After the collapse the strength of the mortal races was severely damaged and the world of Astraga being ever more dangerous, a few highly distinguished and powerful people unbothered by the vicious politics of that age came together to form a school that would serve to recover the once former strength of the people of Astraga and become a new center of learning for magic and the spiritual arts. It came to be known as 'Bastille'
In this very school which spanned a few kilometers stood a high tower reaching the clouds which was the residence of the headmaster.
Down below students went about their daily lives, a flustered woman was running throw the crowd. "Get out of the way! It's an emergency" the students looked bewildered as they stepped aside. They recognized the woman as the assistant of the headmaster, a busty woman with wavy blue hair and round glasses.
She bolted into the tower and went to the first-floor teleportation circle to get to the top to the headmaster's office. Once teleported she rushed to the office's door and burst it open. An old man with a long greyed out beard and a pointy hat that drooped to the side was napping contently while snoring on his chair.
He woke up with a start at the sound of the door being burst open, "What!? What happened? Did a student accidently open a portal to the underworld again?" the headmaster asked with a serious expression.
The assistant replied immediately, "No headmaster Rickard, the device that detects any beings from the void entering our world just gave a reading"
The headmaster then sighed in relief, "Relax Ashley, it's not the first time a stray monster from the void entered our world. I am sure as we speak the Wizgommin are already investigating it, they have a similar device too."
The assistant shook her head furiously, "I know headmaster but the device also roughly estimates the danger level on the entity based on its changing colors but this time only after detecting it just…..it just turned to dust. I am afraid a very dangerous entity has entered our world."
The headmaster after hearing her adopted a serious expression. The last time something like that happened was when the rift separating the void and their world opened up once and the creatures swarmed out of it in large quantities. The was a big headache to remedy and caused a lot of damage.
"Where was it?" he asked solemnly
The assistant replied after checking the readings once more, "It was somewhere around Orwell Forest near the border of the dyna kingdom. What should we do headmaster?"
The headmaster after thinking for a moment gave his verdict, "Inform the king of the dyna kingdom of the serious threat. Send the subjugation squad to investigate it as well and tell them to aid the wizgommin in any way they can. Hopefully it's not something too dangerous".
Bastille was also invested in researching about the elusive void dimension and thus would get to study any specimen from it to further their knowledge. Although sometimes the ownership of the specimen would be contested between the two parties, it didn't mean they were on bad terms.
The assistant nodded and immediately went to deliver the message. The headmaster went into thought. The last few hundred years had been too peaceful. He could feel that a storm was brewing and it would take them by surprise. He just hoped they were ready when it came.
......
Back in the town of kier, two weeks had passed after Reinhardt had come to this world and had started taking sword lessons. The instructor was a posh man with a thin lined mustache and wavy hair parted in the middle, named henry.
Reinhardt had learnt a lot in these two weeks, even practicing after the lessons in a vacant space old man Jerome had shown him behind the inn after he asked about one.
Three hours of lesson and six hours of continuous training later in his own time had left him exhausted. He wasn't that into physical activities in his world but he had to endure it if he wanted to survive any dangers of this world or at least give him a chance to go back home.
Currently Reinhardt was busy getting beaten the shit out of by the instructor who also corrected him every time he made a mistake with a wooden sword. "Damn you, you posh bastard stand fucking still." Reinhardt said in an infuriated manner.
"Yes of course but will you ask your enemies to do the same?" The instructor said in jest as he hit Reinhardt on the head… the 50th time for the day. Seriously he felt like he was growing a separate head there based on how much the bump had swelled.
"Yes I will, the least they can do is say no." Reinhard said as he made a horizontal slash which the instructor backed away from, they started circling around each other. Reinhardt looking for an opening while the instructor was letting Reinhardt decide for himself.
"Or they will kill you while you are distracted in asking questions. Only fools or highly skilled opponents talk during battles." Reinhardt nodded. He often found it idiotic when in anime or web novels the opponents had whole debates instead of fighting but this was real life, distractions in battle lead to death here but he still felt trash talking had its uses when used at the correct moment which he learned from his years of gaming.
The instructor took a quick step forward went for a jab which Reinhardt side stepped away from and swung the sword downwards with all his might on the arm of the instructor who surprised Reinhardt by letting go of the sword, retracting his hand and punching Reinhardt with the other free hand. Reinhardt fell down while clutching his nose. When he looked up the instructor had already picked up the sword and was pointing at his neck.
"What the hell was that?" Reinhardt asked in a livid manner 'it's a sword fight not a fist fight!'
"That was your final lesson my young friend. Just because it's a sword fight doesn't mean your opponent will stick to just a sword. In a real battle everything goes. Do you know why?" Henry asked while twirling the wooden sword in his hand.
Reinhardt went into a thought for a moment, "Because everything is fair in love and war?"
Henry shook his head, "It's because dead men can't complain you cheated." He then smirked to show he was just messing with Reinhardt. "Well that's it, you have already achieved what people take almost 2 months to achieve in two weeks due to you constant practice."
Reinhardt got up and dusted his ass, "Really? That's it?"
Henry arched his brow, "what, did you expect me to turn you into a sword saint with just basic training?"
'Well duh' Reinhardt just nodded his head showing his understanding "of course not."
"What you now need is real life experience and dangerous situations to simulate your potential. Kid let me tell you something I have had a lot of students over the years and you have had the best potential out of them all but you have a problem of getting sidetracked easily. Work on that and you will become a fine swordsman. Now Go out into the real world and put the sword to good use, you will learn a lot more than you did here."
Reinhardt just nodded, "Well thanks for teaching me, the past few weeks had been painfu-enjoyable and a terr-good learning experience for me. I Will keep your teachings always in mind."
Henry gave a grin to Reinhardt antics, "Don't change kid, don't change" He ruffled Reinhardt hair as he left the training ground.
Reinhardt also changed from his training attire back to some local clothes he had brought from a shop, they were neither too expensive nor too cheap.
After changing he went to the main hall of the adventurer's guild and made his way towards the task board.
On the way other adventurers greeted him. He made small talk regularly with the adventurers to get to know them and also serve as a source of information.
They often saw him training with henry and had a positive image of him but some still remembered the embarrassing situation with Enid and the thumb pin still roasting him over it.
Now he wished he had used a sword to slice his finger if he knew it would make him the butt of most jokes in the adventurer's guild even two weeks after it happened.
Standing in front of the board he looked at the tasks. "hmm undead bear attacking nearby village, old ruin exploration next to dead sea, protection duty for rich merchant, hunting griffin for ingredients.....ah this one will do." He ripped a commission from the board and went towards Enid.
"Yo Enid, sign me up for this task." Reinhardt said as he leaned on the counter.
Enid took the page from Reinhardt and looked at it with a ridiculous expression, "You want to ….collect flowers?" It was an F ranked task.
Reinhardt just laughed, "Oh Enid, you silly woman, it's called exotic plants of course I would. It's the safest task. Can't be dying on my first task can I."
Enid shrugged but understood what he meant. Most new adventurers would overestimate themselves and get themselves killed even on the first job and it wasn't because of the lack of trying to prevent it from the guild's staff. The tasks were all grade restricted and one could only take a task one grade above theirs, guess which most people chose?
"Sure, finally going on your first adventure?" Enid started signing him up for the task and took his card to assign it to him. Reinhardt had been coming to talk to Enid for the past weeks….mainly to annoy her discretely without getting beheaded and also for a good chat. He found that despite being a little demon she wasn't all that bad.
"Yes, I am running low on money." Reinhardt said as he adopted a sorrowful expression.
Enid just rolled her eyes, "Its done, oh before you go. I got you a gift for your first task before you left." She took out a book and gave it to him. After he read the book's title dark lines were running across his forehead.
The book's title was 'Adventurer's guide for dummies 101'. With a forced smile Reinhardt looked at Enid who was smugly looking at him. "Thanks, you didn't have to" to which enid replied, "of course I did" with an evil chuckle.
Reinhardt left the guild and looked down at calloused hands from the constant practice and sighed. 'No pain, No gain'
Seeing it was still daylight decided to complete the task. He went to the inn, changed into the leather armor and took his sword. He also had bought essential supplies for adventuring and two lesser quality health potions despite them being expensive.
He exited the gate of the town and decided to walk to the nearby hill where the plants would be found. It was just an hour away.
On the way he continuously looked back to see if anyone was following him. Once he made sure there was no one, he took out a book with the details of the plants and started looking for them. Once found he gently uprooted them and put them in his satchel after identifying.
The real reason he came here wasn't because of the task, it was just a bonus. In the game, the main character wasn't a fixed person. One could change their background from being dirt poor to being filthy rich and being from any kingdom along with one's personality and even faith.
When one started a game, the stats weren't shown until one found an altar of rebirth which would then grant access to the data sheet.
Kier town was one of the beginner areas and had an altar of rebirth near the town. He checked up the library and realized that there was no mention of the thing so he was being cautious not bringing it up to anyone. He was going to the altar to confirm if he had some cheats or not, if not it was going to be one tough road back home.
Magic, he found out after a few conversations though brilliant and powerful was hard to learn and required one to have the potential for it. Also, it was an expensive endeavor to become a mage. The experiments, books, scrolls, tuitions etc were hella expensive.
Spiritual arts on the other hand were although not as flexible as magic and less powerful were a good alternative with less strict requirements for practicing it but had a steep learning curve.
Now back to the protagonist with the different backgrounds, one can get two or three basic spiritual arts and if one was lucky an innate magical ability already just from the get go.
Innate magical abilities were extremely op, didn't require incantation and had a less mana requirement. He was hoping that he could get a spiritual art at the altar. It would just be like getting a reward for logging into a game for the first time that was of course if he was recognized as a player and he didn't know how that would work in a real world.
He also found almost no one has spiritual arts and innate magical abilities from the birth. Only the chosen and gifted have that privilege but some deviations often happen from time to time. He hoped he had them but he sure as heck wasn't a gifted or chosen.
That brought his thought to the two main power sources. Magic users had to create magic circles throughout their body to advance in their rank. The ranking were as such.
Beginner - 1st circle
Apprentice -2nd circle
Intermediate-3rd Circle
Expert -4th circle
Adept -5th circle
Master-6th circle
Grandmaster -7th circle
Archmage -8th circle
Godmage- 9th circle
And for the spiritual art users it was
Taloc -1st Rank of Spiritual Arts
Citla -2nd Rank of Spiritual Arts
Talyu -3rf Rank of Spiritual Arts
Xolot - 4th Rank of spiritual Arts
Qitza -5th Rank of spiritual Arts
Atl -6th Rank of spiritual Arts
Metzi -7th Rank of spiritual Arts
Ocelot -8th Rank of spiritual Arts
Tezca -9th Rank of spiritual Arts
The game also ditched the conventional leveling system and adopted this to be the leveling system to be more relevant to the story and game world setting.
He remembered the altar was below the hill and was not visible unless one explored the area carefully luckily for him, he knew which way to go. After some time and a lot of falling he found the altar.
It was three stones standing right next to each other. The one in the center was the tallest. Symbol of a sun was drawn on one, a moon on the other and the stars on the other a symbolism towards change.
Reinhardt came in front of the altar and knelt in the circle on the ground in front of the altar, "Okay so what were the words…ah yes. Zu yavazi yam, zama khwarak khwak day lag zyaat Rakha, Do na poyigi zama pa zaba" He recited the incantation from the game and waited and waited….. 'did I screw up the incantation….meh well it was worth a try.'
Although performing the altar of rebirth ritual would only suffice once but for 100% completion, he had to find all of them and repeat the process again and again resulting with him clearly remembering the incantations.
As he was about to get up the circle flashed a bright blue and so did the stones. Reinhardt felt a headache and closed his eyes as he fell to the ground on his knees.
The lights then died down and Reinhardt slowly got up and then said status in his mind. A window popped up he looked at it with excitement until he was confused.
[
Name: Reinhardt
Age: 14
Race: ????
Physique: none
Spiritual art: [ one mind(A rank-locked)] [Flicker(C rank-locked)]
Innate Magical abilities: [Meteor shower(locked)]
Blessings: [True Draconic Might '0%'] [The First Mage '0%'] [????] [????]
]
Reinhardt was really confused since not everything was shown in the status page, like strength, dexterity etc like in the game. It should have shown his rank along with the attributes as well. After correspondingly going to the next rank for mages and art users, the attributes would change only according to the rank unless one used consumables to boost ranks, it was just to give a player a better idea of where they stood to achieve the build they desired, but why wasn't it the same? Still it was a surprise that the altar of rebirth worked.
Also why was his race not human but a bunch of question marks, he knew was a really handful sometimes but to not even count him as human. Who the heck did he offend.
He was pleasantly surprised to find that he had not 1 but 2 spiritual arts and but one magical ability too. The only problem was the magical ability 'What the fuck am I supposed to do with a 6th circle magic spell this early in the game.'
It was an op ability that could destroy armies but needed a huge amount of mana comparable to a river and he currently had shit so the less mana requirement also wasn't of any help.
The locked state he could understand since he didn't have an ounce of spiritual energy in his body and also hadn't opened his 1st circle of magic, his magic core.
He didn't understand the blessings too. One could only get a single blessing later in the game after offering one's faith to the current gods.
The blessing would help them greatly and players often chose god's blessings based on their playstyle and build.
What was confusing was that he had 4 blessing, 2 were unknown and the other two that were known didn't have the patron god's name to it. The physique stat was also confusing since it was never mentioned in the game.
The percentage was probably how much of the blessing he could access according to him but he wasn't sure. Currently he had 0 percent, he would have to figure out how to access his blessings fully and also why he couldn't read the name of the other blessings.
Reinhard noticing it was getting dark started heading back to the town and complete the task. He also wanted to think more about his abilities.
But just after a few steps he could hear little grunts coming towards him. He immediately turned around and took out his sword to find a little green thing jumping at him with a club.
He put the sword forward and stopped the club in time which didn't have too much power behind it. While the creature was in the air Reinhardt gave a kick to its side. It shrieked and flew into a tree to the side.
Now getting a clear look at the creature, he could see it was a goblin. He heard more grunts coming his way as more of them came into view.
With the current one he had kicked down there were three more. 2 had clubs like the previous one while one had a rusty broken sword.
They made grunting noise and ran towards Reinhardt. He was watching them closely and wasn't going to take it easy.
He knew they were goblins, but the name they were given at the guild were rookie killers since newbies always underestimated them and ended up dead or worse as a breeding tool in case of the females.
One reached Reinhardt who aimlessly swung at him. He dodged to the side and swung his sword at the goblin's neck. With a clean motion the goblin lost its head, the other one with the club surprised still continued its charge but was met with the same fate.
When the two died Reinhardt was scanning for the third but he was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly he felt a sharp pain through his leg as the goblin had sneaked around him and embedded the sword into his thigh.
Reinhardt swung his sword around slashed the stomach of the third goblin it shrieked in pain and its bowel emptied on the floor as fell dead. Reinhardt was gritting his teeth from the pain of the embedded sword. He limped his way towards the 4th goblin that was still incapacitated and killed it too. He then focused on his wound.
The pain was becoming unbearable as tears started streaming down reinhardt's eyes. He sat beside a tree and with great effort pulled the sword from his leg while gritting his teeth. The blood started pouring out profusely.
Reinhardt immediately took out a bottle of alcohol, a bandage and some herbal paste but it was made difficult with the blurry vision due to his tears. With fumbling hands, he poured the alcohol on the wounds and suppressed a cry of pain that was about to come out of his lips.
He then put the herbal paste on the wounds and bandage it. He could have used the healing potion but it would have been a waste, it was saved for life threatening situations.
After bandaging his wound, he got up and looked at the carnage he caused in his adrenaline rush. He looked at the dead bodies of the goblins and the blood and guts spilled on the ground. Combined with the smell he vomited his lunch out. He wasn't a killer and taking the life of something even if it was a monster felt nauseous to him. But sadly, this was his new reality.
He went and cut the ears of the goblins as proof of killing with a grimace on his face. He could get a compensation for it at the guild. Afterwards he limped towards the town with a green face still feeling nauseous and a slow pace as the sun set. "I am already starting to hate this world." He said as his silhouette slowly disappeared in the distance.