《Azura of The White》


 Volume 1 - Prologue

    Hope you guys will enjoy my first try on an original fiction of mine.


    *Please Note that English is not my first language and there will be quite some grammar mistakes*


    Prologue:


    [Cheat], when you hear the word [Cheat] what do you think? What comes to your head? Is it cheating in a test? Cheating death? Cheating someone out of something they have? Maybe cheating on your partner?


    What I''m talking about when saying [Cheat], is cheating in a game.


    I have always loved to start up a RPG game, play a little and then after seeing that my character is too weak I''d just [Cheat].


    I''ll load up a ''trainer'' or even use a ''CheatAngine''. I prefer to avoid using in game cheats as they always come with a cost of not being able to save progress or gain achievements. Sometimes I would just mod the game data files with save editors.


    I hacked and slashed my enemies with ease, cast any spell I wanted on any tier and power without the cost of any mana! There was no cooldown on any skill or magic that I had.


    I''d just be the god of the game!


    Well as much as I love cheating I only did it when playing the game alone or so called ''Single Player'', I''d never cheat in online games though I wished some times that I had¡­ Playing fair isn''t fun, well at least not for me.


    When I was around 23 years old, a new console came out. It contained a never seen before technology called [Reality Dive] and the console name was [Reality Dive Gear].


    "¡­ Very original¡­"


    Sounds really stupid and the naming was not that original. This device was developed by a new up and rising gaming company which I can''t really remember it''s name¡­ Any way, it allowed the user  to ''dive'' into another reality.


    "Awesome!!!"


    I yelled out in my room after watching the amazing graphics and mechanics it offered in the teaser that was leaked. It was breath taking! I have never seen graphics so as real as those before. It actually made me think that the video was fan made but after a day of media scavenging it turned out to be the real deal.


    In the teaser, it showed the game that would come out together with the console, a neat RPG game, to be exact a MMORPG. I was a bit disappointed as I wished it was a ''Single Player'' game so I could [Cheat] in it. But I was far too excited to dwell on that aspect.


    It would take another six months until they release the console and the game but as a game freak I knew they are going to commission a huge Close Alpha or Beta testing for this so I looked it up on the net.


    "Lucky! I found a way in."


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    I found an assured way to get into the alpha. The company I was working for was a game publisher and it was one of the 2 main publishers for the [Reality Dive Gear] game, that I found out was called: [Second Reality].


    "Jeez the unoriginality just overflows from them"


    The reason I said that it was a sure way is because our company got 300 alpha tester tickets for the employees, and well, my boss just owed me big time for all the bug fixes I did in his code.


    You see, in my company I was known as ''Azura'', the legendary programmer, though technically my name is Rei. My colleagues changed my name after they found out that I had a female character called ''Azura'' in one of the games I owned. For some reason it stuck and everyone was calling me that.


    Last week I stayed up all night in the office fixing bugs in the code that my boss (the lead programmer of my team) made. Well it was easy enough for me as I was some kind of a genius when it comes to coding. I could learn a new programming language in a day and master it in a month.


    As I said, my boss owned me, and when I found out he received one of the tickets, I just claimed my debt. He was a bit disappointed to lose his ticket but not as much as lose his paycheck had I not helped him that night.


    On the ticket was written:


    "Congratulations on being one of the thousands few who will partake in the Alpha test of [Second Reality].


    The Alpha test will start on the 8th of November this year.


    For more details please visit on our site: www.second-reality-rd.com</a>"


    "Well better check that out."


    In the site I was requested to enter the serial number that was on the opposite side of the ticket, so I just entered it. The page was redirected showing me the usual mambo jumbo for registering an account, I filled it quickly and accepted.


    "Ah?... What the?!"


    On the next page it showed the following message:


    "Dear Alpha Tester,


    We congratulate you as you have been selected to be the first and only pre-alpha tester for our game [Second Reality].


    To make this valid please arrive at our main office on the 1st of November 9:00am PST.


    Best Regards,


    Head Designer Shiro Akimura, Reality Tech"


    "So it was Reality Tech¡­"


    "¡­"


    "¡­"


    "¡­ WHAT?!?! I got invited to be a pre-alpha tester? And I''m the only one?! I can''t believe my luck!"


    I was so damn lucky, I was chosen out of a thousand people to play the game a week earlier then every other alpha tester. Little did I know that my [Cheat] RPG fantasy would come into existence by dying on the 1st of November.

 Volume 1 - Chapter 1: Death and Rebirth

    Chapter 1


    "This place is huge!"


    It was the 1st of November, I entered a huge building that was the main headquarters of the game company [Reality Tech]. I was so excited that my heart pounded really hard to the point that I thought it might explode.


    When I entered the building I was checked by multiple security guards.


    I thought they might want me to strip naked.


    "Phew¡­"


    I let out a sigh of relief after that extensive check as I continued further inside the building. The security here was really tight, a lot of security personals all over the place, multiple x-ray machines and all kind of high tech scanners.


    "That is one hell of a security check¡­ what are they guarding? An atom bomb?"


    "Haha, Close but not exactly."


    A voice of a woman. I turned around and I saw a pretty lady around her early 20''s. She was slender, tall (somewhere around 175cm) with long black hair down to her waist. She had huge boobs¡­


    "You must be Rei-san. Nice to meet you I''m Anita Black. Please call me Anita."


    She bowed as she was saying that.


    "Oh, Ah¡­  Hello! Nice to meet you Anita."


    I bowed as well while replying to her.


    "Well Rei-san, I''ll be your guide for today. Please take good care of me"


    "Is Anita-san Japanese?"


    "Only half Japanese. I''m half American half Japanese though I was born and raised in Japan, I moved here to Europe to study¡­ Though you seem to know a bit of Japanese yourself."


    She was referring to me saying ''Nice to meet you'' in Japanese (Hajimemashita) as an automatic response to her greeting.


    "Ah! Yes well I was on a long vacation in Japan last year."


    "Oh that''s nice. Though I''d love to discuss the topic with you, we have a tight schedule. So if you please follow me."


    She smiled and pointed her hand to the elevators.


    "Is that so..?"


    We proceeded to the elevators. I must say she was quite the eye catcher. We didn''t speak until we got inside the elevator.


    After entering the elevator, she pressed the 50th floor button. She explained to me that the building had 80 floors where the first 49 were offices and the 50th to the 78th were for R&D and the 79th floor was for conferences and meeting rooms and the 80th floor for the main executives of the company.


    Afterwards she started to explained to me about the floors of the building, she started to explain to me what I''m going to be doing during the pre-alpha.


    "Rei, as you know you are the only pre-alpha tester"


    "Ah, yes, it is a great honor!"


    "That''s good. I like that enthusiasm, well as you know, we are going to start with the alpha testing in a week, but¡­"


    She stopped, and for a second she looked troubled.


    "But?"


    "We actually doing the pre-alpha testing because we need to adjust the device to be fully functional on all of the five senses".


    "What do you mean?"


    "You see¡­ The technology we are using is quite new and uses a special generated energy that Prof. Akimura invented. And it requires quite a lot of adjustments to accommodate to the human nerve system."


    "Ooh! So that''s why the security is so tight?"


    "Yes, that''s right."


    The new technology that she refers to was an invention that Prof. Shiro Akimura invented six months ago and it allows to the machine to draw energy from the air itself or something like that, I really couldn''t understand the basics of it but it was quite the finding.


    It even got a nickname: ''Breathing Energy''. It was a really great discovery as it didn''t really replace electricity, it made some kind of new type of energy. I really couldn''t understand what that meant, all I knew was that it wasn''t really publicly been applied yet and only a few countries got access to this new technology.


    Anita continued to explain to me the situation briefly, to sum it up:


    I will be the first one to play the game but currently until the 7th of November I will be mostly helping them ''mapping'' the nerve system of the human brain for the game. It seems that the ''Breathing Energy'', can be used by the new [Reality Dive] technology to read nerve system of the brain.


    They could have used their own personal but decided to let someone from the alpha testers to be the one to help them, I was that one lucky bastard.


    We arrived at the 50th floor and Anita directed me to a small room with a couch and a TV attached to the wall.


    I was told to sit on that couch and watch a video explaining of the basics of the game.


    She left the room and the video began. It started simple - explaining to me a bit of the game story which I barely remember, something about five main nations that were at war with each other and that each summoned heroes to help them.


    Typical story upfront like most MMORPG''s. What was really scary, was the extremely extensive and crazy game mechanics and features that they implemented in the game.


    Basically it went like this:


    The game allowed you to choose up from five different nations:


    ? Human Nation (Human races)


    ? Lords Nation (Giant races)


    ? Dimunus Nation (Demon races)


    ? Surasa Nation (Nature races like Elves, Beast-man and it included dwarves as well)


    ? Obleven Nation (Underground races mostly undead kind of races)


    Each race has the ability to "Evolve" up to 2 times according to his evolution tree.


    For example: Humans -> High Human -> Ascended.


    Though there are quite a few evolution options for each race, there were quite a few restrictions as well, for example the extremely high level requirement.


    The level up system contained levels and ranks. Ranks had a cap of 100 and each rank had 1000 levels. Rank will also reset in each evolution.


    "That is some crazy level up system¡­ it''s for those super grinders without a life. Though if I cheated¡­"


    And if it wasn''t enough, Spells and Skills were quite the same:


    Each Spell and Skill had 5 ranks: bronze, silver, gold, platinum and then divine. And to rank it up you need to level the skill/spell up 100 levels. You could also evolve the skill/spell to the next tier when maxing the divine rank. And to top it all there are skills/spells that have a special rank after divine.


    The skills and spells were categorized by tiers from 1 to 11 (10 and 11 were some kind of special tiers).


    I wasn''t able to remember it all since there was too much information. They kept going on stuff like jobs and classes, item rarity system, titles and perks system and the inventory system, creation system and many more systems¡­


    "Too many systems... Aren''t they exaggerating a little bit?"


    I decided to not try to memorize everything as I will learn them while playing or be explained by the staff.


    When the video finished, Anita and another person entered the room. They both greeted me with a bow. The person was a ginger with a full beard. He was about the height as Anita and was a bit plump.


    "Rei-san, this is Jim-san. He will be your RdG ([Reality Dive Gear]) handler until the end of the pre-alpha test."


    "Hello Rei, It''s nice to finally meet you!"


    "Nice to meet you Jim"


    We shook hands.


    While I was escorted to the a different room Anita and Jim started to explain to me what we were about to do next. Anita serious change of tone scared me a bit.


    "When we will reach the next room I want to start some basic testing. We will talk using the visual interface of the console until testing is done." - Jim


    "As you remember, you signed a disclaimer. You are not allowed to bring your phone with you to the next room. Also remember to adhere to everything Jim tells you to do. The company is not responsible to any damage that is made to you if you do not." - Anita


    "Y¡­ Yes" - Rei


    In the reception just before meeting Anita I was signed on a disclaimer. More like a book then a disclaimer, I didn''t even read past the 10 page as it contained 5733 pages.


    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    We continued to talk and I was explained about safety measures, as well as the secrecy that needed to be kept.


    I really didn''t care as I was excited to try out the game. I had many though of how could I cheat such a game if it were only single player game. The stuff I could do in such free over extensive environment.


    I drooled a bit.


    As we entered the second room which was quite large compare to the TV room, it was pure white room. I was pointed to the far end of the room. There was the RdG console and next to it a small separate room with a big glass in front of the console. Probably for monitoring.


    As we entered the room Anita bid us farewell. Then Jim gave me a pill and we started to talk while advancing to the console.


    "I will now strap you to the table over there and plug you into the console. Afterwards I will be in that room over there to monitor you while you use the console. Make sure to take the pill before we start the test."


    "Is it really safe?"


    "Don''t worry! The console was tested multiple times."


    "Is that so?"


    "Ah! Don''t worry, you will be the first one who will test the game. I''m really jealous of you, you lucky bastard."


    Jim was smiling and laughing to cheer me up while had an uneasy face expression. He was a good guy.


    Jim helped me strap myself to the table and then gave me the headgear of the console. He then explained to me some safety procedures prior to the testing. Then walked to the separate room where I could hear him through a PA system.


    "Rei, we will start as soon as you are ready. There is a green button on the head gear you are wearing on the top right corner. Press it when you are ready."


    I lifted my hand with a thumb pose to tell him ''okay!''


    I wore the headgear and adjusted it till it fitted my head, then pressed the green button. I think I forgot something at that point but I let it slide as I was excited to begin the testing.


    The white room went dark in a moment and colors started to flying all over my vision. Then it stopped. In my focus of vision was a really large message box which filled really quickly. It was Jim writing to me.


    "Hi Rei! Hope you are comfortable enough. As currently I''m mapping your brain to the game you will see that slowly you be able to use your other senses."


    As he wrote that the vision changed, I was facing the logo of the game [Second Reality]. It was looked extremely realistic I could almost touch it.


    Then the message box appeared again.


    "Rei, I will now start the game registration phase. Make sure while that after you customize your character to your liking, mark the checkbox on the top right corner. After that proceed to finish the registration."


    My vision changed again and I was presented with extensive customization display of my character.


    On the top center was the name entry field, the left side contained my character attributes and the available bonus points to distribute, it also contained my choice of race, initial class and an option to customize the spells and skills if I wish to.


    On the right side was a box full of customization options that I could make on my character. And of course in the center was my avatar displayed. By simply thinking I found out I can interact with the display.


    I chose human as it was the easiest choice. Because I couldn''t wait any longer and really wanted to play, I decided on how I would customize my character beforehand.


    I set the avatar body to be a bit like my real self just a bit taller and a bit more muscular. I changed my hair color to white and changed the hair style that looked almost like Noctis from FF XIII.


    After finishing the tweaks my character looked more like Noctis then me only he had a white hair. My attributes were quite balanced though.


    Name: Azura


    Title: One of the White


    Class: Spell Warrior


    Vitality ¨C 15 (+5)


    Strength ¨C 15


    Agility ¨C 15


    Intelligence ¨C 20 (+10)


    Wisdom ¨C 10


    Defense ¨C 10


    Willpower ¨C 10


    Charisma ¨C 10


    Perception ¨C 15 (+5)


    Luck ¨C 10


    Bonus points: 0/20.


    I checked the checkbox that Jim mentioned before and then pressed the proceed button with my thought.


    The vision went black and the message box appeared again.


    "Rei, I will now start the game phase. Do you have any questions before I start?"


    I couldn''t speak yet so I wrote with my thoughts into the message box.


    "Yeah, what exactly is the box I checked in the registration phase?"


    "That is something I added to let you have a bit more fun and progress a bit faster in the game as we want you to help us test as much as possible out of the game."


    "What do you mean? Like a bonus title?"


    "Yeah, Exactly that. I gave you [The Alphtear] title coming from the words Alpha and Cheater."


    "Che¡­ CHEATER?!"


    "Yes, you will see once we begin. Now try not to do anything as the game load, try to clear your mind."


    In my vision the world started to manifest but I was too absorbed in what Jim just told me. I will be able to cheat! I was so excited I think I started to sweat and my heart pounded really hard.


    Jim sent a new message but my mind was in chaos I was too excited.


    I started to hear beeps but ignored them as well, I was too much absorbed in the thought of cheating in the game.


    Then I started to hear a voice. It was Jim yelling to me, I couldn''t understand his words at first but it came clear after a little while.


    "Rei!!! Relax! Your readings are all over the place!"


    "Ah?"


    Then there was silence. Too quiet. My thoughts was still all over the place but I managed to relax. But it was weird, I couldn''t feel anything. When I was plugged I could still felt my body but now I can''t feel anything.


    The vision I just had of the world materializing before my eyes was replaced with blackness. Then I realized¡­


    "Did I just die from over excitement?"


    I died from a heart attack. I still can''t believe it, I had no previous record of any heart condition nor in my family. Then I remembered something, the new air energy that was found was said to elevate emotions if not taken some medication first.


    "I forgot to take the pill I was given by Jim before pressing the green button¡­¡­. SHIT!"


    I can''t believe I died before I had the chance to fulfill my RPG game fantasy. I also died a virgin.


    "So this is hell or heaven? Is there anything at all in here?"


    While thinking that I started to feel something, but then my thought just went blank. I passed out.


    It felt like years but my conscious started to return to me and I could feel my body again although it was strange, it felt a bit different from what I remember.


    I opened my eyes slowly. My vision was blurry at first but steadily was focused again. I was laying down on a grass land beneath a large tree.


    It was quite the beautiful sight, very realistic at that.


    I was gazing the view in amazement for quite some time, it felt really real.


    "Shouldn''t I be dead?"


    While saying that I focused my mind in trying to contact Jim by using the message box but nothing happened. I did manage to open a menu that allowed me to navigate through my items, character attributes and other menus.


    What took most of my attention was the titles I had:


    [One of the White]


    [The Alphtear]


    [Reincarnated One]


    "So I really died? Why is this so much like a virtual reality game?"


    After I focused my thought on pressing the title "Reincarnated One" it displayed the following details:


    "You are the one who died and was reincarnated by the sheer force of one will."


    I was dumbfounded.


    *******


    I hope you guys will like the story so far, there will much more ahead.


    I''m open to criticism and suggestions although I already have a mind set of where


    to take the story and how.

 Volume 1 - Chapter 2: The Alphtear Part 1

    Chapter 2


    "I don''t know whether to be happy or sad¡­"


    It seems I was reincarnated or reborn, something along those lines, into a realistic fantasy RPG game. I was really confused. I know I died or at least think that I died.


    There is no logout or exit buttons anywhere on any screen. Though even if I found one I probably wouldn''t press it any way. ''Why is that?'' you ask? Well I found something so cool that made my heart skip a few beats.


    If you can see my face right now I''m probably drooling with a creepy expression on my face and sounds of extreme ecstasy can be heard.


    You see, when I looked at the other titles, the [One of The White] and [Alphtear] I was directed by both to the [Perk Menu].


    In the [Perk Menu] there seem to be two tabs: Perks and Special Perks. Looking at the Perks tab I can see the following:


    [One of The White] Perks:


    ?	Can access the Shrine of The White


    ?	Can attain Nobility


    ?	Sword & Spell Related Skills effectiveness/proficiency increased by 10%


    That was really neat. The title [One of The White] is provided to those who born with a nobility blood and practice both sword & magic. The flavor text given to it was:


    "Proud Warriors of sword & magic, born with the White God blood. They are still roaming the earth, searching for the long lost White God."


    The feeling it gave when choosing that title was really nice, and it was much better to my taste then [Justice Hero] or [Dark Warrior].


    [One of The White] sounded more like me, simple yet strong, quiet yet ambitious.


    Well that what I usually went with in MMORPGs because I couldn''t cheat, if I can''t cheat I''d like not to take any sides, I''d usually just play PvE. Sometimes I did PvP and was quite good at it but it always felt not that fun when you can only play by simple strict rules.


    But then I saw what the [The Alphtear] title gave me¡­ It was under the special perks tab.


    [The Alphtear] Perks:


    ?	All Spell Related Restrictions Removed


    ?	All Skill Related Restrictions Removed


    ?	All Job Related Restrictions Removed


    ?	All Class Related Restrictions Removed


    ?	All Item Related Restrictions Removed


    ?	All Inventory Related Restrictions Removed


    ?	All Titles Related Restrictions Removed


    ?	All Level Evolution Related Restrictions Removed


    ?	All Race Related Restrictions Removed


    ?	All Mana Related Restrictions Removed


    ?	All Stamina Related Restrictions Removed


    ?	All Perk Related Restrictions Removed


    ?	Can Equip/Use/Learn opposing Spells without negative effects


    ?	Can Equip/Use/Learn opposing Skills without negative effects


    ?	Can Equip/Use/Learn opposing Jobs without negative effects


    ?	Can Equip/Use/Learn opposing Classes without negative effects


    ?	Can Equip/Use/Learn opposing Items without negative effects


    ?	Can Equip/Use/Learn opposing Perks without negative effects


    ?	All Spell Effectiveness/Proficiency Up by 1000%


    ?	All Skill Effectiveness/Proficiency Up by 1000%


    ?	All Job Effectiveness/Proficiency Up by 1000%


    ?	All Class Effectiveness/Proficiency Up by 1000%


    ?	All Item Effectiveness/Proficiency Up by 1000%


    ?	Resistance to all Elements Up by 1000%


    ?	Easy Learner + Copycat


    ?	Bonus Points To All Attributes: ((Evolution * 10000) + (Rank * 1000)) + Level


    ?	Easy Level Up


    ?	Immortal


    ?	Infinite Mana


    ?	Infinite Stamina


    ?	No Cooldowns


    ?	Consumer of None (Does not get tired, hungry and doesn''t need to breath in order to survive)


    ?	Cannot be affected by de-buffs


    ?	Cannot be affected by negative statuses


    ?	Customize/Creation Menu Enabled


    ?	Cannot teach/bestow/give/discard/change/destroy/replace the title of [The Alphtear] or any of his given abilities or perks.


    ?	The title of [The Alphtear] cannot be copied/learned/stolen in any way from its owner.


    "I''m the reincarnation of GOD!!! Muhahahaha!!!"


    I felt joy all over my body. My life dream, my most desired fantasy (after sex) it became true.


    "My dream came true¡­ I think I''m about to cry."


    I had pre-tears coming out from my eyes. But I resolved myself, I wanted to see how much of what was written was really true.


    I opened the [Character Menu].


    Name: Azura


    Title: [Multiple]


    Class: Spell Warrior


    Race: Human (Evo. lvl 1)


    Rank: 1


    Level: 1


    Vitality ¨C 15 (+11001)


    Strength ¨C 15 (+11001)


    Agility ¨C 15 (+11001)


    Intelligence ¨C 20 (+11001)


    Wisdom ¨C 10 (+11001)


    Defense ¨C 10 (+11001)


    Willpower ¨C 10 (+11001)


    Charisma ¨C 10 (+11001)


    Perception ¨C 15 (+11001)


    Luck ¨C 10 (+11001)


    "So OP!!! I can probably stay on the same level and still beat the final boss."


    I was excited, I was happy, I was thrilled. I saw something incredible and it filled me with happiness. It seems that this [The Alphtear] title was something over the top. It was too much for a simple cheat. Did Jim really prepare something like that?


    I really wanted to check my [Skills Menu] and [Spells Menu] they might contain something awesome as well, so I opened them up.


    First was the [Skill Menu], I found that I had 2 bronze skills on level 1: [Sword Mastery] and [Hand to Hand Mastery] both on the passive tab no skill on the active tab.


    In my [Spell Menu] there were six bronze level 1 spells in the active tab: [Fireball], [Ice Shard], [Earth Stomp], [Wind Cutter], [Curse] and [Heal].


    All were pretty straight forward, their descriptions matched what I thought they were. None of them were over the top or special in any way.


    "Well I guess that will be overdoing if I had all the spells and skills."


    Never the less I wanted to try out my [Fireball] spell.


    "If I remember correctly from the video I saw in RealityTech, the magic system works like this¡­"


    You see to use magic in [Second Reality] you needed to think or say its name after focusing the required mana for the spell. You can adjust the power of the spell by pouring more mana or less mana into the spell.


    Based on your Intelligence the effectiveness and power of the spell is increased as well, it also let you use and learn higher leveled spell easily and use less mana to activate a spell. Also the level and rank of the spell also factors to how much strong the spell will be.


    All spell has upper limit, you can poor as much as the spell level allows it. I wanted to test if I had such restrictions.


    For the focus mana part it seems I can feel it in my body - it had no end, I could tell that much. I had a really big smile across my face when I learned that.


    I stretched my hand forward while pointing my palm toward a tree that was about 1km across from me. Then by starting to focus my mana to my hand, about 200% of the needed mana for the [Fireball] spell.


    "[Fireball]!"


    I yelled the name of the spell, then the invisible mana that I focused in the palm of my hand changed into a huge sized ball of fire. It filled my entire front vision. It was extremely hot, but thanks to my resistance it didn''t budge me even a little.


    I released the spell and the big ball of fire instantly flew towards the direction I pointed with my hand. The speed of the [Fireball] was way too fast compared to what I had imagined it to be, maybe because of my perks?


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    I could hear a loud *whoosh* sound. It only took the [Fireball] less than a second to reach the tree I was aiming at. After reaching the tree I saw a huge explosion, it was followed by a roaring sound of a *boom*. Huge cloud of dust filled the whole grass land.


    "I think I saw birds flying away in the distance."


    I said that sarcastically with an half laughing face.


    You see¡­ after the dust was cleared, in my line of sight there was no tree. The tree that was just across me, and about 500 meters of grass around the tree were replaced by a huge crater. The line across me to the tree was a carpet of fire that extinguished after a few seconds and the ground became a scorched earth.


    It seems that magic worked exactly as it was explained in the video, but¡­


    "I''m just way too strong, I shouldn''t use excessive power I might destroy this world in the process¡­"


    I was happy and scared at how powerful I was. I''m clearly one of the strongest beings in this world and if not, I might be the strongest. I wanted to check on the spells I had again, I was surprised at what I discovered.


    In the active tab of the spells there were 12 spells, not 6. I quickly checked why.


    Active spells tab:


    ?	[Fireball] ¨C Divine lvl 100


    ?	[Ice Shard] ¨C Divine lvl 100


    ?	[Earth Stomp] ¨C Divine lvl 100


    ?	[Wind Cutter] ¨C Divine lvl 100


    ?	[Curse] ¨C Divine lvl 100


    ?	[Heal] ¨C Divine lvl 100


    ?	[Ice Blast] ¨C Bronze lvl 1


    ?	[Poison Vines] ¨C Bronze lvl 1


    ?	[Tornado] ¨C Bronze lvl 1


    ?	[Summon: Lesser Undead]


    ?	[Great Heal] ¨C Bronze lvl 1


    ?	[Blaze Storm] ¨C Bronze lvl 1


    It seems that by using the [Fireball] I leveled up all of my current spells to the max and gained new spells for some unknown reason. The passive tab was still empty.


    In the [Skills Menu] I had new skill as well.


    Passive skills tab:


    ?	[Sword Mastery] ¨C Divine lvl 100


    ?	[Hand to Hand Mastery] ¨C Divine lvl 100


    ?	[Mana Manipulation] ¨C Divine lvl 100


    Still no active skills but the [Mana Manipulation]¡­ was it because I manipulated the mana before I used the [Fireball]?


    A though came to me.


    "Did my level rise as well?"


    I wanted to check my level so I opened the [Character Menu].


    "WOW! Easy mode is way too easy."


    I was right, my character did level up, and quite a lot at that. I was now rank 7 and my level was 420, which means I was stronger by more than 7000 points in all attributes than before. And it was all because I used the [Fireball] spell or did I kill a monster?


    "That''s really awesome! But there is something that is bothering me. It is too quiet in here..."


    That was right, except for the vast grass land and a few trees in the distance (and the crater that I made), there was nothing here. There wasn''t any living creature in my close proximity.


    "Maybe if I checked my map¡­"


    Ah, that''s right. I had a map on the top right of my vision. With just focusing my mind on it I could freely either zoom in or out in the map display. When I zoomed out the map to display me about 200km of the surrounding area I finally saw something.


    "That is a city, isn''t it? Should I check it out?"


    I discarded that thought because I wanted to check my inventory. I opened the [Inventory Menu], inside was some basic equipment, my character itself had some basic clothes on while in my inventory I had some armor, a sword, a magic gauntlet, a few scrolls and tomes, an ID card and Adventurer Card. I also seem to possess an infinite amount of this world currency as the number next to the different currencies in the [Inventory Menu] is displayed with a laying down 8, which means infinite.


    "That reminds me, I don''t seem to have an HP, MP or Stamina value in the [Character Menu] at all. Is it infinite as well?"


    I decided to leave it aside for now. I equipped the armor by simply thinking of equipping it. I did the same with the sword and the gauntlet.


    "That was simple enough. But how do I return it to the inventory?"


    I tried to think back to when I watched the video and I remembered that it was explained. All I need to do is just think of putting the item into the inventory while touching it if it wasn''t mine, if the item belongs to me was I could just think of it entering into the inventory even if it is not near me.


    "Next let''s try..."


    I wanted to try the first method, so I touched the tip of the sword and slowly started to press against it while thinking of putting the sword into the inventory. The sword slowly disappeared with my hand touching it from the tip of the sword to the end of the hilt until my hands were in the shape of a prayer.


    "That''s so cool!"


    I tried to do the exact reverse and it worked as well. It was very fun and cool to perform. I wanted to test some more stuff but it was getting a bit dark.


    "Well it''s not like I''m going to get tired or hungry thanks to my perks."


    Still I didn''t want to be out in the wild on my first night on this dream world, so I decided to head for the city I saw.


    "It is a long way¡­ 200km that''s pretty far away."


    But then remembering my attributes bonuses.


    "If my magic was that strong, my speed and reflexes should be strong as well, not to mention that my physical power should be monstrous."


    I decided to test that out. I started to walk towards the city, as I started to walk I noticed that on the bottom left side I had numbers appear with the letters "km/h". I realized I can see my speed, I tested jumping as well just to make sure, I could easily jump 100 meters without any effort, and landing from such height seem to be no problem at all.


    After the jump test I wanted to test my speed so I started to run and slowly towards the city. I slowly increased my speed, 2km/h¡­ 3km/h¡­ 4km/g¡­ 5km/h¡­ 6km/h¡­ I kept raising my speed until I reached 200km/h.


    "Th~is issss¡­ Soooo muuch fuuuuun!!!"


    While yelling that I was cutting through the wind with the speed of a racing car. I was really thrilled at my amazing speed. In my previous life I could barely finish a 2km run in an hour but now I can run as fast as a racing car without getting even a little tired. The feeling I had is almost impossible to explain.


    After few minutes I saw a road so I decided to run on it while heading to the city I saw on the map. I almost slipped while running that fast, but thanks to my high agility, I didn''t, and I just easily rebalanced myself.


    After almost an hour I could see the city in the distance. To not draw too much attention to myself I stopped running and started to walk instead. I''m still unfamiliar with this world and I didn''t want to make any wrong moves, I might not be able to die thanks to the [Immortal] perk but I still wanted to be cautious.


    The city was surrounded by huge stone walls with 4 towers that were slightly taller, probably guard towers. I approached the city gates only to be greeted by a very fat guard.

 Volume 1 - Chapter 3: The Alphtear Part 2

    Hi guys!


    I''m sorry for the big delay, I have quite busy schedule in the past few weeks so I had little time to work on the chapter.


    As an apology I made it longer than the rest of the chapters, it might be the longest one in this volume.


    Chapter 4 will take some time, please be patient, I will do my best to post chapters in short intervals.


    So without further adieu:


    Chapter 3 - The Akphtear Part 2


    A giant approached me, well not a giant just a very fat guard who looked really huge. He was yelling at me in a foreign language, I couldn''t understand him at all.


    "***! **** ***** *****!"


    Somehow after a few seconds, I started to understand what he said.


    "You! Stop right there!"


    By the looks of him, he was a guard, I think. He wore a simple chain-mail for armor, on his head was a chain coif, under the armor he wore some ragged clothes. By the looks of him, he was more like a bandit then a guard.


    I stopped, and he approached me. Even though we were at very close proximity to each other, he chose to yell at me.


    "You don''t look familiar! Who are you?! State your business!"


    My head twitched to the side, I thought he tore my ear drums. He was acting pretty rude, yelling at me while giving me a weird face, I think it is an angry face but I could not tell due to all the fat in his face.


    "I''m an adventurer and I wish to enter the city"


    I could fluently speak his language, it was like I was born knowing it. This easy learner perk is truly amazing.


    "An adventurer you say? Do you have documents to prove that?"


    (can you even read¡­)


    I took out my adventurer card from the inventory, but I did it discreetly, as if I took it out of my pants pocket. I didn''t know if taking it out from thin air like I did earlier would make me suspicious or not, so I decided not to take a chance.


    ~ Adventurer Card ~


    ID number: <1747239> | Name: <Azura>


    Role: <None> | Party Name: <None>


    Adventurer Rank: <H> | Quests Completed: <0>


    It looked pretty plain, just as I expected, the same was for my gear, it was all freshly newbie stuff. Not that I really bother with that, I have my awesome Alphtear title.


    I handed him my card.


    "Pff... I see¡­ A freshly new adventurer¡­ pfff¡­ You may pass"


    He handed me back my card while laughing at me, probably because of my adventurer rank. Remembering the video, adventurers usually goes from H as the lowest to A as the highest, and if special requirements are met, you are advanced to either S, SS or SSS.


    I didn''t care, it was my status in the adventurer guild, not my own. He moved the side, gesturing with both of his hands on the clear path. This was way too easy, he is really dumb.


    Before passing the city gate, I wanted to try something. I focused my mind on the guard, I could sense his mana (it was very low), I could feel his pulse, his breath, even his tiniest movements. After a few more seconds of focusing, a screen appeared.


    Name: Weldon Austen


    Title: <Guard of Itios>


    Class: <Warrior>


    Race: Human


    Vitality ¨C 20 | Strength ¨C 11 | Agility ¨C 3 | Intelligence ¨C 1


    Wisdom ¨C 1 | Defense ¨C 30 | Willpower ¨C 1 | Charisma ¨C 1


    Perception ¨C 1 | Luck ¨C 2


    I could analyze his stats as well. But something is weird, he doesn''t have a level or a rank. I wondered why.


    This world is really interesting, Though it contains many RPG elements it is extremely realistic. The smell, the people, the sensation is very real. Calling this a game or a dream is almost impossible.


    I ventured into the city, and just after passing the gates a window popped in my interface.


    "Special Evolution Available!


    All of the special requirements were cleared:


    Powerful one ¨C All Attributes above 10000 (Cleared)


    Health Capacity ¨C Immortal (Cleared)


    Mana Capacity ¨C Mana is infinite (Cleared)


    Super Perks ¨C At least 10 special perks (Cleared)


    Special Title ¨C Cleared, posses [Reincarnated One] title


    Inventor ¨C Invented a skill, [Analyze] was invented


    Limit Breaker - Broke the limit of a skill/spell/Job


    Special evolution <Ulolear> (Level 4 Evolution) is available, do you accept?


    <Yes> <No> <More Details>"


    "Eehhh?!"


    I was shocked. Not even a day passed since I got into this world and I''m already granted with the opportunity to evolve, and a special evolution none the less.


    Not to be too hasty I pressed the <More Details> button, and additional text appeared in another window replacing the current one.


    "Special Evolution, <Ulolear> is an exclusive level 4 evolution.


    Upon accepting the evolution:


    [The last Ulolear] Title will be granted


    Rank and Level will be maxed


    When learning a new Skill/Spell/Job, it will be maxed


    Exclusive <Ulolear> Perks & Special Perks will be unlocked when conditions are met.


    Do you accept the evolution?


    <Yes> <No> <Less Details>"


    "Oh wow! I hit a jackpot of cheats!"


    After reading that I immediately pressed <yes> without any hesitation. Nothing happened. I didn''t receive the title, and my attributes didn''t change as well.


    But then I noticed something; A red text with a time counter appeared just above my speed meter. It was counting down, by the looks of it I had around 8 hours.


    "Evolution in: 07:58:32"


    I got excited, in about 8 hours I''m going to max my attributes bonus, no, even beyond the max, it will be a level 4 evolution. I''m already a [Cheat] with my [The Alphtear] title, this must be a blessing from this world gods.


    I needed something to do to kill time and ease my tension. I started to walk towards the center of the city. The city itself looked astonishing. With its oak wood rooftops, redwood walls and the illuminating dawn in the distance.


    Itios has a very captivating atmosphere. The city has a booming economy, which is mainly supported by crafting, blacksmithing and trade. You could tell that from all of the shops that supported such products.


    Whilst walking, admiring the city beauty, I heard an unexpected loud noise.


    *Baam!*


    "Woah!!!"


    I stopped immediately and looked towards the source of the voice. A woman, Blonde with a curly hair tight in a bun. She had big blue eyes, a cute mole can be seen her nose.


    She was positioned weirdly on the ground, she probably fall. The woman moved her gaze towards, she looked full of sorrow.


    "Ah¡­ Sor¡­"


    "It¡¯s fine, it was my fault as well"


    She got up and bowed slightly as an apology, I bowed back. There was something ambiguous about her, it looked like she was suffering from something, and I think I saw tears in her eyes.  She started to walk hastily toward the center of the city, I wondered what could have made her so sad.


    I had about 7 hours left for the evolution to occur, and it is getting dark, I wondered if I could still sleep or even eat. I remembered that in fantasy worlds there are places called inns and taverns where adventurers usually eat and sleep in, though this is a city, there might be hotels as well.


    I wanted to ask someone for directions, but there are barely people around here and those that are seemed too busy to be bothered. I decided to take on a different approach, I focused my mind on the map.


    By focusing my mind on the map I could see more clearly the size of the city, its structures and even the names of different locations inside the city. The city was quite big by itself, it was spread out for about 200 square kilometers. It seemed to be divided by inner walls into five sections or districts as they were called.


    The North section, seem to be called "The Red District".


    The South section, it is where I was in, and it was called "The Yellow District".


    The West section, "The Blue District".


    The East section, "The Green District".


    The Center section, "The White District".


    I didn''t understand the purpose of the coloring but what I was looking for was in the green district, I knew that, because when I focused even more on the map it started to show symbols.


    At the first few seconds I didn''t understand the symbols, but afterwards I could suddenly understand what the symbols meant. I somehow gained some knowledge by analyzing the symbols, just like with the language when I met the guard.


    I decided on a location and started to head there, the place was an inn, I chose that place because it was the closest to me. The symbol that represented it was silver colored. Based on the knowledge I gained, places that offer services and goods are ranked with the same rank system of items, the shops around me are the same.


    After quite a bit of walking I arrived at the inn door, I could hear loud noises from inside, the sound of people celebrating. From the outside it looked cheerful, inviting and modest. Clay and thick, stone beams make up most of the building''s outer structure. It was hard to see through the closed windows, but the clinking of beer glasses from within could be felt outside.


    As I entered the inn through the decorated, metal door, I was welcomed by overall happiness and a feeling of comfort. The innkeeper was busy, but still managed to welcome me with a friendly nod.


    The inn itself was packed. Adventurers seem to be the primary clientele here, which could be seen as a good sign. Several long tables were occupied by, what seemed to be one large party of adventurers. The other, smaller tables were also occupied by people who were playing games and, judging by their laughter, were either telling jokes or great, perhaps embarrassing, tales. Even most of the stools at the bar were occupied, though nobody seemed to mind more company.


    I managed to find a seat. When the innkeeper was done with the large table he approached me, offering his service. I ordered a meal and a lodging room for a week long.


    I payed 5 silver coins for the room, and 10 coppers for a meal and a drink. I was glad to find out I could still eat and drink even though I had the [Consumer of None] perk.


    The innkeeper was very nice, Rudus was his name. Bald, with black eyes and several moles are spread unusually across his whole face. He was  tall with a sturdy body. He looked like an adventurer or maybe an ex-adventurer.


    While drinking and eating at the bar, Rudus inquired me with some questions.


    ¡°So, Did you come here as well to defeat the Black King?¡±


    ¡°The Black King?¡±


    ¡°Oh? You didn¡¯t hear? The king finally requested the capture of the Black King, the Necromancer who kidnapped his youngest son¡±


    ¡°I must say that I haven¡¯t¡­¡±


    ¡°Well it was quite the incident, he put quite the reward as well! A title of a duke and one of his own daughters, any of them for marriage as a reward!¡±


    ¡°Are they ugly?¡±


    ¡°Uhu? What are you talking about? Everyone knows of the king daughters beauty! Marrying one of his daughters and getting the title of a duke is all men dream! Who wouldn¡¯t want to go hunt down the Black King? Even the old me would get the hype for it, though my wife would kill me¡­ Hahahaha¡±


    ¡°Is that so¡­¡±


    We continued to talk on the subject and I managed to get  some more information about where I¡¯m and about this king and this ¡°Black King¡±.


    In summary, the black king is a necromancer, Crikhar Siphon, who was the previous court wizard, he got kicked out because of his inhuman experiments three years ago. Because he was kicked, he went berserk and caused quite the havoc. But last month he has finally got the attention of the king, when he kidnapped his youngest son, his only son, the heir to the throne.


    The king three own daughters were presented as rewards together with a duke title, for the one who rescues his son from the necromancer. The king deployed a large search parties and posted the request for the the necromancer head or capture together with his son safe return.


    One of the adventurers here found the necromancer location today. Rufus told me that the large table occupied by the group of adventurers were here to confront with this ¡°Black King¡±. They will head towards his location tomorrow morning.


    The group was drinking while discussing how they would engage the ¡°Black King¡± tomorrow. They looked like a group of mercenaries or bandits more than a group of adventurers.They looked pretty tense, they had an heavy atmosphere around them so no one approached except for Rudus who took their orders.


    I wanted to go with that group, it would be an excellent opportunity to get some more skills, but currently there was something bigger on my mind. I asked Rudus one more question.


    ¡°Rudus, by any chance, do you know what an <Ulolear> is?¡±


    ¡°<Ulolear>? Like the legend?¡±


    ¡°What legend?¡±


    ¡°Jeez¡­ How can you call yourself an adventurer without knowing of the legend? Even children knows of it¡±


    ¡°Just tell me already!¡±


    ¡°Alright, alright¡­ Ten thousands years ago, the <Ulolear> were the first race in this world, not made by gods but summoned by them to populate the land, there were only six of them. They were very powerful beings who could even match to the gods. But the gods were fearful of creatures as powerful as them, seeing how powerful the <Ulolear> are, they decided to act. At first they wanted to exile the <Ulolear>, but the when the <Ulolear> refused, the gods threatened to kill the <Ulolear>. Thus it invoked a war between the gods and the <Ulolear>, it was the longest war to date, it lasted over 1000 years, even some of the gods were lost to the <Ulolear> but in the end the <Ulolear> were completely annihilated... After the bloody aftermath they decided to never summon a race and instead created the races who are now populates this world. That the sums of it any way.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s quite a tale¡±


    ¡°Yeah, it is. Today the <Ulolear> are but just a myth.¡±


    ¡°But what if someone evolves into a <Ulolear>?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s impossible, though it is almost impossible to evolve into a <High Human>, to become an <Ulolear> you have to be from another world, and powerful as a god at that.¡±


    ¡°But lets say one does¡­ What then?¡±


    ¡°What then? Mhmmm... I truly don¡¯t know, ever since the white god death, the possibility of one to become an <Ulolear> is no more¡°


    ¡°Why is that?¡±


    ¡°Because it is was only the white god who could have summoned beings as powerful as an <Ulolear> into this world¡±


    ¡°When did he die?¡±


    ¡°Truthfully, it was announced just this morning¡±


    ¡°...¡±


    Oh wow, is it a coincidence? Was it because of me? I did not know how to process what I have just heard.


    Because it was too much I decided to call it a day and went into my rented room. I wanted to try and sleep, eating was possible so sleeping is possible as well right?


    The room was quite large, it was tight clean, as expected of a good inn like this one. The bed looked very welcoming and cozy, there was a closet for storing the luggage and a window in the direction of the street just beside the bed.


    It was already 2 in the morning and I had about 5 more hours to pass until the timer will reach 0. I decided to try and see if I can sleep, this day was too stressful.


    I entered the bed, I got myself covered with the blankets and closed my eyes. An hour passed, I couldn''t sleep, I felt too much awake. Even when I ate food, the process of eating was possible but it wasn''t if I was hungry. I concluded that it was as the perk said, I did not need to consume food but could, I did not need to sleep but I could still imitate it. It would probably be the same with air but I don¡¯t really want to try it now.


    Not dwelling on the subject much I decided to explore the city instead, I had to get my stress away. I got outside of the inn and decided to head towards the center of the city. The reason was an interesting symbol that I saw earlier in the map.


    A symbol of a temple, there were many temples in the center of the city, each for a different god, but the one in the middle was the most interesting one, it was the temple for ¡°The White God¡±.  I needed some kind of answers so I headed toward that temple hoping to get some.


    The streets were quiet, no one but guards patrols can be seen at night. Avoiding the patrols, and walking for about an hour, I finally arrived at my destination.


    The temple was a grand building of white stones, the moonlight seemed to make them shine in a low yet bright light. The entrance was a huge garden, it was vast and wide with beautiful flowers and decorated bushes that were scattered evenly making the view even more mesmerizing under the moon.


    The trail leading to the temple gates was almost like a carpet of white, glowing stones. The plants and bushes were glittering from morning tear drops, you could almost mistake the glitters with a dancing fairies, a truly magical scene.


    Within this garden I heard a cry. In the right edge of the garden, there was a well, just near it was a woman sitting on a bench, she gave a beautiful aura around her, she was the one crying.


    Getting closer, I could hear her mumbling a few words with tears running deeply out of her eyes.


    ¡°I...*sob* I can¡¯t¡­*sob* How could this happen? *sob**sob* White God! Please answer my prayers!¡±


    I couldn''t hear her good so I got even closer.


    ¡°!¡±


    She noticed me.


    "I''m sorry, did I startle you?"


    I took one hand across my chest holding a fist, the other was moving backwards with my leg to make a bow.


    Then I noticed, it is the same woman I encountered earlier. She was even more beautiful now, even though she had a tearing eyes.


    ¡°Who are you are?¡±


    ¡°Apologies, my name is Azura, it is a pleasure to meet you miss...¡±


    She immediately wiped her tears, her cheeks got a bit red. She stood up and took an elegant pose.


    ¡°Ivy. My name is Ivy Marcallas. It is a pleasure Mr. Azura¡°


    (Ivy, what a beautiful name, but Marcallas¡­ It sounds familiar, I wonder why.)


    Even though she was crying a minute ago, she is now radiating with confidence. It something I never saw before, she was like a noblewoman full of elegance and grace.


    Unlike my earlier encounter with her where she wore a black cloak, she now wore a beautiful white dress.


    "Mr. Azura, are you an adventurer by chance?"


    ¡°Yes, I am¡±


    ¡°Then are you going tomorrow as well? To the fight against the Black King?¡±


    ¡°I might... why are you asking?¡±


    Her expression changed, as if she found a solution to a problem.


    ¡°Please, take me with you!¡±


    Her eyes were like sharp spear piercing at me, what was with that sudden request? Though I would have loved a company of a lady such as her, my main goal by going would be to learn some new skills, not defending her, she will be in the way. Why would she even want go to where a notorious criminal is?


    Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry but I won¡¯t. It is too bothersome¡±


    ¡°B-but...¡±


    She paused for a moment, almost crying.


    ¡°*sob* Because he has my brother! *sob*¡±


    Suddenly I remembered, Rudus told me that the Marcallas was the family name of the royal family.


    ¡°I still stay by my decision, I will not take you with me¡±


    (Weird, even though I barely know her. Normally I would play an act of a being surprised or make an excuse, but instead I¡¯m calm, my reactions don¡¯t hold any hesitations.)


    ¡°Then promise me! *sob* P-promise me¡­ that you will bring him back! *sob**sob*¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Ah?!¡±


    ¡°You see, I might be an adventurer, but I¡¯m no hero of justice. I am going there for my own reasons.¡±


    ¡°...¡±


    (Wow! Is that alright? I¡¯m happy that I can calmly express myself, but for some reason with her it is different, it¡¯s like I can be the real me)


    Her head went down, her eyes were bursting in tears again, I felt a bit ashamed for what I said.


    ¡°But, if the opportunity present itself...¡±


    Her face suddenly was brightened again, she forced herself to stop crying, and a small smile with teary eyes filled her face. I felt a bit awkward.


    ¡°Thank you! That is more than enough! I have a feeling that if it''s you...¡±


    Well I was not a complete asshole. Also I didn''t want her to cry again.


    ¡°So, Why are you here alone in middle of the night? Aren''t you a princess? Where are your guards?¡±


    "Ah, that is usually true, but losing my mother, and now I might lose my brother¡­ *sob* I just had a feeling. I felt that if I will come here my brother will be saved."


    "Eh?"


    What a troublesome princess, she didn''t even think that her selfish actions can make it even worse. What if someone attacked her. Going by feelings, I really can¡¯t understand women...


    A loud voice then interrupted our conversation.


    ¡°Princess! Princess Ivy! Where are you?!¡±


    At the entrance of the garden I saw a man in full set of armor, a rounded helm with a pointed, t-shaped opening leaving the eyes, nose and mouth exposed. Attached to the forehead area are two small antlers.


    The shoulders are rounded, quite narrow and huge. They''re decorated with layered pieces of curved metal, forming the rough shape of wings.


    The upper arms are protected by pointed, layered metal rerebraces which sit perfectly under the shoulderplates. The lower arms are covered by vambraces which have two blades attached on each outer side, all sharpened and ready to be used as a weapon.


    The breastplate is made from one large piece of metal, which sits perfectly just under the shoulderplates. It covers everything from the neck down and ending at the groin, but the shoulder area is fairly exposed, probably to allow for more movement space.


    The upper legs are covered by squared, layered metal cuisses. The lower legs are protected by greaves which have several layered metal sheets on the outer sides.


    Apparently I was too close to the princess, that man¡­ That knight didn¡¯t seem to like it. His reaction was almost instantaneous.


    ¡°Y-you! Get away from the princess!¡±


    Unsheathing his sword, a large, wide, straight blade made from some kind of high grade metal is held by a grip made from some creature leather. With just one razor-sharp edge this weapon looked ideal for both cleaving enemies as well as blocking their attacks.


    The blade itself was engraved. Several runes are etched into the blade. The cross-guard had a decorative eye on each side, this was clearly a weapon not meant to be wielded by a commoner. A massive pommel is decorated with precious gems, no expense was spared for this gorgeous weapon.


    The man ran straight at me, his movements were quite agile even though he had an heavy looking armor and held such a huge sword in his hands.


    In less than a second he managed to close the distance between us, he was already swinging his sword toward me. I could see it all, from when he dashed toward me to the point his sword was closing on my shoulder. It was like he was in slow motion, and I wasn''t.


    Even though it was a sword I felt no danger from it. I moved my hand to the sword direction, and with a single finger stopped the movement of his sword.


    ¡°Eh?!¡±


    Even though his face is barely visible I could see the expression of confusion and surprise on his face.


    ¡°You bastard! Just how?¡±


    Without giving me a time to react, he quickly stepped back to swing his sword again, but this time the princess intervened.


    ¡°Saerus! Stop your actions immediately!¡±


    ¡°But princess! This guy is dangerous!¡±


    ¡°Saerus!¡±


    Surprised and dumbfounded, he stopped his movements.


    ¡°Who is that?¡± I asked.


    ¡°It is my personal bodyguard, Saerus. Please accept my deepest apology for his behavior¡±


    ¡°Princess! You don¡¯t have to apologize for me to this commoner!¡±


    ¡°Quiet Saerus! Go wait for me at the entrance! That¡¯s an order!¡±


    ¡°Ch... Y-yes my princess¡±


    I could hear a clicking of his tongue, he then sheathed his sword and headed toward the garden entrance. He was quite angry, I should avoid meeting with him, guys like him are dangerous.


    ¡°It¡¯s fine princess, no harm was done¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s Ivy!¡±


    ¡°!... Then Ms. Ivy¡±


    ¡°No, just call me Ivy¡±


    ¡°...¡±


    She smiled while walking backwards with her hands behind her back. I felt awkward, I didn''t understood why would she want me to call her by her name so badly.


    ¡°Thank you Azura, please return with my brother safe¡±


    ¡°I told you already...¡±


    But it was futile, I could tell from her eyes. What a troublesome princess I thought to myself.


    She then left with the her bodyguard, he was quite angry, looking at me with such scary eyes.


    Without noticing the timer has already reached 0. The title with all of the promised perks were gained. A small window with the text: ¡°You have Evolved into <Ulolear>¡±.


    It was amazing, I felt so different, the sensation was almost like a bug becoming a lion. My senses were sharper, I felt so powerful than before, it was another league of cheat, I wanted to test my powers, but I didn''t want to do it here. I decided to leave the temple for now.


    I headed back toward the inn I was staying. When I reached near the inn, a large group of people could be seen organizing in front of it. They were the large group of adventurers that I saw back in the inn.


    The group was quite varied consisting of 20 individuals excluding the leader, 10 of them had various melee weapons, some were with a simple axe and some were with a sword, 5 of them had bows or crossbows and the last 5 people were holding different kind of staffs, some of the staffs were more decorated than the other, but they all have one thing in common, a crystal on top of the staff, they were mages.


    I approached the group, Rudus as already told me that they plan to go fight the Black King, so it would be an excellent chance to gain some skills.


    ¡°Hello there! My name is Azura, I¡¯m a fellow adventurer, I heard from the innkeeper you were going to confront the Black King¡±


    They looked at me with weary eyes, they seemed irritated for some reason. A man with black, straight hair and blue eyes. He stood taller than the rest with quite the bulky frame.


    He wore a leather armor that had a hood with a face guard shaped in the face of a hawk. Attached to the forehead area is a row of small horns. The shoulders were fairly oval, quite short and quite large. They were decorated with a row of metal chains on each side.


    The upper arms were protected by squared, half covering rerebraces which sit well under the shoulderplates. The lower arms were covered by vambraces which had rows upon rows of small leather pieces, mimicking fish scales.


    The breastplate is made from many layers of smaller leather pieces, again mimicking the scales of a fish. It covered everything from the neck down and ending at the groin, but there''s a fairly wide neck line which was somewhat exposed.


    The upper legs were covered by squared, layered leather cuisses. The lower legs are protected by leather shin guards which had layers of colored feathers on the outer sides. Thick pants made from leather and fur are worn beneath all that.


    He approached me from inside the group.


    ¡°And what if we do?¡±


    ¡°Then I wish to join you, I¡¯m an adventurer as well¡±


    ¡°What is your adventurer rank?¡±


    He asked with a condescending tone.


    ¡°<H>¡±


    ¡°<H> rank? Hahaha! You think we will accept an <H> rank to our group? Pfffff have you lost your mind? Who would take a weakling to do an <A> rank quest?¡±


    He was quite rude, deducting that I''m weak based on my adventurer rank.


    ¡°Who knows I might be useful for you¡±


    ¡°You newbie! Who do you think you are?¡±


    Someone in the group yelled at me. The leader raised his hand marking his men to not interfere. But his face was still showing a laughing face.


    ¡°In second thought, why not, you can join us¡±


    (Ohh maybe I was wrong about him. He might have some brains after all)


    ¡°As a bait. Pfff hahaha!¡±


    (Or not...)


    The group were laughing at me, full of arrogance. It didn¡¯t bother me much as I¡¯m far too used to people underestimating me. I had the same attitude given to me from my previous boss, seeing him getting fired was fun.


    I decided to put an act, I would just follow them behind and gather as much skills and spells as I can. But there was another issue, I needed to see if I¡¯m capable of seeing people die, or even if I¡¯m capable of killing¡­ I knew I was in a fantasy RPG world but still it felt far too real to be a dream.


    ¡°Then take good care of me¡±


    I bowed while wearing a fake smile, they just kept laughing. What a sad bunch, I really pitied them. Well it''s not like I made any impression indicating otherwise.


    After he finished making fun of me, satisfied the leader rejoined the group. He said something to one of his man, and gave me a weird smile. Afterwards they marched toward the east exit of the city, I followed behind.


    Reaching outside of the gate the leader stopped the group.


    ¡°This is it falles! Finally we can take our revenge!¡±


    The word revenge seemed to ignite them, you could almost see fire in their eyes. Some of them were still looked fearful. He said revenge, does it mean that they already fought with him once, I wondered.


    He continued his speech.


    ¡°I know most of you are feeling uneasy about the quest, we already lost ten people, good people, in our last try."


    He then paused, his serious expression changed, it was now filled with confidence and a smile.


    "But this time we will defeat the Black King!¡±


    One of them interrupted him.


    ¡°Trevor! How can you say this? How can you be so sure it won¡¯t end the same as the last time?¡±


    He smiled widely toward them and said:


    ¡°Because now, we have Soreth the Dragonborn at our side!¡±


    Their expression was filled with awe, they all got excited, some of them even let out a ¡°Ooh!!!" sound.


    ¡°The prodigy? The young magician who reached tier 4 magic? that Soreth?¡±


    (Huh? is a tier 4 magic that awesome? I knew that my tier 1 magic is powerful but that was because I¡¯m a cheat)


    ¡°Yes, that right!¡±


    That Soreth guy seemed to be quite famous, I also wondered who he was and why was a tier 4 magician such a big deal.


    They were cheering and yelling, their leader, this Trevor guy sure was resourceful, he knew exactly how to talk to his group and they seemed to trust him. He continued to motivate them and tell them how he got the great Soreth to accompany them.


    While they all were making a fuss about that magician, someone was approaching me from behind.


    ¡°How troublesome¡­ How did I get into this mess again?¡±


    Wearing a wide smile, it was a woman, she had red long hair and green eyes. A sword left a mark stretching from the right side of the forehead, running towards her upper lip and ending on her left cheekbone. That woman saw some battle, or cut a salad the wrong way¡­ Any way, she was quite charming even with that scar, with a firm body and nice pair of breasts.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry?¡±


    Though I could guess she was a magician based on her clothes and her staff. She wore a robe made from some kind of expensive looking silk. The top part was blue and a golden-green color was taking place from around the middle slowly until it became fully green at the bottom. She held a small stick, it was a wand. The wand measures was about 36 cm and was clearly made by a professional. It looked quite expensive, especially the red orb attached to the top end of the wand.


    ¡°Excuse my rudeness, I¡¯m Soreth the Dragonborn, surely you have heard of me!¡±


    (Huh? isn''t Soreth a guy name?)


    ¡°Not really, but it seems that the group over there knows you well¡±


    ¡°Well of course! Who wouldn''t know about the prodigy disciple of the great Xix Le Blank? Kekeke¡±


    (Way too arrogant¡­)


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but who is Xix Le Blank?¡±


    ¡°You are joking right?¡±


    ¡°Not at all, I¡¯m completely serious¡±


    She looked at me with a shocked expression of disbelief, as if I just told her that the world was not flat but round, wait... Was it?


    She started to explain to me about her master, how great , powerful and amazing he is. By her story, Xix is a the first magician to rediscover a 5th tier magic, which was lost for over 400 years, that what made him so famous. The woman before me was one of his disciples.


    At some point of talking and bragging about her great achievements and her legendary master I reminded her why she was here.


    ¡°As I would love to keep hearing more about you and your master, the people over there seem to be waiting for you...¡±


    The group were staring at us with furious faces, I think some of them were ready to draw their weapons. It got really awkward, I laughed unwillingly.


    ¡°Ah yes! I remembered now! I promised master to help them defeat the Black King! How annoying, always doing job away from master...¡±


    (I can see why...)


    She then ran toward the group, Trevor presented her to the group and somewhere when the group was focused on her he looked at me with an angry face.


    I made myself stand out too much without realizing it. I awkwardly smiled to him. We started to walk again. I was sure the group would make use of mounts, but they didn''t, that was because the place we were going to was just two hours walk and was unfitted for mounts or so Soreth told me.


    You see, while walking to our destination the angry faces of the group had increased thanks to her, but I got a good information in return. She told me about her adventures and how she got her scar from summoning a medium level demon without knowing how to control it. About the magic academy that runs by the magic guild and other magic related subjects.


    After a while I got a bad feeling, the stares from the guys of the group were focused madly on me, as if I just stole something extremely precious.


    "Ms. Soreth, I think you should rejoin the group. Aren¡¯t you here to help them with their quest?"


    "Sure, but first I need to know your name"


    "Why?"


    It was troublesome, I didn¡¯t want to draw more attention, I felt that if I told her my name it will only bring me more trouble.


    "Come on! Don''t be shy! You can tell me your name"


    "Do I have to?"


    "Wait! Don''t tell me that you have fallen to me?"


    I did not understand from where that deduction came from, but it made me quite nervous and frustrated.


    "W-what? N-no! Why would y-you say that?"


    "Hoho!"


    "..."


    She looked happy, I was pretty much annoyed. How embarrassing, saying that out loud. The guys at the rear of the group just got even more furious, some of them let out an ¡°grrr¡± sound.


    "So tell me! What is your name?"


    "You can''t read the mood, do you?"


    "Mmhm?"


    "Ugh... Never mind, my name is Azura"


    "Azura... Mhmm"


    Two men from the  group who didn''t seem to like the current interaction I had with her, so they decided to interrupt.


    "Soreth, don''t get too close to him."


    "Yeah! You should join strong men like us! As an high human you should know that we are more suited than him"


    "It''s OK, because Azura here isn''t a normal human"


    "Huh?"


    "!"


    I didn''t understand how she knew that, I looked exactly like one. Was she able to see my race with some kind of analyzing skill, I did not know.


    "How did you..."


    "As an high human I can sense the different aura each race make, your is different, a race that I have yet to encounter, what are you? Some kind of new human? You look like a human but you emit such a strong aura!"


    "..."


    I didn''t know what to do. If I told that I''m an high human or a normal human she would dismiss it, she already knows that I''m not.


    "There is no way this guy is strong!"


    "Yeah, there is no way an <H> rank adventurer is as strong as a High Human"


    Again with skeptical and angry faces the both of them were standing in front of me, yelling to my face, trying to separate me from Soreth. Approaching their sheathed swords, I thought I will have to engage in a bloody brawl, but Trevor intervened.


    "You four! Be quiet! We arrived at the enemy territory!"


    Trevor urged at us with a quiet yet serious tone. The view in front of us was quite surreal. Many man-made stone structures can be seen, but they are mostly destroyed. None of the structures was fully intact, this is probably what you would call ruins.


    Trevor marked to his man to be ready with some hand gestures. Unsheathing their swords and axes the melee were at the vanguard proceeding toward the ruins, the bowman stretching their bows took high ground positions while at the very rear were the magicians.


    I stood next to Soreth, in the rear. I was getting excited, it is my first battle experience, but Soreth who was so lively and loud just a minute ago, became quiet and wore a very serious face.


    Trevor who ordered his man to keep scouting approached me.


    ¡°I don¡¯t who you are but I can¡¯t let you distract Soreth or my team. Don¡¯t get in our way and stay back!¡±


    With those cold words he pointed Soreth to join the mages of his group. Soreth bowed and left to join the magicians. And just as Trevor was about to preach at me some more, it happened.

 Volume 1 - Chapter 4: The Deathbringer & The Spy Part 1

    Heya!


    Sorry guys for the delay, a lot is going on IRL... Not a lot of time to work on the story.


    I will now change the releases to one chapter in every two weeks (hopefully).


    I don''t want to rush to release chapters as it might hinder their quality.


    This was suppose to be a full chapter but because it will take some time to complete it I separated it into two maybe three parts.


    I know this part is quite short, hopefully the next part will be a bit longer.


    ----------------------------


    Chapter 4


    (Princess Ivy Marcallas POV)


    ¡°What should I do? Last night¡­ Gahhh~¡±


    ¡°Princess?¡±


    I know this voice, it is a voice I often hear, it¡¯s a voice filled with worry and confidence. Though I do not hate this voice, I dislike how often I hear it.


    ¡°Princess Ivy? Are you alright?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I¡¯m fine Saerus¡±


    As usual he wears his <Knight Protector> outfit, even though he holds a rank above, a <Knight Captain>. Yes, it¡¯s the voice of my bodyguard. A tall man, at least a head more than me, he is quite sturdy man, some will even call his figure quite handsome.


    He could easily advance to the rank of <Knight Commander>. He is extremely talented, and he served our family for over fifteen years. Not to mention he is my childhood friend. I never understood why was he so obsessed in being my bodyguard when he can do so much more.


    ¡°But it does not seem the case, and you haven¡¯t explained to me why you ran last night¡±


    ¡°That...¡±


    ¡°And who was that white bastard? He is clearly a dangerous person!¡±


    ¡°Do not talk to him like that!¡±


    ¡°?!¡±


    Ah, I spoke out of emotions¡­ Emotions? Since when did I have such emotions to a stranger? But some how he made me feel safe, he made me feel like anything is possible if it is him. I wanted him to save my brother.


    I was raised to work based on logic, never on my emotions. And so I built a cold yet kind heart, never once feeling anything yes full of compassion and empathy. It was hard, very hard, to know when to act how, but I managed it somehow. For my father, for my sisters, for my mother...


    And by being so I stopped feeling anything towards other people than my own family, but he was different, as if I found a lost member of my family.


    I wonder why...


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry Saerus, I lost myself in thoughts, the kidnapping of my brother and my elder sister fighting at our kingdom borders, it is straining on my heart¡±


    ¡°I-i see...¡±


    He paused for a moment


    ¡°Do not worry, Princess, our Intel suggests that the defeat of the Black King and the safe return of the Prince is soon to be achieved¡±


    ¡°What? Is that true?¡±


    ¡°Yes! Do you remember Soreth?¡±


    ¡°My senior? The one who mastered almost all of Master¡¯s spells?¡±


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s the one! By the reports he is already engaged with the Black King, it is soon to be over!¡±


    ¡°Really?!¡±


    Unbelievable! The shut-in disciple of my master, Xix, the one who barely speaks went out of the academy grounds to help rescue my brother? Since when did he change so much?


    ¡°Yes in fact...¡±


    A sudden silence, Saerus is wearing a surprised expression, no a terrified one.


    ¡°?¡±


    ¡°... H-hi¡±


    As I turn around I saw a young human boy, nearing his twenties, he had a timid look. He wore a blueish robe and was quite slender, maybe calling him skinny would suit him better. He had a green hair, which indicates he is an half <Dragon> race, one of the Surasa. It is Xix best disciple, Soreth. (AN: Yes this is not a mistake he is a half dragon, it will be explained later)


    ¡°Soreth? Why are you here? weren''t you supposed to escort ¡®Red Brigadier¡¯ for the subjugation of the Black King?¡±


    ¡°... N-no¡­ M-master sent me here to call fo-r Princess Ivy. S-she missed her monthly magic l¡­ lesson¡±


    ¡°If you are here, than who is the one in the reports?!¡±


    <><><><><>


    (Azura POV)


    ¡°Hihihihi!¡±


    A loud shrieking laughing sound could be heard.


    ¡°Ughhh!!!!! H-help me!!!! GhaarrAAa¡±


    On an high platform were three people, a scout of the group I followed, and two figures who I did not recognize. One of them wore pure black robes, he had a skin so pale I doubt he saw any light the past 10 years, the other was a fully equipped with black armor, a knight I suppose.


    ¡°Hihihi! What do we have here?¡±


    The robed man laughed, he seemed to lick something off his fingers. Next to him the black knight figure was standing while holding a sword high in the air. Pierced to the sword was the scout, it was like a picture you could see only in a manga or an anime.


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    The black knight waved his sword, the scout who was pierced in the stomach flew to the sideways, like he was some bug on a kid toy.


    ¡°Crikhar!¡±


    Someone from the group yelled at the robed figure.


    ¡°Do I know you? Mmmm Hihihi, was he important to you? Hahahaha¡±


    ¡°My name is Inigomon Toya! You killed my brother! Prepare to die!¡± (AN: I just had to xD)


    ¡°Die? Hahaha! You funny little man¡±


    After a short pause, his face full of laughter changed to a huge grin.


    ¡°Ephraim, eliminate those pests¡±


    Trevor who was already restless clicked his tongue shouted towards his men.


    ¡°Men, attack!! ArrhhGGHAAaaaa¡±


    With his warcry hell went lose, this Trevor guy really isn¡¯t suited for leadership. Without any strategy, without knowing the enemy strength he ordered his men to attack. It was a fatal mistake.


    It took more than 5 seconds for the the group to realize. But the black knight had already killed two more of their comrades. Bewildered by the scene before them they kept dieing like bugs.


    The black knight dashed so quickly from one man to the other, they barely managed to see him, but not all of them were surprised. Some of them seem to be veterans. Just before the black knight managed to kill his twelve victim he was stopped by a huge axe clashing with his black sword.


    ¡°An Obleven? Hmph! How dare you trespass to the holy land of the White God?¡±


    ¡°Your dead god will not help you now, mortal!¡±


    With a metallic voice the black knight answered. A black light appeared, eating the space near the his sword.


    ¡°Damn! Get away!¡±


    The huge axe man roared to his back while jumping to the side. The knight thrusted his sword downwards, a black shockwave came out, killing all the misfortune few who stood in it¡¯s path.


    ¡°[Dark Thrust]¡±


    That was the name of his devastating attack. It destroyed everything in it''s path, leaving only corpses.


    ¡°A Death Knight!¡±


    One of the mages close to me yelled, and immediately after started to chant something.


    ¡°Oh great god of light, bless us with your presence! [Repel The Dark]¡±


    A bright blinding light appeared from the tip of his staff illuminating the whole area for a split second.


    ¡°Take that!¡±


    The mage arrogantly shouted, the black knight who stood just two hundred meters away disappeared as if vanished into thin air.


    ¡°Death Knight? Don¡¯t compare me to a weak servant like that!¡±


    The knight who vanished just a second ago appeared just next to the mage. From this close I could see he was not a human. Almost three meters tall with a dark purple skin, red glowing eyes, with fangs instead of teethes. He was holding a huge black sword covered with runes. His armor had a rounded helm with a face guard shaped in the face of a skull. Attached to its side are two tall bat wing shaped ornaments.


    The shoulders are fairly pointy, tall and fairly small in size. They''re decorated with pieces of crystal-shaped metal, creating the illusion of shards of ice or rock. The breastplate is made from one large piece of metal, but crafted to mimic the appearance of muscles. It covers the entire front and back side, but the attachment straps leave the sides under the arms exposed.


    He really looked like a "Death Knight".


    ¡°W-what! Just how?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right! Fear me human, for I am Ephraim the Deathbringer!¡±


    The mage who was quite surprised from the sudden appearance of Ephraim next to him, became pale and fall to the floor as if he lost all of his strength in his legs as if he heard that Lucifer himself was standing before him.


    ¡°I-impossible!¡±


    Someone muttered.


    ¡°What does a <Death Lord> doing here? In broad daylight no less!¡±


    Without waiting for a reaction from Ephraim, Trevor who was also close by, jumped towards him swinging his sword downwards trying to save his companion. Ephraim easily evaded that strike and dashed to the side while grabbing the fallen mage.


    ¡°Puny humans! Behold the power granted to me by our Dark Prince!¡±


    Breaking the neck of the mage and throwing his body on the ground, Ephraim uttered those words.


    ¡°From the purgatory we come, as servants of the Dark Prince, We will claim the living [Dark Summon: Undead]¡±


    Suddenly a black fog covered the bodies of the slain adventurers. It was like in a horror movie, the corpses that were enveloped by the fog became zombies, but with a big difference, they were twice the size of their original bodies and they all held a big axe or a big sword covered with full black armor plate set.


    With this horror like scene he showed a grin and said:


    ¡°Shall we play?¡±

 Volume 1 - Chapter 5: The Deathbringer & The Spy Part 2

    Heyo!


    So how is everyone doing? here is another chapter!


    --------


    Chapter 5


    (Boring)


    That what I thought. Don¡¯t get me wrong, the power display of Ephraim was quite awe inspiring, but it was soon dulled as he started ¡°playing¡± with the adventurers group. After creating the zombie knights out of the corpses he stepped back. He was watching the group fighting against their former comrades.


    At first it was entertaining as I got to see a lot of spells and sword techniques. But it became duller as the time passed, they just kept repeating the same things, actually it wasn¡¯t visible at first but the way they fought the zombies looked different but it was actually the same if you looked closely.


    It wasn¡¯t because they were dumb, it was because they were stalling. It seems Soreth was preparing to invoke a 4th tier magic, which apparently, takes a lot of time to invoke. They are truly coordinated bunch, I¡¯ll give them that.


    As I got bored I decided to rest on top of a rubble just nearby, close enough to see the fight but far enough not to be bothered. I do not wish to join the fight until I have more grasp at my power and how to use it, and well... Trevor did told me not to interfere with them.


    I knew almost nothing from this world apart from it being really similar to the game I was suppose to play prior to dying. It is sad yet funny, being reborn into a fantasy RPG themed world. I suppose it was every young nerd dream, or more precisely, ¡°otaku¡± dream as my japanese friends called it.


    Because I had nothing better to do until Soreth will finish her spell I decided to investigate the ¡°Interface¡± I had.


    First was my HUD I had always displayed in my line of sight, it was half transparent but I could see enough to tell what it contained. The top left contained my name, my level, my rank and my evolution name, no health bar or stamina bar, not even a mana bar, I wondered why. The top left contained the map such a useful tool. The map was quite amazing, the more I let my focus on it the more details and actions I could do and it wasn¡¯t static I could look everywhere I wanted using it.


    I even found out that I can ¡°scan¡± areas, it allowed me to distinguish individuals in the area I was looking, I could see their race, level & rank, name, even their stats and titles. The terrain will also be displayed, darker colors meant higher while brighter meant lower. If I wanted to I could even ¡°see¡± in 3d at the area I was looking in the map, as if I was there. This map was proven to be quite useful to me.


    Proceeding to the other features in the HUD, at the bottom, the left side had the current time, speed, altitude... Mostly informational stuff about my current location and status. From the middle bottom to the bottom right there were multiple icons, they were the menus I could open.


    Most of the menus I already been through before, like character status, inventory, perk menu and so on, there were nothing new in them, I even had a creation menu, I decided to check it out later as it sounded as if it will take a lot of  time to explore.


    The skill menu contained a few hundred thousands new skills, the same was with the spell menu. I was really confused, I didn¡¯t see that many skills and spells in my way here or in this particular battle. How was it possible for so many skills and spells to suddenly appear?


    The weirdest part was that a lot of them were quite high tier skills and spells, with flashy names and flashy effects.


    ¡°Did I just learn every single skill and spell?¡±


    I murmured to myself. It was true, I was already too much overpowered and now I even had hundred thousands of spells and skills. As if skipping the ¡°training¡± phase already, novels usually had the hero learn all those things the hard way. It was quite weird, I kept getting more powerful even when I already was.


    I was happy, but I couldn¡¯t shake the feeling, why so fast and so many? There must be a reason behind it. At that point of time I was right but I didn¡¯t find the reason behind it until much later, I was too accepting you know...


    I decided to let it slide for now and just enjoy the ongoing privileges I got. There were quite fun stuff in there, but I searched for one particular skill.


    ¡°Found it!¡±


    What I found was the [Presence] skill.


    ¡°Hoho! Now that makes it much more fun!¡±


    I was pleased, the [Presence] was something that allows me to control my presence, whether to emit it or to hide it. My skill was more than that, because of it being maxed ranked and a lot of skills being compatible with it, the skill became a unique skill.


    The description contained all of the linked skills, it is a long list but the summary of the description is: I can either decide to hide myself completely even though I¡¯m right in front of my someone, I can also emit it on an external source, be it object or a person, and by doing so It becomes [Pressure], a sync skill.


    There is also [Bloodlust] and [Intimidation] which are sync skills with the [Presence] skill, all of them and many other skills seemed to be related to the [Presence] skill.


    ¡°But trying it out without control of the output will be bad...¡±


    Knowing that it was hard to know how much power I should put on my speed, also my fireball yesterday blew a whole crater like a meteorite, I couldn¡¯t carelessly use my skills anymore, especially after my evolution. But luckily, I found another skill which was perfect for avoiding such mistakes.


    ¡°[Limit: 1%]¡±


    It is hard to explain the feeling after using this skill. Even though I didn¡¯t feel change in my strength, the output of it was if blocked by a steel wall.


    ¡°Let¡¯s test this out¡±


    I stepped down from the rubble I was sitting on and got walked in front of a big rock. I made a punch and with all my might, threw it on the rock.


    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    *Baam* The rock shattered into many little pieces.


    ¡°Wow, still powerful at 1%? Should I lower it more?¡±


    I was also worried that I made noise that might avert the attention to me, but it seems that I was unnoticed. They were all focused too much on the fight.


    After a few experimentations I found out I could put [Limit] on some kind of autopilot mode. It works the same as mana, I need to think of how much power I want to output and it will adjust accordingly. Time passed, about 30 minutes, the group started to get tired and by so started to make mistakes.


    ¡°Arghh!!¡±


    One of the fighters got his back slashed by a zombie knight.


    ¡°Jack! Shit... Soreth! isn¡¯t the spell ready yet?¡±


    One of the magicians who was fighting the zombie knight together with the fighter, yelled back to Soreth who was still preparing her grand spell.


    ¡°Almost done! Just 2 more minutes, just hold out 2 more!¡±


    ¡°Che¡­ Focus men!¡±


    Trevor clicked his tongue while trying to encourage his men to hold a bit longer against the zombie knights. It might have been their longest 2 minutes, but as promise Soreth did finish her spell.


    ¡°By the power of Temes, God of Light, purge the land of evil, [High Heavens: Holy Smite]¡±


    The whole area was suddenly covered with bright light, slowly focusing on the zombies, after the light focused on the zombies pillars of light flew from the ground below them, vaporizing them completely.


    Sound of applause and hurrah came from the group as they saw the threat completely annihilated.


    ¡°What?! A tier 4 spell?¡±


    The black robed man, Crikhar, yelled.


    ¡°Ephraim! Stop playing around! Kill that mage!¡±


    Crikhar pointed his finger toward Soreth.


    Ephraim, who was also engulfed with the light was thought to be vaporized as well. But after a few seconds he stepped forward from the pillar of light moving out of it like it was nothing.


    ¡°A tier 4 magician, ah? Quite rare to see a human possessing that kind of power¡±


    ¡°Shit! it didn¡¯t affect him!¡± one in the group retorted.


    Ephraim unsheathed his huge sword from his back. And in a blink of an eye was in front of Soreth.


    ¡°Even though I would love to see the extent of your power I¡¯ll have to kill you here¡±


    Soreth who wore a surprised face when Ephraim appeared before her, but after Ephraim raised his sword at Soreth she said: ¡°Funny that you say that?¡±


    ¡°?!¡± Ephraim jumped back a few meters away from Soreth.


    ¡°No! How can this be?¡±


    ¡°So you noticed it now? Ephraim I¡¯m quite disappointed.¡± she smirked and then invoked a spell ¡°[High Heaven: True Form]¡±.


    A pillar similar to the ones that vaporized the zombies covered Soreth, but it emitted a different kind of aura, and after a few seconds it disappeared.


    Soreth was suddenly wearing a different attire. She no longer wore her robe but instead had a full plate armor of glowing white color. Her helmet had a squared opening for the eyes, which curves downwards into a narrow opening up to the mouth. Attached to its side are two are two angel like wings.


    The lower arms were covered by vambraces which had a metal like small wings. The breastplate had a face of some kind of god engraved with a gold like metal into it. The upper legs were covered by a chainmail skirt reaching just below the groin. The lower legs are protected by greaves which have layers of white colored feathers on the outer sides.


    And the most surreal thing was, she grew wings.


    ¡°It is time to end this¡± She said, her voice was a bit different, it had some kind of echo into it.


    ¡°Shit! You bitch! [Dark Summon: Hell Barrier]!¡±


    A dark fog appeared, engulfing Ephraim from all sides completely covering him.


    She drew a sword from her waist and raised her other hand to the air and a shield appeared, both majestically looking both in white color. She pointer her sword toward the sphere of dark fog.


    ¡°[High Heavens: Piercing Light]¡±


    A white light came out of her sword, like a laser it reached the fog in an instant piercing through it. Almost instantly after Ephraim jumped out of the fog to the side while pressing his hand on his shoulder, he seemed to be bleeding some kind of blue liquid.


    ¡°... What an <High Human> bitch from the <Order of the Heavens> doing here?¡±


    ¡°Such a rude creature. Fine I didn¡¯t expect to see a <Death Lord> here so keeping my cover is futile¡±


    ¡°Soreth? What is this? <Order of the Heavens>? What is he talking about?¡±


    Trevor was dumbstruck from the conversation between Soreth and Ephraim.


    ¡°Funny little man, I¡¯m not Soreth, if you did your research correctly you would have known that Soreth is in fact a man and he is an half dragon and not an <High Human>¡±


    ¡°W-what? But you told me...¡±


    ¡°I told you what? That I¡¯m a tier 4 magician. I did not lie, you assumed by yourself that I was this Soreth guy.¡±


    ¡°...¡± Trevor was speechless.


    He then composed himself, he was angry thus his tone changed to a demanding one.


    ¡°Then who are you?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m...¡±


    ¡°From the Udura Empire, Elezabeth Campbell, also known as Elezabeth of the High Heavens¡±


    Ephraim interrupted.


    ¡°Udura Empire? Oi! Isn¡¯t it the enemy territory?¡±


    ¡°Yeah¡­ And the order of the High Heavens...¡±


    ¡°Shit! A Death Lord and a spy? Could this get any worse?¡±


    (You had to say that?)


    A dark atmosphere could be felt from the battlefield, as spy from another empire was revealed...


    -------


    Oh wow! How will our group fare? Will they survive the wrath of Ephraim? And who is this Elezabeth woman?


    Stay tuned!


    -------


    The revised version of chapter 5 is now up, chapter 6 will be released in about 2-3 hours.

 Volume 1 - Chapter 6: A bad drama

    So chapter 6!


    This one went the same as 5, I wanted more content into it but ended up with less.


    Next chapter will be POV''s of different individuals. I''m getting tons of work IRL from my job so it will be slow.


    Hopefully I will get some rest in the end of the month and make it up to you guys.


    ------------------------------


    Chapter 6


    I admit it, my behaviour is quite different from what you might expect from someone who was just reincarnated. Does being reincarnated comes with a different personality? I know that in novels about reincarnations, the reincarnation changes the person, but not in the beginning...


    I don¡¯t exactly understand why it changed me so much, but it did. My thoughts were more focused and calm. That wasn¡¯t normal for me, who was a timid person, I would easily get excited or overwhelmed by almost the lamest thing, even my doctors said that my behaviour is not good for my blood pressure.


    It took me awhile to even realize that I''m acting weird. I was excited and I was overwhelmed, well a bit, but not as usual. I took notice only in really interesting stuff, I didn¡¯t even stopped and looked at my surroundings. It was all different and yet it didn¡¯t seem to bother me.


    And in the end, I got myself caught up in some troublesome stuff. I didn¡¯t even knew how to fight¡­ It was calculated, a cold calculation, observing equals skills, skills equals power, power equals godhood. So I went with it, I just kept observing interesting things, and when I heard from Rudus about this Black King hunt, well¡­ you know the rest.


    After getting almost exposed of my evolution by Soreth, I suddenly realized how much I have changed. I probably didn''t notice it earlier as I was so excited and happy from my cheat title and it¡¯s perks that I didn¡¯t bother to check it more carefully.


    Reincarnated One - Special perk: Calm Mind.


    ¡°Hoho, so I¡¯m known even in the high rankings of the Dark Legion?¡±


    ¡°Hmph!¡±


    ¡°Oh don¡¯t be so stiff¡±


    ¡°Tsk, It doesn¡¯t matter, you will perish with the lot of them¡±


    Ephraim clicked his tongue, he removed his hand that covered his wound, if there was one, because now there wasn¡¯t even a trace of an injury.


    ¡°High regeneration? Not too shabby, for a Lesser Death Lord that is¡±


    ¡°What! You whore!¡±


    They both wore a serious yet angry expression, their hands strengthening their grip on their swords. And in a mere second, white and black flashes in the middle of them, following with echoing sounds of swords.


    *Cling, Bang, Bang, Slash*


    It was their swords clashing sound, a violent sound of two metal swords clash with each other. It seems that the exchange between the two was so strong that the five adventurers that were close in proximity to them flew away from the wind pressure, hard landing on different areas of the ruin.


    The battle between the mighty two continued. The current state of the adventurers were dire, with 13 adventurers including their leader, Trevor, more than a half of them were annihilated by the hands of Ephraim and his zombie knights.


    They all stood a good distance away from the raging battle between the two superior warriors. No one of them even dare to interfere but they are all focused on the fight. As for me, I was enjoying the sight, it seems I do keep getting more skills and spells as they continue.


    But I can keep this on, why isn¡¯t trevor...


    ¡°Not to interrupt you from the magnificent view¡­ But why aren¡¯t you with the rest of your group?¡±


    ¡°!? W-what?¡±


    As dumb as ever, he really isn¡¯t suited to lead, he might be charismatic but he has zero experience in leading or observing. He was lucky he had such smart subordinates.


    ¡°You, you are the <H> tag along right? What do you mean with the rest? Are you blind or are you trying something sneaky? Maybe I should have been more wary of you. As far as I know you might be one of Crikhar lackeys!¡±


    ¡°Woah woah, hold your horses chief! I¡¯m totally with you, what I meant was...¡±


    A old man voice, an irritating one, could be heard from behind us.


    ¡°Hehehehe! So a few of you left, I will clean you up while Ephraim get rid of your troublesome friend¡±


    ¡°The Black King? When did he?...¡± One of the mages shouted


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter, it made things easier¡±


    Trevor unsheathed his sword getting closer to Crikhar with a killing intent.


    ¡°Not so fast!¡±


    Crikhar grinned while gesturing with his index finger. His other hand went behind him as if he was taking something out of hiding.


    ¡°Don¡¯t get closer or he dies!¡±


    He was grabbing a young boy by the arm. The boy appearance was not completely natural, his skin a bit pale and his eyes were blank as if he was in a trance. Trevor stopped as if he was in shock, his gripping hand almost let loose of his sword.


    ¡°Good, now that you understand¡­¡±


    ¡°Let go of the prince!¡±


    Someone yelled. Crikhar smiled toward the group and continued his speech.


    ¡°If you want him to stay alive, then drop your weapons!¡±


    He scratched the prince neck with his long pointy fingernails, making a small wound on the boy¡¯s neck. They all wore angry expression, readying their weapons for an attack.


    ¡°Fine!¡± Trevor said reluctantly.


    ¡°But Trevor...¡±


    ¡°Do as he says! He has the prince!¡±


    As he said that, he dropped his weapon on the ground, his men followed his lead.


    ¡°Hihihi, Good! Now that we estab...¡±


    Crikhar head suddenly flew from his neck, landing near Trevor, the boy prince next to him was not there anymore.


    ¡°I have no time to mess around here anymore, the fight was a good warm up, it¡¯s been awhile since I last fought¡±


    Soreth, no Elezabeth was standing a few feet away from the headless corpse of Crikhar, holding the boy prince as if he was a bag on her shoulders. Her sword dripping with blood was cleaned completely with a single swing in the air.


    ¡°Now then I shall make my departure¡±


    ¡°Elezabeth! What do you think you are doing with the prince?!¡± Trevor yelled at her.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it obvious? Taking him away, my mission was to gather information, find weaknesses for the empire¡±


    ¡°What?!¡±


    ¡°You damn Quwen bastards had the upper hand when it came to terrain, your military is a joke but you gave us quite the scare with your warrior princess, is she even human? To beat Hancock in a duel¡­ It doesn¡¯t matter anymore because I got something that will change everything right here¡±


    She looked at the unconscious prince that hangs from her shoulder like a bag and then she laughed.


    ¡°Well, this is a farewell, lets both of us hope that we will never meet again¡±


    She smiled and then muttered a few words, and she suddenly disappeared. Dumbfoundead, no one knew how to react. Sadly it was only the half of it.


    From behind us stood a big dark shadow emitting an immeasurable amount of killing intent.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    ¡°THAT BITCH! Where is she?!¡± Ephraim roared.


    His armor was now quite ruined, his helmet completely destroyed, fall to the ground, revealing an handsome face. His voice was not metallic anymore, almost as if he transformed from a Death Knight into a pretty boy.


    ¡°Deathbringer? Shit!¡± Trevor murmured.


    Looking at Trevor direction Ephraim raised his voice even further ¡°I just asked you... WHERE IS THAT WHORE!!!¡± He shouted, his voice contained something unnatural, a demonic tone. Of course, Trevor didn¡¯t answer him, he didn¡¯t know the answer.


    Trevor clicked his tongue, it surprised me, a normal person would surely be terrified from the scene before him, yet he keeps his composure.


    It wasn¡¯t but a few seconds before the veteran axeman from before jumped on Ephraim, trying to land a surprise attack. A sound of metal clashing could be heard.


    ¡°Is that suppose to hurt?¡±


    ¡°?!¡±


    The shoulder of Ephraim which was targeted by the axeman wasn¡¯t even scratched.


    ¡°It¡¯s my turn now¡±


    All of the 12 remaining started to jump on Ephraim together but... The scene next was, well plainly put: bad. Ephraim just tore the group apart, it was a total massacre. Limbs were flying everywhere, the thick red blood replaced the brown of the soil.


    From 13 they became 1, not knowing what to do Trevor fall on his knees.


    ¡°I think it is my time to shine¡±


    I looked at Trevor with a wide smile and drew my sword.


    ¡°Wh¡­ What exactly do you think can you do? You who is a new adventurer that barely seen the world outside?! Don¡¯t make me laugh! and don¡¯t dare make fun of my comrades who just died doing their very best!¡±


    "Stop blabbering already, just drop dead from my sword like the rest"


    I ignored Ephraim and addressed Trevose.


    ¡°Dead? What are you talking about?¡±


    Behind me was a stone wall, but the wall started to fade away slowly disappearing as if it wasn¡¯t even there, the view was replaced with army of people well equipped. Standing there were all of his men, all of the 39 of them, alive and well.


    ¡°W-wha... How?¡± said Ephraim with a confused face.


    ¡°That¡¯s a secret, now it is time to say goodbye¡± I smiled at Ephraim who was dumbfounded by my words. I moved to the side as I was blocking the path, five mages were standing behind me chanting a spell.


    ¡°With the help of the heavens¡±


    ¡°And the earth¡±


    ¡°We combine our power¡±


    ¡°To call upon you¡±


    ¡°To the great exile, To you Vydes, god of banishment¡±


    ¡°[Banish: Great Darkness]¡± They said simultaneously.


    A black light started to form behind Ephraim. Still with dumbfounded look on his face he looked back and started to yell.


    ¡°No! No! Nooooo! I still have to get that bitch! I will find you, and I will destroy you all!¡±


    Ephraim was screaming as a black hole appeared behind him, sucking him away.


    ¡°Babye!¡± I smiled and waved toward Ephraim while he was sucked into the black hole. Behind me everyone started to cheer and laugh, everyone except Trevor who was still trying to grasp what is going on.


    ¡°You¡­ You were all alive?¡± Tears were starting to form in his eyes.


    ¡°Well yeah, we tried to tell you sooner but you always rushed ahead, even the newbie tried to tell you¡± one of the mages answered him


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    He then started to explain everything to Trevor. While trevor was bussy with yelling at me and Soreth, his men already found out about Ephraim and the Crikhar. Having to make a fast decision they couldn¡¯t wait for Trevor and they started to act by the orders of his right hand, Balo.


    Balo was the first scout to get ¡°killed¡±, before everything happened he ordered the mages to cast illusions and clones spells. Replacing one by one secretly as the time passed, when Elezabeth showed herself only Trevor was left to be replaced with a clone but no one dared to go and call him to get into the illusion.


    And then I came to picture, I already saw it all happening so I wasn¡¯t sure why he was the only non-clone that stayed on the battlefield, and you know the rest of the story.


    ¡°I¡­ Balo! Why didn¡¯t you tell me directly?¡±


    An average looking guy stepped out of the group standing in front of Trevor.


    ¡°Hahahaha! Don¡¯t be so mad, it all went well¡±


    ¡°That doesn¡¯t change the fact that you didn¡¯t tell me! What if something would have gone wrong? What would you have done then?¡±


    ¡°Well...¡±


    Balo was being lectured by Trevor, but they are forgetting something important, I wonder how much time I need to wait.


    ¡°Trevor, I think we have more important issues¡­ What about the prince?¡±


    ¡°The prince? THE PRINCE!¡±


    ¡°What will we tell the king?¡±


    ¡°Forget the king! If the Udura Empire invades we are all doomed!¡±


    ¡°Shit! This is really bad¡±


    (What is this? A drama show?)


    ¡°Amm guys? The prince is right here...¡± I pointed on a blanket on the floor.


    I approached the blanket and uncovered the little hill that formed below it. A delicate looking young boy was sleeping quite soundly on the ground.


    ¡°No way¡­ How?¡± Balo asked with a surprised expression.


    ¡°The same trick that you guys did¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Is it that hard to understand? I used the same spells you guys used to switch the real one with a clone. When Crikhar showed the prince I just switched him with a clone, just like how you did it¡±


    ¡°What?! Impossible! How?¡±


    ¡°What do you mean how? I just explained it¡­ I switched him using a switching spell¡±


    ¡°Exactly! To do a switch spell on a person that is being held by another, Is an impossible. The spell itself takes a lot of mana and a moderate time to cast, to switch a single person while another holds him takes tremendous amount of mana!¡±


    ¡°It does? It didn¡¯t feel like it...¡±


    ¡°Just what are you?¡±


    ¡°Does it matter now?¡± one of them yelled with an happy face


    ¡°Yeah! We got the prince! The kingdom is safe!!!¡±


    (This really feels like one of those lame drama shows¡­)


    The group who were just moments ago on a verge of deep depression was now joyfully cheering and crying with happy faces. Some of them even ran towards me, picking me up and tossing me in the air, not as fun as it looks when you see it from the sides, but it was worth it... I guess.


    The prince was immediately got attended to, after a few seconds he woke up and was checked by a healer mage from the group. He seemed to be fine, and his skin slowly returned to a normal color with the help of the healer.


    I do wonder what happened to Elezabeth and what expression she had on her when she found out that she held a clone and not the real prince.


    ----------------


    Because this chapter and last chapter were fast released and were very short I''m not releasing more chapters until I deem them worthy.


    I want each chapter to contain at least 20 pages, not 10. So next release will be when it is done, and not by a schedule!