《Rise of the Shifting Empire》 Prologue Jake woke up feeling a bit groggy, he shouldn''t have drunk so much yesterday. Well after getting up and stretching a bit he got up and went to prepare himself for the day. He works as a history teacher at the local highschool after just having finished his bachelor at 22 years old , history was always an interest to him since he was young reading about wars and the establishment of nations. He always told himself that he was lucky to be born in the 21st century because he would''ve not survived in the past with his frail constitution from sitting around all day. After taking a shower and dressing himself up he went out to work. He lives in London so the traffic would be a problem as always. He as always took his bicycle to work , to try and take his shape in control. As he was crossing the roundabout on his way to school he suddenly heard a loud bang as his vision started to black out. As he woke up he was discombobulated because what he saw were not the gray clouds of London but a grandiose temple that could have come straight out of ancient Greece. And 5 meters in front of him stood the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen. Roughly 2 meters tall , blonde hair and blue eyes. As he was still getting acclimated to what happened the woman began to speak. ¡°Greetings child , I am Solaris, a god of this world Earth mind you this is a different Earth where you are from. Jake¡¯s mind was racing with thoughts as he tried to comprehend what apparently the goddess just said to him. He had read several Isekai stories in his life and was wondering if it was something like this or that he was still in a coma and this was something his unconsciousness was building up. But everything was feeling so real in front of his eyes. Stolen novel; please report. As he was thinking this he realized he was still staring around.¡±I¡¯m sorry everything is still a bit unclear to me i don''t know if i''m dreaming or i am in a coma or something.¡± At this the goddess reacted with a sad smile. ¡°Sadly this is not a dream , after you died I plucked your soul from your earth and brought you here because I have a request from you.¡± After this she showed me a globe that in my eyes looked the same as Earth but the country borders were all different. ¡°The general shape of the world is the same but what''s in it is different. For example there are also monsters in this world from the fantasy stories you have read. For that reason most of humanity is centered around the middle east region of your old world. But enough of that we don¡¯t have much time left. You have been summoned as a hero by the Rami kingdom.¡± Jake gulped he thought this would be a chance to be part of history as the world was still shaping up, he had no special connections to earth , he was orphaned and had a few friends but he could live without those for taking place in this adventure so he asked¡±Do i get any benefits for being summoned and can you inform me if this world has any classes , and why am i summoned?¡± ¡°I chose you for the fact that you don¡¯t have a lot of lingering attachments to earth , have read isekai story¡¯s and you study the history of your world which could help in certain aspect even if there is magic on this world. As for the bonuses you are getting is that you get the Universal Language skill which lets you communicate with everything that has the mental capacity to communicate and you get Eidetic memory which gives you perfect memory , it also works retroactively with everything you have learned and experienced on earth.¡± As she winked at me. Jake was ecstatic. This means that he really could become an advisor to an established nation to build it up to greatness.¡±But I am worried you said monsters and that these people need a hero but I am personally not accustomed to combat.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry about that , I have communicated your personality and skills to the kingdom. They will help you with that. But alas it seems time is up i will send you away now¡± At which Solaris snapped her fingers and he suddenly appeared on a presumably magic circle in a throne room. Chapter 1 As Jake was looking around the throne room he saw that there were at least 20 people looking expectantly at him. He felt a bit intimidated with all these eyes on him.The throne room itself was built of a brownish material that looked like sandstone. From the ceiling there were hanging some kind of wisps which were emitting light. And around the walls were intricate woven carpets depicting the signs of battle against humans and monsters alike. While Jake was still staring around a middle aged man looking around 40 years old with black hair and brownish tinted skin wearing a detailed robe which depicted a sun spoke to him. ¡°Greetings Hero , I am high priest Benjamin. Welcome to this world you should be able to understand me from what the goddess has told me.¡± Jake cleared up his throat a bit and said¡±Greeting Highpriest Benjamin , my name is Jake it is as you said I am from another world transported here and the goddess has indeed bestowed on me 2 gifts , but my talk with the goddess was short. I am also sorry if I am not following proper etiquette but I have a lot of questions that I would like answered.¡± As I bowed towards the priest and the person standing next to him wearing a golden crown , an older man looking around his 60s with the same features as the priest but greying hair. The King burst out laughing ¡°At ease Jake , I will not hold breaching etiquette against you. My name is King Rashid , but enough of this if u would kindly join the Priest he will answer your questions. The rest of you the summoning has succeeded, no need to keep staring at the poor boy.¡± As he waved his hand and made a dismissive gesture to the other people looking at him. Jake, still feeling a bit intimidated by all the eyes, followed Benjamin to another room. Which he guessed to be a guest room by looking around with a few benches and a table in the middle on which they had put some tea and food. After Benjamin took a sip of tea he started. ¡°Welcome to the world of earth , we are currently in year 500. We started counting the years after the goddess sent her first divine message to our first archpriest.¡± He took out a map and pointed to a city.¡±We are currently in the capital Rameed , we have 2 neighboring kingdoms that we know of , to the left we have the Kunzang kingdom , to the right the Dawa kingdom¡± As Jake looked at the map he indeed recognized the Middle East a bit , The Kungzang kingdom seemed to be around the north African coast encompassing modern day Libya and Egypt. The rami kingdom was in the middle starting a bit around the Suez canal and stretching till modern day Turkey and Iran borders. And lastly the Dawa kingdom seemed to encompass modern day Turkey and Azerbeidzjan region. And he saw that the capital would be the modern day Bierut of Lebanon. Benjamin continued¡±Everything else is unexplored at this moment because of monsters and dungeons. We are neutral towards the other Kingdoms because we are all busy enough with the monsters as is.¡± Jake nodded because the region encompassing Saudi-Arabia , Yemen and Oman was on the map with no settlements. ¡°We have monsters on all the unsettled places on the map and we only dare to sail close to the shore because if you go deeper into the water there are terrifying creatures. But enough of that, think of the word ¡°status¡± in your head.¡±If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Which Jake did. Name: Jake Smith Race: Human Level: 1 Class: Chosen(Solaris) Class: None Class: Unlocked at level 25 Class: Unlocked at level 50 Strength: 20 Dexterity: 20 Intelligence: 20 Wisdom: 20 Vitality: 20 Skills:Eidetic memory(Chosen),Universal Language(Chosen) ,Average(Human) Spells: Minor heal(Chosen) ¡°Must be overwhelming for the first time , we unlock the status screen at 15 years old. Everyone has base stats of 10 and can unlock 3 classes. Strength is about how much power you can put behind your physical attacks and how much you can lift. Dexterity is about your nimbleness and speed. Intelligence about how much power you can put behind your spells. Wisdom about thinking speed and mental resistance. Vitality is about your longevity and how sturdy your body is.If u focus mentally on your skills and spells you will get a description.¡± Eidetic memory(Chosen): Allows you to remember everything since birth with perfect memory. U may choose to delete memories to keep your sanity. Universal Language(Chosen): No matter which race you speak to, if they have sapience they will understand you. You will also understand their language if they communicate by emitting sounds or gestures. Average(Human): Because your race is average in all aspects, stats , affinities. U get an extra class slot. Minor Heal(Chosen):Heal minor wounds like scrapes , bruises and cuts. Cannot heal wounds that your body wouldn''t heal by itself over time. May be used to reinvigorate yourself after feeling tired. Class: Chosen of Solaris U get the minor healing spell. +10 to all stats. Learning speed for everything is halved. Jake was eagerly reading everything when he felt a sudden woosh. His mind was hurting because everything flashed by that had happened in his whole life. His birth , he quickly chose to forget the first 4 years of his life because the sensations were hurting him. After he calmed down Benjamin continued. ¡° Classes are gained by practicing certain professions or jobs or studying certain aspects of magic. After which u can go to a Class orb to select one.¡± ¡°It has been 500 years since the system as we called it descended upon Earth so we are still in our infancy with our research on it and the classes. You are the first summoned Hero that we know of and we will do everything we can to help you prosper. "Any Questions?¡± Jake guessed that he got an extra class because he was Chosen because he still had 3 class slots left. So he asked how to level and what the average level was. ¡°You level by performing tasks related to your classes or killing. There is no exact science to it but we have discovered that if you kill weak monsters or keep doing repetitive tasks your leveling slows down by a lot. As for the average level that is hard to describe, you can assume that most big shot adventurers and highly skilled soldiers are swerving around level 200. And most professions linger around 100. But with monsters it wildly differs. They can be anywhere from level 1 to level 1000 but we wouldn''t know because the highest we have identified is level 300 which was a Kraken.¡± Jake gulped imagining how terrifying such a creature would looks like.¡±Well I will be in your hands then , and could you escort me to such a class orb, I am wondering what I could unlock.¡± Chapter 2 Jake followed as Benjamin led him to the central square where the class orb was. He marveled at the architecture of the capital; he was informed that roughly 500 thousand people lived here.There were a lot of buildings seemingly glued together all built from sandstone , at least 2 stories tall with terraces and textile canvases on the roof to block out the sun. Benjamin had told him that they had a schedule for him with 2 tutors. One to teach him about the world and the other to teach him about combat. They would travel to a city called Qasioun because there is a low leveled dungeon there that would help level him.It appears that every level u gain u gain 1 stat point , and that most classes grant 3 times +5 to stats so he lucked out on his choses class giving him and extra 10 stats. After marveling a bit more about the architecture and the people walking around they arrived at the city square where the orb was situated. There was a small queue of young people preparing to choose their class. As he was waiting he was still acclimating to the world. It seems 10 base stats was the average human on modern earth because as he was looking around people were hauling heavy items as if they were nothing. People also seemed to use the magic to create neon-like sights to advertise their shops and wares, he also saw a rich merchant summoning a coin pouch out of seemingly nowhere. But it was finally his turn and he put his hand on the class orb: and he got an overwhelmingly long list of classes , ranging from soldier to carpenter and a lot of {Prefix} mage classes , like Earth Mage , Fire Mage , Ice mage etc. But he was advised to pick mage classes as a second or third class because there were alot of intricacies with magic that take a long time to learn. So as advised he chose the Adventurer Class. Class: Adventurer Explore the world and fight monsters. +5 to Strength , Dexterity and Vitality. U get the Identify Skill The time you need to sleep is decreased by 25%(The higher you¡¯re Vitality the greater the effect) Skill Identify: Can be used to identify creatures and magical items. Information depended on Level Jake¡¯s body felt weird , a ticklish feeling spread all over him from the increased stats. They told him that most people choose adventurers for the sleep bonus and identify , because identify showed the classes of people up to a limit of people 50 levels above you. This was used to guard against infiltrators and more unsavory classes. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. After choosing his class they went to his 1st tutor¡¯s house , she was named Maria and was a teacher for nobles. After they picked up Maria they went to David an level 100 adventurer/ guard who would be Jake''s combat instructor. After that he was given a room at the palace to sleep and rest so they could start on their travel to Qasioun tomorrow. The distance was about 150 km and it would take them 2 days. After cramming all the information of today in his head and looking back at his life with his special memory Jakes eyes shut down as he drifted away. He woke up early in the morning around 5 am thanks to his class feeling fresh. When he opened his door he saw that there was already some food prepared for him , some bread eggs and sausage. After breakfast he took a shower and freshened up. They had given him new clothing and a bag with some adventuring gear. Flint , healing salves , a pot , and some special kind of coal called flamewood , apparently a small piece of it around the size of a marble could burn for around an hour to cook a meal. A spear , and some very dry biscuits which had a decently long shelf life. He was given a spear because it was a good starter weapon. He was not given armor yet , that would be given after training. As he was checking everything out Benjamin , David and Maria entered the room. This would be farewell for Benjamin; he would sadly not be joining on the expedition.Jake shook hands with Benjamin and bade him farewell. Then he, Maria and David started their journey to Qasioun. As they left the gates Maria and David started to tell a bit about themselves, Maria was 50 years old but still very fit , the average lifespan seemed to be about a 100 years with points above a vitality 100 increasing it slowly. Most teachers pumped their vitality so they could live longer to keep on teaching longer and learning stuff to teach. Maria¡¯s last name was even Teacher because her parent and grandparents followed the same road. Teachers generally went with a combination of adventurer , teacher and librarian. This allowed them less sleep , more information retention and a longer lifespan. All to gather knowledge and share it with the world. David was born in a small village named Kamon , He had a combination of Adventurer , Soldier and Explorer. This allowed him to be proficient at combat and exploring , this was also why he at the age of 60 years old was also very fit. He had joined the adventurer guild at 15 and stayed there for 10 years. Then at 25 he was drafted into the army which he retired from at the age of 50. He was tutoring at the request of the King. The king¡¯s classes were closely guarded but it is suspected that he was at least level 200 because almost no one can identify him and it''s rumored he pumped Vitality because he has already reached age 200. Jake briefly explained how he grew up as an orphan studies history and went on and became a teacher. Before his demise and he came upon this world. They advised him not to disclose that he was from another world because it was not widespread that the temple of Solaris could summon a hero. He was the first one as far as they knew. So they crafted a backstory how he was a promising youth from the same border village as David. Chapter 3 As they traveled Jake was impressed by the road they were following , it appeared they used Sandmages to compact a common traveled road and they also put 1 meter high border walls built from compacted sand to try and keep the road clean. This was a regular job for sandmages that kept them busy , while there are also jobs for adventurers to keep the roads safe from roaming monsters. Generally close to civilization most monsters were eradicated but this was hard to do in the expansive desert so they could only try to keep the roads as safe as possible. Some monsters were kept alive to breed more for food purposes such as food , leather and other uses they have. For example there is a special type of Fish which blood¡¯s drinkable and has the same effect as water for Humans. This was discovered by an alchemist in collaboration with a chef. Maria also quickly explained the currency which luckily was the same as the other countries. It was the simple 100 copper -> 1 silver , 100 silver-> gold. And each coin had a special coin for 1, 5, 10 , 20 , 50. Food and drink was generally measured in coppers , clothing in silver , weapons and armor you started reaching in the early gold. Most people on average earned a few gold a month in total with which you can live Okayish. As they travelled they also explained a bit more about attributes to him. So the baseline was 10 for every point above 10 they gained 1% effectiveness. So for example with 10 strength you can bench press 80kg. with his 25 strength he can bench press 92 kg. 115% of his base. This was the same for dexterity. That''s why they were traveling about 7 km/ an hour at a light walk speed. With vitality it was harder to measure what the precise effects were but generally it was your body healing itself better and ur skin becoming as tough as leather at later levels, it also slowly raised your endurance allowing you to perform tasks longer.. And ofcourse the increased lifespan. Which seemed to double at every threshold of a 100 , from base 100 years. But most people were generally happy with 200 years because it was hard to fit with other builds. Wisdom and Intelligence are also the same. Intelligence is basically a multiplier for your spell in the form of the amount u can summon for example Conjure sand spell , or the Power of a spell in the form of Firebolt , or the duration of a buff spell. While wisdom helped u to think faster and how the mental resistance worked was also a bit unclear but it is generally believed it was the Int score of the attacker versus de Wisdom score of the defender where the defender had a bonus depending on level difference and if they knew they were being attacked or not. That''s why with 100 wisdom u are safe against most conventional means of mental damage. As Jake was absorbing the information the travel went by quickly , with the stats increase they could keep walking longer and because they all had the adventurer class they didn''t have to sleep as much. But they only traveled when it was light. After 2 days they arrived at Qasioun where they rented an inn. Where David started him with basic spearmanship instructions and Maria started teaching him about mana.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. For mana she gave him a quick rundown of how it worked. There was basically mana everywhere in the world with some places having more and some places having less. Most people can cast spells about 5 times a day without having trained their mana well. Mana well was basically the gathered mana in a body. The only known way to increase it was to meditate and focus on the mana around you and try to gather it back into you. I asked if there were skills like mana manipulation or mana vision and she answered that sadly no there is no such skill. There were the respective manipulations of some classes that you unlock at level 50 like sand manipulation , fire manipulation etc. but no general manipulation. The tactic was to empty yourself of mana and then meditate and try to gather mana back to your mana well. And slowly overtime you increase your mana well. That''s why most mages spend a few hours a day working and the rest meditating if their income allows it. Jake spent the following week training his mana Well by emptying himself with minor Heal and following the drills of David on spearmanship. By these activities he slowly raised his level to 5. On advice of his tutors he put this into Vitality. Which was comfortably sitting at 30 now. He also felt the effect of his Chosen class , quickly adapting to the spearmanship training and understanding the lectures of Maria better. Of Course he could remember it all thanks to his memory but remembering does not equal understanding sadly. He learned that when his level hit 25 he could select skills for his classes. Even the third one he unlocks at that level , so even when he unlocks his last class at level 50 he gets his starter skill + 2 skill/spell choices. They also took him on excursions around the town to slay low level beasts. These monster habitats were kept alive an hour away from Town to help with levelling. The first monster he battled were black scorpions around 50 centimers long , it looked the same as a regular scorpion but its stinger had a decent range and they were quite quick. He felt he still wasn¡¯t mentally prepared but David and Maria standing guard a few meter away from him gave him some confidence. His spear was roughly 1.5 meter long. While wielding it 2-handed he had roughly a reach of 2 meter. While roughly circling the scorpion and doing a few feint jabs he waited it calmly out. The scorpion was testing the waters with his pincers , while his stinger stood ready. The scorpion was getting impatient and tried to grab the spear with its pincer. Jake was prepared for this and quickly pulled the spear out of the grab , then he jabbed the eye of the scorpion with it and he struck true. The scorpion, hurting and angry rushed onto him. Jake ran away keeping his distance and looking for an opportunity , luckily with his spear he had more range than the stinger. As the scorpion was running at him he jabbed the other eye and struck true. Now there were only the small eyes on the sides left , but with the main 2 eyes blinded it was as easy as keeping his distance and stabbing the critter a few times till it died. And he gained another level becoming level 6. It seems you get no notifications for leveling up or killing something. After getting into the groove he killed 9 more scorpions that day and reached level 7. He continued training for another 3 weeks, in which he reached level 12. He killed a lot more seemingly monsterfied insects and animals. Like bigger spiders , bobcats and Jerboa. Luckily the biggest difference with earth was their size and not their strength and speed. Because they were all low leveled, more kept to acclimate young people with fighting different kinds of beasts. His vitality was now 37. And tomorrow would be a big day because he would finally enter the Qasioun dungeon. Chapter 4 Jake was feeling excited and anxious for his first dungeon delve. The dungeon was split into 5 floors with every floor going 10 levels above the last one starting at level 10 on floor 1. Dungeons were a weird phenomenon. They pop up somewhere and there is no known way to create or destroy one. Monsters generally kept inside but sometimes one would wander out that¡¯s why there were guards stationed outside. But usually monsters kept to their floor seemingly by instinct. This particular dungeon had 5 monsters per floor for a total of 25 species. Today they would keep to the first floor which contains bullfrog¡¯s , spiders , rats , goblins and kobolds. There were actually intelligent variants of goblins and kobolds that sometimes ambushed caravans , but dungeon spawned variants were not intelligent. His stats were as follows: Name:Jake Smith Race: Human Level: 12 Class: Chosen(Solaris) Class: Adventurer Class: Unlocked at level 25 Class: Unlocked at level 50 Strength: 25 Dexterity: 25 Intelligence:20 Wisdom: 20 Vitality:37 Skills:Eidetic memory(Chosen),Universal Language(Chosen) ,Average(Human), Identify(Adventurer) Spells: Minor heal(Chosen) He was accompanied by David and Maria as he entered the dungeon. To enter the dungeon you have to pay 50 silver and pay a tax of 1 item drop or 10% total value of your loot. This was to prevent overhunting from Adventurers. Because monsters respawned but not infinitely. As for loot, sometimes after clearing a room a chest appears with some loot in it. and the kobolds and goblins spawn with weapons some of which are good enough to be melted down or a bundle of spears can be handy for wood in some places where there are not a lot of trees.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. After they entered they were greeted by a sandstone brick hallway , and on the ceiling were magical wisps of light provided by the dungeon. At higher level floors there were no lights apparently but that becomes a problem after the monsters on a floor reach level 50. Most people had somebody in their party to take care of it by then. As they continued walking along the hallway , Jake looked at the map of the dungeon which was provided to him . The dungeon consisted of square rooms in a 5 wide 5 long pattern for a total of 25 rooms. In which the middle room had a staircase going downstairs and the first room they entered being empty. Today they would go along the outer edge only meeting spiders , bullfrogs and rats which spawned there. Jake didn¡¯t feel ready fighting Kobolds and Goblins yet because they were humanoid. The outer rooms generally were a single monster type but sometimes there would be a room with spiders on one side and bullfrogs on the other. David generally lured the monsters 1 by 1 to him so he could fight them in the hallways while David and Maria kept the other monsters at bay. This way he slowly whittled down the 3 monsters. They had with them 1 backpack with a first aid kit and salves. They would put it down on the ground before fighting and then after fighting bring it with them. He sadly only gained 1 level after his bout of dungeoneering , hitting home that slaying lower leveled monster gave diminishing returns. And they sadly got no chest but they took some bullfrog hide with them and some rat tails which apparently can be used in alchemy. David explained: ¡°We want to continue training you and leveling you till at least lvl 25 , after which we want you to get the librarian class. That class later on gets the ability to read books u have in a library quicker. U said the information retention part is not that useful for you. But the way this is used is by filling a room with reports of the kingdom and then reading it quickly. This way you can use your otherworldly knowledge to help us better the kingdom.¡± ¡°As for the last class, eventually at level 50 you can pick what you want. We advise dimension mage to ease your travels and help us inspect the kingdom. You can choose some dimensional storage and the ability to teleport. At lower levels they are a bit limited but it should help you in the long run. Because the dimensional ring you saw the merchant use is very expensive , enchanting has been progressing slowly and it¡¯s still very hard to make those items are not widespread yet.¡± Jake nodded ¡°I will think about it , librarian sounds interesting I could see the use for that. I''m not sure about the last class yet but I think it will depend on what skills I will get from my chosen class.¡± After finishing for the day Jake put the backpack in the corner of his room and went to sleep. While Jake was sleeping a tiny spider the size of a nail slowly crawled out of the backpack. It slowly crawled next to his on the night cabinet that was there , after which the spider morphed into a wooden chest about 1.5m meter tall and 1 meter wide. Next the wooden chest suddenly opened and showed a maw full of serrated teeth. Out of it shot a pseudopod/tongue of 1 meter on Jake''s mouth , Jake woke up but could not react or make a sound before the chest pulled itself to his head and bit his head cleanly off. Chapter 5 Nazeem looked around in confusion , before him was standing a person fully cloaked wearing a mask on which a half moon was shown , he was standing in a place that looked like he was on the moon and fully dark , only the ground emitting a light sheen. The person spoke ¡°I am Noctis , i have to be quick , you will be reincarnated as a Mimic like you know from dungeon & dragons , in the coming days there will be a person also coming from your Earth a white caucasian male , kill him then you can continue your life. By the way think status,¡± then Noctis snapped his fingers and he was teleported away. Nazeem felt weird , like his body had become a box , he opened his eyes and saw sandstone bricks around him when he looked up the ceiling seemed very high and he could see orbs emitting light. He was situated in a hallway seemingly alone. When he looked down he could see that he was looking like a chest. He spent the next few minutes testing his new body. Opening his mouth he felt that he had a lot of teeth and he had a meter long pseudopod/tongue. He tried to move but at first didn¡¯t know how too. He had no legs , after racking his brain a bit he saw something dripping from his tongue and when he hit a will with it. He felt it stick to the wall , so he guessed he had to pull himself forward. As he pulled himself a bit to the end of the corridor he halted. He should first check his status to know what he can do. He played Dungeons and dragons before and also read litrpg¡¯s in his time before he should see what kind of system he has. So he thought about Status. Name: Nazeem Harun Race: Mimic Level: 0 Class: Chosen(Noctis) Class: None Class: Unlocked at level 25 Strength: 15 Dexterity: 15If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Intelligence: 0 Wisdom: 0 Vitality: 10 Skills: Devourer(Chosen) , Anti-chosen(Chosen) , Mimicry(Mimic) Spells: None He snorted a bit at the 0 intelligence and 0 wisdom. Seems the mimic was not made to be thoughtful , but his thoughts were still fine so he was not sure if those stats were used for that. He tried to focus on his class. Chosen(Noctis) U are the chosen of Noctis devour and conquer. U get the Devourer skill. U get the Anti-chosen skill. Then he went on to his skills: Devourer You can never be full , after eating your slain enemies there is a very small chance depending on your level and attributes that you gain an attribute from them. You can never gain an attribute if all their attributes are lower than yours. You gain no attributes from leveling. Anti-chosen When killing a chosen of another god you gain their chosen skills and their memories. Mimicry You can mimic other objects , animals and monsters. If you kill enough of a certain species there is a chance that you get their race skill. Well I''m guessing the other chosen must be the male that Noctis asked me to kill. Nazeem had killed in his other life before , before he emigrated to London he was part of the army in his home country. But after that he wasn¡¯t the same anymore. His family left him because he became an empty shell of himself and he threw himself away in gaming and reading. While he was contemplating he heard skitter legs coming from the exit of the hallway. As he looked he saw a spider coming towards him. He didn¡¯t want to fight as a mimic , and he guessed morphing into a human without equipment wouldn¡¯t help. So the next best thing he could think of was to morph into a monkey so he was still bipedal. He didn¡¯t know how much he had to know about a certain animal to morph but he tried it anyway. The morphing was fairly quick at 5 seconds , because he tried to stay the same height as his chest. The spider stopped while he was morphing probably because it was confused. After he morphed he ran away. The spider was closing in but after he went around a corner and he morphed himself into a small sandstone color coin it stopped following him having lost his prey. But after morphing 2 times he felt very hungry , he imagined he had one more morph in him before he had to eat something. As he was morphed as a coin he somehow still could open an eye. At an angle he could see ugly green creatures that he guessed were goblins. But he also saw humans fighting them. For now he stayed put to observe them; he had to plan his next actions carefully , he guessed humans wouldn''t be too keen on a sentient mimic. chapter 6 Nazeem watched the humans and goblins fight , it seemed they were standing in the hallway , 2 of them with a shield and 1 of them with a pike from behind them stabbing the goblin¡¯s calmly. It seemed they were easily killing them as if it was their day job. After the goblin¡¯s were cleared up the adventures continued on their day after looting most of the items , all that was left lying around a broken spear tip , a shaft of wood roughly 50 cm long with a crude speartip made of probably bronze or copper going by the colour. As the humans passed him, Nazeem closed his eyes to blend in with the surroundings , after waiting for a minute he opened them to look around. The coast was clear but he wouldn¡¯t want to risk morphing yet if there were humans here he had to wait till they were done for the day. As he stood there still waiting, a few other parties passed him. All going the same way as the first party. While waiting he was contemplating if it would be smart to follow Noctis on his word, he could probably shapeshift into a human but he noticed it while running away as a monkey , he didn¡¯t get the full effect and the body felt foreign to him , he should''ve focused more at biology at school. He was going to wait till the human parties went away and imagined he probably had a few hours of hunting then. He was contemplating which form would be easy to utilize and use the bronze spear to kill some stuff. While morphed he saw that his stats were the same so if he morphed to something with a hard exoskeleton it probably wouldn¡¯t help him. He could try morphing as a goblin to infiltrate them. But he would have to wait if stuff respawns. Going back he probably was going to follow Noctis¡¯s request because next to the devourer he seems to be set up to kill other chosens for his skill. And he hoped that that person had something to help further. He imagined he had to shed his humanity a bit to survive and thrive. He didn¡¯t know what he wanted to do in this world , he was going to explore and see what the status was. While he was waiting he slowly noticed the adventurer parties walking back , and after counting he saw that the last one had left. There were still no new goblins , but the spear was luckily still there. So he transformed into the monkey again , picked up the spear and saw there was also a crude sling laying around with some rocks , he picked up those as well. He didn¡¯t know how to use a sling but the goblins seemed stupid enough to try and lute by throwing rocks. The hunger had increased but he still could handle it for now , in his monkey form he tried to use his tail to try and get used to the balance a bit. and calmly get acclimated to his body. While waiting he observed that a puff of smoke appeared and a single goblin respawned. Noticing how only one spawned he quickly threw a rock at it to make it notice him. The creature snarled and ran towards him. He quickly ran back in the corridor till he could barely see the entrance to the goblin room. The goblin was still running his way , he had 2 rocks left he threw another one trying to aim for its eyes. Sadly he missed the eyes but he hit the side of its head in its ear. The goblin stumbled a bit before continuing to run at him.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. It was wielding a dagger and made a stabbing motion at him , he sacrificed left hand to grab the dagger , while the dagger was stuck he stabbed the goblins in its nether region. The spear still impaled there he let go of it while the goblin was squealing and poked both eyes with his fingers. The goblin let go of the dagger and grabbed its eyes. He pulled the dagger out of his hand and stabbed multiple times on its throat. And it stopped squirming. The goblin was wearing a ugly loincloth but he braced himself and took it off and wrapped the outside of it against his head to stop the bleeding. Bleeding was a strong word because there was streaming green goop out of him. After wrapping his hand he mentally prepared himself he was feeling hungry and he guessed as a mimic he had to eat flesh. His right hand closed his nose and he closed his eyes while biting into the goblin which was very stinky. The thought of what he was about to do made him almost puke but beggars can¡¯t be choosers. As he bit into the goblin he was relieved that he didn¡¯t taste anything , it felt like was eating nothing , but the texture still grossed him out. He started by eating around the belly area and eating the organs first. He was so glad that he couldn¡¯t taste anything while eating the intestines etc. with the crude dagger he tried to skin the goblin as best as possible after that to look at its muscle structure. It was luckily a bit of a mix between humans and monkeys. After that he ate the corsple clean until only the bones were left. He was still a bit hungry but not as much. He morphed into the goblin , the cloth dropped off his left hand and he saw that it was covered but his hand still hurt , so he guessed it was only cosmetically fixed. He equipped the loin cloth and wielded the dagger in his left hand barely able to hold it. Then he put the spear into the goblin¡¯s skull and dragget it with him leaving the sling and rocks. He slowly went back to the goblin room draggin the corpse with him , when he was close by the entrance sat the corpse up and put the spear in its hand so you could see it shine a bit by the reflection of the light. He walked into the room with his dagger and saw that most of the goblin¡¯s respawned but there were still some missing , he guessed they respawn on a certain time basen on when they were killed. Some were gathered in groups, some were alone. He went to a lone goblin and grunted a bit while pointing to the hallway. While pointing the spear reflected a bit and the goblin noticed it and went to the hallway. Nazeem slowly followed it looking to see if the rest followed but it seems that wasn¡¯t the case. After they were in the hallway he grabbed the goblin¡¯s mouth from behind and slit its throat. Eating that corpse too , he felt that his left hand was slowly hurting less. This goblin had a crude club as a weapon and he left it there feeling more comfortable with the dagger for now. He dragged this corpse further inside so it was not visible. He repeated this action several times killing about 5 more goblins. But he noticed that after the first 3 goblins he was not gaining any levels he was now level 3. And from all those goblins he had gained 1 dexterity from devouring. But he was fully healed and it seemed as if he had a black hole in him because he could keep eating. It took him around 2 hours to do this , he was leery of when the human¡¯s would come back. So feeling happy he survived he went to a nook in the brick wall on the ground level and transformed himself into a small sandstone coin again. He was feeling tired and went to sleep in coin form. chapter 7 Nazeem awoke to the sounds of fighting , he kept his eyes closed but heard the goblins getting slaughtered , he had no way to keep track of the days , so he would count this as his second day. Noctis said that the other person would be coming in a few days but he had no idea how long , he could probably sneak out earlier but he would bide his time , seeing how much he could devourer here before he would plateau , he was feeling a bit sleepy still he had no idea how long these humans slept maybe they need less sleep with stats but he was still feeling tired. He waited till the humans were done and heard them walking past him , he saw that the skeletons and weapons had disappeared luckily. He looked at the humans and saw they looked the same as from his previous world , but these were distinctly arab looking like his home country , he put this information away hoping it would be easy to identify the human he had to kill when it was time. While thinking he slumbered away again. While sleeping he awoke three times again by human parties walking past him , all arab looking , olive green skin and black hair brown eyes. He was surprised to see that some parties were full women and some parties full men , it seems strength was the same in this world between the genders. After waking up for the third time he stayed still , he was luckily not hungry yet seemingly the void in his stomach storing the food , he felt he had more transformations in him also. He started counting to try and keep track of the time. The first part that woke him up returned after counting about 4-6 hours give or take , it was hard to keep track and he was getting bored out of his mind. After that the other parties also returned with each hour in between them. so it was probably 7-9 hours till he was woken up. He transformed into a goblin , and picked up a random dagger that could more be called scrap metal that was still laying around , he would explore the dungeon a bit. He guessed that yesterday it took about 3 hours before the goblins respawned , he was not ready for the spiders yet not thinking infiltrating would work and not imagining himself walking with 6 legs. He walked around a bit when he suddenly came into an empty room with stairs going down. He imagined stronger creatures would be down there and he was not ready for that yet. so from the center he carefully checked the cardinal directions , sadly all the rooms were empty probably picked clean by the adventurers , he recognized that the northside was probably were the spiders were , on the right side the goblins , and he didn¡¯t know what the others monsters would be or if they were the same. He went back to the goblin room and repeated his action, killing 7 goblins again with the same tactic. He gained no levels but 1 dexterity. He could barely notice the difference between 15 and 17 but he guessed eventually it would help. This time before sleeping he slowly crept around checking the other rooms. In one room he saw rats , he was not trying his luck there. In the other room he found a small scaly lizard walking bipedally , probably kobolds; he didn''t trust his dagger against their scales so he also left them. But to the left opposite of the goblin room from the staircase room he saw a bullfrog roughly 50cm tall , the room was filled now because most things had respawned but he guessed that he could pick some off the next day. This time he tried to stay awake because he wanted to see if the adventures would notice the few missing goblins. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. He tried counting the hours again , probably around 2 hours later the humans appeared again , so he had around 5 hours in between when humans would appear it seems. He was nestled as a coin again. He watched their battle tactics a bit more and it seemed after the fighting they would bring a backpack out of the hallway from the other side and equip it before continuing. With information gathering done he went to sleep , he awoke a few times again but continued sleeping he was now sleeping throughout the day he was guessing. When the last party left again this time he went to the bullfrogs in goblin form to inspect them and the spawn pattern. He saw that they as the goblins spawned probably by the time they were killed , the first three spawned with a space of a minute in between them but then they started spawning more rapidly. He noted the place they spawned in the room and went back to the goblins again and killed another 4 of them. He noticed the adventurers arguing a bit and shrugging their shoulders so it seems 7 missing were noticed so he slowed it down to 4 , and would only try and kill the 3 bullfrogs tomorrow by spawn camping them. He was still level 3 but hoped it would change with the bullfrogs tomorrow. He could luckily keep the coin/goblin morph expenditure for now. The next night he went to the bullfrogs and went to stand behind the spot where the first one respawned yesterday. He transformed into his mimic form and waited , a puff of smoke appeared and the bullfrog spawned , it was about 50 cm in height so it would fit in his maw , he struck with tongue and tried to pull the bullfrog , but instead he was pulled to it, not that it matters , he still encompassed the creature and bit down on its backside , its was split in 2 by its serrated teeth. The unseen mimic is the deadliest Nazeem thought. He quickly pulled the corpse''s remains inside him with his tongue , and dragged himself with his tongue to the next spot. He luckily was able to repeat it 3 times , then morphed into a goblin and quickly ran back there to kill 4 again before eating those too; he started eating in mimic form after this because it was so much quicker. A week went by this way , he was getting bored out of his mind , but he didn¡¯t dare to go to the other monsters yet , because his level was now 6 and he had gained 2 strength and another dexterity. But he still wasn¡¯t feeling a lot more powerful yet. chapter 8 He tried thinking of a tactic to kill other monsters , hoping someday he would get a trait from them to help him power up because the stats seemed to be doing jackshit. While exploring in the night he found a room where bullfrog and spiders seemed to both spawn. He examined the spawns that he could spawncamp 3 bullfrogs in addition to 1 spider , they were roughly the same size so he could use the same tactic. He wanted to spawn the other species , but he was strapped for time with the spawn times and he still didn¡¯t dare to kill the rats or the kobolds. 2 weeks continued like this , he gained another strength point , 2 wisdom and 2 vitality. He killed 3 frogs , a single spider and 4 goblins steadily , his level plateaued at 8 en the last week he gained no stats. It seemed he wouldn''t gain much more from them , he would keep killing the bullfrogs because they would probably give him a good trait eventually , but he started inspecting the kobold rooms for a way to kill them. He recognized that there would be more weapons left here because they were crude stone daggers , it seems the adventurers picked up the metal weapons but left the stone. The next day he had found a spot where the first kobold would respawn a bit before the rest. He went with his goblin morph and waited till it spawned , then he tripped it by stabbing him in the popliteal. When it was on the ground he stabbed it in the other popliteal then he took 1 step away , morphed into the mimic again and pulled himself to its head with his tongue and started killing it that way. After 30 seconds of chewing he finally killed the thing. The 4th week he continued killing the bullfrogs, the single spider and the single kobold. He imagined that the other chosen would be arriving someday and practiced moving as a tiny spider. It took alot to get used to moving with 6 legs , and he sadly knew of no way to spin a web yet , he would have to study the species better for that. But he had a lot of time on his hands and in the nights before the adventures came back he would practice his spider form. But before they went in the room he went back to his coin form. He didn¡¯t know if they would notice him scurrying around after all. He gained 2 more vitality from this ordeal. The next day after killing the same creatures again he noticed on his status that he had gained another skill from the Bullfrog. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Torpor(Bullfrog) Instead of sleeping you enter torpor , while doing this you lower your body temperature and your metabolism and won¡¯t move. But your thoughts stay active. You only need 4 hours of torpor a day. This would be helpful if I wasn''t stuck in this stupid dungeon. I gained another level but I still don¡¯t know if I gain anything from them, seeming I gain no stats from leveling up. This other dude better show up sometime. He transformed into a coin and entered this word torpor state. He kept his eyes closed and waited for the next human party to arrive. When he heard the first party arrive , his eyes widened he saw a caucasian male between them looking like most blokes he saw in London. They were using the same tactic as the other adventurers , now was his chance. After 5 seconds you could see a tiny spider scurrying along the edges doing his best to climb in their backpack , luckily it seemed they were busy protecting the other chosen and didn¡¯t notice him. After entering the bag he was squished between stuff like salves etc , he wen¡¯t to a piece of cloth lingering around and nested himself there. Let the waiting game begin. He had decided already that he was going the kill the poor guy , he was a monster now and needed to know more about this world , learning the language would be hard en it seems this person could communicate with them , so if he got his memories he should be fine in this aspect and learn more about this world. What he would do from there he would see. So he slowly waited , while being carried was uncomfortable in the bag he patiently waited and did his best not to make a sound. He heard a lot of slaying in the background and after what felt like ages the sound finally abated. He heard a lot of talking and they seemed to be moving. After a while he seemed to be put down. He first waited another hour before moving out. While scurrying out of the backpack he saw a person sleeping on the bed. He slowly crawled on top of a night cabinet next to the bed and saw it was the chosen. After steeling his mind he morphed into a mimic, pulled himself to his face and bit it cleanly off. His mind went haywire because a lot of memories flooded him and suddenly he remembered his own birth. He quickly scanned through the memories and read what the skill did and deleted the earliest 4 years of his life. He quickly ate the rest of the corpse , transformed into the spiders, moved under the night cabinet and transformed into a coin to sort everything that he just got and what had happened. chapter 9 After 2 hours of sifting through the recent memories of apparently Jake , he came to know more about this world. How he was in the middle east again ironically about that most humans were focused here and from this perspective the rest was kind of unexplored. He learned about his stats and understood why it would take a while to feel differences. And sadly he discovered he could not infiltrate as a human yet thanks to Identify. He would have to find something for that , but after thinking about it he would go the the south of the Rami kingdom , there seemed to be monster tribes there , he could infiltrate there and work from there on out. He saw in the memory that people indeed needed less sleep, he luckily hadn¡¯t made a lot of sound but he had been here too long already , he transformed into a monkey, opened a window , threw the bag out then he climbed out to the ledge and transformed into a spider. People downstairs were startled by the bag and went inside the inn to check it out. While this was happening he slowly scurried away on the ledge of the wall , he was on the first story and didn¡¯t know if he would survive the fall , it was early morning he would rest on this ledge out of sight and wait for the following night. He could hear people yelling in the background and actually understood them. While this was happening he looked at his status. Name: Nazeem Harun Race: Mimic Level: 10 Class: Chosen(Noctis) Class: None Class: Unlocked at level 25 Strength: 18 Dexterity: 18 Intelligence: 0 Wisdom: 2 Vitality: 15 Skills: Devourer(Chosen) , Anti-chosen(Chosen) , Mimicry(Mimic) , Torpor(Bullfrog), Eidetic memory(Chosen),Universal Language(Chosen) Spells: None It seemed he gained another level and 1 vitality from Jake. Because of the discrepancy of level and attribute it seemed he had a lot higher chance. He also looked at his new 2 skills. Eidetic memory(Chosen): Allows you to remember everything since birth with perfect memory. U may choose to delete memories to keep your sanity. Universal Language(Chosen): No matter which race you speak to, if they have sapience they will understand you. You will also understand their language if they communicate by emitting sounds or gestures.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. He pondered the implications of these skills while listening in on the conversation in the Tavern. ¡ª--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David was looking out of the window as he heard Maria say ¡°What happened to him , there is no corpse and we see no assailant running away , who would do this.¡± David looking at the ground of the windows said ¡°I don¡¯t know , his bag is on the ground but the people around it are not someone who could have killed him easily while disposing of the body.We need to inform the guard¡± David and Maria quickly went to guard captain Rima and explained the situation to her. She locked down the gates but hopes were low , they could hardly identify the culprit with the 150000 people living here. They spent the next 2 days together with Rima interrogating suspicious people , they sadly garnered no further clues and went back to the capital to inform the king and the highpriest. ¡ª---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After they left Nazeem went into Torpor while planning his actions. So leveling still had use for him to gain skills from his classes , it seemed something Noctis did something that let him pick his class at a class orb. Because it seemed monsters instinctively got their classes in dungeons at the respective levels , but monsters outside also got class orbs in their nests. He would have to research these forbidden classes because his existence was forbidden anyway. But in the future he wanted to use magic and it would be best if he at least used a spell to start emptying his mana well , so he could start meditating on his mana well. He would have to make a detour and sneak to the class orb at the center square before fleeing town. Because he knew his first class already , soul mage. He didn¡¯t know what it exactly entailed but he hoped to eventually get something to read minds. He had morphing already and in combination with that he could do some interesting stuff. Thanks to his new memory he had both his and Jake''s biology lessons to replicate a human body perfectly, but that was all for naught if someone identified him. The following night he scurried as a monkey atop the roofs to the main square to search for the class orbs , it was guarded by 1 guard presumably to inspect the new classes people chose , but his back was to the orb. He transformed into a spider and slowly climbed up the small pillar about 1 meter high on which the orb was situated and selected Soul mage. Soul Mage Study your soul and the soul of others +15 intelligence U get the antipathy spell U are more resistant to mental damage and fatigue Antipathy Select an object or location which will repel beings of a certain race , for example Humans , Giant spiders , but you cannot use a general race or species. Standard duration 1 hour , standard range 5 meters around the point or object. Hmm , probably most stuff could block this stuff early on with his low stats , but he had a spell to empty his well on , he scurried away to one of the gates he had seen from the roof. He stayed in spider form slowly making his way to there luckily there were not alot of other small animals or rodents and he arrived safely. But it was locked and it seems they put the town in lockdown. He imagined he had a lot of extra mass in his stomach from the grinding in the dungeon and could wait for a few days. He cast the antipathy spell 5 times quickly in a random hole in the ground he saw , that was used to dumb waste it seems. He put goblins as species in his mind , probably a safe bet. After this he went into torpor and discovered he could use the meditation that he had seen in the memories of Jake. It still took him a bit but eventually he understood the method. For the next 2 days he continued emptying his well and meditating while waiting for the lockdown to end. Chapter 10 After lockdown was done he scurried out of town and morphed into a bobcat , he wanted to try a camel or something but didn¡¯t know that yet , luckily Jake''s party had slayed a lot of bobcats so that was easier to mimic. He was going south , to the border where monsters and humanity was fighting. But he would need to hunt some birds or something because this was going to take a while as a bobcat. He didn¡¯t notice it in the dungeon but it appears he had okay sight in the night , not because of the bobcat form but more because of his original race , it seemed they had some sort of darkvision , it was still a bit limited but enough to keep traveling in the night. He only had to take 4 hour breaks for torpor in which he continued utilising his mana well. After 3 days while resting he suddenly saw a flock of 100 birds arrive at a small oasis in the night. He was resting in coin mode blending into the sand , but he saw the birds drinking while the other half was standing guard. He looked carefully at their placement and how the birds flew away. After the birds flew away he morphed into human form and looked for some branches on the surrounding trees , after he got 5 branches he put them in a star/pentagram formation , he only left space for 2 birds there. Against these bird¡¯s he would have a decent enough chance to use apathy he hoped. After 2 days watching the oasis waiting for the birds. He also sensed that the mental resistance from Soul mage seemed to help him against the monotony of it all. Because he traveled through the desert always a distance away from the roads evading everything. He would¡¯ve thought he would be bored but it was less than in the dungeon , maybe it''s just the day and night cycle that helps. After another 3 days the Birds finally came back. He was patiently waiting in human form because he learned that he didn¡¯t need to breathe , he only needed sleep and to eat creatures, nothing else. He had packed the sand a bit so it looked that head was a small hill , he left tiny holes for his eyes to see through. His arms and hands were under loose sand so he would be able to move them. He even felt that one of the birds was perched on top of his head. And one standing in sight of the peep holes. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. After the birds were done with their drinking and started to fly away he took action , he cast apathy in quick succession on the 5 leaves and grabbed the birds with each hand. The other birds were flying away and it seemed apathy worked because they didn¡¯t come closer and kept their distance. He turned the neck of the birds and buried them with him under the sand. After waiting out the duration of the spell he saw that the other birds had left. He crawled out of the sand and dissected the birds , studying their build. They had sturdy compact builds and they looked like a sandy version of a pigeon. They were like 80cm tall. After studying them and eating them he spent a week practising flying in bird form. It took a bit of getting used to it but after they left another time he watched their movements intently. After feeling confident he started flying with them to their nests. They flew to an isolated hill where there were some acacia trees growing in which the birds had nested. But it seemed some had even made nests close to the trunk because the trees were filled. He followed them and went to a lone spot to inspect the situation. It seemed it was mating season because the females were in their nests, none of them missing. I went into torpor and waited till it was day. In bird form i went to a spot where there 3 nests next to each other and threw damn small pebbles i collected in a circle , there were about 6 birds in the circle , i activated apathy again on 5 spots and calmly transformed to Mimic form , the birds started screeching but they were walking in circles because they were getting repelled , i calmly catched them 1 by 1 with my tongue afterwards i transformed into a tiny spider and went to hide while i did this half the birds instantly flew away it seemed they really have quick reflexes. I did once a day for the coming weeks because the bullfrogs I got the trait at around 100 kills. I hoped it would work for the birds too , goblins did not yield me anything maybe because it was a dungeon monster or they were more advanced than standard monsterfied animals. After about a month and a 180 kills later I finally got the trait. Migratory Bird(Sandgrouse) While flying u get less exhausted After testing the effect out it seems it was about 50%. I Also gained 2 dexterity and 1 vitality from the ordeal and went to level 12. They must be a bit higher level than I thought , luckily I could use their bird brains against them.