The instructor of the conspiracy weaver class was an old man that looked over a hundred years old.
He shuffled around with a walking stick and was the proud owner of a back so hunched over that it was worthy of his nickname 'Vulture'.
However, If one were to simply underestimate him as nothing but a dying old man, one would be in for a world of pain.
I remembered the conversation that I had with the instructor two days ago once the mission had just been released.
"Remember Nagi, if you spend even half a point in buying information I will stop teaching you!"
"Why!" I asked back in righteous indignation. Hadn't he been teaching me about the importance of obtaining information before being able to craft a worthy scheme?
"You fool!"
The geezer made it a point to smack my head with his cane before continuing.
"Why have I been teaching you so far If you cannot even obtain information on your own once you get to the mission world?"
I still hadn't managed to dodge his attacks despite how slow they appeared to me.
It was as if he was bending the laws of causality so that I would always get hit by the cane.
"Then what should I spend the point on? By your logic, there is almost nothing that I can buy from the store that I can't just obtain in the mission world!"
"Buy the seven-chakra art."
I immediately agreed after that because of how smart I was and it definitely didn't require him to repeatedly threaten me with expulsion from his instructions to get me to agree.
That geezer sure was full of himself.
In his words, I was the only one in the entire year who had managed to both qualify for and still choose the conspiracy weaver class.
Yet he dared to threaten to send away his only student.
Of course, I had understood, that this unpopularity was by no means due to the class being bad.
It was that a lot of very specific conditions needed to be met to even be offered the class
And a lot of those who had been offered this class had seemingly better options to choose from.
Back then the options like Puppeteer and Hypnotic Swindler had tempted me.
How foolish I had been.
The Conspiracy Weaver class not only included the skills from those classes but much more.
Moreover, I felt like it was perfectly tailored to fit my personality.
That was the reason why the instructor's threats were so effective on me.
There was no way in hell I would let the old geezer stop teaching me.
I sighed before continuing.
"Once I buy the seven chakra art. What do I do with my remaining 10 points?"
*SMACK!*
I was hit in the head with the cane once more.
"Figure that out by yourself! I am not your babysitter."
Stifling the curse I almost let out, I barely managed to escape getting smacked a third time.
There was absolutely no reasoning with that crazy fucker.
Done with my recollection, I decided to look at the list of items under 10 points that I had shortlisted from the system store.
[1. Mid-grade Ether Cultivation technique – 10 points]
[2. Mid-grade Ether Talent-Boosting pill - 10 points]
[2. Specific Creature Class Affinity Boost – 10 points]
[3. Specific Creature Genus Affinity Boost – 5 points]
[4. Low-grade Ether Talent-Boosting pill – 5 points]
[5. A week's worth of ether cultivation at the Core Realm – 5 points]
Since I could technically get everything, I should focus on choosing something I would need at the start that would be hard to acquire on my own.
After thinking for a while, I finally settled for buying 1 low-grade ether talent-boosting pill and a Snake Genus Affinity Boost.
Since my nickname is all about snakes, not taming snakes in a beast-taming world would just be an insult to myself.
Snickering at my silly antics, I confirmed my purchase with the system.
[Are you sure you want to buy the following items:- ]
[1. Seven Chakra Art: The Crown Chakra – 90 points]
[2. Low-grade Ether Talent-Boosting pill – 5 points]
[3. (Snake) Genus affinity boost – 5 points]
"Yes"
[Transaction approved!]
[You now have 0 points left!]
[The items have been delivered to your inventory]
Suppressing the heartache I felt looking at my points being flushed down the drain, I asked the system an important question.
"I have an inventory?"
[Yes, but you can only store the items bought from the store or awarded by the academy in it.]
"Bloody Capitalists…"
[User, you were a capitalist yourself not too long ago.]
Ignoring the system that suddenly developed a personality out of nowhere, I headed to my room to check out my purchases.
I first took out the talent-boosting pill.
It looked just the way one would expect such a pill to.
Basically a shiny marble with patterns on it.
Without wasting any more time admiring its contours, I gobbled up the pill.
Hmm.
As expected.
I didn't feel a thing.
I hadn't even started meditating to properly sense ether and guide it to my soul.
There's no way I would be able to sense an increase in my soul's sensitivity to ether in the first place.
Yes.
The 'talent' here only meant one's natural compatibility with the given supernatural energy.
Those with higher talent did not face any bottlenecks and could speed past the minor realms in the energy-manipulation realm.
It stopped mattering altogether once one got to the Avatar Realm.
That however is a tale for another day.
I shifted my attention to the syringe containing the affinity boost.
I calmly picked up the syringe and injected the fluid into my veins.
This time, I could immediately feel the difference.
My aura seemed to become more serpentine in nature.
It felt as if my existence had become closer to snakes and would naturally be able to blend in with them.
I am not sure how exactly it all worked, and how I was able to sense it… but it was what it was.
Done with the two consumables I retrieved the final item.
The item that had cost me 90% of all the hero points I had and would continue to drain me of my money for the rest of my life in the academy.
The Seven Chakra Art: The Crown Chakra
While the first chakra I bought only cost me 90 points, the second would cost 900, the third 9000 and so on, until the seventh which will cost me a whopping 90,000,000 points.
Only the strongest of the 5th years could earn something even close to that number of points.
Shaking my head to drive away all thoughts of despair, I opened and started reading the art.
.
.
.
I finally understood.
No wonder this art costs so much.
After reading it I realized that it contained all cultivation methods regarding the soul and the supernatural energy ether that I would ever need.
Right from the Core realm up till I achieved Unity.
If one were to buy even the lowest-grade cultivation techniques for each realm separately, it will cost about 111,110 points.
Which while isn't even a drop in the ocean compared to 90,000,000 is a lot higher than 90 points.
That wasn't all, in the words of the art, it will allow me to achieve the so-called 'maximum potential' of each power system before I need to fuse them all and reach the state of unity.
It would also give me room to try and incorporate energy systems from outside the world tree's multiverse since there were 7 and not 5 chakras.
In other words, it was fucking overpowered!
No wonder most of its details were like a tightly kept secret.
There was no way I was going to let anyone else get such a huge advantage.
I felt that I had uncovered yet another secret of the academy.
Perhaps this was yet another test.
Only those that chose the seven chakra art, will have a real chance of becoming the strongest and wielding the holy sword.
After all, the academy is all about creating the strongest weapon of the multiverse.
'The Hero that emerges Victorious.'
Storing the art back into my inventory I decided that I will pay more attention to the cultivation techniques once I actually got to the mission world.
.
.
.
The next day, the entire class gathered in the hall where we had been teleported to during the opening ceremony.
Instructor Greg climbed onto the stage to give us one final speech before sending us off.
"In a few moments from now, all of you would be sent to your mission worlds."
"There are 11 teams that will be going in. There are 12 students wearing masks. Except for one team which will have two, every other team will only have a single masked student in their team."
"Of course, some of you might know who your teammates are, while others might not depending on who you shared information with."
Yes, while the academy didn't provide us with the information about who we will be going into these mission worlds with, they did not prohibit us from sharing the information.
While most of the 'masks' kept that information to themselves or within their trusted alliances, a lot of the non-masks openly spread that information amongst themselves.
They didn't have anonymity anyways and their identities would be revealed once they took action in the mission worlds.
It was better for them to create alliances at the start.
Of course, how much of the information that they shared was true and how much integrity their alliances held was something to be debated.
I had already managed to find out the members of my team and had done extensive background checks on them.
I had also managed to learn that teams of our class would be sent to two ether-based worlds, two elemental-based worlds, three psionic-based worlds, three Qi-based worlds and one mana-based world.
"You can obtain the mask of enigma if you kill its owner. If you already own one, you can sell it back to the academy for hero points. You may also trade it with your classmates."
"Those observant would have noticed that the mission worlds are all marked as Earth Variants. Yes, this means that these worlds all run parallel to your home world. It also means that when you are sent to these worlds, you will be taking over the existence of your doppelgangers."
"I hope none of you feel guilty for essentially killing alternate versions of yourself though. As similar, as they might be, they are different beings with different souls."
"Also, remember to never underestimate the underlings of the Demon God and don't even think of betraying the academy by signing a contract with the Demon God."
"The Yggdrasil Hero System will extinguish your soul the moment it senses you trying to form a contract with that blasphemous entity."
"That's all I have to say. I won't wish you luck, but I will leave you with one parting phrase."
"HEROS VICTOR EVADET!"
Only a handful responded back though.
"Heros Victor Evadet!"
Perhaps we still hadn't been infected that deeply by the philosophy of the academy.
Who knows whether things will soon change?
[Transportation Imminent. User, please prepare yourself]
I took a deep breath to calm myself down.
"I am ready."
[All systems check. Preparations complete!]
[Transporting user to mission world in 3…]
[..2..]
[..1]
A bright white light shone over us and we vanished from the hall.
[Mission Start!]
-----------------------------
Volume 1: The Prologue Complete
Volume 2: The Beast-Taming World begins in the next chapter.
Let the Battle Royale begin!