"…Greetings reader if you are reading this book then you must be from new world that the Spirit Record System has fucked up. Mutated creatures, death and destruction yada yada yada and all that…
"…but don't worry this book is all you'll need if you want to understand some of the intricacies of the System from the stats, to job class and even to the Star Orders…or you could figure everything else out on your own and hope not to die in the process…choose your cup of tea it ain't my problem…"
Reading the first lines of the introduction in the [Beginner's manual] was strange to say the least and it almost sounded as though the author of the book had written it on his bad day and didn't simply care at all how others viewed this book.
"Well that or he was just weird" I said
…
In a world of nothing but darkness a castle stood at the peak of any equally dark mountain isolated from everything else. If one was to look at the construction material they would notice that the walls were built using a black rocks that had a metallic shin to them.
The castle's design itself resembled the old medieval kind where rulers resided with their servants except this large castle was empty and almost devoid of life…well almost.
Within this castle's chambers a man with skin so pale one would think he was dead slept in a large king sized bed, holding the sheets so close to his body that he resembled a butterfly within a cocoon. The man rolled and turned. The snores leaving his throat showing just how deep he was in his sleep. If anyone didn't know any better one would have thought that this man was never going to ever wake up.
But…
"Achoo! Son of a…" the man sneezed uncontrollably.
The castle itself shook with so much ferocity that it looked as though an earthquake was passing through the area. The man was wide awake now his blood red eyes glowing like lanterns in the dark. An annoyed scowl formed on his face displaying a pair of thin long white
fangs.
"Fuck I really would have liked to sleep for a hundred years more but no some asshole just had to speak behind my back huh" he said
"DUNCAN! YOU BLOOD SUCKING LEECH CAN'T YOU CONTROL YOUR STRENGTH!" a booming voice that seemed to be coming from somewhere and everywhere at the same time reverberated throughout the entire castle…no it was the castle itself that was speaking.
"Uh could you be any louder" Duncan rubbed a finger in his ears as he stepped out of the bed.
"You almost brought me down!" the castle complained
"Oh relax Escabar. Its all good right?" Duncan waved off the castle's legitimate concerns and stretched his body. The sounds of his bones and joints popping sounding like the roars of a dragon.
The castle grumbled something inaudible, even to his excellent vampire senses.
"Ah that's the stuff" Duncan sighed in pleasure. He was a tall man standing nearly over 8 feet tall. "Hmm…I might need a haircut"
His long pale silver-grey hair had gotten so long that it was almost touching the floor behind him.
"Escabar how long have I been asleep?" Duncan asked
"1057 years" the castle responded.
"That long huh"
The castle didn't say anything
"Has there been any activity from The Entity?" Duncan asked.
"Since what happened 10,000 years ago The Entity hasn't made anymore moves" Escabar replied
Duncan stood in thought. Even he didn't really know what or who The Entity was all he knew for certain was that The Entity definitely came from the Chaos Realm and that him coming to this universe had something to do with a planet that had just been newly formed 10,000 years ago. The Entity had definitely tried to destroy the planet but things didn't go as planned and in the end the planet was split in two.
One half nestled in this universe and the other somewhere unknown. Duncan didn't even know if it was still alive or not. However what he did know was that the world had to be special and even if only one of the two halves of the world remained. There was no way it would be ordinary.
So from time to time he would keep tabs on the world.
"And what of the Half-World?" he asked
"The Half-World, known by its inhabitants as Earth has recently been visited by the Spirit Record and it appears it won't be long before it evolves to a Second Stage world" Escabar replied
"How long are we talking?" Duncan asked
"Approximately a year or less"
"That fast!" Duncan almost lost his composure. The castle shook for less than a second but his shock was understandable. Usually worlds took 20 years and even for the most talented worlds they never took less than a decade to evolve into the Second Stage. For a world to take 1 year to reach that stage?
Why wouldn't he be shocked? And for a moment he thought about just what kind of monster it would produce.
It took him more than 10 seconds to regain his composure. His mind working at speeds within the milliseconds. A split second later Duncan waved his hand in the air creating a shimmering golden rune that burst into a gentle stream of light golden flakes before a round transparent globe appeared in its place.
In the center of the globe a swirling mass of white light gently spun as though it were a black hole in the cosmos.
Escabar the castle recognized it almost immediately
"Prometheus' Legacy" Escabar muttered. "What are you going to do with it?"
"What else? I'm going to find my friend a suitable disciple" Duncan said. His voice sounded heavy. "I'm just sorry it took so long"
Duncan walked out of the sleeping chambers, with each of his steps it almost seemed as if he was teleporting in short bursts as he traversed the long lonely corridors on the castle until he was out on the courtyard. The grass swayed beneath his feet where he stopped and looked around for a moment.
"This should do" Duncan said. Runes shimmered around him once more and this time a piece of chalk came into existence. Taking hold of it between his fingers he squatted on the ground and begun to draw symbols and circles. If the top Runemasters and Magic Art masters of the universe were to see what he was doing they would be dumbfounded. Because Duncan wasn't just drawing magic circle and runes separately, he was combining and synergizing them.
Keep in mind it wasn't as though combining the two studies was impossible and had never been done. It has been done on multiple occasions but that was almost always due to the coordinated teamwork of runemasters and magic art masters working closely together and on top of that it required a significant amount of time sometimes hours and in the most extreme, days and other times months and it was almost always associated with vast resource consumption.
It has rarely ever been done by a single person alone and if it was they were usually low level rune and magic circles. The difficulty in studying just one of the two fields alone was high and it took time, a very large amount of time for someone to even be proficient enough to use them.
Someone who could study both fields to a significant degree were a rarity in the universe extremely so and were considered top notch genius however even for them it would take a time to prepare for something like this regardless of what Star Order they were. However despite all this they were still highly sort after by the major factions of the universe.
And yet here Duncan was drawing runes of the highest degree together with equally high level magic circles that even a small percentile of the universe could manipulate.
Space and time
And yet not only was Duncan drawing and combining them, he was also doing it with apparent easy and unbelievable speed.
Not even twenty minutes later, a great magic circle filled with runes and calculations laid out the entire courtyard. Seven Sixth Star Order soul stones were laid around it glowing with a green radiance in what could only be described as the greatest magic art in the history of the study of runes and magic circles. Duncan placed the globe housing Prometheus' Legacy in the center.
The magic circle glowed with a majestic green light. The once bright soul stones rapidly lost their color become stone gray mana flowed travelling through each and every line in the circle before eventually making it to the center where the globe was placed and then a brilliant and blinding white pillar of light rose in the sky like a beacon that almost illuminated half of the Sixth Stage Abyss World. After a few seconds the pillar of light blinked out of the existence until it completely vanished.
The globe too.
Duncan nodded in satisfaction
'Not bad…not bad at all' he thought. Just as he turned to walk back into the castle, green latters flashed in his retina.
[Your achievement has been recorded! You are the first to combine Rune study and Magic Arts to the highest degree! Your rank on the Cosmic Rune Chart has changed
Your rank on the Cosmic Magic Arts Chart has changed]
[Cosmic Rune Chart
1. Duncan Novachrono-Seventh Star Order]
[Cosmic Magic Arts Chart
1. Duncan Novachrono-Seventh Star Order]
"Blasted Spirit Record…so much for keeping a low profile" Duncan muttered not hiding his annoyance in the slightest. "Things are going to get annoying for a very long time"
Today was just not his day.
"Escabar...activate the Migration Formula we're going to have to find a new place to stay" he said regretfully
"Uh just when I was starting to like this place" the castle grumbled and then in a blink it shrunk down in size becoming smaller and smaller until it was the size of a chestnut. If anyone else saw it they would think they were looking at a plastic collectable but this was no doubt a God Grade treasure.
Duncan opened his palm and the miniaturized castle floated right into it.
"Yeah well…me too" Duncan said before he placing the God Grade treasure into the silver storage ring on his finger. He took a look at the area once more. The mountain peak just felt empty without the large castle nestled at its top.
Duncan sighed.
He was going to be homeless for a while…a very long while