《3 Hearts》 The beginning --- restart In a time before our historic records disappeared, the whole world was owned by humanity. We built sky-high Towers, made of glass and concrete. We erected cities far wider and more spacious than you could ever imagine. In especially large cities, millions of people used to live together. Through the cities ran streets, made from asphalt, on which cars powered by gasoline drove. But despite these millions of people living in close proximity to each other, they were strangers to each other. Oftentimes not even greeting each other when coming across one another. And there was violence among the people. Killing each other with knives and guns on the streets was a common daily occurrence. No one could trust anyone. Fear and distrust ran through the veins of the people. They had to live in fear and anxiety every single second. Not because of monsters, but because of each other. Monsters, and such, only came to be later. ¡°So we should feel proud and lucky to live in this town. Here, deep underground, away from the deserted wasteland of the surface, we live in a loving community where everyone can trust anyone. We are one big family, relentlessly striving to outlast the dangers lurking in the surrounding cave systems. But all of this would not have been possible without the almighty Mana. So praise our lord the Mana for it brings us light, it brings us food, and it brings us the power to withstand all hardships. And praise it for blessing our wonderful Town called¡­¡± The teacher standing in front of the class pauses in his words. He looks at a certain student who quite obviously is thinking, and quite honestly dreaming about other things, as his head is lying on the desk. And he just started snoring. The whole classroom turns to look at the oblivious teenager, a few giggling, some frowning, more looking in disgust, and most filled with anger. But the teacher only looks at him with a face filled with disappointment. ¡°¡­as¡± He feels like he heard something in his dream. ¡°¡­vitas¡± Hmm? Is someone calling him? ¡°CIVITAS, wake up, right now!¡± His head jolts up. He looks around, confused, and disoriented. It takes a few moments for him to realize this is not the small hut he lives in. But then the realization hit him, he was sleeping in class. In shame, he quickly wipes away a few drops of saliva that were running down his right cheek. While doing that, he looks down and sees that he drooled on the table, and it''s quite visible at that. The shame and embarrassment intensify. At that moment, he wished he would sink into the ground, never to be seen again. A tall student with blond hair and piercing blue eyes stand up from his desk at the front of the class. He then turns around and walks straight in the direction of Civitas, whose desk is in the far back of the class. As poor Civitas sees him approaching, his shame turns into fear, and as he sees the look in his eyes, the fear turns into terror. His brown, fearful and shaking eyes then meet the other Students'' blue, anger filled eyes. Civitas did not know most of his classmates'' names, since he never really interacted with them. But he knew that students'' name. He was Joseph, the top student of the class who is soon to reach the level of a warrior in strength. He was known for his violent tendencies but was left alone due to his enormous talent. So when he looked at Civitas like he was about to kill him, that was not just an empty threat. Especially since¡­ ¡°Do you even have the slightest idea of what you just did?¡± Joseph starts speaking in a snarling tone, like a growling animal. ¡°I-I-I f-fell as-asleep, accidentally?¡± Civitas manages to utter while stuttering, quite literally fearing for his life. ¡°Oho, accidentally, you say? I think you don''t get the severity of the situation.¡± Joseph said while laughing maniacally. He then proceeds to explain in a shouting and aggressive manner. Clearly finding some kind of cruel joy in this. ¡°I and all the others here, have only tolerated your wrong, desecrating and disgusting presence in this class because you were diligent in your studies and the teacher argued in your favor. Now you can''t even seem to pay attention to your one supporter?¡± That last question felt like it drove a stake right through Civitas'' heart. He starts shaking even stronger. His eyes start to feel teary, his vision blurring. Guilt taking over. But then, everything around him seems to cool down. Joseph switches to a slow, calm and icy tone, that hardly conceals the anger inside him. All of this a practiced play Joseph had ¡°performed¡± often before. He feels like he is facing his doom, his own personal apocalypse. ¡°Did you already forget the fact, you were never even once welcome here? Since you don''t appreciate this favor that was done to you, I believe you''ve lost your right to be here. You have lost your right to be protected. And I think a certain punishment is due!¡± With every word, the freezing tone more and more melts away, until a raging fire takes over, and he is shouting at the top of his lungs. And as he speaks his last sentence, he raises his fist. Civitas starts ducking away, but he knows there is no escape. Joseph is an opponent, he has no chance of winning against. Even running away is an impossibility. But right as he unleashes his fist, the assertive, strong and Mana filled voice of the teacher resounds through the classroom, ¡°That''s enough Joseph, stop right there!¡±, making every student flinch and then freeze. They heard once before, their teacher was supposed to be a grand warrior, but his usually gentle manner never made it seem like that. Not even the unruly Joseph dares to move a muscle. The pressure he felt from those few words makes him doubt if that teacher is even human. He quickly pulls his fist back, then turns to the teacher and says hurriedly: ¡°I apologize for overstepping my boundaries, sir Stirling. But nonetheless, Civitas has to be punished. I expect you to be unbiased and make a wise and rightful judgement.¡± This bastard sure is glib tongued for how ruthless and thoughtless he often seems. But the teacher was never one to be commanded by the likes of Joseph. The teachers'' look gets more gloomy with every word spoken, and at the end even faint anger can be seen in his expression. ¡°You dare command me, how to do my job? I think all that praise and useless first places in fighting competitions rose to your head. I think you have forgotten your place!¡± At these words, Joseph seems to shrink half a meter, not too dissimilar to how Civitas shrank back a few moments ago. Joseph, who just now seemed oh so confident and mighty, presently is unable to utter a single word. Cold sweat of fear suddenly starting to form on his face. Meanwhile, the teacher takes a few breaths and seemingly calms down. He resumes his usually gentle and warm demeanor. Then he starts talking again, this time in a much softer tone. ¡°I think you are well aware, Joseph, of the fact, your disrespect to me just now is also heavily punishable just like what Civitas did. But I don''t feel like punishing anyone today, so how about I let all that happened today slide, and we all just go about our days like normal?¡± Joseph quickly glances back at Civitas with a look that seems to say, ¡°We''re not done yet¡±. He then proceeds to say with regained confidence: ¡°I am grateful for your magnanimous mercy, sir Stirling. I will make sure to better heed your teachings in the future¡± Civitas also utters a short sentence with a shaking voice to thank the teacher. Joseph then walks back to his seat, but right as he is about to sit down, the teacher interrupts him and says: ¡°No need to sit back down, the lesson is close to its'' end anyway, so let''s call and end right here. Oh, and my dear Joseph, please stay for a few minutes, I have something to talk to you about.¡± Civitas recognizes this as the teacher helping him to get away without Joseph being able to follow him. When he looks at the teacher while leaving, his theory seems to have been proven, as the teacher smiles back at him and nods lightly. But something feels odd about his expression. He knows the teacher for many years now, so he is quite sensitive to his expressions. And he feels like he sees some kind of shadow. A shadow of loathing that makes all of this seem like a facade. But how could that be? He would expect such an emotion towards him from anyone but this teacher. He must simply still be on edge because of what Joseph said earlier. Yes, that must be it. After halting in the narrow hallway of the school for a few seconds and taking a few deep breaths, Civitas regains his composure. He shakes off all the doubts and distracting thoughts, and then he starts running. He runs like his life depends on it because it just might. After leaving the small School building, he takes the second stair down. This one takes him down 3 branches at once and is the most direct way to get to his home. He then turns left, turns right, runs downstairs, takes one stair up and so on. While running, Civitas comes across a few people. All of them have one thing in common, after seeing him, and recognizing who he was, they ignored him. And some even looked at him in disgust. But Civitas was used to that, he experienced this far too many times to be faced by this. He much rather pays attention to his pathway across wooden bridges, wooden platforms, wooden ladders and wooden branches, so that he doesn''t slip. He runs for 10 minutes straight, not allowing himself to slow down even a bit, despite his burning lungs. That is because he knows that if Joseph manages to track him, it would be impossible to outrun him. Joseph ran 100 meters in 9 seconds and one kilometer in 2 minutes before at a competition. But after running for this long, he doubts Joseph is still following him. Otherwise, he would already have caught up. He slows down and takes a look around. He takes a look at the stars that were set-in in the cave walls. Civitas takes in the shimmering blue light coming from these Mana crystals that were commonly referred to as stars in this town. Despite him living in this town for 17 years now, the cave surrounding the town is still a sight to behold. Currently, he wishes he could once again see the giant spherical Mana crystal, which is half buried at the very top of the giant cavernous space they live in. From this giant Mana crystal grows the upside-down tree on which most of the town is built on. Civitas only got to see the crystal at top once before, when the teacher took the whole class on an excursion to the chapel which is built at the very top. But he still remembers the mesmerizing feeling he felt while looking at it. Sadly, people like him who live on the lowest living-space branches aren''t allowed to just enter the upper branch areas where the important people live. His small hut is the lowest living hut, just above the barracks which are placed at the very bottom, so warriors could get to cave entrances the fastest in case monsters attack from them. After a while, he reaches the small hut he calls his home. He walks in and quickly locks the door behind him. His hut only has a single room. In this room are a bed, a chair, a small desk with a wooden window above it and a basin with water to wash with. Civitas instantly lies down on his bed and starts contemplating what happened before. Firstly, he surely is glad he never once told his classmates where he lives before. His mind then wanders to the words Joseph had said. He thinks about his own existence, which in other peoples minds seems¡­ disgusting and wrong. But what could he change about the way he was born? Born forsaken by Mana, that''s what people call him. People say there has never before been a person who couldn''t use the slightest bit of Mana. Except Civitas. But it''s not only that he can''t use it. Civitas can''t even feel Mana, like his body is cut off from everything. Likewise, he could only deduce the reason for why everyone in the classroom froze at the teachers'' words. It probably was because of Mana. This is especially bad in a society such as this one, where Mana is treated like some kind of transcendental god. So, being forsaken by Mana is equivalent to being hated by god in many peoples eyes. They think Civitas will bring doom upon this town with his mere presence. Another effect of him being forsaken by Mana is him being unable to access the ¡°system¡± as the people call it. This is something supposedly also granted by Mana to the humans. They say this system displays your status, like your strength, intelligence, and dexterity score and such. It is the best way to track someone''s progress while he trains and improves. They say it also tracks something called ¡°skills¡±. He heard of the swordsmanship and the carpentry skills and a few more before. This system is used to evaluate someone''s ability. Without this, a person is unable to find any kind of occupation, since they all require certain skill levels. For an example, someone who designs and constructs new platforms or buildings needs to have the architecture skill in their skill list to even have a chance of being employed. As he thinks about this, he pulls out the small stone tablet, engraved with weird runes, from underneath his mattress. This is a device called skill-display, which is supposed to display all skills a person has registered in their system. Then he places his hand on it. When he places his hands in the middle of it, the runes, as always, start to flow and shift across the tablet, but they never settle down to form words, contrary to everyone else. He sits there once again, just like every single other day, and waits for the runes to create discernible words, but they don''t. They never do. Does the whole world want to tell him he had nothing to show and no abilities whatsoever? Frustrated, he throws the tablet at the wall of his hut. *clank* It broke in two. Fuck, it broke in two. He hurries over, kneels on the ground and picks the two pieces of the tablet up. That thing is so expensive, why did he have to do that, why was he this stupid and useless? Were the people right? Was the display right? Was he really just this worthless? Right at this moment, something seemed to snap within him. ¡°FUCK this shit and fuck all of this! I will do it, I will change my fate myself! No. One. Will. Ever. Look. Down. On. Me. Again.¡± Civitas screams as he pounds his fist hard on the floor again and again, splitting open his skin. This is it. Today he is going to do it. He will do what he had in mind for a long time. His last ditch effort to somehow unlock his access to Mana. The giant Mana Crystal at the top of the cave isn''t the only one. There are two more giant crystals at the bottom of the cave. They are surrounded by a fence because the Mana they emit is too strong for most people. If people get too close to it without being able to withstand the Mana, they melt in a gruesome and horrifying way. First their skin melts, then their muscles and finally, their bones until nothing is left that could be recognized as a human being. Such, they say, is the strong will of their aloof god. This is well known, so the fence surrounding the area is more like a reminder and is at most lightly guarded at most times. Civitas had this idea. A certain something could be blocking his connection to Mana so he could probably overpower this blockage with Strong Mana as long as it''s powerful enough. He had this theory for more than 7 years now. Why didn''t he try it so far? Because he was scared, of course. Because he was scared, he would just melt away like anyone else. But he does not care now. Everything is just getting worse and worse and worse over and over again. People appear to hate him more from day to day. He can''t go on like this. Something HAS to change, or he might actually go insane. So he sits back down on his bed, ripping off a bit of the bedsheets to sloppily bandage the bloody spots on his right hand from pounding the floor just now. All while simultaneously forming a plan in his head on how he is going to execute his plan. Despite the fence usually being only lightly guarded, there are still two or three guards, just to make sure some unruly children don''t climb the fence in a fit of overconfidence. He decided to wait for the night. If he remembers correctly, at night there would only be a single guard because children young enough to underestimate the power of Mana would typically be at home, sleeping, at that time of day. It would still take a few more hours until the giant Mana crystal at the top of the cave would start to dim down and introduce the night. He slowly calmed down from his anger fit earlier, and he was afraid he would lose this fire which burnt within him earlier once again if he waited too long. So Civitas sat there, alone on his bed, solidifying his determination and his commitment by thinking about all the things he had to go through because of his condition. Sleepiness or exhaustion never once came to him, despite time clocking late by now. That makes him wonder, when and how did he even fall asleep in class? He always paid as much attention to the teachings of the teacher as he possibly could. He would even argue he was the most arduous, motivated and attentive person in the whole class. This was so unlike him, and it gets even weirder when he thinks about some other things. He can''t even remember going to class today. Did he just not remember since it was something he did daily and his brain judged it as unimportant? That might be the case, like when you aren''t sure if you locked your door behind you today because you have done it so often. And while he was sleeping, he dreamt of something. He knows for he dreamt of something, but no matter how hard he tries to remember, not one clue as to what it was comes to his mind. All of this might sound quite common to everyone who would hear it, but not to Civitas. He usually had an immaculate memory. He usually could remember most, if not every, detail of a day that passed for quite a long time. He always devoured knowledge like a little glutton. This was one of the few traits he was really proud of. Was he losing his mind now? Just then, after an agonizingly long time within his own mind, midnight falls, the magical lanterns turn off and Civitas stands up, ready for the greatest gamble of his life. He slowly opens his door and peeks out, checking if anyone was there to see him leave. After making sure no one will see him, he leaves his hut and hurries for the abandoned stairs. These are stairs which weren''t maintained in a while and were blocked and marked as unsafe accordingly. But the benefit of them being abandoned is the lack of torches around them, so they were occluded in the dark. Just perfect for someone who doesn''t want to be seen. And if you are careful and watch your steps, they are still safe enough. Safe enough for someone who was about to gamble his life anyway. While making his way down the last bits of the town, Civitas'' heart starts beating faster and faster. Adrenaline pumping through his veins at the mere thought of what he was about to do. But this wasn''t fear he felt just now. It was excitement. Excitement for a future where he wouldn''t be an outcast, where he wouldn''t be looked down upon. He just wanted to find a friend, a person to relate to and to trust. As he slowly climbs down the last ladder towards the cave floor, he calms down. His unwavering determination and unwavering resolve have reached unprecedented heights. It is now or never. Civitas sneakily approaches the closed off area around one of the two large crystals. He picked the slightly larger one because there is no reason to be unnecessarily careful right now. He tries to look for the guard who should be somewhere around here, but to no avail. Civitas approaches further and further until he is right at the fence, still no Guard in sight. Had they abandoned their post because there obviously was no one crazy enough to go in there? Well, whatever the reason, this situation is fortunate for Civitas. But it instills a doubt. Like the warning of intuition right before walking into a trap. Could he really be lucky enough for the to be absent right this one night? But he swallows down these thoughts and instead confidently and swiftly climbs the wooden fence. He can''t even feel the pain signaling from the hand he hurt earlier. After just a few seconds, he jumps down on the other side. He is in. Surrounding the Crystal in this blocked off area grow blueish Mana trees similar to the Giant Tree they live on, but much, much smaller. He quickly takes a few steps into the small forest-like area. Now he can''t be seen from outside, even if the guard should return. He slowly approaches the crystal further until he comes across a sign which says in big red scary letters: ¡°Warning! Danger! Do not proceed further because strong Mana WILL kill you!¡± So he arrives at the danger zone. He couldn''t see the crystal after entering the forest because of the lush leaves of the trees and bushes blocking his vision. He still can''t see it, but now he knows he must be on the right track. He picks up his pace in excitement and starts walking quicker than before toward where he believes the crystal to be. After a while, the trees appear to be spread thinner and he finally sees the Giant crystal. They are only 100 meters apart. He still can''t feel anything. No, to be precise, he does feel something. His hair started weirdly standing up from his head just a tiny bit, and his Clothes seem to float from his body. Isn''t this ridiculous? Even his clothes and hair react more to Mana than him. After that thought occurring to him, he feels more resolute than ever. He walks straight towards the crystal, while it feels like his clothes were floating away and being blocked by something at the same time. Like a strong wind blowing towards him that affects anything but himself. Now he is only 20 meters away, doubt starts to form in his heart. Normal people would have died 300 meters ago, and he still can''t feel anything? But he walks further, he decides to touch the crystal. Something he had never heard of before. There he is. Standing right in front of the Crystal, the size of which he only realizes now. It is at least 30 meters tall and just as wide. And it is beautiful. A majestic, light blue, but deep color which is just so mesmerizing. His clothes feel like they are in a typhoon or a tornado, but he still feels nothing. His thoughts are racing through all sorts of possibilities. What would happen if he touches it? But after some time, he calms down. There is only one way to find out. He raises his hand and places it on the crystal. It feels weird. Like he is touching something that''s hot and cold at the same time. Like it is liquid and solid at the same time. He quickly pulls his hand back and examines it. No, it didn''t start melting. So he places his hand back on the crystal. He feels so many contradicting things at once. And he thinks¡­ no, could that really be? He feels something! Something is there, slight and almost unnoticeable on the palm of his hand. A slight tingling sensation that seems to seep into his hand. It was a pleasant feeling, like something scratching an itch he didn''t know was there. It feels like it goes deeper, and deeper, but then¡­ it stops. And after halting for a few seconds, it feels like it starts to retreat. Civitas begins to panic. ¡°Is that it? All of this for just that? NO!¡± Civitas desperately raises his second hand and also places it on the crystal, and he starts to push. There it is again, the stronger he pushes, the more he feels like the ¡°something¡± he felt before is coming back. And as he pushes harder and harder, the feeling of touching something liquid instead of something solid intensifies. And when he opens his eyes, it even looks like he is making some kind of dent in the crystal, but that could not be. And moreover, he doesn''t care. Today, he will do anything it takes to gain access to Mana. So he pushes harder and harder until he pushes with everything it has. The feeling he felt before now penetrating until it reached his elbows. He tries to give it one more shove but then suddenly¡­ He falls? The Crystal suddenly gave in. When he sees the blue crystal approach his face, he expects his nose to be broken any moment, but instead it feels like he fell into a large body of warm water. Water which seems to be pulling him further and further in. He tries to turn back, but it''s already too late, he looks around and everything around him is just blue with stars twinkling in between. Weird, despite this unknown and obviously dangerous situation, Civitas feels a deep calmness. The surrounding liquid causes the same pleasant feeling he felt before all around his body, but this time it does not reach further in than the very thin, first layer of his skin. He might just have died and this is the afterlife. He raises his right hand and sees the wounds from before still being there, so this probably isn''t the afterlife. And even if it is, it''s not like he could do something about it. Man, this calmness really helped him stay rational. Oh, he notices just now, he was breathing all this time. What even is he breathing in this space, which he assumes is inside the Mana crystal. Is he breathing Mana? The more important question is, does it matter how he can breathe? He is just grateful he can breathe, the rest doesn''t really matter. He turns around and tries to search for the place he came from, but everything looks the same. He never learned to swim, since they don''t have any large bodies of water in the cave, that are safe to swim in. Just one monster ridden lake no one would ever want to swim in. But he can''t drown right now, so he guesses this is the right time to learn how to swim. He starts making clumsy movements and somehow manages to paddle in a random direction. After doing this for a while, Civitas recognizes he can''t get tired right now, like he has infinite energy. Well, he is basically swimming in energy, could that be the reason? Probably. Time seems to pass slowly and quickly at the same time. Any sense of time Civitas had is now completely lost. He can''t tell if he is swimming in that one direction for a few minutes or a few hours, could even be days. But then, suddenly something changes. He can''t quite tell what changed, but he feels like he is being watched. Like some insanely powerful being is watching his every step. Just as he turned around because his intuition is telling him something''s wrong, everything changed. Suddenly, the light blue around him turned a deep purple, which felt just so evil. Then he hears the devilishly charming voice of a woman from behind: ¡°Who do we have here? Are you perhaps lost, little one?¡± Civitas swerves around as fast as he can, and there she stands. A woman with grayish skin, glowing purple eyes and four curving horns on her head. She is clothed in a sparse gown, obviously made to lure in men by showing just enough. Civitas had never seen someone like her before, but his deepest subconsciousness procured one single word: Demon A primal fear etched into his genes was about to grip his heart at the mere sight of her, but instead the calmness he felt ever since entering here washed over him once again and suppressed the fear by force. He felt instinctively, she was stronger, much stronger than him and there was no way to get away. So he might as well just talk. But what should he say? He really couldn''t think of an adequate answer. ¡°Hello, my name is Civitas. And yes, I''m indeed quite lost. Would you perhaps tell me how I could find the way back to where I came from? Of course, only if it isn''t a bother to you.¡± Civitas is more than a bit surprised at how he talked right now. The words came from his mouth but didn''t seem like they were his own. Did he ever choose such words? Never mind, he has to focus. The female demon seemingly is also surprised because with every word Civitas said her Eyebrows started to raise further until she started laughing heartily after Civitas finished speaking. A kind of fascination seemingly gripping her. ¡°My name is Zabula, my dear. And of course, I know how you could get back, but why don''t we talk a bit first, you seem like you could be to my liking. And if you are to my liking, I''ll lower the punishment for trespassing into my territory, or perhaps I might even completely abstain from punishing you, how does that sound?¡± The name Zabula seems to sound familiar, but he can''t quite tell where he heard it before. Anyway, he uses his current calmness to analyze the situation. If talking could help him escape from this situation harm free, then let''s talk. ¡°I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Zabula, but what could be so interesting about me for your illustrious self to want to talk to someone simple like me?¡± There it is again, these words don''t seem to be his own, but they obviously have to, whose else would they be? Well, however or whoever came up with these words, Zabula seems to truly enjoy them based on her pleased expression. ¡°Oh dear, but even these few words are so fascinating to me. How come someone like you who is so incredibly weak, he could be reduced to ashes by a mere touch of me, doesn''t shake in fear at the sight of me? I have seen warriors who are a million times stronger than you shake in fear after meeting my eyes.¡± So it really was strange. How he was so incredibly calm and how he could talk to her like this. Everything felt like he was a spectator inside his own body, merely taking part, distanced like a third party while some other part of him is controlling his actions. The feeling is alien and actually quite scary, but he can''t find any other emotion in him apart from calmness, like everything else has been numbed. The next words come from his mouth without him even having the intention to speak yet. ¡°Oh, but how could I be scared of someone as beautiful and charming like you? Anyone who can''t appreciate your beauty and elegance obviously is just a fool¡± With any passing second, Civitas seems to lose more and more control, like he is about to fall asleep and just sleepwalking. Then Zabula replies. ¡°Dear, oh dear, do you want to say you aren''t a fool like the others?¡± Civitas replies. ¡°Isn''t that your task to find out?¡± Zabula smiles in the most creepy and charming way at once. ¡°So you are even daring enough to assign a task to me? Hmm, I somehow like that. Then tell me how and why did you come here?¡± Did he assign a task to her? he feels like he didn''t say anything. Or did he? he can''t quite remember. He has to take back control! The next words will be his own and none others''. he will answer that question. Now, how did he get here again? His memory seems strangely faded, but he manages to remember. ¡°I came here by swimming through a Mana crystal vein. First I didn''t know where to go, so I randomly started¡­ but then I noticed a trace of your Mana, so I started swimming straight to this place. Because even your Mana is just too charming to me.¡± He said what he wanted to say¡­ or did he? Well, judging by her expression, she didn''t dislike whatever he said. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.¡°You are such a flatterer, but how come you picked up a trace of my Mana so far away? That should be impossible even for the greatest beings out there. And you are quite obviously none of them.¡± She says he had picked up a trace of her Mana? But he can''t even feel Mana? How did she come up with this weird idea? He has to make things clear. So he it starts speaking again: ¡°I think there was a misunder¡­ You say it''s impossible, but quite obviously I am right here looking into your beautiful eyes. I can''t even feel M¡­ If you don''t believe me, how about you check with your memory reading abilities? I know you have them, and I am willing to let you use them on me, so you don''t distrust me, and let me leave safely.¡± Ok, that should have clarified the fact, he can''t sense Mana. He hopes she won''t be too angry at him contradicting her words. Her expression tells him she is surprised at the fact, but not angry, that''s good. ¡°Oh, so you even know about my abilities, that''s fascinating. Then let me check what is inside this cute brain of yours.¡± Wait, what, does she want to cut open his brain? Before he could panic, which he wasn''t even able to, she suddenly appeared right in front of him, like she teleported. Only now that she is right in front of him, he notices she is at least 5 meters tall, the vague surrounding of undefined Mana confused his sense of distance. She reaches out and lays her hands on his head. He feels the urge to resist at first, but suddenly that really doesn''t seem important at all. Her hands reach his head, and immediately he feels something. Like something is gently protruding into his mind, this isn''t such a bad feeling. Then suddenly he feels his arms instinctively spring up and hold her hands in place, then everything goes dark¡­ and he thinks he heard her scream? No, why would such a mighty demon scream. Oh, that''s right, she is a demon, he somehow forgot about that. Out of nothing, he feels a large hand gripping his arm and pulling at him. Then he suddenly feels normal air again and hits the ground hard. Someone is shouting. Is that person shouting at him? But why would they? Then everything until the part where he entered the crystal comes back to memory. Right, he entered the crystal, but thereafter, he had no idea. ¡°Are you okay? Civitas, talk to me!¡± After taking a few moments to ¡°boot up¡± his brain, he finally understands who is screaming what at him, he opens his eyes and looks straight at the person gripping him at both shoulders and shaking him. It was Miles, the strongest warrior in this town and one of the few people who used to treat him well for some unknown reason. He remembers spending a lot of time with him in the distant past. There was a time he spent almost every single day with him. He was the closest person to a father to him. But they hadn''t spoken for 5 years now. But what was he here now? ¡°Uhm yeah, I''m fine, Miles, but what are you doing here?¡± ¡°What am I doing here? You were stuck in a giant Mana crystal until now, and I thought you were dead for Mana¡¯s sake. We couldn''t find you for 2 weeks! And you ask why I am here. Why are YOU here?¡± Oh, that''s right, I could have died. Right then and there, the emotions, of which he didn''t feel much so far, all came at once. Panic, guilt, anxiety, fear for his life they all hit him at once, and he started crying like he was a 6-year-old again. Miles calmed down his angry face and instead hugged Civitas to give him some time to calm down. While trying to calm down the shocked Civitas, Miles takes a look once again at the Mana crystal from which Civitas came. It was now cracked cleanly in half, and it stopped shining. The whole 35-Meter Tall crystal is cracked in half. The amount of Mana it emits does not seem to have changed much, so any normal person who approaches this far is still sure to die. After a few minutes, Civitas manages to collect his thoughts again and calms down. Then Miles and Civitas part again. Miles then asks: ¡°Now tell me, what were you thinking, why would you ever execute your dumb plan, you were gone for two weeks! If I hadn''t suddenly remembered you telling me of your crystal plan all those years ago, I wouldn''t even have thought of searching for you here.¡± Miles said with more concern than anger and more love than hate. ¡°Oh, so you do still remember me¡­¡± He really thought Miles had forgotten about him. Civitas felt left alone by Miles. ¡°What are you saying, of course I remember you!¡± Miles suddenly looks pained and hurt, like he is pained between guilt and something else. ¡°Then why couldn''t I see you even once in the past 5 years? Only after you thought I died did you think of me again!¡± One day, Miles said they couldn''t meet anymore, but he can''t tell the reason. Then he disappeared from his life. ¡°Civitas I told you before, but there is a reason we can''t meet anymore, but by the love of Mana I can''t tell you, or else the consequences would be dire.¡± Civitas thought all of that was just an excuse because Miles just was finally sick of being around the freak like everyone else. ¡°I know how hard it must have been for you these past years. I''m sorry. I should have made it somehow possible. But there are forces even I can''t oppose¡­¡± Miles suddenly starts coughing hard. Civitas instantly reaches for him, concerned, but Miles raises his hand to block him. After finishing coughing, Miles just says: ¡°Don''t worry about that, that''s all my fault. Now let''s get out of here.¡± Thereafter, Miles and Civitas start walking back out of the dangerous zone. But as they reach the fence, something unexpected awaits them. The Fence is torn down and instead, 50 fully armed high-ranking warriors stand there looking at Civitas, like they are replacing the fence. Each of these soldiers is well known to everyone because they are a force to be reckoned with, each individually. Civitas estimates, the combined force gathered here, makes up about two thirds of the town''s entire fighting power. Well, excluding Miles since it''s rumored he is stronger than everyone else combined, but rumors tend to be exaggerated a lot. Civitas thought Miles must have brought these guys here with him, but then Miles shouts in clear disbelief: ¡°What''s the meaning of this!?¡± Civitas'' expression turns pale in the split of a second. Judging by Miles'' eyes darting from opposing warrior to opposing warrior, he was not the one to call them here. Then he hears a loud voice resounding clearly in his ears. ¡°Don''t move a single step further, you two, or you will regret it.¡± He knows this voice so well, but he had never heard it speak in a tone like this. He must have misheard that. Shortly after, the warriors split into 2 neat rows and reveal a person standing in the middle at the back. The person has their hands clasped behind their back and wears their usual grayish brown gown, to which Civitas had gotten used to so long ago. But despite Civitas knowing who this person was, he could not believe his eyes at all. There he stands. There stands the teacher who had helped him get away from Joseph in what feels like just yesterday. This confirms what he had heard just now, it was the teacher who told them not to move. But why did he sound you threatening? And why did he look so dangerous? Civitas looks at Miles, he must have a way out of this as the strongest. But all of Civitas hopes seem to crumble as he sees Miles clenching his jaw with drops of sweat forming on his forehead. This is not the look of someone confident. It is The look of someone who feared for his life. After a long pause in which no one moved, the teacher starts walking towards them slowly and resumes talking: ¡°We had a deal, Miles. A simple deal. The conditions were, that I would never ever see you and the freak with each other again, and you tell him nothing about this deal. In exchange, I support him in every way through school I could. I argued in his favor. I defended him from bullies, I gave him emotional support, I did everything. Now look at you two. Obviously, having talked. Obviously, having broken the deal. And you know there are no valid circumstances that allow breaking deals with me. Be. Fucking. Ready. For. The. Consequences.¡± The whole speech was held in a monotone lecturing manner like he was stating the obvious, but the last few words were spat like venom in their faces. But if you thought this was the end, the teacher had just started. ¡°You know how bad your reputation got when people saw you two together so often. You know I can''t allow that. You and I are the pillars that kept this town up for the last 800 years. Switching names, switching roles and switching appearances rhythmically, so people wouldn''t notice our extraordinary long lives. Each time we lived one of our false lives, our image, and our status was the most important to unite the people beneath us. This principle mustn''t be shaken¡± Civitas'' Mind is swirling worse than when he was inside the Mana crystal. What is all this? None of this makes any sense! All of them must have gone crazy! ¡°You must all have gone crazy!¡± Civitas shouts from the top of his lungs. The warriors surrounding them suddenly drew their weapons after hearing that. They seem ready to attack but strangely afraid of¡­ Civitas? They aren''t as much afraid of Miles as they are afraid of him? But why? He confusedly looks back and forth from Miles to Sir Stirling, the teacher. He then hears a slight whisper from Miles. ¡°Civitas, why are your eyes suddenly glowing a faint purple?¡± He then suddenly fixates his gaze on Miles. ¡°What are you talking about? My eyes are obviously brown.¡± Civitas asks, unable to form any connections since he can''t remember anything that happened inside the crystal. Then the cruel voice of the teacher resound once more. This time even more sinister. ¡°There you have it, Miles. It came just like I told you 17 years ago. He is a demon. I don''t know what kind since I have never seen any like this before, but this proves it. Because of your foolish and naive goodwill, we brought a goddamn demon into this town! You could have killed hundreds, if not thousands, of people. I told you from the beginning something was strange about his Mana from the beginning. But you asked me to simply seal it and raise him without Mana. We will execute him in three days with the will of Mana. You have no right to object to this. Now you follow me. Guards, throw that beast into a cell and guard him with at least 10 highrankers at all times.¡± At this point, Civitas sense of the World seems to dim down and shut everything out. Like an airplane taking off in his ears and a flash bang going off in his eyes, he looses his insignificant standing in this world. None of this makes sense. He falls into a deep state of shock. And then he simply collapses after his brain somehow, through all this muffles noise, comprehended the word execution. He dreams about something wonderfully tranquil. He dreams of sitting next to a beautiful woman with enchanting purple eyes which look so familiar and captivating. They leisurely share unimportant matters like what he learned in school the last few weeks or what chores he still has to do. He learns from her, she is a mother to quite a few kids, which keeps her busy all the time. After a while, she says something odd. She tells him everything will be fine, he has to keep his cool and then to¡­ wake up. Then he wakes up. He lays down on the wooden floor, his arms, and legs spread wide, chained to the walls with thick metallic chains. Judging by its blueish color, these cuffs, and chains seem to be made from manasteel, an insanely rare material which usually is only used to craft a few weapons for selected warriors. They must really think he is dangerous. He tries to sit up, but the chains are too short to allow that. To be precise, the mechanism at the back wall, to which his arms are chained, seems to be retracted to the maximum to give him the least possible space to move. After producing a bit of noise with this attempt, the 10 guards who stood with their back to him suddenly all turn around and face him, hands on their weapons but not quite drawing them. His head isn''t restrained, so he is able to raise it and look straight at the guards. Meeting their eyes is a true reality check. He sees the fear in them. Unable to longer keep looking at them, he closes his eyes and lays his head back down, tears slowly flowing from his eyes down his cheeks. One of the guards then starts speaking. ¡°Why are you still hiding your appearance, you creepy demon shit. We all saw your eyes turning purple. It appears your rotten demon brain does not understand the situation. Now suddenly turning back to normal won''t make us forget what you are, you dumb fuck.¡± The insults thrown at him intending to hurt him serve more like a cold water bucket suddenly being dumped over him, clearing his troubled mind. If he is to be executed soon anyway, then why shouldn''t he play a small trick on the guard. What''s the worst he could do, kill him? He then proceeds to say in his most serious voice: ¡°Huh, I thought you were dumber. Then it doesn''t matter. Have you ever seen a real high-ranking demon? I don''t think so. and your feeble mortal dare insult the great me? Now I will show you what I am capable of. These chains can''t hold me!¡± While saying this, Civitas notices in the reflection of the chains, his eyes unwillingly turned purple while talking, which just fit the act too perfectly. Then, after shouting the last sentence, he looks straight at the guards with wide open eyes and suddenly yanks at his chains as hard as he could. All the guards jumped back, some drawing their weapons, some about to flee, and the man who spoke earlier stumbles over his own feet, crashing with his face to the floor. The sight was far too funny, and civitas started laughing heartily. Having nothing left to lose feels really freeing. He just noticed. ¡°Oh my Mana you guys really fell for it. You are such morons. As if I could do anything. I don''t even really know why I am supposed to be a demon. You should have seen your faces!¡± The guards suddenly all had a sheepish look plastered on their faces. They all clearly felt embarrassed. Civitas starts looking around again because he thought he heard a woman laughing in the distance at the same time as him, but they are no woman present anywhere he could see. Must have been his imagination. The guard who insulted him earlier now draws his weapon and then shouts: ¡°I don''t care if you are to be executed, I will kill you right here, right now.¡± And just as he is about to unlock the cell door, a large hand suddenly lies on his shoulders. ¡°Who gave you permission to execute the target 2 days early?¡± The Guard utters without turning: ¡°I deeply apologize, group leader, I got carried away by my emotions.¡± The leader takes his hand off the shoulder and whispers into the guards'' ear. ¡°This is the first, and will be the last time something like this happens, otherwise the next person to be executed will be you. Now go and report to the exploration team.¡± At the mention of the exploration team, the guard turns pale. The exploration team consists of the most powerful and experienced warriors and advance the furthest into monster territory. Anyone who is inadequate for this has a high possibility of dying. The guard slowly leaves the room. The commander then also tells everyone else to leave until only he and Civitas are left. ¡°So you are the boy Miles tried to protect so hard. It''s such a shame, truly.¡± At the mention of Miles'' name, Civitas starts to listen attentively. ¡°Are you a friend of Miles? Is he ok? Stirling threatened him with something.¡± Civitas asks back. Miles'' wellbeing currently more important to him than his own. The guard raises an eyebrow and answers. ¡°You will soon die, boy, but you are still concerned about others. That''s truly special, I''m starting to get, why Miles liked you this much. Miles'' situation is difficult to describe. I don''t know the details, but at least one thing I can assure you, he is alive and in good health.¡± ¡°What do you mean, it''s difficult to describe? Did Stirling do something to him?¡± Civitas starts panicking. After all the things he heard yesterday, he does not know what to expect from his teacher anymore. ¡°Listen here, boy, all I know is this. Stirling took Miles with him into the chapel yesterday, and thereafter, no one was allowed to enter. They left tomorrow morning and since then, Miles seems¡­ different. He said things I never thought I''d hear from him and behaved strangely. Like his mind was manipulated or something, but those are only my uneducated feelings. I have no idea what is going on. I am here to inform you of this, so you don''t get shocked by who Miles turned into should he visit here. That''s the least I can do for you, who My best friend Miles thought of as his son. Now I have to leave, or they''ll suspect me as well. My name is Charles, by the way. it was a pleasure meeting you at least once.¡± After quickly rambling all this down in record time to save time, the Commander quickly leaves and orders the regular guards back in. Some of them new faces, some old faces. Civitas is burning from the inside. Burning within him are the flames of hatred. First Stirling betrayed him, and then he did something to Miles. He will never forgive this. He will take revenge. Somehow, someday. He swears to himself, even if he dies the day after tomorrow, he will come back from the underworld and will drag down Stirling with him. He never once prayed in his life before. He never believed in all this talk about Mana being some kind of godlike being. But this time he prays. But he does not pray to Mana specifically. And he does not pray to a specific god. He prays to everything that could exist out there. Like a desperate try to send an SOS call on all possible radio frequencies, he prays to the gods, the angels, the dragons, the demons, the devils and every other being out there. He does not care what it takes. He will save Miles. Even if he has to sell his soul to the greatest demon queen, Zabula. While thinking in this enraged state, he stumbled over the name Zabula. He clearly knew this name from books and lessons of Stirling. But didn''t he recently hear this name in another context? he feels like he is right about to remember something, like it''s on the tip of his tongue. And then there is the purple-eyed woman from his dream, who clearly was a demon. Why was he leisurely talking to a demon in his dreams? Had that something to do with his eyes turning purple? Was he really a demon? A demon who was just sealed by Stirling many years ago? That would make somewhat sense. The Mana of the crystal, breaking the seal. Unlocking his demon nature, creating a connection to the mother of all demons, Zabula of whom he now dreamt. Is that it? It could be, but something feels amiss, like he is missing some part of the puzzle. Another thing just comes to his mind. If the seal on his Mana and demon nature came from Stirling, and it took this much Mana, to even crack the giant crystal in half to undo it, then how powerful must he be? Then it would make sense for him to be able to oppose Miles like this. Now everything makes more sense. The reason Miles left him 5 years ago was Stirling. While thinking that, he suddenly felt something. Like an incoming call. No two calls, actually. he knew instinctively, the prayers he sent out were answered. And both questions were practically identical. They both told him: ¡°I will soon descend¡± Civitas feels elated at the prospect of a mighty being descending here and helping him defeat Stirling, who betrayed him. And there isn''t only a single being who is willing to help. He will get revenge with their help; he is sure of it. Now the only problem remaining is the definition of soon. He does not have much time left. The guards said he would be executed two days later. But he did everything he could. So the wait begins. It is everything but a pleasant wait. It is uncertain if the help would really come, and it is uncertain if the help would come in time. He tries to adjust the posture he is lying in multiple times, but to no avail. The only thing he achieves is a small splinter in his elbow from rubbing over the wood repeatedly. He somehow endures the first day and finally manages to fall asleep late at night. He dreams of the woman once again. This time, she seems much more distinct, like her features have become more accentuated and her eyes are much more piercing. But this time, they don''t talk. They just sit there facing each other, looking into each other''s eyes. A bit of lucidity allows Civitas to form a mental association with his earlier thoughts when he was awake. So this might be a demon queen, to which he is now connected as a demon. He was told every demon is subject to a demon queen, whom they refer to as their mother. This information came from very low-ranking demons, whom the exploration team managed to capture. It could be the greatest one, Zabula, but he doubts that. That is a name feared by many. Some say just mentioning her name might curse one''s whole bloodline to go extinct. He never once believed in these stories. Now that he thinks of it, shouldn''t he be scared or wary? Probably, yes. But he feels comfort in her gaze and can''t find it within himself to hate or be afraid. Something within him tells him she means no harm and that she isn''t hostile at all. But as many things in dreams do, this faint moment of lucidity and this train of thoughts fade into the background. Civitas returns to just sitting there with the woman, doing nothing until he wakes up. When waking up, Civitas instantly notices the bulky bear of a man sitting outside his cell. It is Miles. Civitas knows he can''t expect this to be the Miles he knows, but still, there is hope within him. But in any case, he is mentally prepared for what is to come, thanks to Charles'' warning yesterday. After looking at each other for a few moments, Miles starts talking in a grim and threatening voice, which sent shivers down Civitas'' spine. ¡°So, you traitorous wretch, you are finally awake. How does it feel to have your mask pulled down from your face? How does it feel to have your true nature revealed to everyone?¡± Civitas had prepared himself, but still, every word felt like a fist hitting his stomach. Tears and anger want to form within his feelings, but he swallows them down, thinking about the one behind all this, Stirling. So he answers as confidently as he can. ¡°I feel like shit, seeing you changed by Stirling. What did he do to you?¡± Miles promptly responds in a loud, almost shouting voice. ¡°He did nothing to me but open my eyes. I finally see you for what you are. You''re a little deceiving demon. Leeching off my status and power so you could one day betray me. But your plans were spoiled by the great preacher Stirling, who blessed me to be able to not be fooled by you any longer.¡± These words sound like they were spoken by Stirling himself. Civitas knows there is no point in talking to him. Whatever Stirling did to him must have something to do with magic. He will undo this magic with the help of the great beings who will soon descend, but now is not the time yet. He will seek out Miles once again once the time is ripe to undo this spell. So for now, he just says the following: ¡°If you know all this, then please leave me alone to at least spend these last few hours of my life in peace and quiet. At least this much should be allowed, even to a demon like me, right?¡± Miles loughs lightly at that. He then says, he will grant him this temporary peace and leaves the room, leaving Civitas and the guards alone in the room again. Civitas guesses Miles could have been sent by Stirling to shake his will and torment him once more, before the execution tomorrow. But why does Stirling hate him this much? Just because he broke into the restricted zone and his eyes started turning purple? All of this is happening far too fast. He feels like there is some other reason he doesn''t know about. If his promised helpers arrive on time, he will surely find out in time. Other than the visit by Miles in the early morning, nothing else noteworthy happens over the day. Civitas just gets fed some murky water and stale bread to sustain himself until tomorrow. Then, after a time that feels like an eternity, night falls. Still, not even a single trace of the promised helpers. Civitas'' thoughts repeatedly return to his execution, which is scheduled for tomorrow. During this night, sleep never comes to him. Civitas just keeps waiting for any sign of help to appear, but to no avail. After an agonizingly long time, morning arrives and announces the day of his execution. Still nothing. At noon, a group of high-ranking warriors barges into his cell, removes the chains, and instead places him in a kind of pillory. This pillory is made of pitch-black wood with blue-shining runes engraved into it. All of this happens without a single word being spoken. There is no need for words because no one present doesn''t know what''s about to happen. It is time for the long-awaited execution. Civitas is brought along by the group of warriors to the outside. After walking up the stairs and exiting, Civitas finally realized that the cell he was placed in was built near the top of the town, only one platform lower than the chapel at the top. The other thing that surprises him is the number of people surrounding him. A large group of people, which might be at least half of the whole town, stand there, shouting profanities at him and sometimes throwing things at him. He had not expected this. He had expected some people to be there and do this, but the sheer amount surprises him. Then, he is led by the group up a flight of stairs, leading directly to the large, ceremonious space in front of the chapel. After all this time living in this vertical town, he is very used to walking stairs, but this time his legs feel like giving in. While shaking, he makes it up to the top, where he is greeted by even more people standing in a large circle, surrounding the ceremony place. In the middle of the place is a small, raised platform with a contraption built on top that he had never seen before. Also on top of that platform stands the preacher and teacher of the town, Stirling. Unlike the other times, he is clad in expensive-looking purple robes, which give him a royal look. He solemnly smiles at Civitas. A smile of victory. And until this very moment, there are still no signs of the mighty helpers arriving on time. Now, panic grips Civitas'' heart, but it''s too late for that. He gets shoved to the top of the platform, where his pillory is placed into the contraption. On the way here, Civitas noticed two dozen long chains going up, away into the distance from this contraption. But the only thing far up there is the giant Mana crystal, their sun. From this highest platform to the crystal, there is still a distance of more than a kilometer. This damn cave is just too big. Civitas tries to say something, in a last-ditch effort to plead for mercy, but an invisible force keeps his mouth shut. Instead, he hears the clear voice of Stirling reverberate through the whole area. ¡°Thank you all for coming to this joyous occasion today. We were fooled for far too long by this little demon. He is very dangerous, so we are lucky to have removed him from our midst. I will place a modified seal on him that only allows Mana to go in, but not to go out. We will use this to pump Mana into him, until he melts. This is a worthy punishment for a being who tried to take it all away from us. Now he will receive as much Mana as he ever wanted and die a fitting death from it.¡± The entire crowd starts cheering joyously. The words of Stirling were infused with strong Mana, which made his words seem much more true and convincing. Stirling then places his hand on Civitas'' head to modify the seal he placed on Civitas all those years ago. While that happens, Civitas hears his voice inside his head. (You should not resent me, but resent the way you were made all these years ago.) Civitas is way too panicked to process the words that he just heard. He wants to scream for help, but his mouth is still forced shut. After a few seconds, Stirling takes his palm away. Civitas instantly notices the difference; suddenly he feels all the Mana surrounding them, and without having any control over it, he starts absorbing some from the atmosphere. Absorbing Mana after all this time feels so good; he almost forgets in what situation he is. Then Stirling starts talking aloud again. ¡°The seal is done; now let our righteous god Mana punish this vile being.¡± After he says that, he takes a small blue brush, completes the last blue rune on the contraption, and takes a few steps back. At first, Civitas doesn''t feel anything different, but then, at once, the Mana that started flowing through one of the chains at the top reaches him. A large amount of Mana starts flowing into his body. It is a bit uncomfortable but not that bad, so he thinks he might be able to endure this, but then he notices only one of the chains is glowing, so there are 23 more to go. Right as he realizes that, the second chain starts glowing, and the Mana intensifies, turning the bit of discomfort into large discomfort. Then, quicker than before, the third chain starts emitting light and turns the discomfort into aching pain, like a finger being bent backwards too far, but through the whole body. Without any time to get used to this, the fourth lights up, then the fifth, and in quick succession, all the chains light up. Right when his mind is about to break, he suddenly feels the pain lessen. It feels like someone is embracing him from behind, protecting him from the Mana. The pain reaches a bearable level with this help. But this newly gained hope, Civitas feels, quickly gets beaten back down, as a new change happens. Between two of the chains, a light screen connecting them, suddenly starts racing down the pair of chains. When this reaches him, the force intensifies once more. Then, just like before, this starts to repeat itself. First slowly, one after the other, but after a short while, all chains are connected. It looks like a giant finger made from blue glass pressing down on him. The pain almost reaches the level of before with this, despite the help he is receiving from someone. Civitas is still determined to not give up. He will make it out of here. He starts to pray one last time. Then, he begs the beings he got answers from before to descend faster. Stirling is a truly meticulous person. There is still one last level of Mana pressure. The space, enclosed by the chains and the screens of Mana connecting them, starts to function like a wire. Spontaneously, from the crystal at the top, a gigantic amount of Mana starts to flow down the middle, filling the whole space. As it reaches Civitas, it makes the construct truly look like the finger of God pushing down on a mortal. Civitas can''t describe the pain and agony he feels at this moment. It feels like every bone in his body is being ground up in a mortar. He feels every cell in his body is being pierced by burning needles soaked in acid. His mind starts cracking. His life is about to end right here. Suddenly, everything starts shaking, like an earthquake rattling the entire town. The strongest earthquake they have ever felt. Civitas doesn''t notice this at all, but the people who were cheering so far quiet down and look concerned. While this is happening, Civitas collects the fragments of his mind together to pray once more. He only manages to articulate one single word in his mind: Help. But that was enough, ¡°they¡± received it. Suddenly, the earthquake stops. Then two large shadows break out through the middle of the Mana crystal at the top. The stream of Mana is disrupted, and Civitas punishment ends, revealing his state, which was occluded by the blinding blue light. But it is too late. His heart is only beating its'' last few beats faintly. His skin is charred black, both arms have molten off, and his eyes have lost all functionality. He will die soon. Then the two large shadows land on the platform with a crash. One of them has the appearance of a 7-meter-tall human person with three pairs of large white wings on his back. Or whatever remains of them, two wings at the top having burned away to mere stumps and the bottom three clearly ripped out, leaving bloody holes where they once were. The last two wings in the middle were almost cut off too, hanging on by a thread. And the look of his body was even worse, with a large burnt-out hole making his chest see through and one half of his face charred black; The eye gone. But the person opposing him, a 10-meter-tall anthropomorphic dragon-like creature, is also wounded until near death. The horns on his head were sliced off, and one arm and one leg are missing. He has two deep slashes across his torso, forming a cross. They are deep enough to see his heart being sliced through by one of them. Now they stand there, looking at each other. Then they simultaneously notice the reason they both came here. They both look at the charred-black adolescent boy. And he seems to look back, not with his eyes, which are already useless, but with his soul. This alluring soul, which was convincing enough to lure both of them here. Both mighty beings then make a split-second decision. They charge at the boy, both chanting a spell in their own respective ways. As they crash into Civitas, space seems to crack and times seems to come to a standstill. Then everything goes dark¡ª not only for Civitas, but for everyone present. After the light comes back, neither the crowd nor Stirling can find the boy they tried to kill.
Civitas wakes up. A Weird Reality Somewhere in a cave, Civitas wakes up, confused, disoriented and more than anything else, lost. He tries to take a look around, but the only light sources are some small-scattered Mana crystals that don''t provide enough light to fully brighten the surroundings. While he sits up, a strong headache assaults him. He holds his head, which feels like it is being pierced by needles. But after a short while, the pain fades into a weak, pulsing discomfort. Then he remembers what happened before he passed out. He should be dead, shouldn''t he? [Yes you should] Civitas jumps to his feet and starts to scan the dark environment. ¡°Who said that!?¡± He shouts out into the empty cave, his voice echoing through the tunnels. Another voice could be heard, both clearly male. Before Civitas could say anything to that, a third voice answers. {Please calm down, Civitas. We pose no threat to you. And you should know me, right? We talked a lot these past few days, albeit that was in your dreams.} Civitas indeed recognizes this voice in an instant. It is the voice of the woman he thinks to be a demon queen. Could he trust her? And from where were they talking to him just now? As if she could hear his thoughts, she answers once again. {Listen to me carefully, my dear. We somehow ended up sharing the same body. So the place we are talking from is your mind. But there is no need for you to worry, since the only thing we currently can do is talk. We can''t take over your body or something like that} Civitas'' eyes open wide. What did they say? They were within his body and tried to take over his body? Panic starts to set in. {I said, I would do the talking, you are of no help, so shut the fuck up lizard} Clear anger is audible from the woman''s voice, but that hardly seeps through to Civitas'' comprehension. Civitas is still besieged by panic and fear. He feels the clear urge to run. Run away from this, from them; Run away from all. But if it''s true, what she said, there was no point in running. He could not run away, there was no escape. The two voices who just talked are arguing all this time, while Civitas is experiencing an existential crisis. They are shouting at each other, hurling profanities and insults at each other. Then Civitas snaps. ¡°Shut up. SHUT UP. If you don''t shut the fuck up right now, I''ll start bashing my head against the next wall until all of us are all dead!¡± Silence. They indeed stopped talking. Civitas feels a bit of relief at the fact he regained some sense of control over the situation. He takes a few slow breaths while slowly walking around in the cave until he finds a suitably elevated rock formation to sit on. After he sits down, he rests his head on his hands and starts organizing his thoughts. The adolescent wants to get as clear of a mind as possible, before engaging in a conversation with them again. He prepares questions for them. He knows there are at least three entities within his mind right now, going by the different sounding voices. After thinking for a while, he thinks he''s ready and starts asking his questions. First he needs names for them because naming them voice 1 through 3 would be confusing. But even before that, he will set some rules. ¡°Listen here. I will now go on to ask a few questions. You will answer in a short and concise way. You will only talk if I tell you to. If I tell you to be quiet, you will be. All of you got that? You may answer that.¡± [Understood] {Of course} They answer in unison. Pleased, he proceeds to his next question. ¡°Now, one after the other, tell me your names and who you are as a person.¡± [My name is Gabriel. I am the head of the archangel roundtable.] Civitas does not know this name, Angels are a difficult to come across race, clouded in mysteries. But it sounds like the highest position among Angels. Neither does Civitas know this name, but similarly it sounds like an if not the highest position among dragons. The might which these names and titles carry with them makes Civitas somewhat embarrassed at commanding them around. That does also raise the question of why they are obeying him, shouldn''t they be powerful enough to get out of this situation? Anyway, isn''t one person missing an introduction? ¡°Go on now, there''s still one missing¡± {Hm? No, you know all our names now} Is she playing with him? ¡°I don''t know who you are. Are you playing a trick on me?¡± She must be playing tricks on him. {No, I wouldn''t dare to. I already introduced myself a few days ago when we met each other within the Mana vein. Don''t you remember me?} Civitas tries to remember something about the Mana vein she mentioned, but only the memories about the dream come to mind. And those are faint, as memories of dreams always are. Is this all still some kind of elaborate trick by her? He can''t be certain, so for now, he will act as if he believes her. ¡°I have no memory of what you just mentioned. Introduce yourself again.¡± {Of course, I''d do anything for you, my dear. My name is Zabula, I am the highest of the demon queens} So his guess was indeed right. She is indeed a demon queen, although he didn''t expect her to be Zabula herself. Now onto the relevant questions. ¡°Why are you all in my body? And can you leave?¡± {I think I am most suited to explain this since I am the longest here. The short answer is, we don''t understand why we are here, and we can''t leave. The fact, you do not remember us meeting before, is a clue we could use to figure those things out.} Is he supposed to believe that? They don''t know? They are beings he would imagine, who are capable of almost anything, but they can''t just leave his body? He can''t trust them, and will not trust them. They clearly are hiding things from him. ¡°You say you don''t understand why you are within my body, but why were beings like you even near me in the first place. What were you doing down in the town where I live¡­ lived. This time, I want Gabriel and Dorminil to answer first.¡± [As you wish. The reason for me and the lizard coming for you is similar but slightly different. We both heard your plea for help and answered your call. From here on, I can only speak for myself. The reason I answered your call, was because your soul, which was revealed to us through your prayer, seemed divine and sharp like a sword at the same time. Both are qualities I deeply value. And your soul seems to incorporate these qualities in an intensity I have never seen before. So I came to help you and make you a part of us Angels. We could simply give you a new body, where your soul could settle in, but a soul this remarkable is difficult to come by.] His soul is divine and sharp like a sword? That sounds like made up bullshit. And him wanting to make him an angel must be some ploy to enslave him or something. But Civitas has no way to confirm or disprove any of their claims. ¡°To be clear, I don''t believe the part about my soul being divine or something. And me becoming an angel is a pipe dream, I am proud to be human and that won''t change. But for now, I''ll let you be. Now onto Dorminil.¡± That sounds even more insane. Can''t they make up any better lies, that are more believable? His soul is supposed to be fiery and is supposed to have the qualities of a great warrior. This sounds as likely to Civitas as pigs starting to fly. And he still can''t believe they want him to believe changing into a different race like a dragon is supposed to be that easy? ¡°All of this sounds insane, I have trouble believing in any of this. But let''s finish this up, why were you there, Zabula?¡± He hopes her story is more believable. {My case is a lot different. But first, those two did not explain to the end, probably not to upset you, so let me quickly add the last part of their story. You deserve to know the whole truth. While coming for you, they met each other. And saying they are enemies is a grave understatement. So they started fighting, but they were equally matched. Right at the point where they couldn''t go on any longer and were about to give up their lives in a last desperate struggle, they reached you. Right then and there, both of them randomly decided to absorb your soul, which they both valued highly, to regain some strength. But when they tried to, they were instead absorbed by you.} Civitas is somehow not surprised at this revelation. He knew they were hiding something. And them wanting to profit from absorbing his soul without any consideration for him is the most believable thing he heard today. The two in question stay silent, confirming their guilt. Civitas just proceeds for now, since there is nothing he could change about that. ¡°At least that is something I''d expect, so I believe that. Now tell your story¡± Hopefully, her story does not sound as made up as the other twos. {Of course, may I treat it as you having no memory at all of us meeting before?} That is a given fact in Civitas opinion because he strongly believes they have never met before except in his dreams, at which point they must have come in contact already. ¡°Yes, go on.¡± Civitas replies dryly. {As most people do, I was training, cultivating my Mana by absorbing external Mana and making it my own.} Civitas had never heard of such a method, warriors in his town just absorb Mana passively while training their bodies. To his knowledge, it is dangerous and detrimental to try to absorb Mana excessively. But that might just be a difference in species, so he won''t dig into that. But he has another question instead. ¡°Quick question, what is a Mana vein?¡± He has to know this to make sense of her story, he guesses. {It''s surprising you don''t know this, it''s very common knowledge to us. Anyway, Mana crystals tend to resonate with each other and form what we call ¡°pathways¡±. The bigger a Mana crystal is, the longer the distance over which it can resonate. If a cluster of Many crystals naturally happens to be dense enough to form a complex network, we call that a Mana vein. The name pathways was chosen because these pathways allow traveling through them if one''s Mana affinity is high enough. Although no one ever uses this as a method of travel since one''s position is instantly revealed to anyone within, or close by, the Mana vein. So far, so good?} Civitas is delighted at her easy-to-understand way of explaining stuff. Now he only needs to judge if the information is believable. He tries to figure out any motive or profit she might gain by giving him this as false information, but he can''t come up with anything, so he decides to trust this information for now. ¡°I understand, now go on with your story¡± Keeping up the commanding tone gets harder and harder for civitas. He was looked down upon for as long as he can think, and now he is in this weird situation with three incomprehensibly strong beings. The earlier courage he gained by threatening them starts to wear off. {Alright then. While I was training I suddenly felt the Mana vein I was using vibrate, as if someone was traveling through it and not only that, they were clearly traveling towards me. I was curious as to which mighty being would dare to approach my territory recklessly like that. So I decided to also enter the Mana vein and meet them at half-point. The person I then saw there was you, Civitas. You were boldly swimming into my domain.} How could that be possible? Civitas can''t remember anything like that, although¡­ he figures the only time that could have happened would be the two weeks, during which, Miles said, he was stuck inside the Mana crystal. But how come he remembers nothing? The time in the Mana crystal felt like he was just sleeping to him. ¡°I still can''t remember anything about this at all. There seems to have been a span of about two weeks, during which I appear to have been stuck inside a Mana crystal. But I would describe my state during that more like comatose. So me swimming boldly towards you does not make sense to me.¡± Zabula answers quickly to that. {What you describe to me right now seems to fit into what I experienced, actually. The you I met at that time was¡­ different. I only notice this now that I am talking to you again, but something about you was different at that time. Your choice of words was starkly different, you seemed much more confident than you do now, your facial expression was entirely different, and you carried yourself with a sort of grandeur. Like you were a different person at that time. I have a vague guess of what happened at that time, but I have no confidence in this being the truth. I would rather not tell you, since it might just disturb you even more than this situation already does.} Her concern sounds reasonable. He indeed is very agitated and disturbed. But isn''t what she is withholding from him something about his own mind or body? Shouldn''t he gather as much knowledge about that as possible? If what she said is true, there could be something inside him that could take over his body at any time. Does he have a split personality disorder or anything like that? The lack of knowledge and the induced doubt will surely make him even more nervous, so he needs to ask. ¡°No, go ahead and tell me your theory. I want to know all about this is soon as possible.¡± She seems to hesitate. Is she really that concerned about his wellbeing? That can''t be, she surely is plotting something. So Civitas takes her time of hesitation to prepare himself to dismiss whatever she says right now. All of this could be one giant trick to make him insecure. Like trying to poke holes in his mind through which she could take control. Civitas is certain this has to be it. {Alright, I''ll tell you about my theory, but please don''t put too much weight into my words since this is all just guessing. We, the lizard, the chicken and I, are very close to your soul right now. So we can take a look directly at it. Your soul seems to be accompanied by some kind of shadow. A shadow darker than anything we have ever seen before. And when we try to approach your soul, this shadow lunges at us. Somewhat like it is trying to protect your soul from us, but not entirely. Another thing we can observe about this shadow is its seemingly infinite deepness. It looks like an abyss, capable of swallowing everything. So when it attempts to protect your soul, we clearly feel it setting out to absorb us into it. The only reason why we aren''t absorbed so far is that we quickly gave up our trying to do anything to your soul. Our high achievements in soul strengthening probably also plays a part in this. My theory is that this shadow somehow took over your body while you were inside the Mana vein. It''s urge to absorb me might have led you to me. The existence of the shadow is a fact, everything apart from that, even the absorbing part, is not confirmed and only based on what we felt. I know this is a lot to take in, are you ok?} She asks that, but does she really mean it? Or is she just afraid of this ¡°shadow¡± which civitas can''t believe is supposed to be inside him. How come he never noticed something like that? He felt completely normal all his life, although¡­ there was the part about him being unable to sense or manipulate Mana. Which, as was revealed by Stirling a while ago, was caused by his seals. But why did he seal him in the first place? Could he have been aware of this shadow? Civitas doubts that. Stirling is a cautious man, even with Miles putting in a good word for him, it would not make sense for Stirling to let him live this long. Maybe they were aware something about him is strange, but not quite what exactly. So they sealed him as a precaution and then put him under observation. Observation, which Sterling did himself while Civitas was in his lessons. It makes sense. It makes too much sense now. So Miles must have known about this all along, but never told him anything. A sense of betrayal starts to form in Civitas heart. But then, assuming what Zabula told him is the truth, what is that thing within him? Was he born with that? Why is he this different from anyone else? Not even these great beings inside him have any satisfactory answers to that. They sound just as perplexed as he is. ¡°How am I supposed to be ''ok''? What you just told me implies some sort of dark being residing in my body which could take control at any time and apparently has the urge to absorb everything.¡± Disbelieve and fear are palpable in his voice. Lunacy just around the corner, he starts to ramble cynically and sarcastically. ¡°Noooo I am completely fine! Don''t I seem so happy and relaxed after coming to know I am some freak of nature not even you can explain? My day could not have started any better!¡± Tears were starting to form in his eyes, unknowingly. All of this is far too much for Civitas. He tried to let the words, this demon queen said, go by as just the lies of a demon, but it makes too much sense. He can''t ignore this if it slots in too perfectly into the things he never understood. It''s like puzzle pieces fitting in just the right positions, but the complete picture that gets pieced together is one of horror and disaster. His earlier threat of bashing his skull against the next wall suddenly seems to be the more comfortable solution. But just as he is about to lose his mind entirely, one person comes to his mind. Miles. Miles is still under the control of Stirling. Although he left him alone and withheld things from him, he is still the closest person akin to a father for him. And maybe he has some answers. Stirling and Miles might be the only people on this planet who could have a vague idea of what is going on with him. He has to go on. To free Miles and to get answers. And to get revenge on Stirling. The pain he had to go through because of him, and the mind control over Miles, can not and will not be forgiven. He calms. He takes a few more deep breaths, thankful for the guests in his body having some sense of compassion to let him think by himself. ¡°Then this¡­ shadow thing is also the reason you got absorbed into my body and why you can''t leave, I guess?¡± This time, somewhat to Civitas surprise, Gabriel answers, not Zabula. [Yes, this is what we concluded as well. The absorption happened too fast for us to take in everything at that time, but this makes the most sense. Furthermore, there is one more thing we noticed. We are constantly being absorbed. The absorption rate is incredibly slow, so slow in fact, our souls are regenerating faster than they are disappearing. But this still has an effect on us, especially our emotions. I don''t know if this is believable to you, but it seems like our negative emotions towards you are targeted specifically. We are not quite sure if that''s the case, but it is the most plausible explanation we came up with for why we can''t feel negative emotions towards you. All of us are proud beings, we would never let someone order us around like you did before, even if you threaten us with death. None of us fear death. But we can''t feel revolting, or angry towards you for that. The Lizard and I talked about that while you were talking to the demon. We all feel the same thing.] This is, as many things today, difficult to believe for Civitas, but if it is true, it would explain their behavior which is very different from what he expected from such great beings. This actually seems to be the first good news today. If he does not have to fear them betraying him or intentionally misguiding him, that is a considerable win. Sadly, he can''t figure out a way to confirm this, so he will try to observe their behavior in the future. They will be stuck for quite a while, Civitas believes. So, without contemplating on this for too long, he proceeds to ask questions he wants answers for. ¡°I will trust you for now, but I will be observing you closely. A question which still bugs me is, how did I survive the punishment before? I am sure my body was almost destroyed, and my heart stopped, so why am I even alive?¡± The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Civitas instantly puts his hand on his chest, trying to feel his pulse. But instead of the usual rhythmic pulsing, he feels a jumbled mess, like multiple hearts pumping blood out of sync. So he can indeed confirm his claims. But he wishes he could not. He devolves further and further away from being human. But there is nothing he can do about that. He won''t get beat down just by the fact he might not be human anymore. For all he knows, he might never have been human to begin with. ¡°So, did my body also just randomly start regenerating from all the damage?¡± [No, that was me. When I tried to control your body with the sole intention of helping you, the shadow allowed me to. So I used my healing magic to cure all wounds on your body, and I also undid the remaining seals which were placed on you for some reason. But the exact moment my task of helping you was done, the shadow took the control away from me again.] So they can theoretically control his body, but only if the shadow allows them, it seems. Those aren''t good new to Civitas because the shadow just received even more control over his life in Civitas eyes. But at the same time, he is a bit thankful because he survived only because of that. ¡°I think all my questions are answered for now. Wait, no, now that I think about it, how did I get here? Did you also take control to walk over here?¡± {No, the shadow only allowed me to use Mana for a while, so I could cast space magic and teleport us away. Since I was rushed, the target location was random, but we seem to have been fortunate. This region looks to be very desolate. You should probably try exploring, you need a source of food, don''t you? Humans can''t live off Mana can they?} ¡°Not to my knowledge, no. And I am indeed starving. Then I''ll try to find some golberries. They are a kind of dimly glowing berry which grows frequently on the outskirts of my town. I ate a lot of them when I was younger, and I doubt I''ll be able to hunt a monster to eat.¡± Civitas then stands up. His cheeks sore from sitting on hard stone for more than an hour. He stretches a bit and slowly starts to make his way along the cave wall. He has no source of light except the dim Mana crystals, so he has to be careful with every step. He would rather not make a lot of noise. There could be any number of monsters lurking in the shadows, and drawing their attention would be horrible right now. [Same here] {I agree with that} The feeling of multiple people observing and judging every step of his is of no help to his strained nerves. After a while, he makes his way to an area where larger Mana stones are more common, so the lighting situation gets better. Now that he can see his surroundings more clearly, he picks up his pace. Then he suddenly hears sounds from afar. It sounds like people shouting and fighting. Civitas decides to go closer, but to stop at a point where he could hide any time. Just as he reaches a point close enough to understand what they say, coupled with a crack in the cave wall in which he could hide, the sound of fighting stops. He listens closely and manages to hear a few words here and there. He believes they are discussing if they should head back or go further in. When they are about to make a decision, a loud roar is suddenly audible, then an explosion, Civitas sees the tunnel the voices echoed from suddenly being brightly lit up. The shouting voices of the people get ever more quiet. They are probably running away while screaming. Right after he heard the last screams fade away, he hears loud footsteps coming towards him. He quickly hides as deep into the crack as possible, hoping, the monster wouldn''t hear his heartbeat or smell his sweat. Then he remains as still as possible, even reducing breathing to a minimum. After just a short time, he sees a large silhouette walk past his hiding spot. He can''t make anything out about the monster except its glowing green eyes. The monster halts for a second, its eyes in the line of sight of Civitas. Then it moves again, its eyes going past the crack, out of vision. Civitas heaves a sigh of relief unknowingly, his concentration broken for a moment. Then suddenly he hears the heavy footsteps accelerating, and in a split second, the monster is right in front of the crack, one eye held against the crack opening, looking directly at Civitas. The monster starts growling. Its growl so deep it feels like the whole cave is trembling. Civitas is frozen still by fear, unable to look away from the large glowing green eye. Civitas is sure this is the end of him, but then the monsters'' eye opens wider, like it is surprised at something, only to close back down to a slit. It then raises its head back away from the crack and proceeds to walk away. What just happened? This thing clearly found Civitas, but somehow decided to just go away. ¡°So you guys are actually good for something. Even if it''s just your threatening presence.¡± Civitas says this only after waiting for a few minutes to make sure the earth wyrm is gone. He then climbs out of his crack. [I beg to differ, we are the strongest beings to ever exist, even if we can''t do much ourselves right now, our combined knowledge is nearly boundless] That comment by Civitas clearly hurt his pride. ¡°And what use would knowledge have in this situation?¡± Civitas acknowledges that they must know a lot, but of what use is pure information right now? [We don''t only have theoretical knowledge, we also have a lot of experience, especially in fighting and the art of magic. I am willing to teach you a bit of what I know, since your death is likely to lead to our death.] Gabriel talks in a manner which makes it seem like he is the one in control, which slightly pisses off Civitas, but he swallows it down. These people won''t turn over a new leaf in a matter of hours. {If you are interested, I will teach you everything I know. No one knows more about space magic or mind magic than I do.} [Well then, since I would rather not fall behind, I will also teach you everything I know if you so wish. I know the most about the art of the sword and holy magic, which can be used to smite down your opponents or to heal others and yourself.] All of them still radiate this feeling of superiority, but especially Zabula appears to be trying to suppress her sense of superiority. Her first step in laying down all she has to offer in front of Civitas was the catalyst which made Dorminil and Gabriel also offer up all their knowledge. Civitas is deeply thankful for Zabula doing this. He is also excited to learn magic and fighting now that his Mana is unsealed. Their words were like timber to the flame which ignited when his Mana was finally unsealed. He always wanted to be strong, but his possibilities for that were nonexistent without Mana. But now he could, and with the help of them, he is certain he will grow a lot. ¡°Thank you all for offering your help. I will gladly learn from you later on, but for now, we need to ensure our survival first. We need food, water and a safe place to stay at.¡± After finishing this short conversation, Civitas slowly starts sneaking towards where he heard the wyrm and the people fight before. He reaches his destination soon, but is shocked by what he sees there. In this large cave space, the bodies of about 10 darkwolves and 3 bodies of humans lay there. The darkwolves seem to have been slain by the humans, judging by the cut wounds all over their bodies. Of the three bodies, two are burnt to a crisp, so they are barely identifiable as humans. The last body is missing its head. Like it just disappeared. From the open neck, a puddle of blood formed beneath the body. Civitas'' stomach starts revolting at this sight. He has to avert his eyes, or else he might actually puke right here. After fortifying his mind, he once again takes in the sight, this time prepared. The three people were killed by the wyrm, Civitas concludes. He once again is thankful for the wyrm letting him go because these people clearly were strong. Darkwolves aren''t to be underestimated on their own, but are still easy targets compared to most of the things down here. But they are skilled in hunting as a pack. A pack of darkwolves is exponentially more dangerous than a single darkwolf. For these people to have defeated them, they must have been considerably strong in relativity to Civitas. But it only took the wyrm mere seconds to decimate them. Civitas walks over to the beheaded corpse, searching for something useful. Whatever the people who burnt to death had with them, probably got incinerated with them. But then, just as Civitas reaches the headless corpse, he hears growling from behind. Not as deep as the one from the wyrm, but clearly a large animal of some kind. He quickly reaches down for the sword, lying next to the body, then he turns around quickly, looking at what made the noise. Right there, at the mouth of another tunnel, a darkwolf stands. It is a bit smaller than the ones lying on the floor. It might have run away when his fellow pack-mates were being defeated by the humans. Now it came back and sees just Civitas remaining there. Civitas tries to figure out a plan, but his mind is in shambles. He always thought about the moment he would face a monster for the first time. But now that it is actually happening, it is much scarier than he ever imagined. He raises his sword in the standard posture, which was taught to him in school. He knows the basics of swordsmanship, but due to his lacking physique which wasn''t enhanced by Mana, at one point he was excluded from the practical lessons. And to make matters worse, his brain is empty right now. Like when you studied for an exam a lot, but the moment you sit down to take the exam, all the information vanishes. The wolf suddenly lungs at him. Civitas throws his body to the side, rolling away instinctively. He quickly tries to get back on his feet, but before he is able to stand up fully, the wolf is right in front of him again. He raises his sword while kneeling on one knee and manages to make the wolf bite into the sword instead of him, but its claws still manage to reach past and slash him on his upper thigh. After clearly getting hurt by the sword it bit down upon, the wolf lets go and jumps a few meters back. Civitas uses this opportunity to stand up. His leg is in a lot of pain from the slash wound, but it isn''t deep enough to hinder his mobility. The wolf appears to be wary of his sword now because it starts to circle him instead of starting another head on attack. Civitas mind cleared up a bit from the pain he is feeling, like a cold water bucket being dumped over his face. He decides to take the initiative this time, to build upon the wolf''s fear of his sword. He takes a few well-planned steps forward, trying to bait out another attack by the wolf. It works. The wolf gets impatient after Civitas walked into its attack range and jumps at him once again. This time Civitas is prepared, so he tries to dodge the jump with as little movement as possible. He miscalculates by a bit and his chest gets slashed superficially by the wolf, but the wound is very shallow. So Civitas uses the moment, right while the wolf lands on its feet again, to slash at its neck from behind. His precision is luckily on point, so the fact, the sword only penetrates a few centimeters deep is compensated. Civitas knew he did not have enough strength to behead the wolf or anything like that. And Civitas also wasn''t precise enough to reliably hit the spot he wants to. But luck is on his side and he hits right between two vertebrae and severs its'' central nervous system in two. the wolf collapses right then and there, not electrical signals reaching its muscles anymore. Civitas falls down right after it, not because of an injury, but because his nerves couldn''t hold on anymore. He sits down for a few moments, catching his breaths. The wolf is still living, it appears to be unable to breathe, but its heart seems to still beat because Civitas did not sever the nerves completely. He decides to end its suffering a bit faster, so now stands over the wolf and aligns the tip of his sword with the eye of the wolf. He has no confidence in being able to penetrate the skull, so he figured this might still hurt a lot for a brief moment, but suffocating because it can''t breathe anymore would be more agony. So he puts all his weight on the blade and thrusts down into the skull of the Wolf, ending its'' life. Civitas then wants to sit down again because this fight was very exhausting, but before he could do that, he hears a crisp: *pling* Then a blue display like window appears before his eyes and a female voice reads the text out loud.
You have successfully defeated a darkwolf! Essence absorption complete! You have gained 100 experience points!
Level Up!
Civitas is perplexed. This looks moderately like the system which was described to him before by other people of his town. But he has never heard of essence absorption, experience points or Level-Ups. ¡°What is this? Are you guys able to see this too?¡± Maybe his ¡°passengers¡± know something about this. They boasted about their knowledge not too long ago. Civitas is even more confused now, what is a ¡°window to the world¡±? He figures asking now can''t be a mistake. ¡°What is the window of the world?¡± {Have you never opened your window to the world before? It displays your current status, abilities and such.} ¡°Oh, you mean that thing. Everyone in my town just called it the system. We had no fancy name for it like that. And I was indeed never capable of opening my window to the world, as you call it. I must have gained access to it after the seal was undone.¡± [But that can''t be! No one is able to shut out someone from the divine records! The divine records record all sentient beings and their status. Opening the window to the world is just taking a look at what is written in the records. And no one, absolutely no one, not even us three combined, has the capability of locking someone out from the divine records. If the person who made those seals is really that powerful, there is no way we would have manged to escape to here.] ¡°But why else did could I never access the window to the world before?¡± [I have no idea. This is also my first time hearing of this. This is something I never thought would be possible.] Civitas'' confusion is turning into irritation. Why can''t anything ever be simple? Why do unexplainable things keep happening to him? First the three monsters living within him, then the shadow which seems to absorb things, his weird memory loss coupled with something else controlling him and now him apparently being the only person ever to not be able to access the window to the world. His irritation turns into frustration. He would like to scream as loud as he could, but even that is not possible since he would rather not draw attention to him. {Please calm down Civitas, we will help you to figure out why everything is the way it is. We already had many questions without answers. What difference make one or two more?} She is right, but Civitas is still reluctant to accept this. He apparently is just that much of a freak of nature. Regardless, Civitas tries to open his Status window. His window to the world. With just that thought, it opens up.
Status Window
Level: 2
Level Progress: 0/300
Ability Scores Skill Section
Ability name: Ability Value: Skill Name Skill Rarity Skill Level Progress
Strength (1) 1 Absorb ??? Max. 999%
Constitution (1) 1 Basic Swordsmanship Common 1 12%
Agility (1) 1
Intelligence (1) 1
Wisdom (1) 1
Mana (2) 0
Points available for distribution: 20
{This looks starkly different from what my window looks like. I will now name every difference I see. First, I have never seen the ¡°Level Progress: 0/300¡± part. I have never seen skill progress being listed as a percentage. I have also never seen the numbers in brackets right behind the ability names. Furthermore, I have never seen ¡°points available for distribution¡±. And last but not least, I have never seen skill rarity displayed in a window to the world. We do indeed categorize skills by rarity, but that isn''t something that it usually displayed in the Window to the world.} After receiving the previous messages about absorbing essence and leveling up, he expected his window to be different from others, but not to that degree. [Your stats appear to be low even for a human. A level one human should have two in every ability score except Mana to my knowledge. This differs from species to species, but for humans this seems to be the norm. Now, the only question is, if the point distribution really is what is appears to be. If so, you could have a huge advantage over basically every other existing creature.] ¡°How do you know this about humans? I thought you beings didn''t pay much attention to weaker races.¡± {We sometimes capture lower beings to study them and experiment on them. I know this sounds cruel to you, but to us, this was completely normal. Because we never viewed humans as equally sentient beings. You were more like insects to us.} It''s unbelievable how fast Civitas forgot how threatening his passengers usually are. Their nice and helpful manner towards him made them seem much nicer than they really are. ¡°Let''s just not talk about this. Let me just try to¡­ distribute my points.¡± So civitas starts to distribute his points. And to everyone''s shock, it works just like they expected. Why are they shocked? Because although they expected this from the wording, the amount by which Civitas'' scores improved from a single level up is just ridiculous. It is common knowledge, that a human''s overall level increases by one every time they increase any ability score by 2, while their level is below 100. This means the overall level is a representation of a persons'' growth. After level 100, it changes to 4 score improvements to increase their level by 1. After 200 it''s 6 and so on. A young dragon needs to increase their ability score by 10 to increase their overall level by one. After level 100 they need 30 improvements, then 50 and so on. Mana is a special stat which contributes more towards leveling up, since Mana is a universal power which enhances one''s entire being. Humans only managed to persist this long because they are the fastest to master skills, no other race is able to learn as fast as the humans. This means Civitas will be two times stronger, than a dragon of the same level.
Status Window
Level: 2
Level Progress: 0/300
Ability Scores Skill Section
Ability name: Ability Value: Skill Name Skill Rarity Skill Level Progress
Strength (1) 6 Absorb ??? Max. 999%
Constitution (1) 6 Basic Swordsmanship Common 1 12%
Agility (1) 6
Intelligence (1) 2
Wisdom (1) 1
Mana (2) 3
Points available for distribution: 0
Everyone is in disbelief at a level two human having these scores. This is equal to a normal level 10 human, but he is only level 2. Moreover, Civitas appears to be able to level up in a way no one else can. Questions Civitas treads further through the cave system, in the opposite direction to where the giant monster disappeared to. He continues to think about the revelations today. He knows he''s aught to pay attention, since he is still frail in comparison to just about anything else, but he just can''t bring himself to focus. [Just pay attention to what''s happening right now! Your Thoughts are deafeningly loud in here. If you keep this up, your carelessness will kill us very soon.] That remark stings like a blow delivered right to his heart¡­ or hearts. The pain quickly turned into annoyance, and that annoyance turned into anger. ¡°Oh, just shut the fuck up, Gabriel. Dying might just be the correct decision, pulling you into death along myself, liberating this whole world from Tyrants like you. So if you don''t want me to consider that option once more, you better shut up and let me think.¡± Silence. Civitas now only hears his breathing and his slow steps echoing through the cave. He Almost expects another comment by Gabriel or someone else, but they continue to keep quiet. Civitas'' mind wanders back to Miles and Stirling. His entire world, which wasn''t the prettiest or best, but still a constant of stability, crumbled to bits a few days ago. Then he came to terms with dying right then and there, executed by Stirling. But he got rescued by the strongest three beings known to exist. Can you really call that them rescuing him? Didn''t they rather rescue themselves? Moreover, apparently there''s something inside of him, strong enough to suppress those three. How long has that been there? Was he born with it? It''s just too much for Civitas to handle. The longer he thinks about everything, the more confused he gets and the more confused he gets, the more he tries to think of explanations. His head starts to ache. His vision starts to blur, from tears welling in his eyes. He can''t remember when he cried the last time, but right now, he feels just as lost and overwhelmed as when he was a little child. {Civitas, dear, there''s a space behind that crack to your left. Do you want to take a break there?} ¡°Taking a break? What is that supposed to fix? I won''t find any answers from sitting around in there¡±. {That is true, but you also won''t find any answers by getting yourself killed right now. And maybe we could answer at least some of your questions.} Civitas stops and turns his head to look at the crack he just walked past. Perhaps she''s right. Taking a small break could help to calm down. ¡°Alright, but just a few minutes until I think more clearly.¡± Civitas squeezes himself through the crack to get into the space behind it. The space he finds there is small, about the size of his old home. Many small water streams seep through one wall, and gather on the floor in a narrow stream which flows out through the Crack Civitas just came in through. This room feels peaceful with the stream flowing through, and the knowledge that the only entrance is the crack which was just wide enough for Civitas to squeeze through. He sits down on the floor, with his back against the wall, facing the crack he came from. He then pulls his legs close and places his head on his knees. Sitting there and arranging his thoughts takes longer than he expected. After a while, Civitas'' thoughts are arranged enough for him to have questions to ask. He opens up his Window to the world.
Status Window
Level: 2
Level Progress: 0/200
Species:H???u???m???a???n??? Species Tier: Lower
Ability Scores Skill Section
Ability name: Ability Value: Skill Name Skill Rarity Skill Level Progress
Strength (1) 5 D???e???v???o???u???r??? ??? Max. NaN
Constitution (1) 5 Amateur Swordsmanship Inferior 1 0
Agility (1) 5
Intelligence (1) 1
Wisdom (1) 1
Mana (2) 3
Points available for distribution: 0
Evolution: 100/5500
As expected, it stays unchanged. One thing Civitas does not know anything about is the coloring of the text, but he didn''t hear Zabula mention this as one of the abnormalities before, so he might as well ask her.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°You said you would answer some questions, Zabula, then let''s start with the coloring of the text. Why is some text gray?¡± {Oh? Now I wonder, isn''t this common knowledge among the humans?} ¡°As I mentioned previously, I am not the average human. You already know about me not being able to open the Window to the world before, and I have never heard anyone talk about this before.¡± {Yes, of course, how mindless of me. The colors represent a kind of ranking. We only know this ranking system from our ability values and the species tiers. Grey is the lowest ranking color. Once you have 100 gray points in an ability value, it will turn into 1 white point. 100 White points will turn into one blue point and so on. The many races that observed this phenomenon came up with names for these tiers. From lowest to highest they are: Grey-Inferior, White-Common, Blue-Uncommon, Yellow-rare, Red-Heroic, Orange-Legendary and Green-Mythic. Seeing how your gray Swordsmanship is labeled inferior, it seems your special Window adheres to the naming convention we came up with.} Civitas listens closely. ¡°That raises two more questions for me. One: Does that mean there are beings with, as you called it, ''Mythic'' Ability Values, of which one point equals one TRILLION points of my color? And two: So you have never seen that Magenta color from my other skills before?¡± {Indeed, both your assumptions are correct. Us three, the Dragon and Angel and I truly had mythic ability values. My highest Ability value was intelligence with, 40134 Mythic points. I was level, 84205.} Civitas knew they were Strong, but this strong? With power like that, couldn''t they just destroy the whole planet with ease? ¡°If you''re this strong, why didn''t you just take over the world already?¡± [Because I am even Stronger.] ¡°Then let me ask you instead, Dorminil, why haven''t you taken over the world yet?¡± There''s a short pause, and Civitas can feel them talking about something in the back of his mind, but he can''t quite understand what they are saying. This proves Civitas'' presumption that they are hiding things from him. After just a few seconds, Gabriel is the one to answer. [Well, you see, our species are in a delicate state of balance. We three tend not to participate in fights directly, since we are too strong and this world is too fragile. An all-out clash between us three would make this planet uninhabitable. Our little fight before we got to you and got stuck here also left deep craters and other traces on the surface. And I can''t tell you the details, but we can''t afford to abandon this planet.] This answers a few questions for Civitas, but leaves others open. ¡°Then, what role do humans play in this war?¡± ¡°Who do you mean with ''that bastard''¡±? ¡°So he''s almost as strong as one of you?¡± [Ha! Don''t make me laugh. He is barely as strong as an angel knight. Which is impressive for a human, but we have thousands of warriors on that level. Their location is strategically bad and has no remarkable resources. It simply isn''t worth the trouble for us.] ¡°Alright, I get it, you are oh so mighty. Even mighty enough to get stuck in some random 18-year-old human.¡± Civitas says sarcastically. They don''t say anything, their pride is hurt, but they can''t say anything because it''s true. He uses this silence to finish organizing his thoughts. And with that, he forms his determination. He wants answers, and he wants to survive. To achieve that, he''ll need to get stronger, a lot stronger, and his peculiar Window to the World of his will be his tool. He picks up the sword he killed the wolf with, takes a few sips of water from the stream flowing through the room, and heads out into the wider cave system.
Magic *Growl* *clang* *slash* *whoosh* *slice* *howl* With this desperate howl, the 5th wolf goes down. With this, Civitas has hunted a total of 6 wolves, counting his first desperate struggle.
You have successfully defeated a darkwolf! Essence absorption complete! You have gained 100 experience points!
Your Amateur Swordsmanship Skill reached level 2!
Level Up!
This is also the sixth time he gets the message about absorbing essence and gaining experience points. And the third time he levelled up.
Status Window
Level: 4
Level Progress: 0/400
Species:H???u???m???a???n??? Species Tier: Lower
Ability Scores Skill Section
Ability name: Ability Value: Skill Name Skill Rarity Skill Level Progress
Strength (1) 13 D???e???v???o???u???r??? ??? Max. NaN
Constitution (1) 13 Amateur Swordsmanship Inferior 2 15%
Agility (1) 13
Intelligence (1) 6
Wisdom (1) 6
Mana (2) 6
Points available for distribution: 0
Evolution: 600/5,500
His Evolution points did also go up. With this pace, he will soon find out what ¡°evolution¡± will do to him. His ability values increased considerably from just two levels, and his Swordsmanship also went up a level, although it is still inferior. With this new improvement, it will get even easier to hunt wolves from now on. And maybe he could start hunting something bigger than wolves, in hopes of getting even more experience points. {You''re doing well, Civitas. If you keep this up, we will soon be able to teach you some magic. But you still need to improve your Intelligence, Wisdom and Mana for that.} Civitas Sighs. ¡°I know, but right now, my physical abilities are much more important for survival.¡± So far, Civitas crouched and sneaked through the caves and avoided everything, just picking out vulnerable wolves which got separated from their pack. But the next time will be different, he promises himself. However, that will have to wait. Civitas is on his feet since he woke up after teleporting. Exhaustion is weighing down his movements, so he decides to head back to the small room with the stream he rested in before. Civitas gets there without much trouble and sits down. He gets out the sword and starts to skin the one wolf body he took back. He has to eat something, but the prospect of having to eat the wolf raw still makes his stomach revolt. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. On one hand, Civitas is elated at not having to eat the wolf raw, but on the other hand, his stomach just got insulted as being puny. Civitas swallows his slight anger and instead asks: ¡°I will gladly take you up on that offer. How do I start then? I have no clue about magic.¡± Would it kill him to do without insults for one sentence? [First, you need to be able to feel mana. That lizard is too rough to teach someone about something so delicate. I will now start circulating some mana through your body. Try to empty your mind and only concentrate on the subtle changes in your body. Breathe how I tell you to] Without much introduction, Gabriel instantly starts teaching. Civitas is a bit perplexed at first, but simply complies. [Breathe in¡­] [Breathe out¡­] [In¡­] [And out¡­] [In¡­] [And out¡­] {Shut up and let him focus!} Civitas got disturbed quite a lot by their remarks, but luckily, they stayed quiet after that, and he got back to focusing. He can''t tell how much time has passed, but after a while, Civitas feels a small pulse in his chest. Like the beating of a heart, but not on a physical level. It rather feels like a sound he hears with his mind. A deep humming sound that pulsates in his chest. From this humming spot, small streams seems to flow out into his body. Civitas pays closer attention to one of the streams and follows it with his mind through his body. This one goes out to the left arm, circulates once through the palm of his hand and returns. Another, stronger, stream heads down to his lower abdomen. There it circulates a bit before splitting off into two smaller streams, each heading for one leg. In his right arm there is another stream just like in his left arm. The fourth and last of the streams heads upwards to his head. Civitas follows this one with his mind, just like the others. Trying to remember the path it takes and how it feels. But when tracing the stream back to the center, he notices for the first time the fact, that there is more than one of those sources, from which the streams flow out, but only one is active right now. He starts paying closer attention to these centers and counts four of them. Each of them causes a different feeling in Civitas. One of them feels hot. The second feels bright. The third feels dark. But not as dark as the last one. This one feels like a hole, so dark Civitas can''t fathom the expanse within. He tries to look closer into what feels like a deep abyss, but suddenly an instinct deeply anchored in his mind jolts him away from that. Civitas suddenly tears open his eyes and jumps backwards. What just made him run back was his natural survival instinct. He feared for his life at that moment. {What happened? Did something hurt you?} Zabula quickly asks, maybe real worry could be heard from her voice. ¡°It''s¡­ nothing. Don''t worry about it.¡± Civitas tries to play it down. ¡°But I got a question, could it be possible for me to feel your hearts within my chest in the form of mana sources?¡± {Yes dear, our hearts are the perfect mediums to store, process and provide you with mana. Did you perhaps sense all three of our hearts distinctly? If so, could you describe them to me?} Three hearts, she says, but Civitas clearly felt something more. Are they not aware of that thing, or does she deliberately not tell him about it? ¡°Yes, I felt one heart I''d describe as dark, one that was hot and one that was bright.¡± {That does indeed sound fitting for us. Did you notice anything else?} ¡°No? Should I?¡± {No, of course not. I just wanted to make sure you are fine after being stat startled before.} Civitas is certain now. She knows about that fourth thing, but won''t tell him about it. Civitas also decides to not tell them anything. Having some cards up his sleeve can''t hurt. ¡°Alright then, let''s get back to you guys teaching me magic. I know how to feel the mana now, but how do I use it?¡± Civitas goes on to try to make the mana move the way it did before. He tries to beckon the mana gently to move the way he wants it to. To this gentle approach, the fiery dragon heart stays still, instead mana starts flowing from the dark demon heart. Civitas gets a bit confused. Does that mean he''ll have to treat each of their mana types differently? But either way, he just puts that thought down and does as Dorminil said. He pulls on the mana as strong as possible and tries to make it submit to him. This surprisingly works significantly better than he expected. After getting over the first hurdle and making the mana move at all, it seemingly does whatever he wants it to. Quickly, his whole body is filled by circulating mana. Civitas does not know this weird word, which seems to echo through his mind, but he understands its meaning instinctively. Fire. So he did just as he was told. He guides the mana to his right hand and says this one word. ¡°????¡± Suddenly, small flames spring up from his palm. He is a bit surprised at first and instinct tells him his hand should be hurting, but the pain never comes. Instead, it even feels rather pleasant. {Very good Civitas. Now turn it off and finish preparing the wolf meat. Then you can roast the meat with those flames.}
While preparing the meat with the sword, which is his only tool right now, Civitas thinks up a question to bridge the extra time it takes without adequate tools. ¡°What was that word just now and what language was it from?¡± Civitas is a bit disappointed at not hearing the story to that, but he has no way to make him talk, so he just moves on. ¡°Then I want you to teach me dragon language. Making me stronger should also be in your interest.¡± ¡°We''ll see about that.¡± With this, Civitas ends the conversation because he finished preparing the meat and is now ready to roast it. For that, he needs to concentrate on the mana. He expects the start to be a bit difficult just like a few minutes ago, but instead the mana instantly springs to life and within just a few seconds he once again uses dragon language to ignite a flame. ¡°????¡± The flame lights ablaze once more. This time even just the slightest bit bigger than the last time. Civitas has no cooking utensils, so he needs to hold the meat with one hand while roasting it with the other. He would rather not place his food on the cave floor, or burn it to a crisp by directly holding it with his burning hand. This makes roasting a lot more difficult since he is always close to burning his other hand, which causes him to flinch away often. But after a while, he comes up with an idea. He guides just a tiny bit of mana to his other hand and whispers another: ¡°????¡± The hand holding the meat starts to be enveloped by a light red shimmer, and suddenly the heat coming from the flames just feels a little warm. [That is quite an impressive use of magic for someone who learned it half and hour ago. But watch out, you probably have no feeling for how much mana you have consumed so far, and keeping up to spells at the same time drains mana exponentially faster.] Civitas gets exceedingly more confident from making fast progress, so he just replies: ¡°Oh, don''t worry, I could do this for a lot longer!¡± Then he just proceeds to roast the meat a bit more. Just as he thinks the meat is almost good to go, he suddenly feels nauseous. The flames in his hands die out, and the world turns dark. In fact, to Civitas, the world seems to turn ever darker until it is completely black and he passes out. The last words he hears before that come from Gabriel. [Told you so.] Hunting ¡°Ugh¡­ what happened¡± Civitas awakes with a headache. He blinks a few times, only to be greeted by a small Window.
Due to over-usage, your mana improved! Mana +1!
Mana over-usage? Civitas confusion only lasts a split second before the memories come back to him. ¡°I passed out because I used too much mana, didn''t I?¡± Civitas asks hesitantly. [You absolutely did because you arrogant brat thought you''d know better than me, didn''t you?] Gabriel sound upset. ¡°Well I guess you were right¡± He answers dejectedly. [Of course, I was right. Now eat your cold, stale wolf meat and let it be a lesson to you.] Gabriel''s arrogant tone makes Civitas want to say something against it, but because he is obviously in the wrong, he swallows it down. Even harder to swallow down will be the dirty wolf meat he just picked up. He considers reheating it with flame magic, but discards the idea since he has to preserve strength for hunting. Instead, he only cleans some dirt and debris off the meat, using the water stream flowing through the cave. After getting most of the dirt off, he bites into the meat. It''s hard and bland, but it should fill his stomach, which is the only thing he really cares about, since his hunger grew incredibly strong. He must have been asleep for a while to have developed this great of a hunger. ¡°How long was I unconscious?¡± Civitas asks into the empty room, addressing no one specifically. One of them will answer for sure. {We''re also not sure because our awareness of the surrounding world is tied to your consciousness to some degree, but I''d say about 6 hours.} At least he got some sleep, Civitas figures. While continuing to eat, he tries to circulate mana once more. He is not planning to use it in any way, he just wants to get more familiar with the feeling, in hopes of not randomly passing out again. While doing this, he notices his fatigue reducing a bit, wherever he circulates a bit more mana, so he starts recovering his fatigue using mana circulation. {I''m glad you figured this out yourself, but watch out, recovering like this also consumes mana. Using this for slight fatigue like this shouldn''t be a problem, but the healing of wounds would consume more than you can handle right now.} ¡°Alright, I''ll be careful.¡± Civitas pays more attention to what they have to say now, that him ignoring it backfired once already. After a few minutes, he ate up his bland breakfast. He then gets up, drinks a bit of the stream water, checks his status window, to see if his mana ability really increased by one, which it did, and then gets ready to leave. Civitas plans to hunt something a bit bigger today. He gained a bit of combat experience from hunting the wolves before and his stats increased significantly. For a while, Civitas sneaks through the cave system, avoiding every animal and monster because most of them were still far too strong for him, or in a group. Then, he comes across a larger cave room. There, he spots two giant boars digging in a patch of dirt. To Civitas, they seem like suitable opponents. He observes them for a bit and formulates a battle plan in his head. They are standing side by side in a way, which makes it difficult to approach their sides or front to deal a sudden lethal blow. Instead, Civitas decides to impede their ability to move, by slicing at their hind legs. He sneaks up on them as silently as possible. He gets to a suitable striking position without much of a problem, these almost two meter tall pigs probably do not expect anyone sneaking up to them. Finally, he strikes at the legs of the right one, with a clean slash he severs the tendons. He tries to strike at the other one as fast as possible, but the loud squeaking noise of the hurt boar alerts the other one, and it turns around a lot faster than Civitas expects. In a split second, the left boar turns around, and Civitas'' strike, aimed at its legs, only shallowly scratches its flank. Suddenly, he is face to face with the beast. It lunges at him with its tusks. He instinctively dodges to the right, only to land right next to the other boar. In the heat of battle, he forgot the other boar, which only took longer to turn around because of its hurt legs. Now it''s already in striking position and while finishing its turn-around, it smashes its tusks into Civitas'' flank. *Thud* The dull impact launches civitas a meter into the air and a few meters back. He hits the floor and keeps rolling for a few meters. He gets up as fast as possible, but by the time, he is back to his feet, the uninjured boar is already charging at him. Not only that, but he has difficulty breathing, his ribs feel broken, and his vision is blurry. In a last ditch effort, he throws himself to the side, dodging the boars charge by a mere few centimeters. Since this might be his end any way, he promptly starts circulating a bit of mana to the spot he got struck in. {Be careful! Don''t overuse it!} With her warning reminding him once again, he only circulates the mana for long enough to make the pain subside a slight bit. He hears the thundering strides of the boar charging at him from behind, but by now, he got his breathing back in line and the pain lessened enough for him to power through it. He quickly assesses the situation. One boar is charging at him from behind, and the other one slowly makes its way to him from the front right. An idea quickly springs to life in Civitas'' mind. He turns around to face the charging boar. He waits patiently for it to get closer. At the last moment, Civitas jumps to the right and while dodging, he kicks the boar in its head. This won''t hurt it, but it will alter its direction. The giant boar is too late to notice where it''s headed. With its giant body and fast speed, it does not manage to steer away in time, and the other injured boar cant move fast enough. Their tusks hook into each other. The head of the charging boar, which tried to steer away, gets yanked to the side, throwing it off balance. It topples over and comes to a sliding halt. Civitas runs after as fast as possible and aims for the now exposed throat of the lying boar. The other one also got knocked over and coupled with its already injured legs it struggles even more to get back up. With a strong slash, Civitas slices through the throat of the beast. With a gurgling squeal, it nears the end of its life. But now isn''t yet the time to celebrate. Civitas quickly approaches the trashing other boar. Since it is not a danger to him right now, Civitas waits a few moments for the boar to leave an opening, in its panic-stricken thrashing. Then with another similar slash, Civitas slices through its throat. Having done his work, Civitas collapses at a near cave wall. *Pling*
You have successfully defeated an Orc-boar! Essence absorption complete! You have gained 500 experience points!
Your Amateur Swordsmanship Skill reached level 3!
Level Up!
You have successfully defeated an This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.Orc-boar! Essence absorption complete! You have gained 500 experience points!
Your Amateur Swordsmanship Skill reached level 4!
Level Up!
That was the sound Civitas wanted to hear. And just as he expected, the boars were a lot stronger than wolves and gave just as much more experience points. He quickly opens up his Window, loses not time and quickly distributes the points.
Status Window
Level: 6
Level Progress: 100/600
Species:H???u???m???a???n??? Species Tier: Lower
Ability Scores Skill Section
Ability name: Ability Value: Skill Name Skill Rarity Skill Level Progress
Strength (1) 20 D???e???v???o???u???r??? ??? Max. NaN
Constitution (1) 20 Amateur Swordsmanship Inferior 4 60%
Agility (1) 20
Intelligence (1) 8
Wisdom (1) 7
Mana (2) 15
Points available for distribution: 0
Evolution: 1600/5,500
This time, he put a lot more points into mana, since it played an important role in his victory today. With the mana being able to heal him to some degree, it will be very useful soon. He starts using his newly improved mana right away and this is the first time, he could directly feel the difference in ability points values. He can feel his mana being twice as strong and his control over it is even smoother. Likewise, he starts recovering by circulating it. But he can quickly feel his mana start to reduce. Before he gets close to fainting, he stops. He needs to wait for his mana to recharge. But this awakens a new question in Civitas. ¡°Are there any ways to speed up mana recovery?¡± {There are a few. However, they are restricted to certain species. For example, us demons can either get mana from harvesting the souls of living being, or from absorbing strong emotions of sentient beings.} [Us Angles recover mana by meditating or being prayed to. There used to be another method, but¡­ I won''t talk about this] The last thing, Dorminil said seems like the most feasible method to Civitas right now. But another question comes to Civitas mind first. ¡°How come, if dragons are so strong, that you aren''t ruling over everyone yet?¡± <*Grrr* there are two main reasons for that. As I just said, Dragons absorb mana at an incredibly fast speed. But the dirty, corrupted mana of demons is like poison to us. And if we are surrounded by it, we can''t stop absorbing some of it. And the other reason is our low number. Each adult dragon might be able to fight thousands of Angels at once, but we only have about 200 fully grown dragons. That''s because dragons are born rarely, since the circumstances must be perfect, and dragons age very slowly.> ¡°Huh, but to me, this sounds like the demons should have an advantage?¡± {Sadly not because, albeit the demons being the most numerous, the average demon is weak compared to angels or dragons, and we are very weak to the angels'' holy powers.} ¡°So let me summarize this, the dragons could defeat the angels, the angels could defeat the demons and the demons could defeat the dragons? This sounds like a complicated power balance.¡± [Yes, moreover, you also have to consider our positions. This ''rule'' you just came up with does not work on us three, since we are too strong. Each of us three would have been able to wipe out any of the other two factions. But I couldn''t just go over and fight against any one of them because I would leave my home unprotected from the other one.] ¡°Do you have any Idea, what your absences will do to your factions?¡± They all stay silent. Civitas can already image what this means. They have no idea. The general balance should be preserved because of the peculiar power triangle, but anything more than that is unsure. ¡°Alright, I get it. Let me get some meat from those pigs and let''s head back to our little home room. I want to do some more hunting today. The day barely begun.¡±
Like this, Civitas brought some meat back to the cave. He rested for a few more minutes and then got back to hunting. That day he received a lot more experience points. He hunted a few more Orc-boars, whole packs of wolves, and now he stood just before a turning point.
Status Window
Level: 11
Level Progress: 700/1100
Species:H???u???m???a???n??? Species Tier: Lower
Ability Scores Skill Section
Ability name: Ability Value: Skill Name Skill Rarity Skill Level Progress
Strength (1) 45 D???e???v???o???u???r??? ??? Max. NaN
Constitution (1) 45 Amateur Swordsmanship Inferior 4 60%
Agility (1) 45
Intelligence (1) 20
Wisdom (1) 20
Mana (2) 30
Points available for distribution: 0
Evolution: 5400/5,500
He was about to find out what evolution meant to him. Evolution Civitas stands face to face with the last of the wolves. After getting more confident and increasing his level, he started hunting packs of wolves instead of isolated ones. This was the largest pack he dared fight today. He already killed more than 10 wolves from this pack alone. Theirs corpses are strewn over the surrounding floor. He was heavily wounded. Two wolves managed to dig their claws into his back, one bit him in the left calf and another one he had to fend off using his left arm. He is circulating mana to close wounds and stop bleeding as good as he can. Just this morning, he fought the two orc-boars. He still feels his ribs hurting, but he knows he has to persevere. Exhaustion from a whole day of fighting is settling in. The thought of resting is already settling itself in his mind, despite the remaining enemy in front of him. He really wishes, right now, he would have rested before seeking another fight. Everything went well so far, if you exclude the first perilous fight against the two boars this morning. He got too confident. He thought he had assessed the situation correctly, but the pack this time didn''t only consist of 5 wolves, like the one he fought before. There were a lot more just around a corner, he didn''t check. The wolf he is currently facing in also hurt already. Civitas managed to slice across its left eye in a fluke while trying to hit another wolf earlier. The wolf is tilting its head, turning its remaining good eye towards Civitas. It is growling at him. They are already standing the for a while; at least a minute. Suddenly, Civitas clenches his teeth and pushes himself forwards using his right foot. The wolf was already anticipating this and tries to dodge around and circle Civitas, but due to his increased physical abilities, Civitas manages to plant his remaining good foot solidly into the ground. He turns his body along with the wolf. With just one strike, he swings at the wolf and splits its head. The sword which accompanied him for only two days, but many fights breaks and half of it remains stuck in the wolves head.
You have successfully defeated a Dark-wolf! Essence absorption complete! You have gained 100 experience points!
Your Amateur Swordsmanship Skill reached level 10!
Your Amateur Swordsmanship is upgraded to Basic Swordsmanship!
Requirements for evolution reached. Please get ready to evolve. Remaining Time: 29:59
Civitas collapses onto the floor from exhaustion. He is barely able to follow what the new Windows are telling him. Apparently, he has 30 minutes left before something happens to him. But he can''t move right now. He is already circulating mana as fast as he can to get back up, but it''s just too much right now. He knows he needs to get away from there. Not only because something will happen to him soon, but also because all this blood will soon attract other monsters. {Let me assist you with controlling your mana. I will circulate your mana to make you feel better, and you have to leave here right now.} Even her voice sounds somehow distant to him. But the moment, she takes control of the mana the effects he feels are on a whole other level. Although the amount of mana didn''t change, the process is so much more efficient, Civitas instantly feels a tiny bit rejuvenated. He gets up while staggering. He grabs the broken sword since it''s still better than nothing and slowly, while leaning against the wall of the cave, he makes his way back towards his home room. Luckily, he encounters no monsters on his way back. He squeezes himself through the crack into the room and instantly collapses once again. He is tired. So incredibly tired. He lays there on the cold stone floor looking at the dimly lit ceiling. He tries to open the Window with a thought, but the only thing that comes up is the timer.
Remaining Time Until Evolution: 2:13
He barely made it back. ¡°Do you know what will happen now?¡± [I''m just as clueless] {Sorry dear.} Sometimes they are really damn useless. With a slight smirk on his face while thinking this, Civitas waits for something to happen. He really should have learned some mana recovery from Dorminil first. Those are the last thoughts, before another Window pops up and Civitas loses consciousness.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
Evolution commencing now! Please choose your path wisely!
Civitas feels nothing. Like, he is deprived of all sensation, but he is aware of himself. He tries to move a muscle, but nothing happens. Slowly, he starts to hear some very quiet mumbling. The mumbling grows louder, but he still can''t make out anything. He keeps trying to listen, but he only manages to pick up two words. (Experiment¡­ failure.) Suddenly Civitas is standing in a white open space. His clothes are gone, and he quickly covers himself using his hands. Then he notices three Orbs floating in front of him. He quickly realizes what they symbolize. One is Dark, one is Bright, and the other one is a deep red. He looks around in an attempt to find the fourth thing he felt in his chest, but there is nothing else. He remembers hearing something as he fell unconscious. Is he supposed to choose one of those? If so, this choice seems difficult to Civitas. Zabula seems to be the most cooperative, so enhancing her help would be a massive gain. But he is currently fighting using a sword, which is Gabriel''s strength. And then there is Dorminil. He doesn''t sound like he wants to help him most of the time, but the bit of dragon language he learned was already a big help to him. Furthermore, he said something about dragons having the most mana before. He can''t tell, what exactly picking one of these will do to him, but right now, the strong body and the large mana capabilities of dragons seems like the most solid foundation to select. So he walks towards the deep red orb and touches it. Immediately, Civitas feels a warm current flow through his arm. It feels similar to when he touched the giant mana crystal before, but much more pleasant. As the power keeps flowing into Civitas, he faints again.
He opens his eyes slowly and gets scared suddenly. Why is everything in here so bright? Is there a fire? What are these colors? He hears Dorminil talking calmly and Zabula hasn''t warned him about anything yet, so he tries to calm down. ¡°What happened while I was gone, what is all this. Why is it so bright in here?¡± ¡°Wait dragon eyes?¡± Civitas looks around. ¡°Then what are these colors?¡± Civitas calmed down by now. He looks around a bit more, and the world seems to be painted in every kind of color. It is very beautiful. He opens up his Window to the world to check for changes, but does not expect too much, the eyes are already a giant gain. But after seeing it, he gets confused and the metaphorical jaws of his three companions drop through the floor.
Status Window
Level: 11
Level Progress: 700/1100
Species:H??????u??????m????????a??????n????? Species Tier: Low
Ability Scores Skill Section
Ability name: Ability Value: Skill Name Skill Rarity Skill Level Progress
Strength (1) 1,80 D???e???v???o???u???r??? ??? Max. NaN
Constitution (1) 1,80 Basic Swordsmanship Common 1 1%
Agility (1) 1,80
Intelligence (1) 80
Wisdom (1) 80
Mana (2) 1,20
Points available for distribution: 0
Evolution: 0/50,000
[This can''t be, you just ascended your species tier. You definitely are not human anymore. And you also multiply your ability values, just like if you were always a low tier species. This is ridiculous.] {Your growth, dear¡­ could be scarily exponential.} ¡°Is it this unusual for a species tier to increase?¡± {No, but for a human, it is. The way of tier increases is determined the moment a being is born. The only previous case of a being exceeding their limit known to me is¡­ me. I was born as a normal demon queen of the highest species tier, but through the sacrifice of thousands of other demon queens and billions of demons, we managed to elevate me to the supreme level in a ritual.} [Angels have a set number of Supreme arch angels. Whenever one dies, a ceremony can be held to promote an angel commander to the level of an arch angel. There can never be more than nine arch angels.] This makes Civitas not feel too special. If they all can increase their tier, why not him? {But there are two more things. First, a being, who ascends usually does not upgrade their existing abilities, only their future gain will be enhanced. And second, you acquired enough energy to ascend tiers, just by killing a few wolves and boars. You could ascend your species scarily fast.} Oh, so that''s the issue. Suddenly, Civitas feels like a monster to himself.