Rushing to his door, high on the excitement of finally making some progress, Luke came face-to-face with a middle-aged man dressed in black robes.
"Hey, I'm Xander." He reached out to shake Luke's hand.
"Luke."
"Nice to meet ya. Arya mentioned that you're new around here, so she sent me to give you a tour." He stepped back from the door.
Following him out, Luke locked the door behind him. "Yeah, Nefkha didn't really mention much. I read the books inside, though."
Nodding along as he walked, Xander replied, "That's good. The books tell you practically everything you need to know about the Luminous Sky. Did you have any questions?"
Luke scratched the back of his head as he thought it over, wondering what was safe for him to ask and what wasn't. "None at the moment. The books covered basically everything I can think of," he replied eventually. He wanted to ask him about Bellerophon's Blade but didn't know how to broach the subject. Nor did he want to give anyone any reason to suspect that he wanted it. Without knowing how closely Nefkha was paying attention to him, it was best not to mention anything that might give the old man further leverage over him.
"That's good. I'm assuming you also read the scroll on cultivating mana?"
"I did," Luke replied eagerly.
"Perfect. It's as simple as it seems, so make sure you don't slack off. Reaching a bottleneck at the middle stage of the Mortal tier is one thing, but if you don't even get that far in three years, the society will demote you to wearing white robes or ask you to leave if you're not pulling your weight," he warned.
Luke nodded in response, already aware of the rule.
From what the scroll suggested, it's possible to reach the middle stage with a year or two of dedicated training. A peak Mortal-tier individual is said to have the strength of a hundred men. If I assume that the average person has ten points in the Strength stat, then that means a late-stage mortal will have a thousand. Midstage is about half that. So five hundred points … that seems doable. The ceiling on physical gains in this world is a lot higher when I factor in the nourishing effects mana seems to have.
The Seed gave me two points this morning, one automatically in the Strength stat and the other as a stat point. The stat points … I'll have to figure out how they work exactly. It seems likely, though, that my increase in Strength is the natural result of exercising, and the free point was from the mana that seeped into my body while I was working out. According to the scroll, early-stage mortals automatically have their bodies transformed by the mana, and the ability to control what the mana improves is supposed to be something that you get when you surpass the middle stage.
With the Seed, though, it's likely I won't experience that boundary. As long as I keep pushing forward, there shouldn't be anything stopping me from powering through.
"All right. That building over there is the Mission Hall. As someone who's just starting out, I'd recommend that you avoid any of the monster hunts, at least until you get a little stronger. Even the ones that seem easy. The Alchemy Hall is always looking for specific herbs that grow in the forests around us. The merits aren't the same, but unless you have terrible luck it's generally safe, and once you get the hang of it, you don't waste a lot of time wandering aimlessly, either."
"Merits?"
"Yep. They're not mentioned in the guidebook, are they? It's a new system—we used to use gold when that book was printed, but mortal currencies aren't really useful to us. Basically, every task you perform for the society, you earn merit points. You can trade them in for medicine, services, instruction from those further along the path, weapons, or even money. You need to pay back ten of them each month for your housing and food. It's how they make sure no one's freeloading."
"Is ten merits a lot?"
"It really depends on what you do and what you want to buy," Xander hedged. "Hunting a monster pays around twenty just for participation, and that's not even counting what the society will pay you for the parts. Of course you have to divide that money among your team, but the price is a lot higher. Risking your life pays pretty well. If you have any talent in refining pills, talismans, or artifacts, then you also don't need to worry a lot about merits. Of course, you need to be able to sense mana to do any of those jobs, so only the Inner Disciples can do them. If you do have some talent, though, you'll practically be rolling in money," he said with a hint of envy. Turning a corner, he continued on. "If you limit yourself to basic tasks like herb picking or patrolling, though, you can expect to make one or two merits a day. It's enough to stay here and buy a low-grade talisman or something, but it's not much."
"I see," Luke responded as he digested the information.
Pills, talismans, and, most importantly, artifacts. I'll have to look into all of them.
"… and that's the arena," Xander said as he and Luke finished the tour of the town, arriving in front of a large colosseum-like building. Sounds of clashing swords echoed from deep inside.
"Are they fighting inside now?"
"The fighting never stops. In fact, I'd recommend that you go to the arena at least once a week to spar with others. As you cultivate your mana, you get stronger, but if you don't know how to use that strength, even weaker opponents will walk all over you."
"Is there a lot of fighting involved in what we do?" Luke asked, slightly nervous at the prospect.
"It's generally not anyone's first resort, but …" He shrugged. "It happens, and it's better to be prepared. If you have any more questions, feel free to drop by the administration building. Oh, I almost forgot. Here." He handed Luke a wristband.
"Thank you …" Luke inspected the bracelet curiously, wondering why Xander had given it to him.
"Don't take it the wrong way—it isn't a gift." He smiled knowingly. "That thing is registered to you, and it tracks what missions you do and how many merit points you have."
"Thank you." Luke nodded to him, wondering how the bracelet worked. It was thin and seemed to be made out of leather, of all things. How it could keep track of anything was beyond his current knowledge, although he had a sneaking suspicion that it had something to do with magic.
Watching Xander walk away for a moment, Luke turned his attention to the arena. It was by far the largest building in the town. Circular and many stories tall, it reminded him of the Colosseum in Rome. Curious, he walked in and observed the fighting.
There were twenty battles occurring simultaneously, and a large number of Outer Disciples and a small number of Inner Disciples waited in lines around each battle. In each ring, two disciples fought each other. Half of them were fighting with their fists alone, and the other half used various combinations of wooden swords, spears, and shields. He watched curiously as one of the wrestlers in the ring closest to him was pinned against the ground. A white-robed referee quickly ran onto the platform and pulled the two fighters apart. They shook hands, and the loser walked out of the ring while the winner remained. Catching his breath for a minute, he waved his hand, the disciple at the head of the line entered the ring, and another fight ensued.
"I haven't seen you around here before." Luke heard a voice beside him.
When he turned his head to look at the person, the first thing that came to his mind was big. Easily seven feet tall and built like a bull, the other man towered over him. "I'm new here," he replied. Hesitating briefly, he extended his hand. "I'm Luke."
"Ethan." He shook Luke's hand, his gaze locked to a battle. Tracing his eyes, Luke followed them to a fight happening in the fifth ring just in time to witness a black-robed teenager dodge an attack with a backflip. His foot swung out and caught his much larger opponent square in the chin while he was in midair and knocked him unconscious.
Luke suppressed a wince at the brutality, and at the same time he felt his heart speed up in excitement, a thrill born of witnessing a feat of pure skill and technique.
"That kid is growing fast. I remember watching him get knocked around daily when he first started coming around, and now he routinely holds the King for seven or eight battles. There's even chatter that he might be our newest Inner Disciple."
"Really?"
"It's … hard to say." A thoughtful look adorned Ethan's face as he looked at the teenager. "Anyone who puts in enough work can eventually reach mid-Mortal tier. Watching that fight, he's already on the cusp of it, if he hasn't already. But developing the ability to sense mana … it just comes down to luck. Without it, you reach a limit to how far you can push."
"What about entering the Warrior tier?"
"HA-HA-HA." He laughed out loud and slapped Luke loudly on his back. "Becoming a warrior is hard. The society has thousands of Outer Disciples, hundreds of Inner Disciples, but only nine warriors. Out of all the Inner Disciples, maybe a few dozen are still young enough to even have a shot." He shook his head ruefully. "We're small fish in a small pond. Even though each of us dreams of becoming more, reality is cruel."
"What makes it so hard?" Luke looked at the other man thoughtfully, only to see him shrug.
"I don't know. If I knew the answer to that, I would have become a warrior myself long ago. As it is, I've been stuck at the middle stage for years now. No matter how hard I train, I don't get stronger. My mana sense never developed, so …" He shrugged.
"That's …" Luke trailed off apologetically, unwittingly having broached a sensitive subject.
"It's fine." He beamed, glancing at Luke. "Even though it's unlikely that I'll progress further, I've still gained strength beyond the vast majority of the world's people. I'm satisfied with what I have. You should fight!" he suddenly suggested.
Luke looked at him blankly. "I'm not sure that's a good idea." Luke rolled his shoulders, feeling the ache in his muscles from pushing them as far as he had the night before.
"All the more reason to. Everyone starts off not knowing." He scanned the crowd. "The first ring is all amateurs and newbies. The second ring is basically the same, but with people who have a little more experience. The tenth ring is basically the best fighters in the society. It's the same concept with the rings where they're using weapons."
Luke watched the fights carefully, and after some observation he could tell exactly what Ethan was referring to. The battles happening in the first ring lacked technique or grace, the fighters simply rushing each other and swinging wildly. More often than not, they would end up rolling on the floor before one of them managed to pin the other. The ones in the tenth ring by contrast, were a lot more agile. Dodging blows gracefully, with small movements. Every attack seemed calculated, precise, and fast. To Luke, the fights in the latter rings looked choreographed in their complexity, as if they were dancing instead of fighting. It seemed more like something he would have seen in an action movie as opposed to the real world.
"Don't think about it too much. Get in there—getting your butt kicked is good for you," Ethan urged as Luke eyed the line.
This is gonna suck.
"All right," Luke agreed, making his way to the first arena. With a plan that amounted to trying his best and tapping out if things got too rough, he was confident that it wouldn't end terribly—if anything, learning what it was like being in combat would only help him in the future. Being a simple office worker in his last life hadn't done much for him when it came to sharpening his instincts for life-or-death struggles.
Paying close attention to the fights as he occupied the second and then the first place in the line, it became clear who he would be fighting. Like most of the others lined up to fight in the first ring, he was young. Luke's guess was that he was of a similar age to his new body, either fifteen or sixteen. Tan skin, brown hair cut close to his scalp, and a thin wiry frame.
Despite his unassuming looks, he had made short work of his last two fights. Luke watched carefully as he started his third, this time against a girl. She wasted no time in engaging him, and with fists raised above her chest, she circled around him slowly before striking out with a quick jab that he dodged by stepping to the side. Before the girl could even pull her arm back, he had closed the distance between them and punched her in the gut with everything he had.
Luke winced along with the rest of the line as she folded instantly and fell knees first onto the ground and started gasping for breath. The society, at least when it came to combat, made no distinction between men and women. While men had a natural physical advantage in the earliest stages of the Mortal tier, it would dwindle rapidly as they progressed. The mana in the air augmented all people equally as they worked their bodies.
As the girl stumbled out of the ring, the referee waved Luke in right after. His opponent had waived the allotted minute of rest granted between battles.
Here we go.