Seth woke up with a grumbling belly, he was hungry, really hungry. Seth got out of bed and sighed before opening the door to his house and walking out. It was completely dark, as per usual, and Seth sat at a small wooden table in front of his house. There was a crudely fashioned wooden cup of an unknown liquid and a wooden plate with pieces of dried meat on it. Seth grabbed a few and tossed them in his mouth before gulping down a mouthful of the liquid. Seth continued to eat his meal while reminiscing.
It had been about a year since he had been sent to this hellhole. He had done a lot over the time, but he had never once gone a full day without thinking of his home. He had his own house, his own world to himself, but he wanted to go back to his family. Seth had built up a drying rack for meat outside of his house, he had barrels of poison that he was drinking. he had made tables, chairs, plates, bowls, cups, anything he could think of. He had done so much in the past year, but he couldn't feel happy about any of it. He just wanted to leave, he didn't care about his progress. He just wanted so much to finally go home.
The old man that had sent him to this place suddenly appeared in front of Seth. Seth continued eating, as if not noticing the man, he wasn't happy to see him.
"The test has concluded." The old man spoke in a solemn tone. Seth finally looked up at him for a moment before he stood up and threw the table at him. Seth gritted his teeth in rage and charged at the old man with a yell, only for him to disappear, along with the world, along with everything he had built over the past year. Seth found himself in the dark plane from a year ago, the place he had met the old man. Seth glared as he looked around, there was nothing but darkness. The old man hadn't appeared yet, and Seth was glad about that.
Why would Seth want to see the man that made him suffer for an entire year? He didn't want to even see him, much less talk to him or even go through with his tests and become his student. Seth sat down, he just wanted to rest now that he had gotten out of the world. Seth's glare slowly turned into a blank stare as he slowly digested everything that had happened to him. He felt like he understood what the test was for and why it had been conducted the way it had. Seth still felt unhappy about the test but not as much so.
The old man appeared without warning after an hour, he just wanted to give Seth some time to rest and think before the next test started.
"Hello, Seth."
"Hey, old man." Seth sneered a little bit when he spoke.
"Are you ready for your next test?"
"Huh? That's the first time you've asked me for my opinion, old man." Seth didn't change his tone.
"Are you done resting? Are ready for the test?" The old man just sighed and asked again.
"What is the test?" Seth refused to take part in another test without knowing what it was.
"I just need to measure your talent."
"How will you do it? Are you going to throw me in another random place for a year?" Seth was unhappy, he felt that the old man was dodging the question.
"Oh, no, not at all. I just need you to hold these crystals for a few moments. They will automatically measure your talent for various things." The old man produced many colorless crystals, each with a different pattern carved into them.
"Fine, I'll do it." Now that Seth knew how little the test was, he was much less averse to it. Seth would gain a lot from accepting this old man as his teacher and measuring his talent was a boon as well.
Seth picked up a crystal, after a second, it shined blue. The old man seemed surprised at this result, hurriedly noting it down on a notepad that came from nowhere. Seth tossed the crystal away and picked up the next one, slightly eager to see what his talents would come out to be. The next two were greenish blues, the crystals probably were based on the rainbow, with red being the lowest and purple as the highest. Seth was proud that his talent was one of the best, but he felt it still wasn't good enough for his purposes.
Seth continued to test his talents for almost thirty minutes before he had gone through all the crystals. Some crystals took minutes to test, others took seconds. Only some of the crystals used the rainbow for their measuring systems, one was multicolored and some others used the brightness of the crystal. A lot of the crystals had turned grey or black, which probably meant that he didn't have the talent. Those made Seth a little unhappy but he felt that he could probably get those talents in the future if he needed them.
After Seth had finished having his talent measured, the old man muttered under his breath and nodded for almost a minute. Seth couldn't hear what he said, but he felt that his talents were good enough for him to pass. He was right, the old man looked up at him and smiled.
"You have passed all three tests, you can now call me master."
"Yes, master." Although Seth didn't want to bow down or acknowledge this old man as his master, he would gain a lot from it and he didn't want to offend another monster.
The darkness faded away and Seth found himself lying in a small room filled with treasures. The old man was next to him, if he wasn't, Seth would have taken all of the treasures and put them in his inventory. Seth noticed that he was lying next to three treasures and a plain dagger. Seth looked up at the old man with confusion in his eyes and slowly stood up.
"Those treasures and that dagger are yours, I will give you one more thing after you take the treasures." The old man sounded nervous for some reason. Was he afraid that Seth would try to take all the treasures in the room? Seth shook his head, the old man was way too strong to worry about someone as trivial as him. Seth picked up the treasures and gulped them all down without hesitation, if something went wrong then the old man would deal with it.
Seth woke up in his own room, the old man was gone, but the dagger wasn't. It wasn't just a dream. Seth sat up and looked around, everything was so clear and there were so many elements floating around him. Seth noticed that there was a small ring with a note on it. The ring was a life-saving treasure made by the old man, it would teleport Seth back to the treasure room a single time. The treasure room was probably the room from before. Seth put the ring on his finger, the dagger in his inventory, and opened his status to see the changes.
---
Seth Berner
Mortal
(ascended strength soul)
total: 998,807,135
Intelligence [8,483]
Body Strength [115,430]
Vitality [16,947]
Soul Strength [772,339,340]
Luck [7,000]
Magic [7,619]
Magic Regeneration [7,537]
[skills]
[shop]
[VIP shop]
[missions]
--
Intelligence Growth [14,505]
Body Strength Growth [14,505]
Vitality Growth [14,505]
Soul Strength Growth [14,505]
Magic Growth [16,005]
Magic Regeneration Growth [16,005]
---
Seth's growth had increased by 7000 for everything but Magic and Magic Regeneration, those had only increased by 5000. Seth was surprised by the huge increase in his base stats, they had all increased by 1000 except luck. He had gained a lot more from the old man than he expected. When Seth saw the new tabs, he realized that he forgot he had unlocked the new tabs. Seth opened the missions tab, the first time he had ever done so since he unlocked it.
---
Kill Lower Mortals (7/100): 10 points
Kill Mortals (1/100): 20 points
Kill Higher Mortals (0/100): 50 points
Kill Peak Mortals (0/100): 200 points
--
Kill Lower Ascended (0/100): 1,000 points
Kill Ascended (0/100): 2,000 points
Kill Higher Ascended (0/100): 5,000 points
Kill Peak Ascended (0/100): 20,000 points
--
Kill Lower Divinity (0/100): 100,000 points
Kill Divinity (0/100): 200,000 points
Kill Higher Divinity (0/100): 500,000 points
Kill Peak Divinity (0/100): 2,000,000 points
.....
Kill *************** (0/100): 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 points
--
note: new missions will be unlocked as you complete them
note: interact with other people to gain missions
---
All of the missions were for killing people, most of them were impossible for Seth to do. Seth was just a Higher Mortal, how could he kill a Peak Divinity? Seth skimmed over all the missions after Divinity, he wouldn't be able to lift a finger in front of a Lower Ascended, much less a Peak *******. Seth noted that he could interact with people to gain more missions, but he figured that he wouldn't be needing points any time soon so he decided to deal with that later. Seth checked the Shop and VIP Shop tabs, nothing else had been unlocked.
Seth got out of bed and left his room, it was already the next day. He had slept through the entire rest of the day yesterday because of the treasures. He was honestly glad that he had taken them all at the same time because that had caused him to faint before the pain even started. Seth walked down the hall, all the way to the dining room. He sat down before everyone else and filled his plate with fruit and waffles. The breakfast had changed every single day, it hadn't been repeated to this day. A lot of the meals resembled meals on earth, Seth assumed that it was just how people taste things.
Seth finished eating right when Augie walked in with his parents and a few knights. Augie was as carefree as always but his parents looked at him suspiciously for a few seconds when they saw him. Seth always had a feeling that his family knew a lot more than they let on. Seth felt a little weird whenever he saw them, almost as if he was being conspired against. Seth shook his head and left the room, he would only look weirder for standing there awkwardly.
...
"We just need to kill him as quickly as possible!"
"No, if we deprive him of all his resources then we won't have to expend so much of our military!"
"If we wait any longer then we will just end up losing more of our strength!"
"All of you, shut the hell up!" Under the roar of the good of light, the meeting table quieted down.
"We can do both for now. We can't attack him for another five years, but we can send out Peak Mortals to steal treasures from him." The god of light continued speaking, none of the other divinities dared to speak out. The god of light was the oldest, and the strongest, divinity. He had been around since before the earth had even formed. He was one of the few divinities that had lived through the massacre of the divine. One of the few that had lived through Seth Berner's anger all those billions of years ago.
The divinities had never recovered, they had spent billions of years trying to stop him from coming back, trying to heal from their wounds. But Seth recovered faster, while they were still recovering, he was only a few years away from finishing the massacre. He wouldn't be able to be stopped, not unless an even higher power stepped in. They were trapped between a rock and a hard place, they could only plan to hold him off for a little while, not to fight back and survive. Seth had killed them all once, with very few points. He could do it again, if not better, with the highest number of points in history.
Seth was a plague, an unstoppable plague. He was destined to destroy the hierarchy of the ascended and divine. He was the only one able to defeat the system, to find a loophole. He was the only one that could rely on himself to grow stronger. Without the need for the system's classifications.