As soon as the kids were blocked off by the wall the dungeon started shaking, I needed to find a way to get to them. Then a separate path opened for me, as fast as I could I cleared all the rooms, but there came a door that I wasn't able to open.
There was nothing I could do but sit and wait. I prayed for the kids' safety, I hoped that my prayer would at least keep one of them alive. Then, the door opened for me, I snapped to my senses and ran straight through the door.
'Hakai.' I activated my unique weapon and sliced apart the griffin. I looked around the room and saw all the kids bloody and dying, I needed to get them out as soon as possible.
'Professor Altaca?' I heard a weak voice from across the room, it was Mordred, I ran over to him but he had already passed out by then. He had somehow hung onto the last strings of consciousness he was able to. It was incredible, but I had no time to be admiring student Mordred.
I poured every healing potion I had into each and every one of their mouths. It wouldn't be enough but it would sustain them until I got them back outside of the dungeon. A portal opened that would lead back to the outside of the entrance portal to the dungeon, I threw each of them into it and jumped into the portal myself.
I smirked, 'This is going to be an interesting class.'
**
I awoke to a bright room, I looked outside the window that was behind me. The buildings of the academy flooded my vision, I shed a tear. After so much suffering I finally made it back home.
But what of my allies? I looked around, but there was no one there.
It couldn't be. I hurriedly tried getting out of bed but when I tried to stand I couldn't, I fell and hurt myself. I was struck with a terrible pain but I couldn't let out my voice.
'Woah woah, take it easy.' I heard a familiar voice, I looked up and Professor Altaca was standing there, he had a bag slung around his right shoulder. 'Your comrades are fine, they have already been discharged.' I was relieved at those words. I got back up onto the bed.
'Did you save us?' He nodded and took a chair and placed it next to my bed.
'Yes, I did. Your exploration in the dungeon was admirable, after I had gotten out I went back inside and backtracked from the boss room. You guys did an amazing job clearing the dungeon.' He sat down and set his bag on the floor.
It was quiet, but I was still holding in my pain from before. I clutched the bedsheets. Professor Altaca noticed my pain and rummaged through his bag, he brought out a potion and handed it to me.
'Drink it, you'll feel better.'
'Sir, that blue sword you had.' He was silent for a little bit. Then he grinned.
'You saw that huh? Don't tell anyone, you're the only other person who's seen my unique weapon apart from the Academy Director.' He patted my shoulders, 'Well I hope you get better soon, don't use this as an excuse to slack off in class, I'm expecting even greater things from you Mordred.' He got up and slung his bag around his shoulder.
I nodded. 'I'll be sure to impress you even more than before.' He waved his hand and left.
His unique weapon is that sword huh? I recalled it being called Hakai. It was definitely a unique weapon in that case. All unique weapons had Japanese names for some reason. A unique weapon was a weapon that was manifested out of each individual person's mana.
Every person has their own distinct mana, but not distinct enough to tell apart from other mana. But small deviations in mana can produce an extremely different weapon. Your life experiences are what change your mana, thus your life choices, however small can drastically change the type of weapon you have.
To manifest a unique weapon you first have to learn aura sword, a swordsmanship technique. With aura sword, you coat your weapon in mana, and then the next step is manifesting your mana into your weapon.
That's why I needed to turn my circles into cores, this was going to be the next step in my journey, learning proper swordsmanship.
'Status window.' I opened my status window for the first time in ages.
'You have 3 notifications.' I heard a voice in my head speaking to me.
Notification One: You have achieved something great! Loads:0-1.
I stood there looking at the notification. I had another chance at life once again, this was overpowered but it seems like it would only give me a load if I achieved something great, so they were most probably extremely rare resources.
Notification Two: You have unlocked access to the store.
Store? What was that? I will check it out after the last notification.
Notification Three: You have obtained 300 store points-Store points can be used to buy things from the store.
I looked at my status board, my stats had levelled up and my skills have too. There was now a store icon, I tapped it and a new window popped up.
Featured Items:
Kingslayer Arraciel- 200,000sp
Lordslayer Arraciel- 11,000sp
Slayer Arraciel- 71,000sp
Broken Arraciel- 1sp
Leviathan's Greataxe- 170,000sp
Blacksmith's Greathammer- 210,000sp
All of these were stupidly expensive except for Broken Arraciel, what was up with that anyways?
I looked at the recommended section and I found some better deals.
Strong Leather Armour- 260sp
Apprentice's Grimoire- 25sp
Trapper's Guide- 10sp
Sturdy Straight Sword- 20sp
I already had a good sword, so a grimoire would be very good for me to use. The armour that was provided to me wasn't very good so leather armour would be perfect. Aside from Edgar, we were all given basic leather armour, metal armour would've helped but armour is very expensive to custom-make, even the academy would struggle to obtain the funds to make decent armour.
So we were only given average leather armour.
I bought the Strong Leather Armour and Apprentice's Grimoire. A grimoire was the magic counterpart to a sword. It would hold a couple of spells inside of it in addition to boosting the effectiveness of certain spells, there were also legendary grimoires that were hidden in certain locations, but I didn't have access to any of them at this moment.
I bought Broken Arraciel as well, maybe it would be useful later on.
Just like how swordsmen could have a unique weapon, mages were also able to have unique grimoires. But it was much easier to obtain a unique grimoire than a unique weapon, the only requirement was being an 8th-class mage, which given was pretty difficult but with being able to turn cores into circles and vice-versa it would be achievable in about a year for me.
I decided to spend some time circulating my mana, I circulated it in the infinity form again, but this time I didn't get anywhere near another circle or core. I guess I had just gotten lucky. I decided to turn all my circles into cores because I wanted to obtain my unique weapon first.
I was discharged the very next day and attended classes normally. I worked on my swordsmanship and surprised the instructor, it seemed that I was quite powerful with 5 cores. But not nearly enough to beat the instructor.
As soon as I got overconfident he completely turned the tides on me and knocked the sword out of my hand. One thing that I had obtained during this time was the Two-handed Sword Mastery talent, it would help me immensely but I needed to level it up.
I was also not the most powerful in the class, I still had a lot I needed to improve on. I lost to Edwina and Oscar in a duel, but it was to be expected. In addition to that, I improved my skills as a leader, and my relationship with my party improved.
While I still lamented the fact that Oscar got to Katheryne before I had, Riley was a good enough replacement for her. We had formed our party and we raided more dungeons, thankfully no dungeon boosts had happened.
Edwina was able to reach 4 cores and Akari was able to reach 2 circles. Healers and priests got stronger by continuously using their power so circles and cores were useless to them.
I wasn't able to get to the next circle or core but it would come eventually, instead, I focused on levelling up my talents and skills, and now I was able to fight on par with Edwina but still lost to her.
In my spare time, I taught Akari more about magic and she became more knowledgeable and learnt a few spells. We had all become good friends, at the cafeteria, Edgar would eat 3 people's worth of food.
We were the second-best party in all of Heroic Class, just behind Oscar's party, but soon enough we would overpower them in every aspect. A major power-up was coming soon and I knew exactly what I needed to do to get it.
And just like that, a few months passed.