control or subdue them." "Where can I find these guardians?" "You don''t find them. They find you. As to when and where only the guardian knows. The level 8 you got also means only guardians of that level or below will appear before you " "I see. So how was your test?" "Normal. Mana value and essence value of 15. Luckily my affinity is good. Thunderstorm, combination of air and water. I am able to use air, water, lightning and ice magic spells. And as for guardian a level 4. See, pretty much normal." "And Davy? Why is he not with us?" Iud and I were inside a classroom which was occupied by thirty or so students. There were twelve boys and the rest were all girls. The class room was huge for thirty students. There was no black board or any table for the teacher. The strange thing was that the class was split into two halves. We were now in the first half and separated from the second by a transparent medium. When I asked Iud about he said that every class was designed similarly. The half we were in right now was theoretical classes while the other half was practical uses. "Davy got a mana value of 14 but his essence value is a little higher than mine, 17. Wood affinity, so he is able to use earth, water and life affinity too. We both have air affinity classes now, he doesn''t. So i guess he will be busy sleeping in the room. Speaking about affinity, what''s yours?" "It says matter. I guess all the affinities?" "Matter? Never heard of it. Try asking the teacher. Oh! Here she comes." I looked toward the direction of the entrance of the class and saw a young girl apparently in her early twenties walk in. With a white a rob covering her small yet cute body and a smile as beautiful as the white moon she stood before the class. "Good morning all. I am Natalia and I will be teaching you air magic. I believe that every one here either has air as a basic affinity or as a combo affinity right? Let me ask you a question? What is the most basic air spell?" Many hands shot out into the air. Out of which a blonde girl was asked to answer. "Its air slice and air block" "Correct Aira. No wonder you have air in you name. Air slice and air block are the two basic air affinity spells as well as the most useful too. You might think that what I told now was because I am an Air affinity teacher. But not exactly. Unlike the other affinities, Air is more friendly. Our body takes in air to survive, every second. And so the body''s interior and exterior has a strong bind with air. This makes it easier to grasp and manipulate air. In fact controlling air is so easy that every one of you here can master air strike and air block in less than a week whereas mastering the basic spells of other affinities will take at least two weeks of which earth basic spells takes a month or so to master. So when comparing to the other affinities air magic spells can be considered the best friend of a novice. That is also the reason why air spells are much popular among students even though one has easy access to earth. Any questions?" I hesitantly lifted my arm. "Ah. Zephard, I believe. How may I help you?" "For a person who has a complex affinity, is it necessary master all his basic affinities for one to be able to control his true affinity?" "Not always. Some can use the complex affinity without mastering the basic affinities while some has to master their basic affinities and then slowly try using their complex affinity. I guess yours is a complex one?" "Yes, mine is called matter it seems." I said looking confused. But when I looked at Natalia her face looked even more confused. "That''s great. I hope it would bloom into a spectacular affinity. Now back to the topic. Let us begin with air strike. Air strike is a simple offensive spell with a medium range and damage. The damage increases as your proficiency increases and also is easy to cast. The best way to activate air strike is to first to produce an air sword. Imagine that you are holding a sword, preferably not too long. For that you need to first learn how to gather and mold air in your hand. Let me show you how it is done." Natalia then held her pale and slender beautiful hand above her chest level. Slowly the air above her hand began to ripple and turn into a spiral ball. The ball then began to stretch and gently mold into a double edged sword. She then waved a sword couple of times and then made the sword levitate and slowly the sword began to disperse. Once the show was over some clapped while others watched in ecstasy, I on the other hand had questions raging my mind and so I raised my hand once again. "Yes little Zeph, ask!" "How many such swords can one control at the same time? Is it necessary to maintain contact with the sword for it to remain intact or control or it? "Hm! Those are a little advanced things. Nevermind, I will tell you. The maximum number of swords depends on your essence level. The highest level of swords that has so far been created is twenty one. But that does not mean twenty one is the limit. In the end it all comes down to one''s potential. But I would estimate as the maximum to be thirty or so. Now about your second question, it is not necessary to maintain contact with the swords. But it requires great amount of concentration and control. The more swords you produce the more harder it gets to control them without contact. I can produce ten but only control three without physical contact. This requires years of practice and normally impossible for a student, not even those of Aduxria. I heard that even the student who is called number one among the kings can control only five swords at the most." "I see. So should I have to produce the sword every time I have to use air strike?" "Not at all. Once you are used to air strikes with sword, slowly try using it with bare hands. That can be done by imagining your hand itself to be a sword. So with a swish of your hand an air strike can be done just like this." Saying so Natalia stretched her upwards and brought down her hand fast. The path her hands traced began to distort and a gush of air hit my face startling me. "That just now was a small demonstration without no power behind it. When you truly master the strike, even a single finger is enough to produce a strong attack." I nodded. My head was already working on the new information I got. But before I could formulate anything I was called up on by Natalia. "Zeph, if you don''t mind can i know your essence and mana values." The question came like an arrow that intended to behead me. Iud looked at me with a worried gaze. I gulped and was beginning to sweat. To reveal my values right now would lead into the whole world knowing it and thus would surely cause me to divert from my cause. Clenching my fists I walked towards her drawing gazes from all over the class. Natalia was taken back a little but regained her composure. I stood before her and hesitantly stretched my hands which was holding my test result. She took the paper from me and began reading it. Her blue eyes widened and her long and slender eyebrows twitched. With gaping mouth she stared at the result for a while and then at me. I took back the paper from her hands and went back to my seat, tensed. Iud was laughing seeing Natalia''s face which was even now gazing at me. A good ten minutes passed before Natalia spoke once again. "I am sorry, I was lost in some thoughts. Any way let us continue with our class. Everybody to the practical room. Today we will try gathering air in our hands." The entirety of the class shifted to the practical room and were allotted spaces to stand which had a fair amount of distance from each others. All of us then tried to imitate what Natalia had did. With the palm of my hand facing up I imagined the air around me condensing on my palm. A clear mental image was in my mind, a globe of swirling air. I could feel the air around me beginning to get a little heavy. The air directly above my palm began to swirl a little. I could feel something inside me oozing out little by little, it was like a part of me leaking away. I guessed it to be mana, and so decided to try releasing more mana. I wondered if I could improve my powers if I let out more mana. Taking a deep breath I closed my eyes and tried relaxing. My hands were now resting on my thighs and my breathing was returning to normal. With my eyes still closed I tried to feel the mana flow which I felt a while ago. But unlike the previous time, the flow was much harder to detect. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I sat down on the floor and then once again tried concentrating. I could hear the whispers of the students and as well as Natalia calling my name. Ignoring their voices I tried to feel the mana in me. Slowly I could feel a warmth spreading throughout my body and also the flow of power through me. My body could grasp the mana coursing through it, through my veins along with the blood, I could also feel a lot stronger than I was just before. The flow inside me had become much greater. Being an archer, concentration was a must and so I had always practised meditation. Meditation had allowed me to feel the presence and energy in me and years of practise had made it possible to feel and control my internal energy. And just like in the past meditating had helped me now too. Opening my eyes I stood up. Natalia wasalready in front of me with cold eyes gazing directly into me. None of us spoke as we looked into each others eyes. I slowly lifted my right arm and then like before tried to shape the air around my palm. Mana began to ooze out in much larger quantity and slowly the air above my palm began to swirl. The speed increased little by little as the air ball began to form. In seconds, my right hand was holding a clear but violently rotating air sphere which reminded me of an anime super hero move which I shall refrain from mentioning. Natalia and the others froze around me. When I looked around most were not even able to even collect even a speck of air let alone make it swirl and here I was holding a swirling raseng*n, I mean air sphere in my hand. I sighed with all the attention I was getting but still decided to continue my mission. The next thing I had to do was clear for me, change the sphere into a sword. But I decided against it. A dagger was what was enough for now for making a bigger thing like sword was a little next to impossible. A dagger was what I should make for now. And so my air sphere began to stretch, slowly. I did not want to rush it as it was my first time. The sphere was now becoming more and more elliptical. When the length was good enough, I tried to shape it into a dagger, by adding a hilt and blade. When the blade was done it seemed rough and blunt. The hilt too was uneven and not at all hilt like. I tried shaping it into a better dagger but when I tried to the dagger began to dissolve. Understanding that I had hit my limit I stopped with the shaping and then decided to try using air strike. Looking at Natalia who was still looking at me with open jaws I asked, "What should I do next?" "Eh?" "I asked what is the next step?" "Ah! Swing it aiming at some empty space, the sword will let out the air strike." Complying to her word I aimed at the roof and swung my dagger with full force. Just like how Natalia''s sword had emitted an gush of wind, my little sword too let let out one which hit the roof and then dispersed. "Did I do it right?" "Yes! That was great Zeph. Keep practising. Next Monday we will learn about the blocking spell." She replied absent minded and walked away still gazing at me with widened eyes. ---***--- Lunch was hectic. The academy canteen was located in a separate building. A three storied building and as usual the highest floor being for the new students. Big enough to occupy a little less than five hundred and now almost three hundred were seated having a really hefty lunches with dishes I have never seen and so I sat and stared at them while Iud was explaining to Davy the things that had transcribed in the morning class as well as about the test results. Davy stared at me. Lately I have been getting too many stares. I shrugged my shoulder and gestured him to keep quiet. But even after I had made the two shut up, my other classmates did not. I was soon flocked by a large number of students asking me to teach them how to make air strike. Girls and boys began introducing themselves but even among all of those ruckus I could feel a cold gaze on me. A chill ran down through my spine. My eyes scanned throughout the area even though the others were obstructing. While I was searching around my eyes caught another pair of eyes intently staring at me. Those majestic blue coloured globes were looking towards me and in those eyes i could see anger. The slender eyebrows twitched when our eyes met but they did not look away, instead the intensity of the gaze increased. Her blond hair bangs covered some of her forehead and her beautiful lips were being bitten by herself. Not knowing what to do, I looked away. Her gaze was too strong for me to handle but I did recognise the girl. Aira, the girl who was named after air. I peeked at her a couple of times, she was still glaring at me. Cold sweat drizzled down my face as I could not stand her gaze. I gestured Iud and Davy to look towards her. When the three of us looked at the same time she got startled and turned her head away. She stood up quietly shot me a quick glance and strode away elegantly. The three of us watched as her beautiful figure faded away. The three of us quite surprised by the strange occurrence but did not pay it any head as we did not have time to waste. The afternoon classes was sword mastery and all three of us were attending. ---***--- "Welcome everybody! I am Andreas Wolfgan, you can call me Mr. Wolf. I will be teaching you everything about swords. Before we start with swords we will be doing some muscle training. Are you guys ready? The sword training hall was being done in a separate and enclosed place. We were told that the room was specially designed and the students would not get any wounds or cuts during the classes due to the protective charms installed in it. Wolf then made us run for almost twenty minutes and do other exercises for another twenty. By the time the drill was over, out of the fifty or so present only a handful were standing. To my surprise I was hardly out of breath. In the entirety of my life this was the first time I felt so. I was never athletic, the way I grew was such that I had never worked out. My body was weak and even the lightest work left me breathless. But now even after all those hard exercises I was standing on my feet practically ''untired''. The suite was doing its job better than I had anticipated, I had even forgot that I was wearing one. The daily bath I took was the only time the suites were shed and so it had really become like a secondary skin to me. With all that running finished Wolf had us give our attention to him. "Each one of you here may or may not know about swords. Some might have mastered a particular style while it might be the first time some is going to hold a sword. It does not matter for from the time you entered this hall, you are all novices with no prior knowledge. My only condition and request to you guys is never mix your style of swords with what I am going to teach. Is it clear?" The man in black clothes asked us. His rugged and bearded face and the jet black eyes had lots of power in it. The muscular middle aged man was holding a wooden sword in his strong and muscular arms. His body was full of cuts which had healed over time, his strong arms seemed as if it were hugging the sword rather than holding it. "What I will teach you is one of the strongest yet almost extinct sword technique, Darclyt hidden technique. Of all the sword techniques so far, five are considered as sacred while five are considered as black arts. These then techniques are collectively called Divine Death Swords. The ten techniques are believed to originate thousands of years ago and are thought to be the very first sword techniques. Nobody knows which among the ten originated first and which is the strongest and so they are considered to be equal in age and power. Five thousand years ago, a group of ten people, each a master of one of these ten techniques taught a single disciple. The disciple had to undergo vigorous training. It is said that he took thirty years to learn all ten and another twenty to integrate all ten of the techniques to create a new style. He later named it as Darclyt, which loosely can be translated to dark and light. Five sacred sword arts and five dark sword arts combined to one flawless technique, Darclyt. Here I will teach you this technique. As my master who taught only those who were considered weak and unwanted by the society, I Andreas Wolfgan will teach you lot who are considered students of a garbage academy the strongest technique that exists. But remember, strength is not to be used to bully the weak, it must be used to bring down the arrogant strong." ---***--- Guys...thanks for reading. Do rate my fif. Thank you.
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Arc 1- Chapter 10: Mastering Oneself 1 ¡°Your slash lacks power Zeph. Use your muscles¡± ¡°More muscle? What do you mean Davy?¡± ¡°Eh? Iud it is impossible for me. You do it.¡± I was panting heavily, my hands were clutching my long sword which I had brought from my world. We had been practicing our sword strikes for almost three hours. Wolf had taught us the basics of swords and had showed us one of the easiest move, burst strike. A strike were one closes the gap between the enemy using speed above human capabilities and thereby using the momentum to deal a powerful slash on the enemy. Burst strike was usually easy to activate, but for a novice like me it took a while before my rush could gather the required momentum. And so the other two were helping me train. ¡°Zeph, the problem is not actually your speed but your stance. The way you hold your sword parallel to your body with both the hands makes the rush a difficult thing. Why not try wielding it with your dominant hand and also a little away from your body. Ah yes just like that, see is it not easier to wield it like that. Now tilt your body a little so that the sword hand comes in the front. Good. Now give it a try¡± Iud explained to me. Nodding my head, I took a deep breath. Focusing on the dummy which was 5metres away from me, I activated the skill. ¡°Burst strike¡± My body leaned forward a little, I could feel mana gather in my leg as I put force on my legs and dashed forward. My body felt lighter than before and I could feel the air hitting my face blurring my vision a little but my eyes had been trained to identify even the smallest of targets during my archery days. When the distance between the dummy and me were approximately 1meter my right hand holding the long sword came down on the dummy with tremendous power. ¡®Slash¡¯ The dummy was cut in half diagonally, the upper portion fell to the ground with a thud while the lower portion which was tied to a stick was oscillating cause of the force I had applied. I looked at Iud and Davy who were both smiling at me. ¡°That is it boy, that is how you do it.¡± I smiled at the two. These two were geniuses when it came to swords. When the instructor had first showed us this move, Iud and Davy could replicate it perfectly on their first try. Wolf was extremely fascinated and happy in having two geniuses swordsman among his two students. Me on the other hand was what one would call a failure. My burst strike could not even make a dent on the dummy and so I was made a laughing stock on the very first day. This embarrassment forced me to ask my two friends to help me train and so they agreed, but on one condition. And the condition being that I had to train in them in magic spells. When I explained to them that I can only teach them how to meditate to improve mana flow and control they happily accepted my offer. And so we had been training for a few hours. First I showed them how to meditate, to calm their mind and feel the flow. After a couple of hour long trial, the two wereable to slightly feel the mana flow. Once we finished the meditation we began with my sword training. With my last try being a successful hit, I tried the move another five times to let my body remember the feeling but on the fifth try my watch vibrated and a notification opened up. ¡®ding¡¯
New skill unlocked: Darclyt Hidden Arts (Passive)Beginner Level 1(0%)
The sword technique created by the best swordsman. This technique is considered to be the strongest technique created by combining the five sacred arts and the five dark arts. The technique is well sought for but is not taught to everybody that desires it. Capable of bringing chaos and hope at the same time, this hidden arts is passed down to the weak so that may rise and protect the weak. +5 to prestige for learning a hidden god rank skill +2 to other stats Designation changed to Darclyt Novice
A new designation has been assigned to you. You are now a Darclyt novice, one who practices the hidden art of swords. People who practice¡¯s sword techniques will recognize your power while some might even challenge you. You are still too inexperienced to have apprentices under you. +2 prestige 5% cost reduction for swords +2 to other stats[/tr]
New Designation Assigned: Darclyt Novice (Passive)Beginner Level 1(0%)
New skill unlocked: Burst Fang(Active)Beginner Level 1(0%)
The sword technique that uses speed as a base to create momentum to deal a massive attack. As proficiency increases number of strikes can be increased. Attack power increases with each chain strike. Also usable with a combo move. +5% STR and AGI 20MP/use
¡°A new designation and stats boost? Status window¡± I called out. Iud and Davy stood beside me wondering what would appear.
STATUS
NameZephire CalmorRaceAlien Human
LevelInfant(1)DesignationDarclyt Novice
FaithNoneGaurdianLevel 8
AffinityMatterEssenceSuperior
Health: 540Mana: 830(40000)
Strength: 34Agility: 34
Stamina: 21Vitality: 14
Wisdom: 14Intelligence: 23
Luck: 10Prestige:4
Skills
Air strikeBeginner Lvl1(2.87%)
MeditationBeginner Lvl1(43.54%)[td2]
Mana flow and controlBeginner Lvl3(51.87%)
Darclyt hidden artsBeginner Lvl1(0.98%)
Burst FangBeginner Lvl1(2.31%)
¡°Wow, so this how the status bar of an alien looks like. Meditation as a skill? But why is it at beginner lvl1? Should it not be higher since you are already something like an expert in it?¡± Iud asked, his right hand supporting his chin and his left eyebrow lifted. ¡°I think it is at beginner lvl 1 cause I am an alien. May be the skills or actions I do in this world is counted as valid. Open meditation¡±
[b] Meditation (Active)Beginner Level 1(0%)
The art of finding one¡¯s true self. Meditation is considered as a way to attain enlightenment and so is practiced by many to attain control over one¡¯s mind and body. Mediation helps to control mana and essence flow, there by deciding the power of spells as well as the limit of mana one can use. As the proficiency in the skill increases, the mana level of the person who practices increases (usable mana level. Currently you are able to use 830mp of your total 40000mp. As you meditate more, the mana level will increase). 5% increase in MP per every up
¡®This is new. Does that mean only those who meditate can increase their usable mana? No that is absurd. If that were he the case then they would have included meditation in the curriculum.¡¯ Turning towards Iud who was still staring at my meditation window I asked, ¡°Is this the only way to increase the mana capacity Iud?¡± Surprised by the sudden question, Iud stared at me for a while and then replied. ¡°No, not at all. I must say that this is the first time I have seen a method different from the conventional ways, meditation eh. Anyway, the answer to your question is no. There are other methods which are much more common than meditation. One is to increase your intelligence by allotting status points or reading books, this is the most common but also the slowest way. But this method is the most followed as books are available to anyone who wishes to read, provided you are either a student or adventurer. The second one being items that increase your mana level. This method is not so common as the mana increase is not permanent. If you unequip the item, then the effect is lost. Only adventures use this method as us students don¡¯t usually come across such items. Third method is drinking a mana elixir, this method too is used by adventures only, that too only the rich ones for a mana elixir costs 1000AG even for the cheapest one. The cheapest elixir only increases the mana by a hundred or so. The costliest one is around 100000AG and increases mana by 10000 points. The final method being, drinking the blood or tears of a level 9 or above guardian which too is nigh impossible, both for students as adventures. Guardians usually do not trust their owners easily. It takes ten to twenty years for the bond between the two to be strong enough for the guardian to give you the blood or tear, but by then the adventure would have already hit his mana limit. Now the new method, meditation. This method is time consuming but a sure way to increase your mana level. The proficiency percentage seems to increase really slowly and so I assume that it might take hundreds of hours of meditation to increase the level by 1. But when I look at your mana flow and control skill, it is already at level 2. So I am guessing that meditation improves your mana flow quickly and so this method has more than one benefit¡± Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. ¡°Hm! I see. In that case we should devote a little of our time for meditation every day. Better flow control will let us improve our spells but at the same time it will help me reduce the power of my spells so I do not stand out much.¡± ¡°True! Then we shall meditate for 30min every day, any more than that then I and Davy might fall asleep. Once the mediation is over, we can start with the sword training and spell casting, may be one hour for each of it.¡± ¡°Fine with me. What about you muscle head?¡± I asked Davy who was exercising his biceps while we were talking. ¡°Who are you calling muscle head? Anything is fine with me as long as I can get stronger¡± Davy replied while he was still concentrating on his exercise. ¡°Good. Then it is fixed. No let us go back it is already time for dinner¡± Iud urged us to return. ---***--- Next morning, I and Iud were once again together. We had our water affinity classes and were now in the C block, sitting at the last bench. That day were taught skill called petals. Water affinity basic spell unlike the air affinity basic spell were comprised of only offensive magic. In short water and fire purely offensive while air and earth were semi offensive and semi defensive. Life affinity skills were a fusion of offence, defense and restoration spells. Our teacher for the subject was Carmine, another beautiful young woman just like Natalia. Dressed in a light blue robe and holding a wand in her hand she darted into the room with a bright smile. Her voice felt so sweet that I thought she was singing all the time. Her braided long hair was hanging from her shoulder which she occasionally played with during the class. Her way of explaining things were good, explaining things as well as clearing our doubts, not that Natalia was bad. Water petals and water spear, these were the two basic spells that were supposed to be taught to us. Both were offensive but at the same time with different characteristics. Water petals were a spell were a large area was targeted while water spear targeted a single point. The first skill was much tougher than the later as one had to create a large number of water bubbles. These bubbles were to be controlled at the same time and directed towards the target. The attack was unidirectional, that is the petals could not change its direction once it was fired and so firing from a long range would result in giving the target to dodge it with ease. Water spear was a spell which summoned a spear of water which can be wielded by the user like a normal spear but at the same time projected towards the target/ unlike the air slash, where the sword was to make the slashing easy, the water spear spell did not mold the surrounding water into a spear but instead summoned a spear made of water. As to where it was summoned from, we were told not to worry about it. Once the theory classes were done with, the students were asked to walk to the practical area and practice the spell. This time I tried to reduce the mana output as much as possible so that I would not stand out much. Some of those who attended the air affinity class with me also had water affinity classes and I could feel their intense stare on me. With all my effort I tried using the spell and luckily the spell did not work as the mana output was too low. I continued the fa?ade for another five to six times to make sure that others had given up on me. Once I made sure that no one was watching me anymore, I increased my mana output little by little. On the seventeenth try I could produce three to four petals while others could mold more than thirty at once. I kept increasing the output slowly once again and thereafter every time a cast the spell the number of petals increased by three or four. On the twenty sixth try, the number petals I could mold reached sixty which was then considered normal by my teacher. Iud who was beside me nudged me, grinning. I smiled back at him. He knew that the number of petals I could mold was for more than the sixty I had with me now. ---***--- After noon was a free period for us three as we were content with the sword and so we decided to spend our time meditating and practicing pour skills. We practiced till five in the evening, by then we three were dead tired. Even though our mediation skill did not level up, all the other skills leveled up by one Once we returned to our room, we had a bath and then our dinner. Still having plenty of time left before I slept, I decided to read one of the books in our shelf. The book I selected was about the ten sword arts. Five sacred arts and five dark arts combined to give the Darclyt technique and so I decided to find out more about the ten ancient arts. But all I could gather from the book was only the names as the rest were different stances and other complex technical things. Once I finished skimming through the book, my watch vibrated and a window opened up. ¡®Ding¡¯
New information acquired
Sacred Arts
Divine Goddess Sacred Palm Heavenly Fall Moonlight Wind Formless Life
Dark Arts
Blood Dance Inferno Earth Black Fist Crimson Despair Formless Death
Acquiring relevant information has caused you to improve your understanding of the hidden technique. Books about Darclyt: (1/34) +1 level to burst strike +5 to INT
The final window gave me a shock and so I showed it to other two. They too were surprised and so decided to read the book as well letting their burst strike go up by a level too. We then tried reading books on mana and affinities but nothing happened. And so we came to the conclusion that not all books gave us stats boost. ---***--- Earth affinity classes were conducted by the beautiful brunette Lisha. The basic spell for earth was sandstorm which was a defensive spell aimed at blinding the enemy. The spell was effective against enemies that could not construct a full barrier around them, in short only against low level opponents. This skill was mainly used it individual battles or tournaments and not during monster hunt. The reason being monsters have special eye lids that protects their eyes against dusts and hence the skill is practically use less against them. The afternoon session was reserved for those who practiced maze and so the three of us began to train ourselves. By the end of the training, my air strike and water petals were at level 3, while sandstorm skill level up to level 2 and my burst strike as well as mana flow were now at level 4. ---***--- (Please rate my ff at the fiction page. and do post your review there. thank you reading)
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Arc 1- Chapter 11: Mastering Oneself 2 The very next day was a little hectic day. Iud and Davy did not have to go the morning class as they did not need fire affinity classes and so I was sitting on the bench observing others. There were some familiar faces among the sixty something students. I did not bother talking to them as they seemed too busy in their own little world. I continued my scanning of the class and my eyes locked on to another pair of eyes. A majestic blue color filled those beautiful globes and a sense of Deja-vu hit me. Staring at me with those wonderful eyes were the girl who had glared at me days ago at the academy canteen, Aira. This time I stared back at her intently and not to run away like the last time. We stared, actually glared at each other till the teacher made her appearance. She stuck out her tongue to me and then turned her head away, which really pissed me off. Fire affinity classes for the first years were handled by Angela. Here I came to know that light and darkness are considered as a strong fire based affinity. That is rather than a complex affinity which was formed by the combination of two or more basic affinities, light and darkness were considered as fire affinity with extreme powers. For example take a ruler and consider fire affinity to be at the middle. If that were the case then light and darkness affinities would be the two extremes of the ruler indicating that both are derived from fire affinity yet entirely different from fire affinity. Unlike in the games I have played were light and darkness were considered two different elements, here they were part of another affinity but in both cases the powers and spell seemed similar. Once the teacher finished her explanation she switched over to the main thing, fire affinity basic spells. Similar to air and water fire affinity had too basic spells, oh and that does not mean there are only two spells in the basic category. When I did a little research on my own, I came to know that there actually were more than hundreds of basic spells and it is said that each affinity has over a thousand number of spells ranging from basic to god level spells. Every spell is categorized according to their power and potential and there are 7 such categories named as basic, intermediate, advanced, king, emperor, saint and god level spells. Another peculiarity of the spells of this world is that at a certain point the spell levels up. Let me explain to you readers with some examples. Consider the skill water petals, one of the basic spells of water affinity. Every skill starts at beginner level 1, both for aliens and the residents too. When we keep using the skill, it levels up and when it reaches a certain level the skill power up and turns into a new spell. The powered up skill is more powerful as well as undergoes a change in name too. Say water petals, the intermediate spell is named petals of rain, the advanced spell is named infinite petal, the king level spell is called rain of destruction and finally the emperor level spell is referred as waves of destruction. As each time the spell power ups the number of petals as well as the power each petal possess multiplies and so the spell waves of destruction is a wide area attack which can insta kill most monsters. But the drawback is it can be used only once a day and also requires a long time to cast. Similarly each spell has its pros and cons. Even though there are 7 categories of spell, not all spells can power up till god spells. Some spells can power up till advanced level while some can reach emperor or saint levels. It is said that there has never been a skill that could power up to god level and only a number of skills can power up to saint level. There are spells which do not power up also. For example the saint rank air affinity spell nightfall was a saint rank spell when it was first cast. There are a little more than three hundred saint spells but only 6 god level spells, one for each affinity except life. Life affinity has two god rank spell as life affinity has two parts, birth and death in it. As for the complex affinities, there are no god rank spells, their limit is saint rank. At this point some of you might think that I am so lucky as I can learn all six god rank spells. Unfortunately or I would say fortunately, I can¡¯t. Each god rank spell requires a set of conditions to be met by the one who wish to learn it and the first condition is that the one who wishes to learn must be of royal blood, the second is that one should possess at least one of the seven hero weapons, as to what hero weapons are I do not know. And so there are other conditions which I did not bother reading as I was not interested. Angela taught us fire punch. Just like you might have guessed the skill covers my hands with flames. This spell is really useful during close combat. The fire in our hands cannot be projected or be send flying towards the enemy. The skill lets you use it increase your physical damage and plus point is anything we hold in our hand will be engulfed in flames too. So if I hold a sword then the sword will be set on blaze and so will deal more damage. The practical went without any commotion except for the occasional staring from Aira which I managed to get used to. ---***--- That afternoon I had weapon training classes for bow, which I was not exactly sure whether to attend or not. I was then urged by Iud to go check it out and so I did. The instructor called himself Fern and was much older than Wolf. He seemed to be a man in his fifties and looked really tired and weak. The classes were nothing special but nevertheless I paid my attention. I was given a typical wooden bow and was asked to hit a target which was ten meters far. For some reason I felt a little irritated and so I did not hold back. All three arrows I was given hit the dummy target¡¯s head which slightly startled the instructor. He then took me to another target which seemed thirty meters away and asked me to shoot which I did. He clapped his hands and appreciated me then asked me to practice as long as I wanted to. And so the afternoon was pretty much uneventful. ---***--- The next day I and Davy were sitting together for our life affinity class which was handled by Clovia. Life affinity unlike the other affinity consisted of two affinities merged under a single name, spirit and being or death and life. These two different affinities as they are two different sides of the same coin is called as life affinity in common. Being or life spells concentrated on healing while spirit based spells aimed at psychic powers like mind reading and all. Teleportation is an emperor level death affinity spell and so requires a huge amount of power. This was enough to tell me that the three headmasters were super strong. The basic spell for being affinity was heal and that for death affinity was mind eye. Heal was a basic healing spell which restored 100HP/use. Mind eye was a skill which let the user to identify enemies which are hiding behind a wall or so. The skill lets the user see the mana flow of the enemy as a blue fire. Each spell consumed 100MP per use. To activate healing spell one had to feel the essence flow and slowly extract a little of it and then use it to heal oneself or others. Even though essence does not deplete like mana, extracting it from our body is not as simple as extracting mana and so it took us hours to cast the spell successfully. I had to try thirty nine times even when I tried without holding back and on the forty sixth try I got the notification for a new skill. Once the skill notification appeared, casting heal began as easy as casting other spells and so the life affinity class too ended without any problem. And with that the academy week ended. We were notified that Saturday would be free as our spells were not strong enough for enhancement classes. When asked about exertion classes we were told that a little more time was needed before it could be possible for all the students to qualify for the classes and so we returned to our rooms and began our training. But problems arose in a different way. With all those training for the past few days, the increase in our skill proficiency dropped heavily. There was a limit to how much better one could get by just training with others. We discussed about the ways we could get stronger and seemed like we had only two ways to do so. One was to request for an individual battle with somebody else and the second was to go on a low level quest. We debated for a while on which method to choose. The problem about individual battle was that there were too many formalities. First we had to register at the battle center as we were new students. The second was we had to wait till a person who wishes to battle with us appears. Since we were low level students not many would be interested in us as we give away only a very little XP. The other problem was there were seniors who were focused on battling low level newbies in order to bully them in future. Our level were still at one since we never did anything that could gain us XP and so we decided to go for quests. Once again to go for a quest we had to register at the quest center and then once again register for a three man party and then get the permission from any one of the Head of Affinity. Once they approved we could set out for the quest. But the main problem was we were given time till the next working day to finish our quest. This was applicable to first years only as we were pretty much novices that too for the first six month because by then we would be taught all the basic things to survive. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. The three of us decided to go for the quest method. Deciding to finish the day¡¯s training we began to walk back to our dormitories from the training ground behind it. On our way back we heard the voice of people and I could grasp what was going on. ¡°Give me the money. Look our boss is waiting for you to pay today¡¯s tribute. Come on it is just 1AG.¡± A sharp voice spoke the above part which was followed by another voice which was to my surprise that of a woman. ¡°Look you maggot. Your first years are under my control. Don¡¯t you know who I am? Don¡¯t piss me off any further and give me the damn money already¡± I could not help but sigh. This atrocity was even present in this world. Old memories flowed through my mind as rage began to build up in me. Without waiting for Iud and Davy I began walking towards the commotion. ¡°Zeph? Are you sure?¡± ¡°Yes Iud. I cannot let them continue with this injustice, the victim has the right to live a normal life. You two need not come, I will go alone as it is my selfish desire¡± I said while I was walking away when suddenly I felt two hands on my either shoulder. ¡°Where do you think you are going? We are brother after all and brothers stick together, both in life and death¡± Davy said posing like some hero while gave me a thumps up. I laughed at their action and walked together. ¡®Why do I have such idiots as my brother?¡¯ I thought to myself. ---***--- ¡°Hey wimp, you are making the boss angry¡± the side kick said. The victim seemed to be a boy with black hair covering his eyes. He was a little shorter than me and was having his back pressed to the wall. The side kick was leaning on the wall towering above the small boy. The bully had yellow hair which was rather short. He was in his uniform so was the female boss. She was dressed rather provocatively in a skirt and tight shirt. Most of her thighs were exposed so was her cleavage. Her red hair was undone and was swaying under the evening breeze but her cute face had no pity on it, just the sinister laughter of a bully. Clenching my fist I walked towards the group and called out loud, ¡°What is going on?¡± The yellow haired guy was startled and he moved away from the boy in seconds but the red haired woman stood their without the slightest concern. She turned her face slightly and glared at us. ¡°Who are you brats? I don¡¯t have time to deal with you. Go away or else?¡± ¡°Or else what? Don¡¯t get cocky woman¡± Iud retorted smiling at her. He was intend on provoking her and it seemed as if it worked well. The red haired girl suddenly dashed towards Iud her right hand thrust forward aiming at his abdomen but before it could connect her hands were stopped by Iud¡¯s left hand. The movement of his left hand was so fast that even I could not perceive it. The woman was startled for a second but jumped back a little and once again glared at us. ¡°You lot, better disappear from here or I will make you regret it.¡± ¡°Just bring it on already.¡± Davy was getting impatient. It seemed like he was craving for a fight and so was Iud, their eyes had a strange hunger in them and I could recognize the hunger was for a strong opponent. ¡°Very well. You first years will regret going against the crimson witch, Aoki Osawa¡± The name came as slap to me. In front of me stood a woman in skimpy dress and red hair clenching her fist also with a Japanese name. ¡°Japanese?¡± I blurted out unknowingly which the woman heard and then glared at me. For some reason the question seemed to irritate her and she rushed towards me indenting to attack me. The sudden offensive move scared me a little as memories of old bullies screened in my restless mind. The hit was a success and it send me flying backwards a little. The pain had caused me to kneel down as my eyes bulged out. Her strength was monstrous, so monstrous that even with the nanosuit on, the pain was unbearable. ¡°Oi, Oi Zeph, get up already. Or should the two of us finish this? Why are you scared of her? You are not alone brother. I told you before, together both in life and death¡± Davy stood beside me his right hand holding his sword while his left hand stretched towards me. For some reason I could not help but smile for I felt really calm, my phobia for bullies felt like it ever existed and I felt my body wanting to tear that woman apart. Davy pulled me up and then turned towards the woman who was still glaring at us. At this point of the time the side kick walked forward and stood beside the woman. ¡°Two against three eh, does not seem much of a challenge. But I still have to take you three down.¡± Saying so she took out a red color round badge which had some sort of drawings on it. ¡°I, Aoki Osawa and my minion Lean Vager challenge you three for a duel¡± She then flipped the badge into the air where it began to emit a blue light. I could see a thin blue color membrane spread throughout the surrounding. ¡°Some sort of barrier?¡± I asked Iud. ¡°I guess so. Normally a duel is impossible without the teacher¡¯s supervision. But I am guessing the badge gives the owner to challenge anybody she wants to fight. And the barrier is to indicate the area allotted for the battle. May be any physical wounds will heal once we move outside the battle zone. Interesting. I really must have those¡± ¡°Huh? Just level 1 noobs and you dare to go against me¡± the woman roared. It was then we noticed that her name, level, HP and affinity was shown over her head. She was at level 10 while the guy was level 7. She had an HP of 3200 and the guy¡¯s HP was 2180 while their affinities were firevapour and steam, both were a little similar, made of water and fire affinities. ¡°This is going to be interesting¡± Davy was now laughing while Iud was smiling too. For some reason a smile broke out on my lips too and my body trembled in excitement for in front of me were two people on whom I could vent all my anger from my past and I had no intention to let this chance slip away. ¡°Burst strike¡± I screamed at the top off my voice. ---***--- (Please rate my fic)
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Arc 1- Chapter 12: A new spell ¡°Burst fang¡± activating my skill I dashed forward. None of the others expected me to be the one starting the battle and so I was able to catch them off guard. But the woman was a veteran and instantly brought up her guard. I could hear her whispering something which I assumed to be some sort of spell. She then suddenly dashed towards me her hands covered in flames like before. Once again her fists were directed towards my abdomen intending to send me back flying like she did to me a little while ago. Unfortunately for her, my target from the start was not the woman but her yellow hair side kick. Before her punch could connect with my stomach, I stepped to her left, tilting my body a little and pushed her away with my left hand. Even in that speed my trained eyes could see everything as clear as a motionless object. All I had left was to make sure that my body moved according to my wishes which was made possible by my nanosuit and so I successfully evaded her attack at the same time I managed to make her loose her balance causing her to stumble. Leaving her behind I continued my rush towards Lean, my sword in the air. The sight of his boss missing and me outwitting her might have startled him a little as he stood there gaping at me not even putting up his guard. ¡®Whoosh¡¯ My long sword came down on him at god speed and the impact sent him back a few meters away. His 2180HP dropped to 1731. A damage number of 449 floated over his head along with a critical hit. Right now was a critical hit and that means my normal attack will only decrease his HP by a hundred or so. Without giving time for Lean to recover I activated a full scale spell, I wanted to finish this guy as soon as possible and help the other two. Gathering all the mana I could in my right hand I shouted, guardian ¡°Air strike¡± A huge ball of air began to form on my palm, as big as the size of a football. Not wanting to delay my attack, I once again ran towards Lean who was by now back on his feet. He had already cast his spell and what was surprising was that he had activated two spells at once. In his left was a fire ball while in his left was a water ball. The two balls changed into the shape of swords which he then combined my merging the two. The new sword was fiery red in color and a huge amount of steam was being produced from it. Steam, my instincts began to warn me of it. But I had no other option to go forward. The air slash did not need body contact but my control was not enough to send a projectile attack. He would easily dodge it and so my only option was to hit him before I got hit. With the air sword in my left hand and my long sword in my right I closed on him fast while he too ran towards me with his steamy fire sword. I did not what kind of spell or what rank it was so I had to be careful. He was way above me in level as well as had strong spells. My level was only one and my HP was only a little above 800 and so I knew that I would not last much if I did not take him down soon. A single hit from his sword could kick me out of the battle. But luckily I had two things that he did not possess, my eyes and a healing spell. ¡°Super Nova¡± Lean screamed and suddenly his fire sword began to emit even more steam, almost obstructing my vision. But my eyes were not weak enough to lose my target just because he was hiding in the steam. I could clearly see his silhouette and that was more than enough. My eyes watched as Lean¡¯s hand shot into the air along with his sword. The strike was imminent and I had two option now, parry it or dodge it. With so little time to think my instincts told me to dodge, but dodging was hard at this range. Parrying his fire sword with my long sword was not a sure win method and so I had no other option but to roll. It was then something clicked in me, a dangerous method but one if successful would change the tables in my favor. And so I waited, waited till the enemy was near enough for him to swing down his sword. ¡°Go to hell, you rotting brat. Fire water combo: Steam fall¡± the steamy sword fell, aiming for my head. As I thought he wanted to finish me off with this strike. But I had other plans myself. ¡°Nope, I don¡¯t think so, burst fang¡± my agility arose because of the skill and thus allowing me to dodge it by side stepping the attack. But I was not fast enough, the steamy sword stung into my right elbow causing me to cry out of pain but luckily I was able to escape a one hit KO. Now with the threat of the attack gone and my enemy defenseless I executed my move. ¡°You are mine, Air strike¡± From my left hand a wave of air swept towards lean at a great pace. The burst strike which I had used to evade his attack had in return strengthened my air strike and thus a huge wave of air rushed towards the defenseless boy. Being a fire and water affinity user, he did not know any defensive spells and so was hit directly by my attack. Once again a critical strike appeared before me and when I checked his HP was 942, and a damage number of 689 was shown over his head along with the word paralysis. Next to the word a number was shown and it was 30 which kept on decreasing. My mind registered it as the wear off time of the paralysis and so I once again tried the same skill, activating air strike and burst fang I sped towards the paralyzed Lean. The timer showed 5 seconds but the guy was far away for me to reach to. Since I was sure I won¡¯t be able to hit him any way I decided to do projectile attack. My control over the skill was not high enough and eight out of ten times I usually missed the target during my practice. But during a battle, your choices are always limited, it is either do or be done and I chose the first one. ¡°Air strike¡± swinging my arm at full power I screamed the name of the skill. Another gush of white wave was released from my left hand. The air wave hit Lean exactly at the time when the paralysis wore off and once again a huge damage number appeared over his head. His HP was reduced by 426 and now it was 516 while my HP had gone down from 540 to 85. Another hit and I was pretty much done for. The barrier was set so as none us would die but that did not make loosing was ok. Each skill cost me a little more than 80MP. Right now I had used my skills five times and so I had depleted more than half of MP, but I still had mana to cast air strike and bust fang combo twice more. But the problem was my low HP. If I were to attack him as if I am now then a single scratch from his skill would destroy me but if I were to cast heal on myself then it would consume 100mana so that I could regain 100HP. While I was busy with my thoughts Lean was already back on my feet and on his way to finish me off. By the time I noticed it he had already activated the same fiery sword skill and was already swinging it down. ¡°Shit¡± I did not know what to do but for some reason I cast air strike once again, purely instinctively. It was as if somebody was making me do it but at the same time it did not feel forceful, my left hand moved so fast that even I could not fathom what was happening. May be it was an involuntary action by the body to protect itself but does that also include activating a magic spell? While my mind was confused with the sudden actions happening, my body especially my left hand seemed to move at 100% efficiency. The air burst wave ejected from my hand was aimed at the fiery sword which was half its way to cut me down in to two. My air strike and his steam fall collided and caused a bright explosion of light. I closed my eyes immediately as my over sensitive eye would take more damage than that of a normal human. With my eyes closed I took a few steps backward to make sure that I was not immediately attacked when my eyes were shut. Just in case I activated my water petal skill at full power. While I used the skill during my practical class, the number of petals I could mold was a little above sixty but now the situation being dire, hiding my powers was an impossible feet. ¡®Water Petals¡¯ I whispered so that he would not know that I was preparing my next attack. As many as two hundred or so petals were summoned. The area around me were surrounded by the petals as they were suspended in air, waiting for my orders. I slowly tried opening my eyes but the brightness was too high that I had to shut my eyes once again. I did not know were Lean was nor did I know whether he had recovered from the blinding. All I could do was listen to any noise he might produce, which in reality was pretty scary. With only a little more than 200MP left, I cast heal once thus increasing my HP to 135. This much HP was no were enough but I had to do so, so that I could calm down even if only a little. It was then I heard the sound of footsteps from behind and it was followed by a scream. ¡°You lose sucker, Burning clash¡± A new skill? Was it a ranged attack or a close combat attack? Was he behind me? Was he close or was he far? I did not know. My only option was to attack nevertheless. ¡°Water petals¡± when I activated my skill, the numerous water petal rushed backwards to were the enemy was supposed to be, I turned towards my back at the same time too. But all I saw was empty space. ¡°You fell for it boy, such a pity¡± the voice came from behind me, it was whispered into my ears. ¡°Burning clash¡±, chains erupted from the ground and began to twist around my body. The chains were emitting steam just like the fiery sword Lean had used and when I checked my HP, it was decreasing at a tremendous rate. My mind began to panic, I looked around to see if I could use something to use against him. The guy stood right behind me and was laughing into my ears. I clenched my hands tight with anger piling up inside. My right hand was holding to a cylindrical object and had a leathery feel. It was then I remembered about my long sword. Perfect I thought to myself. I held the sword with both of my hand, its blade pointing towards me. ¡°Are you planning to commit suicide? So pathetic, such a wimp¡± Lean began laughing out loud, he was sure of his victory that he did not expect an attack from me at all. ¡°Let me see you kill yourse¡­.guaah¡± The guy did not get a chance to complete his sentence for my sword hard run down through his body, between my body and left hand. The sword was aimed at his abdomen and did cut into the flesh, the moment the attack connected, the chains that were binding me disappeared. I turned back to face him and saw the guy falling to the ground, a damage number of 600 appeared above his head causing his HP to run down.
You have levelled up
You have levelled up
You have levelled up
¡°Eh? Levelled up thrice just by defeating him? Let me see, it was told that each levelling would give me six stats points to spend. So right now I have 18points. Hm? Where should I a lot them? HP and MP seems important. Fine I will a lot nine points each to vitality and intelligence. Both my HP and MP will increase by 90. Even though it isn¡¯t much, for now I have to bear with it¡± Once the free stats points were allotted I rushed towards the others. My current MP was 247, and so I cast another heal on me increasing my HP to 235 plus the 90 from my increase in vitality. My total HP right now was 325. My MP regeneration was 12MP/ minute which was rather slow if you¡¯d say but complaining about it would not do any good. Right now my only concern should Aoki, the crimson witch. When I joined Iud and Davy I was surprised by what I saw. Aoki¡¯s HP had only dropped by a 1300, she had more than half her HP left as for Davy and Iud their HP was a little low than the half mark. With this, the three of us were in grave danger. My heal had a cool down time of 1 minute and by the time I reached them the skill was once again available but my MP was really low. I could not decide what to do. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Zeph, don¡¯t bother about healing, attack her with all your might. She is a tough one. But with the three of us here things will get a little tough for her too¡± came Davy¡¯s voice. I nodded my head and unsheathed my long sword. ¡°Ho! So the idiot lost eh. I should have brought some body more useful. Useless shit¡± The woman had a really rotten personality, which was really angering me. ¡°So it seems you three have gained some levels eh, let¡¯s see level four? Good. Now things will get a little interesting. Come at me you brats¡± In that instant Davy and Iud dashed forward together, swords in air, roaring like lions. My body once again acted this time under my control. ¡°Water petals¡±, summoning hundreds of water petals I too dashed towards her. If I could get close to her then I might be able to land every single of the petal on her. Iud and Davy were already a little ahead of, they slightly turned their necks to look at me and then nodded indicating that they would open a path for my attack. I nodded back at them and kept on forward. The woman seemed to understand what is going on but instead of retreating a few steps she sped towards us. This sudden move startled me but the other two seemed fine, it was as if they were expecting things to be so. ¡°Sacred arts Moonlight Wind: White Hurricane¡± ¡®Eh sacred arts? Moonlight Wind?¡¯ the skill activation came to me as a really big surprise. Even though I knew that the two were good with swords never had I thought them to be able to use a sacred arts. Aoki¡¯s face too showed surprise as well as a little fear for she too did not expect the two to use sacred arts. But it was already too late, she was too fast and too close to them to retreat and so she decided to continue her attack. As usual her fists were covered by flames, but these flames seemed a little different from the one she had used before, it had a crimson red color to it and the flames seemed to bigger in size. I looked at Davy and Iud but they appeared to be unfazed, their swords were emitting a white glow and once she was in their range, their movements changed. The change in motion was so swift that I felt the two were dancing, as elegant as possible the two boys using their legs pivoted their body as if they themselves were the hurricane. The white glowing swords a circular path along with their masters delivering a hit on Aoki each time they made a rotation. Unlike a hurricane their rotation was not violent or havoc causing, instead it was much more elegant and calming. The attack ended on the third rotation and the white glow dimmed out slowly, blood spurted out of her wounds, there was one on her thighs, another on her abdomen and the final one to the neck, a three hit double combo. A huge damage number floated over her head saying critical hit 704+704, her health fell to 492 in an instant. ¡°Why do you have such a high attack power when your levels are so low?¡± ¡°Ah! Did you not know? If one uses a high ranking skill then irrespective of the level difference the damage delivered will be high. And the skill we used now is a king ranked skill. We had expected that to finish you off but I guess the difference in level was too high to insta kill you. More importantly, are you fine with sitting and talking like that?¡± Iud asked Aoki who was kneeling onto the ground, panting heavily. ¡°Eh?¡± Aoki looked at Iud unable to understand what he meant but suddenly turned her towards my direction. She had totally forgotten my existence and let me close in on her. I was hardly a couple of meters from her and hitting her within this distance was a piece of cake, ¡°Water Petals¡± I said calmly and all those petals around me rushed towards her in an instant. Without nowhere to hide and nothing to block the attack, she was mercilessly hit by all of my petals. Each petal ate away a portion of her HP and by the time the attack ended her HP had ended up at 24. The three of us walked towards her, swords pointed at her we surrounded her. ¡°Give up. This is the end for you¡± Iud said, poking her with the sword. ¡°Yeah, our MP is above the half way mark. And with our heal spells you can¡¯t win against us¡± Davy followed Iud, while he allotted his stats points. ¡°Be a good girl and go apologize to the boy¡± saying so I stretched my hands towards the woman. No matter how twisted her personality was, she was still a woman and bullying women were not to my liking. She looked at me and then at my hand repeatedly, a smile broke out on her face. I smiled back too thinking that she had given up and would take my hand. But things never go the way you want it. ¡°Crimson Devil¡± that was all we heard. The next thing what happened were the three of us were thrown backwards a good twenty or so meters. I landed on my head and thus lost fifty or so off my HP. When I recovered from the fall and looked towards the woman, I saw her holding Iud and Davy by their necks, the two were suspended on air while she suffocated them. Her entire body was covered by crimson flames, she had grown fangs and claws as well as a pair of crimson winds too. Her level was shown as 15 an HP became 5000. A pair of red horns stuck out of her head and a tail ran out from her skirt, truly a crimson devil. I could see Davy and Iud struggling in her hands, ¡°Strong, too strong. We can¡¯t win. I give up¡± fear caused me to lose my cool and I began to blabber. My body lost all its power and I dropped onto my knees, tears flowing out of my mind. ¡®Are you going to abandon them Zeph-kun?¡¯ ¡°Nao?¡± When I said that name, the visual of her lifeless body splashed in my mind. The visual of a powerless me watching as her soul was dragged out of her body by black hands. The visual of girl¡¯s soul crying and screaming my name. ¡®Zeph-kun, are you going to abandon your family?¡¯ There was no mistake, these were Nao¡¯s words, words of a past memory. A memory I had always regretted was now urging me forward. I stood up and walked forward, my body still trembling with fear but my eyes did not cover any more for, ¡®I have things that I promised to protect and if I broke my promise she would give me an earful¡¯ even thinking about her made me smile, made me feel so warm and strong. ¡°Leave them you witch. I will take you own¡± my voice thundered out loud, for a moment Aoki looked surprised. ¡°Huh? You just wait there, I will deal with you once I am done with this too garbage¡± ¡°Garbage? Did you just call my friends, garbage?¡± my anger fueled inside me. ¡°And what if I did? These two are trashes that I must dispose of, so are you brat¡± ¡°I see, so you plan to take away things that are precious to me?¡± ¡°What the hell are you talking brat? Don¡¯t spout such cheesy lines, disgusting¡± ¡°Unforgivable, Unforgivable, UNNFFORGIVABLEEE¡± ¡°Air, water, fire combo¡± I spoke out loud, not sure it would work. It was just an impulse, when I saw Lean combining water and fire affinity. Right now any basic spell I threw at her would not even make a scratch on her. And so I decided to experiment, well rather than saying decided my body rather was doing what it felt like. Bug bubbles of air, water and fire gathered around me. Each bubble was half as big as me. I could feel mana as well as essence flow out of me at a tremendous rate. My mind pictures the shape of a sphere and slowly each bubbles lengthened to form spears. The crimson witch who saw what I was doing immediately dropped down the two and rushed towards me. ¡°You brat! Why do have such strong essence? What are you?¡± she was screaming as she rushed towards me, her red claws and fangs listening violently. I knew she was summing at me and so I immediately tried combining the three affinity spear. ¡®A trident, Yes that would be good¡¯ and as if to reply to my thought, the three spears tried to take the form of three. Since I was in a hurry, my control was very bad and the sheer quantity and quality of the spears made it even harder. The spears began to collapse one by one. Seeing this the witch began to laugh, ¡°Seems your spell is a failure, see you are just trash just like the other two¡± ¡®Trash¡¯,¡¯other two¡¯ these words were enough as the last push. ¡°Uwwwwaaahhhhh¡± I screamed at top of my lungs as I tried to combine the three affinities into one. The spears began to collapse at a terrifying rate and began to emit light bright enough to blind everyone in the area. But the light did not last for long. Slowly the light and dust began to settle down, I became desperate as I could not find even one trident. My mana was at zero and the exertion of essence had caused my head to hurt like hell. But my hopes were revived soon when my eyes fell on a shining tri-colored trident floating right above my head, with air and water at the sides and fire in the middle the trident emitted a warm yet fiery aura. An already enrage Aoki sped towards me even faster, from her expressions it were clear that she was scared of the trident and she wanted to finish me off before I could use the trident. She had assumed the trident to be something I would wield with my hands, poor thing had no idea what I was thinking. Sneering at me like a cat she jumped at me, cursing me and my friend. Her fangs were so red that it looked like she was a vampire who had just fed on my friend¡¯s blood. I stood there waiting for her to come to me. When the woman was in midair, the trident over my head disappeared. ¡°Poseidon¡¯s trident¡± I said, my voice was so calm that even I was frightened about it. She looked around to find the trident but what greeted her was an intense pain. Looking down she saw the trident sticking into her stomach. With an intense scream she flew backwards as the trident¡¯s pace was hard to stop. She crashed to the floor but soon stood up and then began laughing. ¡°Is that all? Is this your trump card? I am disappointed bo¡­what? What¡¯s going on? Why am I on fire?¡± The crimson flame which was covering her had begun to disappear, her fangs, horns, tail and claws retracted. The crimson layer around her began to disappear. ¡°Why? It has not even been five minutes? You what did you do?¡± I watched her closely as I myself could not understand. Slowly the trident began to glow and the three heads began to coil around her. Mostly the water and air had caused the crimson aura to retract. The coiling continued, it looked like she was being wrapped by a tri colored rope and in minutes not even a strand of her was visible. All I heard after that were the muffled screams and her HP running down at a tremendous rate. I could pick up phrases of what she was screaming, it was like ¡®sorry¡­ hurts¡­beg¡­let me¡­please¡­sorry..won¡¯t¡¯. Soon the scream died out as the HP of the woman shot down into zero, 5000 to zero in seconds? What the hell was that spell? While I was wondering what the spell was a window opened up. All I read was Poseidon¡¯s trident, original spell, Emperor Rank. Before I could complete my reading my eyes shut down and I fell down to ground losing my consciousness. ---***--- please rate my ff. do give a review. thank you
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Arc 1- Chapter 13: An Emperor Ranked Spell ¡°Be quite Davy, he is sleeping?¡± ¡°But Iudy, those idiots are blaming us for everything. Even the boy we helped said that we were bullying him¡± This was the conversation I heard when I next came to. The light felt too bright for me to open my eyes and so I kept them shut and continued lying down on the bed. ¡°You getting mad about it will only make things worse, so calm down. Let Zeph wake up¡± ¡°But..¡± ¡°That is enough Davy.¡± I could hear Iud¡¯s voice go up suddenly. I knew that if I let things go as it was so I pretending to wake up and started stretching my hands, with a fake yawn. I blinked my eyes and then looked at them. ¡°Ah, he woke up. Took you long enough. It is already morning of the next day. Get up¡± ¡°What happened?¡± ¡°Ah, we don¡¯t know either. All we saw was the barrier disappearing. A notification opened up declaring us as the winner. Our levels went up by three once again. So did the levels of most of the skill. When we came towards you we saw the woman lying on the floor, crying. Her face seemed pale and it looked like she saw something scary. Just what did you do?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t really remember. The last thing I saw¡­¡± it was then that the words in the notification came running in to my mind. ¡°Emperor Rank¡± I blurted out unknowingly. ¡°Eh? What?¡± Iud questioned me with a confused look. Ignoring his question, I called out. ¡°Open notifications¡± and a list of the past notification opened up. Among them there were notification about my win and level ups and the bottom was the notification, ¡®New skill¡¯. But what was surprising was that there were two such notifications. I opened the first one, which read as,
New skill unlocked: Air Burst Wave(Active)Beginner Level 1(0%)
Congratulations. You have successfully combined a magic spell and a sword art skill. Combining air strike with burst fang has generated a new original skill named air burst wave. The momentum from the skill burst fang not only adds to the attack power of the new skill but also helps in releasing a faster and longer wave. The skill is not upgradeable. Rank: King Mana cost: 120/ use Cool down: 2min Syncro level: 7 +5 to prestige for learning a custom advanced rank skill
¡°What the hell Zeph?¡± Davy roared at me and jumped on me, hitting me gently. ¡°As expected of a celebrity.¡± Iud said looking at us playing like small children and laughed. ¡°You little, you made a King rank skill just like that¡± Davy kept hitting me here and there occasionally tickling me. ¡°Stop tickling me. If I can do it so can you, besides you two know how to use a sacred sword art too. Why did you not tell me?¡± At the mention of the sacred art the atmosphere in the room fell. When I looked at them I felt there faces going pale and sweat trickled down their faces. ¡®Damn, wrong question eh¡¯ ¡°Well, say Iud what does syncro mean¡± I tried changing the topic. ¡°Ah, that. It is called harmony in some places. When you combine two skills the resultant skill will only be sauces if the parent skill are compatible. And this compatibility of the new skill is shown by the syncro level. Syncro levels start from 0 and ends at 10. A level 0 skill means the combining was a failure and the new skill cannot be used or produced. As the level increases, the harmony between the parent skill increases or a more powerful skill is produced. It is really hard to combine two skills to get a new and powerful skill. Usually what happens is the combined skill would be slightly more powerful than the parent skills. For example, suppose there is a skill called A and there is a skill called B. and let us also suppose that there is a skill rank indicating tool with us and the tool indicated that the rank of the skills A and B is advanced. Now I combine the skill A and B to give a new skill called C. now tell me what would be the rank of the new skill?¡± Iud asked pointing his finger at me. ¡°Eh? King or higher?¡± I answered. He shook his head sideways to indicate that my answer was wrong and then continued his explanation. ¡°In 90% percentage of the cases, the resultant skill had the same or even lower rank than the parent skills. Because of this reason, people normally do not try combining skills as the chances of getting a stronger skill is really low. But those who creates one are rewarded well¡± ¡°Why reward him?¡± ¡°Sigh! Listen carefully. When a new skill is created, the creator has the right to register the skill under his name. Once he registers the skill, the news about the new skill will spread rapidly. This would allow other¡¯s to learn the skill too, for a price that is.¡± ¡°Price?¡± ¡°Yes. May be a few gold coins or so. A part of the income goes to the creator too and so there are those who try to create new skill whenever possible. And also they might ask you to do a quest for them and the skill would be the reward for it, the problem being, the higher the rank of the skill, the harder the quest. Normally people choose to pay for it¡± ¡°That means, if I register my skill then I can make money? Oh! Where do I register?¡± ¡°Sigh! Greedy brat. You register at the adventure guild. Oh, since you carry the name of your house, the might get some benefits too. Enough with this now. Show us the other skill¡±
New skill unlocked:Poseidon¡¯s Trident (Active)Beginner Level 1(0%)
A spell created by the fusion, yet co-existence of three contradicting affinities. A spell born from the desperation to protect things precious to you, its bounds are unknown, powerful enough to lay waste even huge armies. This skill is currently locked as your mana level is low. The skill will unlock itself in times of grave danger but will exhaust your essence. Rank: Emperor Mana cost: 1500/use Cool down: 1day +25 to prestige for learning a custom advanced rank skill
I was speechless, paralyzed until something hard hit me on my head. Looking back I saw an enraged Davy holding his wooden sword in the air. ¡°You traitor. An Emperor rank skill?¡± he said, sobbing slightly. ¡°Now, now Davy. We can pay him back later. Right now, we do not have the time¡± ¡°Eh? Why is that?¡± I asked not knowing what Iud meant. ¡°Come with us¡± Iud gesture me to follow him. Getting up from my seat, I asked, ¡°Where to?¡± And the reply was, ¡°We have a patient to visit, my friend¡± ---***--- The academy had an infirmary located in each blocks. Right now the three of us were heading to the one in A block. On our way to there, I was explained the things that had transpired while I was asleep, actually unconscious. It seemed like Celia, the one in charge of the boys dormitory had aid us a visit in morning. Iud and Davy were told that a complaint has been filled against the three of us. The complaint was we had bullied a first year student like us and fought against the second year students who came to help the boy. There was another complaint against us too, for severely injuring the second year students. ¡°Seems like the boy was forced into this once again. This time by someone else¡± I said. ¡°Yeah. Seems so. Sigh! This is why I hate such troublesome things¡± Iud replied, sighing heavily while Davy gritted his teeth in anger. A few minutes walk and we reached the infirmary. There was a pretty big crowd outside the infirmary, all of them being second years. ¡°Damn! Not a good time to visit, it seems¡± I blurted out. ¡°What should we do?¡± I asked the other two. ¡°Let us find Miss. Celia for now. Standing here is like suicide¡± Iud¡¯s reply was instantaneous but we were too late. ¡°You, first years! What are you doing there?¡± A tall and well-built guy asked from the group, he slowly walked towards us, glaring at the three of us. With similar red hair as Aoki, the boy looked really angry. Two swords hung from either sides of his waste. ¡°Just passing by¡± I said politely. ¡°Just passing by? Aren¡¯t you the lot that fought against my sister yesterday?¡± ¡°Sister? That woman? You both don¡¯t look like siblings though¡± Davy said out loud. I did not if he was intentionally provoking him was blurting out nonsense, but nevertheless I gestured him to stop. ¡°Ho! So you were the one after all. Who among you three did that to her? You wretched bastards!¡± He roared and dashed towards us, with his swords unsheathed. ¡°I will kill you two now. Die¡± The three of us were empty handed. We had left our swords back at our room since we were not allowed to carry swords to the academy. But even so we could not just run away. ¡°Zeph, Davy and I will try to stop his swords. Use your magic to send him flying¡± came Iud¡¯s order as he and Davy rushed forward. ¡°Do you know how to stop it?¡± I was a little worried. I knew the two were good with swords, but right now they did not have any weapon with them. ¡°Don¡¯t worry. Just trust us¡± Iud smiled at me while Davy stuck out his tongue at me. I could not help but smile. ¡°You two are really fools¡± Mana began to pool up in my hand and feet as I prepared myself to cast air burst wave. Iud and Davy had by then engaged the enraged senior student. The swords were no longer in his arms. I did not what they did. All I so was the two hitting the wrist of the senior. It could not even be called a hit, it was a slight touch and down went the sword. The senior was stunned, he did not understand what was going on but the next moment something even surprising happened. Iud and Davy were behind the senior. With their hands and legs they locked on to the senior¡¯s limb, making him unable to move. They looked at me and nodded. ¡°Air burst wave¡± Dashing forward towards the senior I activated my new skill, an air sword already forming in my right hand. The senior struggled hard to get out of the lock but he was unsuccessful. I could see others rush towards us to help the senior but my skill gave me an advantage in speed. The air sword released a slight wind and white waves emitted out of the sword. I neared on the guy and brought down my sword aiming right for his head. With the force of impact at a vital area would finish the battle fast, I knew it but this was not a battle, it was just a wild fight and such fights would only bring more problems. Just before the sword hit his head, I stopped and walk past the guy, as if nothing happened. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.¡°Guys, let¡¯s go. We did not come here to fight¡± ¡°The guy is too soft, is he not Iudy¡± Davy complained. ¡°Let¡¯s go. Besides we will plenty of opportunity in the future too, right senior?¡± Iud looked at the senior and smiled which was replied with a ¡®tch¡¯ The seniors around us were really mad, it was as if they would attack us any moment from now. The three of us walked forward slowly, our eyes measuring each of them standing in front of us. I could see some where already preparing for their attack while some just simply glared at us. ¡°Not even a week has passed and I have tons of enemies! Sigh¡± I whispered to the two besides me. We continued walking forward and when we hit the block of people inside I asked the person in front. ¡°Please move aside and let us pass, seniors¡± I said politely. The reply was a no with many trash talking. The atmosphere was so tense that cold sweat trickled down my face. Even if our levels were higher than before, there was no way in hell we could win against this many opponents, even if I had the emperor ranked spell with me. ¡°That is enough every one. Move aside¡± a voice thundered out from behind us. When I looked behind I saw a group of three walking towards us. A boy followed by two girls. The school uniform of the academy was a white shirt, a black overcoat and black pants for men, and the pants was replaced by a skirt for girls, and some even wore a tie. The collar and sleeves of the white shirt were colored for the purpose of identification. The first years were given the color green, red for the second years, blue for third years, violet for fourth, silver for fifth years and gold color for any students above. Gold and silver were truly rare sights. Till now I have never seen one, I did not even know whether one even existed until I saw those guys. With golden sleeves and color, the trio approached us at their own pace, their gaze fixed on us. I felt an incredible pressure coming from those guys. The boy who was in front had short black hairs, his eyes were hiding behind his spectacles. He was tall, with a commanding aura while the girls behind him did not lose either. The girl to the left was a brunette while the one on the right had natural black hair. The two were slightly shorter than the boy, but were incredibly beautiful. ¡°What is going on here?¡± the boy asked in a commanding voice and I could feel the second years behind me shudder. ¡°Nothing¡± someone said and soon the crowd dispersed. ¡®What is with this turn of events?¡¯ I thought to myself but at the same time was happy that things did not turn out bad as I expected. ¡°Iud, Davy let us go¡± I urged them to move forward and they complied. We walked a few steps forward when I felt a chill run down my spine. The three of us turned back in an instant, our bodies at full alert and ready to attack but there was nothing behind us. The three super seniors were a good ten meters away. All they were doing was looking at us. ¡°Oi, oi. Just their gazes can cause a chill? Just how strong are they?¡± Davy¡¯s voice seemed a little shaky. My body was trembling slightly, but still my hands and feet were oozing out mana. ¡°You do not need to be so tensed. We just want to talk to you three¡± the girl to the left spoke, elegant and sweet. The three of us still had our guards up. ¡°Is that why the three of you are giving off such strong killing intent?¡± Davy asked, smirking, sarcasm filled his tone. Suddenly the boy stepped forward causing us to heighten our guard even more but to our surprise their killing intent suddenly vanished. We stared at them, not knowing what their motive was. Trusting people who suddenly let out killing intent was hard after all. The three of us kept observing the three super seniors. Then the boy spoke, ¡°My name is Vitrian Anbis, to my left is Sasha Hailbird and to my right is Eva Hailbird. I am an eight year student, to be precise one of the two eight years. These two are now in their sixth year. We just heard that once of you used a special spell against a senior woman causing her to be traumatized. Which one of you was it?¡± ¡°It was me¡± I stepped forward. It was not because I was proud about the spell or anything, I simply did not want the two behind me to get in any trouble cause of me. ¡°I see. Then tell me what was the reason for you to go to such extent?¡± there was a hint of anger budding from his voice causing me to sweat a little. ¡°It was not intentional. I did to protect my friends. The spell was created in the spur of the moment. I did not intent to cause any deep scars to her mind. I am sorry¡± I apologized as things seemed a little out of the normal. For an attack to traumatize a student, even if a bully was not right. ¡°Is that so? But still you are in the wrong! Not only for the spell incident but also for bullying a fellow first year student¡± the voice that replied was much colder than before. ¡°I would have to refuse the current statement. It was not us that were bullying that guy, it was them, those seniors. And I being an idiot dragged my friends into the mess to help the boy, later to be betrayed by the very boy we helped¡± ¡°What is with that tone of yours?¡± The girl behind, called Sasha spoke, her voice as cold as that of the boy. ¡°I am sorry for my rude behavior¡± and so I explained what transpired the previous day, about out training, the bullying, the fight and finally about the spell. ¡°Hm! Very different from what I was told by that boy and that woman¡¯s brother. Eva, look into it. Investigate it thoroughly. If what these boys say is true then there is a chance that the boy victim might be bullied more. Deal with it as you please¡± ¡°Yes brother!¡± and the girl vanished. ¡°Then tell me boy, why are the three of here? To cause more problems?¡± ¡°No. I wanted to see the woman and apologize to her. It was never in my intention to emotionally scar her. But the second years began to attack us as soon as we appeared.¡± ¡°Fine. But I cannot allow you to meet her now. I do not think meeting the girl right now is a good idea. Let her rest for a while. Can I ask you a favor?¡± ¡°Favor?¡± I was confused. ¡°Yes, please show me the skill you created¡± ¡°Ah! I am sorry. I can¡¯t, my level is too low for me to be able to use it. Since it is an emperor ranked spell, it requires quite a large amount of mana.¡± ¡°Emperor Rank? Don¡¯t bluff boy¡± the voice was loud and impatient. ¡°I am not bluffing. Please see this¡± and I showed them the skill window causing their jaws to drop. ¡°An emperor rank spell and a king ranked skill in less than a week? Boy, tell me your mana and essence value¡± ¡°Is it really necessary? I do not want others to know about it¡± I tried avoiding the demand. ¡°You do not have to worry. The things you say will remain hidden.¡± Without no other choice, I answered their question. ¡°You¡­ what are you? That much mana and essence, even the Aduxria kings do not have those levels. Why are you here if you have so much potential?¡± ¡°I want to be from those big bellied greedy nobles and their lot. Treating people as tools for one¡¯s own personal gain is something I hate the most¡± ¡°But you yourself are a noble, are you not? ¡°Ah, the Calmor house. The guy said that I only have to carry the name. I have full freedom over my life. This name does not bind me, or cage me.¡± ¡°I see. Good. The two with you, I heard they are quite strong too. Good, good. Things are getting interesting once again in this academy. Sasha, let us go. We have things to do¡± the smile on his face told me that things were going to get really bad for me, the two beside me felt the same. ---***--- ¡®Knock, knock, knock¡¯ ¡°Mr. Principal.¡± ¡°Ah Vitrian, it has been a while. Come in, come in. What brings you here this time?¡± ¡°Sir, I want you to sanction a special training course for three first year students, under me.¡± ¡°A special training? Under you? Who are the students?¡± Vitrian produced a letter towards the principal. ¡°You? What are you scheming this time?¡± the principal looked at the boy and smiled lightly. ¡°I am going to overthrow the system, and take Itiferth to the top¡± The principal laughed loudly, ¡°Hahaha, to the top eh? Overthrowing the strong? Good, good. Seems your passion has not burned out completely. I thought, after that incident I would never see your bright and lively eyes. Very well my boy, permission granted. May you rise above all¡± ¡°Thank you Sir. Now please excuse me¡± ¡°One more thing Vitrian. Be careful, that guy is powerful than you think, do not be overwhelmed¡± The reply was a light smile, and the door closed. The principal laid back on his chair and closed his eyes. ¡°Zephard Calmor, are you an Angel or a Devil?¡± ---***--- Please rate my ff and give your review in the fiction page. your ratings and reviews encourages me and also attracts new readers. so please help me with your ratings and reviews. thank your for reading.
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Arc 1- Chapter 14: Adventure Guild The three of us were on our way back to our room. The conversation with the glasses guy kept rewinding in my mind. That type of guy was a typical example of a sly guy, who knows what schemes he had under his sleeves. But still, one of the two golden collar was really an awesome thing. Iud had told me that the privileges a gold collar had were truly great and was answerable only to the principal of the academy. Unlike the other two academy, were power determined your place in the system, here the number of years spent in the academy had precedence and this made that guy a person hard to deny. While I was thinking such things, a question was put forward to me by Davy. ¡°Hey, Zeph, are you going to register the skills?¡± ¡°Hm! I am still not sure¡± ¡°Why not? You can register the skill as a private skill.¡± Davy urged me. ¡°Private skill?¡± naturally I looked towards Iud who had face which said, ¡¯I knew you would ask me¡¯. ¡°Sigh! Private skill, a skill useable only by the person who registered it. That means the adventure guild cannot teach the skill to others who wish to or cannot make any money. Oh and by the way registering is free if you are ok with others learning the skill but for registering a private skill requires a sum of 3AG. ¡± ¡°3AG, just for registering? No way. Then is it not better not to register¡± ¡°True, but if you register a skill as your own private skill, nobody can use that skill.¡± ¡°I do not understand¡± ¡°Sigh! Suppose you have not registered your air burst wave as a private skill. I who am with you, also know how to create it, as you told me the parent skill as well as I also know how to use the parent skill. Now, what do you think would happen if I try to create air burst wave?¡± ¡°Er! You will be able to use it?¡± ¡°Right, but once you register it as a private skill, it would become impossible for me to recreate the skill as it belongs only to you.¡± ¡°Eh? Why go through such lengths?¡± ¡°What a na?ve boy? Recreating a beginner or intermediate skill might not be a big deal, but what about higher ranked skills or spells? Take your Poseidon¡¯s Trident. Do you wish every opponent you face in future to use the same skill created by you, against you?¡± I imagined myself being struck by the trident and being wrapped by it just like Aoki was causing me to shudder. I shook my head sideways to show him I did not want to, cold sweat forming on my face. ¡°Good. Then it is decided, let us go to the adventure guild and register your skills. Have you decided whether to make the two a private skill or not?¡± ¡°Yes. But do we have an adventure guild here?¡± ¡°Unfortunately no. For that we have to go to the adventure guild in Malstorm city¡± ¡°Where is that?¡± ¡°We are in Malstorm city Zeph¡± Iud and Davy looked at me with a face that said, ¡®Are you stupid?¡¯ ---***--- Getting permission to leave the academy premises was really a hard thing for first years. First thing needed was a letter written by us mentioning the purpose of the going out. This letter was to be signed by the one in charge of the dormitory, followed by the one in charge of the first years, then by any one of the teachers for the first year. So the three of us had to wander a lot in search of the respective teachers. Though we were questioned about the incident with Aoki, since we were not yet branded as guilty, the permission to leave the academy was granted. The maximum time limit was the evening of ¡®HOLIDAY¡¯, by then one had to return. At this stage you might be thinking what academy would let their students wander outside the academy for more than two days, don¡¯t worry, I did wonder too. It seem the entire city was under the influence of the academy and so the students were always under the watch of people from the academy, you know those in disguise and all. This was the reason that students could stay outside of the academy for long periods of time. Another interesting things is that, the students cannot leave the city without proper permission. The city being surrounded by huge walls, the city gat s are the only way to enter as well as exit. Each exit is guarded thoroughly and students who wish to travel further has to produce necessary documents, this is a privilege for students above third year. Once the permission was acquired the three of us packed a small luggage which included couple of clothes and then our weapons too. And thus began our very first journey. The gates to the outside opened before us on its own when we showed the letter to the gate, weird right? I thought too. But as soon as the letters were shown the gates began to open up and the letter began to burn from the bottom. By the time the gate was fully opened, the papers had burned to crisp. We walked towards it, excited and energetic and we walked and walked. The gates began to close once we stepped outside the school boundary. When I looked into a local map, I found out that we had to walk twenty minutes to reach the city area. The academy was away from the city to provide a peaceful environment to the students and also to have natural beat surround it rather than a concrete forest, well I am not sure if the buildings are of concrete though. Enough with those concrete and forest things, as I was saying, the three of us walked twenty minutes to reach a city as prosperous the Ironforge city ,, the city I had first visited, my hometown as Calmor house had its roots in that city. With plenty of tall and small buildings around us, the alley ways were covered with people laughing and shouting. It seemed that this city was a city with a whole lot enjoyment or so. Everywhere I turned to I could see only happy faces. The stalls sold different items which ranged from weapons to accessories. While was looking around here and then, Davy hit me on my head and asked me to keep walking. Reluctantly I followed them, my curios mind urged me to stop and observe but my logical mind warned me of Davy¡¯s wrath. A few minutes later we arrived at a pretty large building which looked like some kind of old museum. On an arch was written the words, ¡°Adventure Guild: For Tomorrow¡¯s Heroes¡± The three of us entered the guild which was crowded like hell. There were quest boards that covered the walls of the room we entered. To the other side there was another door through which we got into a much larger room. The room was ¡®sectionized¡¯ into four, and the one we wanted was third from our left. A board which called out, ¡®Registration Affairs¡¯ was hung down in front of the section and was under the control of a young beauty, in fact all other sections were governed by beautiful girls. ¡°How my help you?¡± came a beautiful voice, her lips then stretched in to a cute smile, with dimples at either side of her rosy cheeks. Brushing backwards her brown hair, she looked into our eyes. The three of us startled for a moment but regained our composure quickly. Stepping forward, I introduced ourselves, ¡°Hello! My name is Zephard , these are my friends Iudis and Dyward. The thing is I want to register couple of my skills, so I was wondering if you could help me with the procedures¡± ¡°Ah! Registering skills. Wonderful. Which category do you prefer, public registering or private registering?¡± ¡°¡±Er! I wish to register one as private and the other as public.¡± ¡°I understand. A private registering will cost you 3AG, but the public registering is free. Shall we start with the public registering first?¡± the woman asked with a smile. I nodded and the woman took out some sort of form and handed it over to me. The form was titled as ¡®Beginner and Intermediate Skill Form¡¯ causing me to be dumbfounded for a moment. Iud and Davy, wondering why I was startled took a look at the form and then began laughing out loud. The woman was worried for a moment, not knowing the reason for the sudden outburst and asked us politely. ¡°What might the problem be?¡± ¡°Well, the skill I want to register is a king ranked spell¡± ¡°EH?¡± the woman gazed at me with wonder in her eyes. Well, I can¡¯t blame her, it is not always that a boy comes to the guild and wants to register a king ranked skill. The woman then suddenly got up from her chair and asked us to wait for a short time. A few minutes passed and the woman came back, accompanied by a male with a large stature. He looked like he was a little above fifty, grey hair covered his hair. The guy had a rugged face, clean shaved with eyes that were black and cold. He walked towards us glaring at the three of us, as if we were some sort of criminals. ¡°Are you the brat that wanted to register a skill that too king ranked?¡± the man¡¯s tone was arrogant. ¡°Yes¡± I answered indifferently. ¡°We don¡¯t have time to spend with brats that wants to do meaningless pranks. Now get out¡± he shouted at us. A short tempered Davy was about to shout back when Iud stopped him and then nodded at me. Opening the skill panel, I showed it to the two that were glaring at us like demons. But once their eyes scanned through the details of the skill, their face paled. With puppy eyes the two looked at me, and for some reason a laughter broke out from me. ¡°It¡¯s ok, I don¡¯t mind. So shall we continue?¡± ¡°Ah yes. Please let me fill the form for you Sir. Ah and also, since the skill is a high ranked on, we would like to test its efficiency with a practical test. Would that be ok?¡± ¡°Very well. Just one thing, can you make the skill free for my house?¡± ¡°House?¡± ¡°Yes, I am from the house of Calmor, so if it is possible then please do make it so that they do not have to spend money for the skill. The house is financially broke right now. And if possible to these two too.¡± This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. ¡°Of course Sir. Once we finish your practical test, we will inform you about the fees.¡± ¡°Very well¡± I replied back smiling. The writing part finished pretty soon, as the only thing it needed was my name, house name, school name, and then details about the skill. Once the written part was done with, the woman asked me to follow her. I was led into another room. The room had magic circles inscribed all over and at the opposite side was a small box suspended in air. ¡°Sir, please use your skill once and the box over there will display its efficiency. 0 to 30% is considered as low level, 31% to 60% is considered normal, 60% to 90% is good and 91% to 100% is excellent. Depending up on the efficiency the fee for the skill changes. Now please begin. Call me once you are done¡± I nodded and then the woman left, closing the door leaving me all alone in the room. I took a deep breath and then sat down on the ground. I closed my eyes and began to meditate as I had to free the mana in me so that I could get the best results. A couple of minutes later my eyes opened and I helped myself up. With my hands relaxed, I once again took a deep breath, for some reason I was a little tensed. I closed my eyes once again and then began gathering mana in my hand and feet. Once I gathered as much mana as I could, I rushed forward activating the skill, ¡°Air Burst Wave¡± and my speed almost doubled. With the space in front of me as target, the air sword in my hand slashed horizontally. The transparent sword let out a gush of wind and then was immediately followed by white thick wave of air which traversed forward at thrice my speed. The attack was so fast that even I could not properly follow its trajectory and then it hit the surrounding wall causing the magic circles to glow. The white wave began to disperse as the magic circles slowly began to absorb the spell. The suspended black box at the end of the room lit up, showing a 90%. For some reason I felt a little disappointed but still felt happy about having a good skill. I called the woman and she came rushing and congratulated me on having a good skill. I was taken back to the registration section were Iud and Davy was waiting for me. ¡°Ah, shall we now speak about the rate at which the skill will be taught and the amount you will be getting?¡± Once again I nodded at the woman with a light smile which was returned to me with a really long and bright one. ¡°Since your skill has an efficiency of 90%, the skill if taught to others have low chances of failure. Also the skill is based on a single affinity and is easy to learn. Being a king ranked skill, the damage dealt is high too. Can be fired in any direction. Does not require any sort of weapon. Hard to dodge since the wave generated is large. Impossible to block since the attack is magic based. Usable as a mid-ranged as well as close combat attack. Syncro level of 7. These are the plus points and if one plus point is equal to 10AG, then currently the skill would cost 100AG. But the skill has it downs too. Easy to dodge when used as a long ranged attack. 120mana per use might make it hard for some people. Skill might fail if dash is obstructed. With three downs, the cost goes down by 30AG. Since the skill is from an Itiferth student, the cost goes down by another 10AG. So the final price is 60AG. We will give you 20AG each time a person learns the skill. Would that be enough?¡± ¡°Ah, that is more than enough. Is it possible to transfer half the amount to my house vault?¡± ¡°Of course Sir. Then as per your wish 10AG will be transferred to the house vault. Now shall we move to the other skill? Is it a king level skill again?¡± the woman asked, not in sarcasm but with good intentions. ¡°Nope. Emperor Rank spell: Poseidon¡¯s trident¡± The woman once again gapped at with wide opened jaws. Standing up from her chair she bowed at me and the once again walked away into another room and was soon back with the same guy who had glared at me earlier. But unlike the previous time, he did not glare at me smiled at me and then asked me to show him the notification panel. ¡°Please come with us Sir¡± Not knowing what was going on, I followed them. I was taken to another room which seemed to be some sort of office. ¡°This is the guild master¡¯s office and I am the guild master, Abdron. Now to the main point, please let us sponsor you.¡± The man said grasping my hands tightly. ¡°Eh? Why do you want to sponsor me and I already have my house to sponsor me? What is in it for you and don¡¯t bother lying¡± ¡°Sigh! The adventure guilds are like other shops, we too face heavy competition.¡± ¡°Competition? Are not adventure guilds under the control of the main guild?¡± ¡°No. Even though we have a main guild to monitor us, it does not have any special control over us. The adventure guilds are private institutions just like the shops that sells items and other stuffs. The adventure guilds in different cities compete with each other and the best guilds are given big rewards by the head guild or king of the kingdom. When the adventure guild is backed by the kingdom, then the benefits for the adventures increases too. For example take your own skill. Because we are not a high end guild, the king ranked skill only goes 20AG, had it been one of those top guild, the price might go above 500AG and you might have got a commission of 160AG or so. And so more people go to such guilds while low level guilds like mine do not get any.¡± ¡°What is my role in this?¡± ¡°Ah! I want you to register any new skill you create in our guild. In exchange we will sponsor your academy fee and also make you VIP of this guild, along with the two friends you have with you¡± ¡°What is in it for you if I agree to your terms?¡± ¡°If we can get high ranked skill like the one you gave then the number of people who come here as well as the level of our guild will go up. If the guild acquires good profit then you earn can earn more too and there are other benefits too. So please!¡± ¡°Fine, fine. And as for the sponsoring, do it from the next year after you earn something from me. Also I want you to advertise about the emperor rank skill. Do not involve me directly. When advertising the skill, just say that it came from the Calmor house and the boy is a student from Itiferth. That is my only condition.¡± ¡°Agreed. But things might get a little hard for you if news gets to the other academies about this.¡± ¡°Do not worry, I have everything figured out. So is there anything else for me to do? Shall we continue with the registering?¡± ¡°Before that please let us check the ranking of your spell¡± ¡°What is it now?¡± I was getting a little annoyed. ¡°I am sorry, but please bear with u¡± for a few more minutes. For spells above king rank, that is for emperor, saints and god level spells, the spells are assigned a rank. The first seven rank goes to the seven god level spells. Currently there are 467 saint ranked spells and 1389 emperor rank spells. And so the ranking system starts at 1 and ends at 1863. The highest saint level ranking is without a doubt 8 while the highest emperor level ranking is 131. In short there are emperor level spells which are more powerful that saint level skills. As to why it is so, no specific theory has been put forth but some say this might be because the saint level spells are mainly large area spells while emperor spells are single point or target based spells. So the destruction power for emperor spells are considered higher. Enough with the theory and hypothesis. All you have to do is check into the database.¡± ¡°Database?¡± ¡°Ah, the gardisto on your hand has one.¡± ¡°The watch? He! I did not know that. How can I open the database?¡± ¡°Just call out the database just like you do for the status bar, along with name of your skill.¡± Nodding my head, I called out ¡°Database: Poseidon¡¯s trident¡± ¡®Ding¡¯
DATABASE: POSEIDEN¡¯S TRIDENT
World Ranking: 303 Emperor Ranking: 59
The guild master stared at the window in disbelief, so was I. We then looked at each other and then back at the window and again and each other. ¡°Sir, thank you. Such a strong spell. Please register it as fast as possible. And do be careful once news gets out about such a spell things will get really hectic. I wish you the best¡± ¡°As long as you don¡¯t tell others everything will be ok¡± Once I finished with the registering process, we exited the room and decided to check the quest boards for anything suitable. Little did I know that the emperor rank spell would forge my destiny. ---***--- Rate my ff. please give me your review. thank you
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Arc 1- Chapter 15: Librarians Tome ¡°Wow! There hundred¡¯s of quests here. What, Where are the S class and higher quests?¡± I asked with a confused face. ¡°Those quests are a privilege only high level guilds get. That is, the people who give out these quests goes to high level adventure guilds. Low end guilds like this are lucky to even get A rank quests. Some people directly hire adventures to do a quest. This save them money as guilds demands money for advertising quests. Well, with you advertising your skill, I believe people from around will come looking for you. So what are you going to do about it? If you plan to lie low then I suggest you do not advertise the skill¡± ¡°It¡¯s ok. It is better this way. Besides I have thought of a plan to divert the enemy¡¯s attention from me. You guys will understand soon. Now enough with the chit chatting and search for a nice quest. Since the three of us are of level 7, I guess a D or D+ rank difficulty would be great. But since it is our first quest let us not try to be arrogant, so I say we go for a E or E+ quest. What do you think?¡± ¡°Hm. Fine with us, right Davy?¡± ¡°Okay with me.¡± The three of us then went separate directions and began going through the quest board. The quests ranged from F to A rank and among those majority of them were F or E ranked quests. The three of us selected five E ranked quests which seemed do able to us, most of the E rank quests were finding ingredients or doing odd jobs for various shops. Of the five we found, four of them were to help slay a few monsters that roamed in the skewers and the monsters were black rat, giant green lizard, monster snails and venomous spider. These four were low level monsters but the problem with the quests was the number we had to kill. Each quests wanted us to slay five hundred of them in two days which seemed a bit tiresome for us. To stay inside the skewer for two days was something I found totally gross. The final quest though, seemed different.
QUEST: A BIBLIOPHILE¡¯S NEST
Naran Wokal, a bibliophile wishes to sell away all his books that he had collected over years, but the book shelves are all in a mess and shuffled. He wishes you to clean the books and arrange them according to their names. He asks you to finish the cleaning in a week Difficulty : D Level Requirements: Infant(5) Rewards Unknown????? 30AS Failure The quest will fail 1. If you do not finish the quest by the time mentioned
¡°Hey Iud, this is an D rank quest. Did we not agree on an E rank quest? Then why did you bring this?¡± ¡°That is the reason why I took this quest. Can¡¯t you guys find the peculiarity of the quest?¡± I and Davy shook our head sideways. ¡°Why is this quest an E rank quest when the quest is only to clean books? Even if there are thousands of books, do you think the D difficulty is justifiable? And so I am guessing there is more to this quest than what meets the eye.¡± ¡°Then are you telling that this quest is more than just cleaning?¡± ¡°Yes there is a chance that it may lead to something big. Why not give it a try? The requirement says Infant level 5, the three of us are at level 7 now, why not give it a try.¡± ¡°Before that. Tell me something Iud. This Infant thing, what comes next and at what level?¡± ¡°There are 11 stages after infant and the next power up is Adult at level 20, and for the rest of the table the watch can show you¡±
Levelling
GodLvl1000
EmperorLvl890
KingLvl780
GeneralLvl670
CommanderLvl560
KnightLvl450
CavalryLvl340
BowmanLvl230
SlingerLvl120
Axe manLvl50
InfantryLvl20
¡°Ho! This is new. So we have to get to level 20 to have a change in class. What is the benefit with these classes?¡± ¡°To be honest, there is no particular benefit. It just helps people to realize how powerful one is. Also to help one select people for quest or so. For example, the quest giver could say ¡®only high level General¡¯s may apply¡¯ then that means those on the upper limit in that class will be hired. Just to make things easy for some, no particular use I would say¡± ¡°Hm! Well whatever, let us continue with our business. Let us do the quest, but the place address is not mentioned, how can we find him then?¡± ¡°Once we register for this quest, the guild will give us the address to the place. Let¡¯s go. We do not have time to waste.¡± ---***--- The registration process finished quickly and we were given a map which led to an old house in the outskirts of the city. The house was huge and could be called a mansion but was really in bad shape. It seemed as if it would come down under the slightest breeze. We knocked on the door and an old lady greeted us. She looked really tired but had a wide smile on her face, she was the kind type of woman and welcomed us in with a warm smile. She slowly walked, one hand supporting her back. Iud and I supported her from both sides even though she refused initially. We went through various rooms and a flock of stairs to finally reach the old man¡¯s room. Knocking slightly on the door, the woman called out, ¡°Dear there are three wonderful kids here to see you¡±, she opened the door and went in. The old man was lying in a bed and seemed really sick. His frail body was covered in blankets, his skinny face was covered with wrinkles. The old man opened his eyes lightly and then looked at us, he tried to get up but his body would not let him and so the three of us helped him get up. Iud sat behind the old man to support him while the old lady sat beside the man and held his left hand in hers. The old man thanked us and then began speaking. ¡°Thank you young ones for coming. I was beginning to lose hope. Well, I can¡¯t blame anyone as the rewards for the quest is low and no one would spend their days arranging books. First of all thank you for coming. I am really grateful.¡± the old man held mine and Davy¡¯s hand, his eyes began to get moist. ¡°My house used to be crowded with my family and other people, maids, butlers, chefs, guards and the lot. Luxury filled this very walls which now lay void of even a single painting. Ever body was happy, the mansion was filled with laughter of the young ones. But calamity struck us, my family fell ill, not only my sons and daughters, the entire family except for me and my wife fell ill. We brought in doctors from all over the world, tried every medicine but nothing could be done. As days passed, my family lost members one by one and finally it became just us in this huge mountain. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Some say we incurred the wrath of god while others say a witch cursed us, as to what really happened I do not know. A few years before we sold most of our belongings to support our lives. With no body to look after us, we adopted an orphan siblings and decided to make them our heir. The two of them got admitted into Edelnerry. They are now in their final year at the academy. Even though the two are doing well and wants us to not spend money on them, the two of us desire to support them till the end. The academy has a really high fee and to pay for the two of them has gotten really different and so we decided to sell my collection of books to support them. A buyer has offered to buy the entire collection for 1000AG if I could deliver them to his home in two weeks. He said he wanted it arranged alphabetically. And so please help us with this task so that we could support our only family¡± the old man looked at us with eyes that begged us to do it for him. We agreed to him and the old man asked his wife to show us to the room where the books were stored. The books were kept in a huge hall in the top most floor, with bookshelves occupying the entire room. I¡¯d say the bookshelves would have nothing less than 5000books, such was the size of the room. I looked at Davy and Iud who like me was overwhelmed by the sheer number of books. The three of us sighed at the same time. To the end of the room there were plenty of boxes and we presumed that those boxes were what we had to the books to. The three of us first decided the alphabet we would look for. I got B, Davy was A and Iud decided to collect books that had its name start with C. When we counted the number of shelves, there were 30 of them, old and dusty. The books were covered in dust and so each book had to be dusted off. I started from shelf 1 next to me was Davy and at the third shelf was Iud. The first shelf contained books that ranged from books on food to books that dealt with black magic and even forgotten dark arts. To finish the first shelf took me an hour or so since dusting them was really troublesome. And from that single shelf I was able to get only five books that started with B. Then we decided to change our method. We then arranged 26 boxes named alphabetically and then decided to fill the boxes with the concerned books when we came across one. With this method, even though the time taken to finish a shelf remained the same, the boxes filled up quickly. As in the first method only the boxes named A, B and C were getting filled in the second method all 26 boxes were being filled. By the 2 in the afternoon the old woman called us for lunch which we tried to refuse but she insisted so much that we had no other choice but comply with her demand. We ate at the old man¡¯s room where us and the old couple talked various things while we ate. After an hour¡¯s lunch break, we returned back to our work. The afternoon session stretched till 6 in the evening, till we decided to take a short break. Precisely at that moment, the old lady brought tea for us, saying ¡®have a cup of tea and you will stronger than ever¡¯. We finished the tea in ten minutes and returned to our work. But son it became too dark for us to see a thing. The old lady then asked as to continue the work tomorrow and then asked us to stay the night with them. The next morning, we started early. We woke up at six and without waking the old couple, we started our work. By evening five, we had finished all of the shelves and had arranged the books in the boxes as per the old man¡¯s wish. It took 63 boxes to fill all those books and two days to finish the job. We got out of the room and walked towards the old man¡¯s door to inform him about the completion of the job. ¡®Knock, knock¡¯ I knocked the door which seemed partially closed. We got in and the old man greeted us with a smile. ¡°We have finished what you asked.¡± I told him. The man had a hint of sadness in his eyes, though his lips stretched to give out a smile. ¡°Thank you. To finish it in two days, I am really grateful. With this I can pay for my two children. Please accept this as a token of my appreciation.¡± The old man with trembling hands extended thirty silver coins. I looked at Davy and Iud. The two nodded at me and smiled. ¡°We do not need those coins sir. Please use them for your children. We are not heartless enough to take money from you when the two of you are even ready sell off your treasures. That would make us nothing less than monsters. The food and care you provided are enough for us.¡± ¡°Eh? To not reward you for all those hard work is something I cannot do. Please accept this money for our sake¡± he extended the money even more. I could see the wrinkled skin of his hands which seemed so fragile that a light knock would chatter it. ¡°If you insist, then give us something else. Something other than money.¡± ¡°Something else. Even if you say so, we no longer have anything valuable. Wait, there is something. Dear, can you please bring that thing in that cupboard? Take this key¡± The old lady gave a surprised look at the old man, ¡°Are you sure dear? Was it not supposed to be your most valuable treasure?¡± ¡°Its fine. I no longer need that. These young ones might find a use for it¡± Nodding her head slightly she walked out of the room, holding a golden key given to her by the old man. A few minutes passes and she returned slowly holding what seemed like a book made of gold. It was a large one, with a golden cover and written on it was the name, ¡®Librarian¡¯s Tome¡¯ ¡°For years I have wandered through out this city to find the librarian¡¯s tome which is said to have vast amount of knowledge, knowledge enough to make one the king of the world. But sadly I could never find it. Take this with you, you deserve this.¡± ¡®Ding¡¯
Quest Completed
Level Up for completing your first quest
Quest Item Receive
You have received the quest item, Librarian¡¯s Tome. This tome is said to be the key that unlocks the path to Vault of Knowledge, a sacred place where power to become a god resides. Some say such a place does not exist, while others say one can find god in that place. As to what truly lies there, no one knows To start the quest, read the first page of this tome. Lvl required: Infant(8)
---***--- a short chapter. sorry, i wanted to start the main quest in the next chapter. pls rate my ff
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Arc 1- Chapter 16: Librarians Diary ¡°Open it already Zeph¡± an impatient Davy almost banged at the table with his hands. Luckily Iudy (will be referring Iud as Iudy from now on) had withheld those hands before it broke the table into pieces. The three of us were in an Inn having some snacks and juice to drink. The golden book was inside a bag we had bought earlier as walking with such a thing would invite unwanted attention. ¡°Are you an idiot. If we take it out now, then things would get really hard. Let us take a room first and then we will take out the book.¡± I tried to reason with Davy and then looked at Iudy to back me up. ¡°That¡¯s right. Let us get a room for the three of us. We need a place to stay tonight in case we could not find the entrance to the vault.¡± After a little persuasion Davy agreed and the three of us booked a room for ourselves. Once inside the room and jolting the door the book was taken out. Flipping the cover to the side, we prepared ourselves to accept the quest. A golden light began to emanate from the book and golden words floated on the air. Slowly the words began to fly here and there finally forming sensible words. And the words were as follows,
One who wishes to attain the God¡¯s knowledge, you may not pass if you do not possess a vessel suitable for the knowledge. You who wishes to step into the God¡¯s territory, be warned, danger lurks in every corner. Leave behind your hesitation and cowardice or only death shall embrace your weak heart. The path to the vault will not show itself to you. Search for it with earnest heart and it might appear before you. Complete the following tasks if you desire to start the quest 1. Search for the book, Librarian¡¯s Diary. 2. In the Diary, you will find the Librarian¡¯s Map. 3. If you wish to enter the vault, create a key as per the blue print in the Diary. 4. Search for the Librarian¡¯s Tomb Finish these tasks and the vault will find you. Stride carefully, for death awaits you were ever you go- Librarian
¡°Library? Is there even a library in our city?¡± I asked not knowing much about the place I was in. ¡°Hm! I heard there was one but not any more. All the books in the library was bought by someone which I am guessing is the old man. I also heard that the new guy who wants to buy the books plan to build a new library here. Other than that, there are shops that sells books. If there is some particular book you want then you make an order and then wait till the book arrives from somewhere else. Wait, there is one. Not a library, but something similar. I heard that it had been in existence since this city was built. Why don¡¯t we go have a look?¡± Time was 7 in the evening. The peculiarity of shops in these huge cities was that they were open for almost 24*7. This guaranteed the adventures a place to shop whenever they wanted to. A few minutes¡¯ walk and we stood in front of a three storey building which was well maintained, a board called out its name, ¡®Talmer¡¯s Library¡¯. I knocked on the door lightly and the door was opened by middle aged man, wearing a worn out rob. He smiled at us, showing us his slightly yellow teeth. He welcomed us in and then offered us a seat. ¡°How may I help you?¡± ¡°We are looking for a book called ¡®Librarian¡¯s Diary¡¯¡± Iudy spoke out first, his eyes was wandering all over the place, books filled every nook and cranny of that building. ¡°Again with that? A senile old man had asked me for the same things years ago and now it is three brats.¡± ¡°Senile old man? What do you mean? What happened to the book?¡± I asked, impatiently only to hushed by the shop keeper. ¡°If you are not going to buy a book please get out. I don¡¯t have time to answer your questions. Get out you devils.¡± He rose from his chair and tried to grab Davy by his collar. But that move cost him dearly. In a flash, the man lay on the ground, his right hand twisted behind his back by Davy. Davy¡¯s left hand pinned down the man to the ground while the right hand kept the man¡¯s hand locked at a very bad angle. The man screamed in agony but was immediately shut by a piece of cloth that was pushed into his mouth. Iudy had acted swiftly and avoided getting people¡¯s attention. I felt a chill run down my spine when I so how fast the man was beaten and the agony he was feeling. Deciding to step in, I took out couple of silver coins from my wallet and squatted down before him and placed the two coins on the ground. I kept my fore finger on my lips and indicated him to keep quite. He nodded his head slightly, tears flowed out of his eyes. I pulled out the piece of cloth and asked Davy to let go. The man free from his hold scrambled away from us in fear. I took the two coins from the ground and approached him. I extended the coins towards him which I accepted readily. And then it was time for answers. ¡°Sorry for that stunt before. Now please tell us everything you know¡± ¡°Fine, I will tell. Just don¡¯t hurt me. Years ago, our city had a library built in it, an extravagant and beautiful one. The last librarian of the library was a man named Naran. The guy loved books and collected so many books that he even had ancient spell books in his collection. Among them was a tome, I do not remember its name but it had a golden luster to it. The guy said, that tome was a key to some vault and to open the vault he needed another book called, Librarian¡¯s diary. He promised to share a part of the reward he got from the vault and so I agreed to help him. Being a librarian myself, I had connections with many librarians and bibliophile throughout the world but none of them had ever heard of such a book. We then began searching for this book by going from one library to other but that too was in vain. The search for that damn book had caused me a fortune and so I beg you three to not ask anything more about that stupid thing.¡± ¡°Thank you. Goodnight¡± and the three of us got out of the bookstore and walked back to the inn. ¡°Iudy, I think this thing called Librarian¡¯s diary is some sort of riddle. Rather than a book named Librarian¡¯s Diary, the thing we have to look for is something a librarian would call as his diary. But is there such a thing?¡± I racked my brain but nothing came in to my mind. ¡°Something a librarian would call his diary? An autobiography perhaps?¡± ¡°If that were the case, then the name of the person should have been mentioned somewhere in the quest. The ¡®Librarian¡¯ mentioned in the quest could come from any of the library in the world. Even if he is from this town, a city that was hundreds of years of old like this one might have hundreds of librarian. Damn, the tome could have mentioned something about hi¡­.¡± It was then it hit me. I ran to the inn at my top speed with Iudy and Davy following me asking me all sorts of question. I ran into out room and took out the tome which was in the bag. I opened the first page and there written were the words, ¡®Stride carefully, for death awaits you were ever you go- Librarian¡¯ I could not stop laughing, the thing we wanted was right in front of us. The old man had spent years looking for the answer and there lay in front of us the solution to the puzzle. Iudy looked at page and soon it clicked it to him, he fell to the floor while he face palmed while Davy looked at us dumbfounded. When my laughter stopped, I explained to Davy, If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°Librarian, look Davy Librarian. These words were told by a librarian. Now all we have to do is find out who told these words and everything will be solved¡±. The three of us were so excited that we danced around merrily. The next day was something we really looked forward to. ---***--- ¡°Why did it turn out like this?¡± I complaint sitting under the shadow of a tree. ¡°Sigh! Why is it so hard to find out such a simple thing?¡± Iudy accompanied me complaining about the turn of events while Davy sat with is unmoving. ¡°All we had was to find who said those words but none of the book we looked into had the phrase and not even the books store owner or the old man knew who said those words¡± I groaned pitifully. The time was two in the afternoon and today was the last day of our holidays. Tomorrows once again school started. Though the quest did not have a deadline, waiting a week was too much for us, well at least for me. A little was from us, were a couple of children were playing around. One of the two was holding a bottle in his hand while the other was simply following. The two kids were so cute that I felt like cuddling them to death. I let my gaze follow them and I saw the two stop before an abandoned well. The child holding the bottle then began to pore the content of the bottle into the well while the second one stood still, with trembling legs. ¡°Big brother, why are you pouring daddy¡¯s drink into this well? Somebody might find out¡± ¡°Idiot, don¡¯t shout. Be quite. If daddy doesn¡¯t not drink this thing then he won¡¯t hit us so we have to throw away this thing. And if we hide it like this no one will find out, this is called ¡®hiding a leaf inside a forest¡¯ so nobody will know that the drink is here.¡± I wanted to stop the two, but something clicked struck my mind. ¡®Hiding a leaf inside a forest¡¯ this phrase kept lingering inside me. ¡®Hiding words inside a library¡¯ ¡°Wow¡± I shouted out loud scaring Iudy and Davy as well the two children. ¡°What the hell Zeph? Don¡¯t scare us like that you idiot¡± Iudy hit me on my head lightly and scolded me. Rubbing my head slightly, I asked him ¡°Iudy, were is the old library?¡± ¡°Why? I told you right, the library has been shut down. It¡¯s now a museum, there is nothing there except for paintings of some old librarians¡± Iudy looked at me with wide eyes. His mind was much sharper than mine or Davy¡¯s and so he could easily figure out the reason why I had asked the question. Iudy dashed towards the old library with me and Davy following him. It took us fifteen or so minutes. Today was the last day of our holidays and we knew that we did not have any time to loose. The museum looked pretty much vacant. At the reception we were asked to pay 1silver each by a female receptionist who looked like she was going to explode of boredom. When inside the museum we were surrounded by paintings of people. Each painting had a quote followed by the name of the librarian who had said those words. The library had three or more floors and so we had to hurry. Each floor had almost thirty to forty paintings and it took us more than an hour to find the guy we were searching for. On the fourth floor was the floor of the museum was the portrait of a man that was in his late sixties holding the golden colored tome in his hands. Below the portrait were the words, ¡°Stride carefully, for death awaits you were ever you go- Librarian Adam Gilst¡± I read out loud. ¡°With this we can look for the autobiography. Sigh this quest is really extreme. So troublesome¡± saying so Iudy fell to his back, hitting the wall on which the portrait was placed. The sudden thud to the wall caused the portrait to shift its position slightly. ¡°Oi! Be careful. What would have happened if it fell down or something.¡± I warned Iudy and then tried to place the portrait back to the way it was. Suddenly Davy shouted, his fingers pointing to the portrait. ¡°What is it Davy?¡± I asked in an irritated tone. ¡°Eyes, his eyes! They are moving¡± What the hell, I thought. How can the eyes of a portrait move? While ridiculing the idea of the eyes moving I looked at the portrait which was slightly off from the original state. And there, in place of the eyes were two holes. I tried correcting the position of the portrait and then suddenly the eyes came back to where it belonged. I and Iudy stared at each other and then getting up we asked Davy to help us remove the portrait. The portrait was placed on the wall with help of some nails. Some of the nails had long ceased to exist, time had taken its toll on them. And so with a little effort, the portrait came out easily. We placed the portrait down carefully and then examined the place which was now visible to us. There lay a door in front of us and the globes that served as the portrait¡¯s eyes protruded out of the door. The peculiar thing was, the door did not have any handles nor did it have a key hole. With both my hands, I grabbed hold of the two globes and tried to push them in. With a strong push, the globes slid in perfectly and with the sound of metals sliding on each other, the door split into two, opening up a path forward. The pathway lit up as soon as the door opened and lead us towards a small chamber. Inside the chamber were three small altars and on each altar were a book. We approached the three book and read out the names that was etched on each of the book. Three windows popped before us and the first one was,
Librarian¡¯s Log Book- Adam Gilst
Followed by,
Librarian¡¯s Diary- Adam Gilst
And finally, the book at the left end was,
Librarian¡¯s Autobiography- Adam Gist
There lay in front of us three books that belonged to the same librarian. With this we understood that the guy we were looking for was Adam Gist. But where one problem ended, another problem opened up. We had no idea which among the three was the real ¡®Librarian¡¯s Diary¡¯. ---***--- Hey guys, got myself busy with editing a chinese novel. Sorry for the late release. pls do rate my ff
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Arc 1- Chapter 17: An exciting offer The books lay before us, with three different names yet all three having the chance to be ¡®Librarian¡¯s Diary¡¯. The three was glanced at each other, confused to as which book was the one we were looking for. I moved forward towards the books and tried to take one of them, suddenly a notification popped up before me.
Welcome adventurer! You must quite confused as to which is the real one. Well I assure you that all three of these are real and were written by me with my own hands. In short, they are the very first edition, all three of them. Now as to which one holds the hint to the map and key, you will have to find out yourself. You may bring with you all three of these books or you may choose any one of these. But to find the answer to the riddle you need eyes that see through all. Solving these trials is something that you have to do so that the God of Wisdom would consider you a worthy vessel. All the best adventurer, may good fortune fall up on you- Adam Gist
The three of us were once again stunned. None us had anticipated such a sudden development. The note from the librarian came as relief to us and so we took all three of the books and then returned to the inn. It was late in the evening and also marked the end of our free time. We had to return to the academy or the three of us might get in huge trouble. We rushed back to the academy and was met by Celia who was standing on the other side of the gate. She was accompanied by other teachers too. Some we recognized while some we did not. The huge gate opened, letting us in. Celia then approached us with a smile, her eyes sparkling! ¡°Good! With this all the first years are back! Shall we go back to the dorm?¡± We nodded and followed her. On our way back she asked us what we did for the last few days to which we explained to her about the adventure guild and also about the skill registration. When the thing about emperor rank was mentioned, instead of looking surprised, her face had a look of happiness. ¡°Its good to see such a talent like yours in our poor academy, but I suggest you lay low. The other academies do not like being ridiculed.¡± She warned me, her eyes full of concern. ¡°I know! Ma¡¯am, is it possible for me to meet the principal tomorrow? There is something I wish to discuss with him¡± ¡°Well! Seems like the principal feels the same way! I was asked to inform you three that the principal wants to meet you three by 8 in the morning. He said he will be waiting in his office, so don¡¯t be late boys. Now off you go. Have your dinner and get to bed¡± We smiled at the woman who waved her hands lightly as she left us in front of the stairs. We bid he goodbye and climbed up, wondering why the principal wanted to meet us. ---***--- ¡®Knock! Knock!¡¯ Iudy knocked at the door in front of us gently and waited for a reply to come from the other side. ¡°Yes¡± came a manly yet aged voice. Opening the door the three of us entered, Iudy and Davy in the front and me in the last. I closed the door and turned myself to look at the principal. There in front of me sat two persons on either side of the principal¡¯s table. One was the principal himself while the other was a guy in uniform. His collars and sleeves were golden in color and on his face was a pair of glasses, it was Vitrian, one of the only two golden students in the academy. When the three of us saw the guy, the smile on our face disappeared. Our cold gazes fell on the principal questioning him about the current situation. The principal smiled lightly seeing our tensed nature and waved his hand lightly signaling us to calm down. When he saw us still with serious expressions, the old man gave a sigh and got up from his seat and walked towards us. ¡°I have called you here because I wanted to tell you something. First of all, let me tell you about the bullying incident. Vitrian here helped me solve the case and we found out that you three were actually innocent and that Miss Aoki and Mr. Lean were the ones in the wrong. It seems her brother had threatened the young boy to give a complaint against you. We will be taking action against Mr. Lean and her brother but as to Miss Aoki, I am believe she has suffered enough¡± The three of us nodded. We were not the slightest bit interested in their punishment and so was indifferent to the topic. The principal seemed to notice it ad smiled warmly. ¡°Now the second thing. I heard that Mr. Zephard was able to successfully create new skills, too a king level skill and an emperor rank spell. Congratulations Mr. Zephard, you have made us proud.¡± I smiled at him, ¡°Thank you sir¡± ¡°Now to the main topic! I believe you three know about the tournament that the academy conducts.¡± We nodded our head indicating that we knew of it. ¡°And you would also know that these tournament is used as selection process for the yearly academy showdown, right?¡± ¡°Yes sir¡± Iudy replied. ¡°Good! Every year we conduct these tournament in hopes of finding strong candidates whom we could send to the academy showdown. And every year we train the candidates rigorously hoping that they would at least come on top in any one of the event. Yet every single time our academy students gets beaten so hard that they end up mentally scarred, unable to live on like a normal person could. Some were crippled while others had their mind broken. The authority and even the King of the kingdom turns a blind eye to these atrocities as the other two academy have great hold over the entire human kingdom. Our academy students are treated like garbage all just because we are not strong as them, all just because we are weak¡± The three of us remained silent and let the principal continue, we could see moisture building up in his eyes. On the side Vitrian clenched his fist and gritted his teeth. ¡°Every year new students comes forward knowing the risk of their choices yet hoping they could achieve something but all they receive in return of their hope is despair. I had tried to withdraw from this so called showdown many times only to be threatened to keep participating. The king of this kingdom sides with them and so us weak are not able to break the chain that binds us. That is why I brought a new teacher for teaching swordsman ship hoping that his teachings could help some of the students could break free. But you three, you three I know are way stronger than our normal students and I can tell that you three desire to get stronger as an individual not as part of some group or under some clan. So I and Vitrian here have an offer for you three¡± The three of us were shocked for a moment. We clearly understood where this was going. He wanted us to participate in the tournament which we already were to, even if had not asked. The tournament was something I could use to gather more information, I could even search for Nao in the other two academies. But the talk about ¡®an offer¡¯ piqued my curiosity. We let the old man continue while we glanced at each other with a smile. ¡°We will provide you the best training you could get in this academy, with access to all kind of spells and skills. The entire library would be opened for you 24*7. Free access to the training grounds and if required to the tournament arena too. You need not attend any of the classes nor do you have to stay in the academy. You will have access to all the quest the academy has, of course the quest difficulty will be regulated. You will be receiving fee concessions and also will receive a small amount every month as travel expense. You will allowed to leave the city but we will be keeping track off you. In return you will have to¡­¡± the principal¡¯s voice trailed off lightly. His sharp gaze fell on us, cold sweat trickled down his face. This was truly a tempting offer, a really overwhelming offer indeed. I understood that this offer was to tempt us into accepting the deal and so I could not help but smile. ¡°I did not know that our principal was carrying such heavy burden. Alright count me in¡± I replied flashing a bright smile and then looked at the other two who were smiling too. With this we could accept quests that took us outside the city. This way we could experience different environment and different enemies, a really smart move. Seems the principal and Vitrian had thought things really well. With access to all the academies skill, be it low level skills we would have an arsenal of attacks with us which was indeed a really good thing. The three of us agreed. The old man and Vitrian let out a sigh of relief, there face gave of a refreshing smile. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°Good! The tournament will be conducted on the eleventh month of the year and the following month we will have the academy showdown. A week has passed and I will have you stay here this entire month and learn as many skills and spells you can. Also, you will be having sword lessons every afternoon. Except for HOLIDAY, for this entire month you will not have any free time. Is that ok with you?¡± ¡°Yes Sir.¡± Iudy replied. The principal smiled and then looked at me. ¡°I heard that you have something you wish to discuss with me, Mr. Zephard. What is it?¡± ¡°Well! I was wondering whether it would be possible to change my name. But I guess that won¡¯t be necessary¡± ¡°Why would you want to change your name, young one?¡± asked a bewildered Principal who looked at Vitrian with a puzzled look. ¡°You might have heard about the emperor spell. I had made it a private skill and also had the adventure guild advertise it so that my house as well as the academy would get some credit. And so I thought that were this news to reach those other academy they would try to hunt or recruit me either of which I do not want. So I thought I might change my name and my hair color or something.¡± ¡°Hm! Very well! In that case I will remove the ¡®Calmor¡¯ designation from your name. We will then create a phantom student with the Calmor designation, a small rumor might do the trick. Catching As for your hair color, I believe Celia can help you with it. She knows the ways around alchemy and things. She might have the perfect ingredient to change that eye catching blue to something normal.¡± The principal teased me a bit with a wry smile. ¡°Actually I want to change the color of my hair to something that is more eye catching¡± I replied in a cool tone stunning all the other in the room. ¡°Why would you do that?¡± the first to question was Vitrian who could not even fathom the reason behind my proclamation. But before I could reply, Iudy came up with the answer ¡°Over writing memories, I think¡±. I could not help but smile, the guy was truly smart. He had already figured out the reason. ¡°Over writing memories! Ah, I see. So you want people to remember you having another hair color. Now that you mention it, there are already rumors in the city about a blue haired boy who created an emperor skill. The rumor has become viral and it¡¯s going to reach the ears of the other headmasters soon. So by changing your hair color to a much vibrant tone, you are going to make the students believe that you were a different person. But at the same time, there were students who had seen a boy with blue hair. This way a phantom student comes to existence on its own. Brilliant, truly brilliant my boy.¡± The principal laughed out loud, clapping his hands. His eyes seemed so different from the dead eyes he had on the first day of our meeting. Life had returned to them and they looked more vibrant. ¡®Hope truly is a great thing, it could do miracles in no time¡¯ I thought to myself as I smiled gently looking at the happy old man. ¡°Do you have any particular name you wish to take?¡± ¡°Not really. But I would prefer to be called Zephyr Calm¡± ¡°Zephyr Calm? Is it not too similar to Zephard Calmor?¡± the principal asked but this times there was no doubt in his eyes, he was probably expecting some great plan just like before. ¡°Sir, if it were you, were would you hide a green leaf? In a forest or in a pond?¡± I asked, with a grin spreading on my face. The old man looked at me, his lips to stretching into a grin. ---***--- The three of us then taken to a classroom in block A by Vitrian. The classroom was just like any other classrooms except for the fact that the class was much larger than the normal ones and also there were some additional things. The class room had a bookshelf which contained various skill books and also books about martial arts. There were three sets of bed with our named etched on it. An attached bathroom and a dining table for three. All our properties had been moved to the classroom, including our weapons and also the three librarian¡¯s diaries. With this we understood that the next few weeks were going to be nothing short than Spartan training. Davy and Iudy seemed alright with it, in fact the two were too excited that their lips could not cease from forming a smile. I on the other hand was having mixed feelings but nevertheless did not complain. Vitrian then turned towards us and gave us three sets of glasses and asked as to wear it. The three of us wore it and at the same time gasped. We were gazing at Vitrian with awe for there was a yellow aura around him. This was the first time I had seen such a thing and immediately looked at Davy and Iudy. The two had a greenish aura around them. When I looked at their face, instead of surprise I saw a glint of fear in them. ¡°These glasses are called God¡¯s Eyes. A truly great item. It gives the user a vague idea about the essence and mana levels of the person the user is looking at. The item is a rarity and is off great demand. It¡¯s really hard to find one also really expensive to buy too. As to why we have these with us, you don¡¯t need to know. Seems like the two of you know what these glasses are. Your face tells it all. Did you guys really think that no one would find out? Were you thinking that Itiferth would not have the means to find out the truth?¡± Vitrian¡¯s voice was cold as ice, his eyes were emotionless. He then turned to me and began explaining. ¡°The color of the aura that surrounds one depends up on the mana one possesses. While white stands for ones without mana like an alien person on his first day colourless aura stands for those with the highest mana levels like the sacred beasts or so. Between these two extreme there five more colors, each representing a category of mana level. When you look carefully at the colorful aura, you could see that the area near the skin, that is the border between the aura and body has a different color. This color shows the essence level of a person, white, grey and black.¡± With a ¡®Ding¡¯ sound, a notification popped up before me.
New information acquired
Levelling
Colorless28-30
Blue24-27
Green20-23
Orange16-19
Yellow10-15
Red1-9
White0
Levelling
Black19-26
Grey11-18
White1-10
When I looked at Davy and Iudy, I could clearly see the two giving off a green aura and the border between their aura and body was pitch black in color. That meant, the two had a mana level that was at least 20 and a minimum essence value of 19. I looked at them with dismay. ¡°I remember you telling me that you two were normal but then why do have such high values Iudy? Davy why? What is going on?¡± The two looked at me for a moment and then their eyes averted away. All I could hear was them mumbling, ¡°Sorry.¡± ---***--- guys! pls rate my ff. give me a review too! follow and favourite! show your support so i can keep writing! guys do read the novel ''Zhan long'', i am doing thr editing works for the novel. ;) oh and in need of a proofreader!
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Arc 1- Chapter 18: Past and Family ¡°I and Davy were abandoned my our parents right after we were born or so we were told by the church that adopted us. We were fed by the church but one was only fed till they were seven years old. From there on we had to work to earn our food. Like us there were almost hundred other children. The people in the church was not particularly nice nor were they cruel. Indifferent that is what one would call them.¡± Iudy sat on his bed, his head hung down as he began to tell his story, their story. Davy sat beside Iudy with his eyes shut, his face seemed pale to me. ¡°The church was surrounded by thick layers of trees, may be it was to prevent the children from escaping, that¡¯s what we thought. When we were ten years old, I and Iudy were cleaning the outer gate in the backyard. We never knew why there was a gate there when there was a really big one in the front. In the midst of the cleaning, we heard the screams of a woman from the outside. The two us ran into the forest searching for the woman who was screaming. The screaming began to muffle down but in the end we were able to find the place. There in the forest was a small mansion like building and the scream came from inside.¡± While he explained things, I could see the two clench their teeth. I felt sorry for making them do this but I had to know why they were hiding things from me. ¡°The door was ajar and so we got in quietly. The insides were pretty dark but it was bright enough for us to see where we were going. The door opened up to a long walkway that stretched from our left to the right. There were doors made of iron bars and from each room we could hear muffles cries. The two us were really scared but still decided to continue. We slowly closed the door behind us and approached one of the room to the left. And what we saw inside shocked us.¡± Tears began to roll down Iudy¡¯s eyes. He wiped them of with the back of his hand. ¡°Inside were women, naked women. I don¡¯t remember how many there were but I remember that all of them had bulging stomach. Every one of them were carrying a baby inside them. We could not understand why these women were in such a place. So we decided to move on to the next room. Some rooms were occupied by young women while the others had much older women trapped inside. We even saw small girls in some of those room. There were women everywhere inside that mansion, locked up behind the iron bars wearing nothing. Feeling disgusted we decided to leave the mansion and tell the father of the church about the mansion. But before we could back, we heard someone open the main door and get in. there were foot steps approaching us and so we decided to hide behind a dark corner. The darkness completely hid our presence and so we waited for those who came in to disappear. But we did not expect the person who came in were the father and others from the church. The mansion was something the church had owned and the woman were abducted by them. It took us a while to understand what was going.¡± ¡°What? A church abduct?¡± I could not believe what I heard. It was next to impossible to believe such an accusation. Iudy slightly nodded his head and continued ¡°Just like hoe there exists sacred arts and dark arts, there too exists sacred god and dark gods. Each of the god¡¯s have their own separate churches and institutions. The church we were born in to worship a dark goddess named Mania.¡± ¡°Mania? The child eating deity?¡± Vitrian suddenly burst out, grabbing hold of Iudy he asked with a stern voice. Iudy simply nodded his head and then went silent. ¡°I see. I had hear rumors of a church abducting women but never did I think they were true. Such cruelty. If the children were to be an offering to Mania, how come you two are?¡± Iudy flinched at the question, taking another deep breath he spoke once again, ¡°The children are given as an offering when they turn fifteen. Only the boys turn into sacrifice while the girls end up as captives. When we found out this, we were twelve years old. The boys are always given proper lessons in fighting and sword handling. This was to make them believe that one day they could leave the church and live on their own. This way they could explain the disappearance of the boys. The sacred arts we used were taught by the church. Actually the instructor was a nice guy and he did not know anything. When we told him about this it was he who taught us the sacred arts in secret. He knew that an outsider like him could not do anything to the church nor could he help us escape. And so he taught us sacred arts while he taught the others simple steps. We trained for three years without rest, sharpening our fangs every day. We slowly began to gather friends too. There were thirty or so of us and on the day of the escape someone betrayed us. The church had brought mercenaries to slay anyone who dared to escape. Not knowing this we proceeded with the plan but were soon caught. The only ones that escaped were us two. The rest were all mercilessly killed. From then onwards we were on the run for a year. It was during the hiding that we heard about the academy test. The safety of an academy seemed very tempting to us. With a technique taught to us by our master we suppressed most of our power. To be exact we were not sure if we were strong or not but our master had told that one had to lie low to escape the eyes of others. And so we used the technique to reduce our power level thereby getting admitted in this academy¡± Once Iudy finished talking there were tears flowing from his eyes. I could understand the pain. The two had gone through a lot. One of the woman in those mansions were their mother, yet they could not recognize nor rescue their mothers. They had also lost important ones like I had, they had lost more than I had and their parents, childhood, friends, home even their identities. I kept silent for a moment not knowing what to say. But I unknowingly blurted out something, ¡°Why don¡¯t we hunt them down?¡± the words flew out of my mouth, it was as if my heart was aching to kill those bastards. Iudy, Davy and Vivian looked at me with wide eyes. ¡°What do you mean hunt down?¡± Vivian asked me in a stern voice. ¡°From what I heard, the church does not have much fighting power. I mean they had to hire mercenaries to kill the children. That means that they are a weak group. I presume their might be some guards ever since these two escaped. If the three of us were to get much stronger I believe it would be easy to take them down. Of course, no killing. We just have to catch them red handed and then the authority will be forced to take action.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not that easy. Before you can go for such dangerous tasks, you have to become a recognized adventure. If you do not have enough achievements then nobody will believe you. The higher you are in the society ranking, the more people will follow you. But such a thing is impossible for a student from Itiferth.¡± Vivian tried to persuade me to think otherwise. ¡°It¡¯s not like we are going after them now. We got plenty of time with us, but in the end these two are the ones to decide, so I will leave it up to you brothers¡± I smiled at the two whose eyes had been moist because of the past. ---***--- That day we were taught how to cast multiple spell at once. From morning to evening we practiced but yet we were unable to cast two spells at once. Vivian himself being the teacher, he worked our asses off. With no time given to rest, the lessons were tough. Once the classes ended we were given only thirty minutes to rest. Evening was reserved for special sword training by Mr. Wolf. We were not particularly taught any new moves instead he made us do burst strike and air burst move till night fell. At this point you might ask about the mana consumption, but conveniently the special training room replenishes mana at a tremendous rate. When asked about the mana replenishing spell, we were told by Vivian that the material of the training room was a rare stone with mana regenerative property but to have a high rate of regeneration one had to carry tones of stones. A stone the size of my head would only regenerate 0.1 mana/minute. But if there were a building made of the same stone then the mana regeneration would be as high as 50mana/minute. This was the reason that people never bought the stone. The stones cost a fortune but had poor results, also carrying large quantities would just slow down the pace of the user. By the time we could return back to our room, it was already late. With a tired body and mind the three of us dozed of not even taking a glance at the librarian¡¯s diary. The next when we woke up it was already time for the classes. Vivian was already in our room waiting patiently. We woke up soon but was startled to see him reading the librarian¡¯s autobiography. ¡°That book you are reading is a quest item.¡± I said as I walked towards him, handing over the other two librarian¡¯s diary. ¡°Quest item? These books? What quest?¡± ¡°Something called Vault of knowledge. Apparently these books are to lead us to it. Also they are supposed to have a blue print for the vault¡¯s key¡± Iudy said out loud from behind us. He understood why I was telling Vivian all these things. At this rate, with this busy schedule we won¡¯t be able to solve it any time soon. But if we were somehow able to convince him to give us some time for it, then maybe we could finish it by the next HOLIDAY. ¡°Vault of knowledge eh.¡± Vivian said while he went through the autobiography. I taking advantage of the opportunity, I opened the log book and went through the entries. The log had the name of the books borrowed, the date borrowed and the date returned. There were 56 pages of hand written data in it. I could not see anything interesting in it and so I checked the log book to know if anybody had borrowed the autobiography. There was the name ¡®Librarian¡¯s Diary¡¯ entered only once. But to my surprise the name was written as ¡®Librarian¡¯s Diary 125¡¯. I showed it to the others. Davy did not even bother to look in to it. Iudy on the other hand was really curious as to why there were such numbers. When I showed Vivian, at first he seemed uninterested but suddenly he snatched book. His fingers pointed to another title, ¡®Magic and its might 182¡¯. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°This book too has a number in its name. I have one of these with me in my room but there was no sort of numbers affixed to its name¡± Vivian said with am excited voice, his finger pointing out to an entry in the log. ¡°Iudy bring me a paper and pen¡± When I noted down all of those numbers, there were 33 of them. We stared at them intently but nothing came to our minds. A series of random numbers, that is the only thing we could figure out. ¡°That¡¯s enough for today. Let us start the classes¡± Vitrian said, standing up from his chair, he closed the book in his hand and then urged us to follow him. The torturous training continued. That evening though, we had a special visitor. ¡°It¡¯s been a while Zeph¡± exclaimed a very familiar voice, shocking me for a moment. ¡°Mr. Nodin!¡± my face was full of shock on seeing my guardian. He walked towards me accompanied by the principal. ¡°I took the liberty to bring him here for the purpose of changing your name. You will hereby have two aliases and the clan leader has happily agreed. As for the identity double, seems Vitrian has done enough. Even I have heard the rumors about three boys who appears and disappears like a ghost. We have kept your room in the dorm intact so that people will believe you live in the academy. This should keep the other academy from reaching you three for a while. I have also discussed the things about fee concessions and all the other matters with your guardian.¡± Saying so the principal stretched forward three rectangular gold color card towards us. The cards had our names on it. Well the name on mine was Zephyr Calm. I looked at the principal and he smiled at me. ¡°You can have this. The school will be sending you the promised allowance to this ANCA, while the Calmor house will send its to your real ANCA¡± I thanked the principal and then turned towards Nodin who was smiling at me like a rising sun. ¡°You look really happy¡± I said, smiling at the man. ¡°Of course. Things have gotten so much better ever since you came to my house. You creating an emperor scale spell has had a huge effect on the world dear boy. Other houses have begun to pay visit to ours asking to marry about you, some even want you to marry their daughter or granddaughter. By producing a successful talent the royalty has restored a portion of our power. The village adjacent to us is now under the jurisdiction of our house. With this we will receive a revenue as tax. No more selling of the house belongings.¡± ¡°Good to hear that Mr. Nodin. Let me introduce you to my friends. This is Iudy and Davy.¡± Pointing out to the two beside me I said to the happy man in front of me. They nodded at each other with a polite smile. ¡°There is something I want you to do Mr. Nodin¡± ¡°Something you want?¡± Nodin looked at me with a surprised face. ¡°I want them to be part of our house too, just like me. I want them to be my brothers, to travel around the globe with them, to bring honor to the house together¡± Everybody around me were taken aback. The words I said were my true feelings and I had wanted them to be part of my new family. And so o decided to take steps to make that wish true. Nodin scratched the tip of his nose lightly and then looked at the two. With a weak smile he asked the two dumbstruck boys. ¡°My house is nothing but a sinking ship. I will not force you to aboard a ship that is going down, but if that is okay with you two, will you please be part of the family¡± The two stared at Nodin, eyes moist and mouth wide open, family was something the two had earned for. With a slight node of their head, they agreed, eyes showering tears of joy. Nodin smiled at me warmly which I returned with a flashy grin. I turned to the principal and was about to speak when he suddenly spoke out, ¡°Well then shall we proceed with formalities and use this chance to change their names too. With this the three of you will have to live two different lives, entirely different.¡± We nodded at the principal who then left with Nodin. The procedure for the adoption went smooth. Iudy and Davy changed their names. Davy called himself Andy Calm while Iudy chose the name Wes Calm. Now we were the Calm brothers, part of the same family, true brothers. ---***--- Days passed at tremendous speed, at least to the others. For us, time seemed to have stopped. Days felt like months to us as the training got harder as days passed. From mana and essence control to enchantment, physical training, muscle development, sword training, magic spell casting, mental training, target practice there was no shortage of training courses for us. The next few weeks were truly monstrous. Our spell classes were handled by Vitrian, the head of each affinity and lastly the principal itself. Lessons on complex affinity, that is our affinity was handled by the principal, Mr. Holdos. It was he who taught me what the affinity matter meant. In the history of Anwol only a handful of people had the affinity matter, ¡®one of the rarest affinity to exist¡¯ he said. My ¡®matter¡¯ affinity was hard to master. The simplest spell was king ranked and required weeks to learn. But they lacked offensive and defensive characteristics. I had once asked him during the classes, ¡°If my affinity has neither offensive nor defensive capabilities, then what use is it?¡± to which he replied with a smile, ¡°O son! You have no idea the wonders your affinity can create. Let me tell you something good, all the previous wielder of the matter affinity were without fail hailed as ¡®God¡¯s Hand¡¯¡±. Though I did not understand what ¡®God¡¯s Hand¡¯ meant I nodded my head with a forced smile. At the end of the month, we had an arsenal of skills at our disposal. Magic spells and sword skill enhanced by physical and mental abilities, we were now ready to roam the free world. The thirst for power had already taken its root in our body and our hearts craved for adventure. When the last day approached the skills we possessed were truly terrifying,
Spell List
ZephardBasicIntermediateAdvancedKing
Matter---Combination, Decay
AirAir Strike, Air Block-TempestVoid of Dragons
WaterWater PetalsFog CloudHydra-
FireFire SlashFlame VortexFlame ChainEruption
EarthSandstorm-Tombstone-
LifeHeal-Mind EyeSpirit Wrath
Spell List
DavyBasicIntermediateAdvancedKing
Wood--Chain of Nature, Wood Coffin, Hands of GodWood Dragon
WaterWater PetalsFog CloudHydra-
EarthSandstorm-Tombstone-
LifeHeal-Mind EyeSpirit Wrath
Spell List
IudyBasicIntermediateAdvancedKing
Thunderstorm--Thunder CladLightning Wind
LightningShockwaveGod Speed, Electric Blast-Hell¡¯s Descending
IceFrozen PikesIce Wave-White Dragon Blizzard
AirAir Strike, Air Block-TempestVoid of Dragons
WaterWater PetalsFog CloudHydra-
---***--- rate my ff, pls
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Arc 1- Chapter 19: Gold Coins When I opened my eyes all I could see was the ceiling which was covered in mosses and spider web. My back was supported by a soft bed which creaked violently for even the smallest movement my body moved. As if to encourage the creaking sound, I could hear the snoring of my two companions. Looking to my side I saw my two new brothers sleeping with a peaceful smile hugging their respective pillows. The scene before me brought a light smile to my face. I stretched my body a little and then walked to the public bathroom located in the inn we were staying. Luckily it was not crowded and I could finish all my work fast. When I came back, the two had already gotten up. ¡°Good Morning Zeph¡± the two greeted me. ¡°Good morning indeed. Seems you two had a really great sleep, Mr. Andy and Mr. Wes.¡± Their new names sounded funny to me for some reason. ¡°Oi! Enough with the ridicule boy or I will cut you down¡± warned me Davy, his fist high in the air but the face showed a warm smile while he spoke. Iudy on the other hand was sitting on his bed, half sleep and yawning. Well, it is understandable. Anyone would be tired after all that hard training for weeks. Right now we were back at the inn we had stayed the last time. Our goal was to complete the librarian¡¯s tome quest. It¡¯s been a couple of days since we left the academy. On the last day the other two were provided with their new ANCA cards with their fake names. But these past two days we have been doing nothing but sleeping and playing around. None of us seem to be in the mood of training or doing the quest. Weeks long training and studying had taken its toll on us. And so we decided to relax for a few days. Though the two had been resting, I got bored with doing nothing and so I went out for shopping. My first destination was the old adventure guild of course. I trod back on the way to the adventure guild. But the old and worn down guild was no longer there, instead there stood a majestic looking building with various decorations and color jobs. With a number of pillars supporting it here and there, the guild building triumphantly stood there in front of me. The front door was larger than before and the windows too. The building seemed a little bigger than the old one. The name plate which spelled out Adventure Guild looked even more extravagant with gold plating and all. Honestly I was frightened, I mean the change was too much. How in the world could a building change so much in a month, that too a guild which was practically broke. Taking in a deep breath, I walked past the crowd which was in front of the guild. It seemed rather crowded. The last time there were hardly ten or so people and now it seemed a thousand or so was inside. It took me a while to make my way through the crowd and reach the reception. Fortunately the receptionist woman was the same as before. She was talking to the adventure in front of her with a bored and irritated face while the adventure was shouting at her. I slowly walked towards her and when she saw me her face suddenly brightened up. Ignoring the shouting guy, she welcomed me with a huge smile. ¡°It¡¯s been a while young master¡± came out of her rosy lips. Oi, Oi what¡¯s with the young master thing? I could not help but stare at the woman in disbelief. ¡°Is something wrong young master? You look like you saw a ghost. Am I that ugly?¡± her smile faded and despair began to fill her now dead eyes. ¡°Not at all Miss. I was just startled with the way you addressed me. I mean, calling me young master is..¡± I tried to bring back her cheerful nature by explaining things. ¡°Ah! Then the young master thinks I am pretty?¡± she asked back, her pretty eyes blinking cutely. Eh! What¡¯s with this development? Not bothering to answer the question I jumped directly to the reason I visited the guild. ¡°Miss, can I see the guild master¡± ¡°Lavia¡± the reply was short. ¡°Eh?¡± ¡°My name is Lavia, not Miss¡± she pouted. The girl was pulling all sorts of cute gestures making me want to cuddle her. Restraining myself I asked her again, ¡°Miss Lavia, please let me meet the guild master¡± ¡°Follow me¡± she got up and took me to the guild master¡¯s room which was now located at the top floor unlike the last time. While on our way to the rom I asked her, ¡°Miss Lavia, why has the building changed so much? It is really different from the time I visited¡± ¡°Hihihi! The boss will tell you everything¡± saying so she knocked at a door and opened it. Inside the room was luxurious furniture. A man was sitting on a chair which seemed nothing short of an art work while the table in front of him seemed made of some expensive material. When the guys saw me with Labia, he suddenly got up from his chair and rushed towards me. Taking both my hands is his he shook it with vigor while his face gave of a huge smile ¡°If it is not the young master! How may I help you?¡± Again with the young master thing? I could no longer let it go and asked him, ¡°Why am I a young master to you guys?¡± ¡°Of course you are. After all everything here is all because of you¡± the man explained eagerly which confused me even more. ¡°What do you mean by that Abdron? Because of me?¡± I raised my eyebrows in disbelief and stared at the guild master. ¡°Sit down. I will explain it clearly. Labia bring tea for the young master¡± je ordered the young girl who nodded and dashed out of the room like lightning. Once the girl was out the guild master¡¯s expression became serious. He kept his hands on the table in front of him and leaned forward a little. ¡°Young master, the king class skill, how much money do you think it fetched us? Give it a guess¡± I was a little frustrated but nevertheless answered his question without any care, ¡°Since the skill costs 60AG, may be 6000AG or something?¡± Abdron smile and shook his head sideways to indicate my answer was wrong. He then took out some paper from the nearby desk and then put in in front of me. The paper was labeled as ¡®King Class Skill Details¡¯ and contained things like my name, the skill name, mana consumption and all other things about my Air Burst Wave. At the bottom of the page was a section dealt with the number of persons who had bought the skill and the net profit gained. The numbers in those areas caused me to have a heart attack. It read as The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Number of persons:23860
Profit gained:1,431,600AG
My mind went blank. More than 1 million gold coins from just a single skill? I could not believe my very own eyes. I carefully counted the number once again and it clearly read as one million, four hundred thirty one thousand and six hundred Anwol Gold coins. My gaze shifted to Abdron who was grinning at me. ¡°Is this real?¡±. If this was the net profit then my share would be in the range of four hundred thousand or so. My heart was beating so fast that I thought it would rupture under the sheer force of pumping, ¡°I know. I too was dumbstruck with the amount we got from just one skill. Apparently your king class skill is ranked 23 in the King ranking. Even though the world ranking is 2000 or something the skill seems to attract people from all over the world. In fact the skill has become so popular that the other adventure guilds are begging me to give them rights to sell it. One guild even offered 500,000AG to me.¡± ¡°500,000AG? Why is it so popular?¡± things where getting really big, my head began to hurt. ¡°I am not sure myself either. But I think it is because it is comparatively easy to learn a king class skill compare to other higher level skills. Also the attack can used in close combat and long range attacks too. It¡¯s not always one can get such a skill¡± But that doesn¡¯t explain how people from all over the world can learn them and so when I asked him, ¡°Are you telling me people from all over the world comes to learn the skill? Is that even possible? I mean why travel beyond borders to learn a skill?¡± Abdron then looked at me with disbelief. ¡°Don¡¯t you not know how adventure guild works?¡± I shook my head telling him I did not know and so he began another long explanation. ¡°To learn a skill one does not have to go to the particular adventure guild where the skill is being taught. All you have to do is visit the nearest adventure guild, go to the counter named new skills and just tell them your choice of skill or browse through the catalog of skills. Once you find the skill you are looking for, pay the amount. The skill will be yours while the money will be transferred to the adventure guild who has the right over the skill. So in short, those who wants to learn Air Burst Wave need only go to the adventure guild nearest to them and learn it from there. The money will be send to my ANCA. Oh and just because the skill became yours does not mean that you can use it right away. Normally it takes a week to a month to properly master it. Then only will you be able to freely use it. But emperor class or higher are said to take more than six months to master and so are not really popular among the adventures who wish to buy skills. Surprisingly your skill only requires a couple of days to master. As long as the learner can use air magic and wield a sword, with a little practice he will be able to use the skill. This too seems to be a factor for the popularity of your skill.¡± ¡°Ho! So how much is my share?¡± I asked eager to get my hands on the money. Abdron flashed a smile but then got serious ¡°We agreed to split it as 20G for you and 40AG for me. So you will be getting 477,200AG. But that seems a little unfair to me and so I decided to divide it as 50:50, after all it¡¯s all thanks to you that we are at this position. Thereby the adventure guild will be giving you a sum of715800AG.¡± ¡°Huh! Are you sure? I mean is it not a huge amount. I don¡¯t mind at all even if I only get four hundred thousand AG¡± I was flustered. Having so much money in my hands made me anxious. ¡°It¡¯s fine. Because my profit did not stop there¡± he said with a smile. I looked at him not understanding the meaning of his words, my eyes questioned him to which he replied as, ¡°The emperor class spell too fetched me lot of profit. The kingdom and the head guild has offered a reward for our guild for bringing out a rare talent. Oh and it seems the King has also rewarded Itiferth academy and Calmor academy too. I heard they were given an amount of 100,000AG or so.¡± I see. So the King has made his move. By offering money to the academy and the house he wishes to somehow get to me, so cunning but the guy has got poor luck. In a few days we will disappear from here. We then talked about a few things and then half the money was debited in m ANCA while the rest went to the house¡¯s money vault. Abdron sure did struck it good, if the academy had got 100.000 then this guys should have got atleast double the amount from the king and also the same amount from the head guild. No wonder he has changed the face of the entire building. Bidding farewell to the two, I then walked out towards the stores to procure some potions and other essentials. I bought 150mana potions, 150 HP potions, antidotes for various things like poison, paralysis and all. I visited the bookstore and bought map of the area as well as a world map. The next thing I wanted was a light weight armor which I decided to buy together with Iudy and Davy. By the time I returned it was already time for lunch. The two had already ordered for food and were gulping down the food at unbelievable speed. I joined them and once the lunch ended I told them about what happened. The two made an uproar and hit me playfully. When evening approached the three of us sat down in a circle, each holding a book in our hands, named ¡®Librarian¡¯s Diary¡¯. ---***---
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Hi guys Its been a while! I know and I am sorry. I got a message in Facebook from a guy who wanted to know if he should hope for a continuation. It felt good to see somebody sent a message like that. And so here I am. I been busy with life,ita been so hard that i couldn''t literally breath. And hence the hiatus. But i do not plan to stop the series. All i need is a little time figure things our and start writng again. I am sorry to all those who wish to read my story. Sorry.