Mark finally selected his class from the hundreds—no, THOUSANDS of classes. What are those classes? Well, that's a secret. Before the player can learn the name of a class, it has to be discovered first! This way, the author doesn't have to actually make up thousands of class names.
Luckily, Mark was one of those players who preordered this game, therefore he got an über-super unique primary class called Berserker-Ninja, with the secondary class called Atheist-Priest.
"Wait, how did I preorder this game?" Mark asked. "I thought I was reincarnated here."
While Mark was getting confused by minor and unimportant details, he noticed a large tower next to him. It was a large tower made of stone, with no other building in sight. The large tower stuck out like a sore thumb. Also, it was large.
Mark wondered what this large tower was doing here, in the middle of nowhere. He went closer to the large, wooden door, and decided to knock.
"Come in, it's open," came an elderly voice from the top of the tower. How anyone would hear the knock from up there was anyone's guess, but Mark didn't hesitate to go inside. He had to do something after all, and going into strange and foreign and large buildings with no sense of danger was a good place to start.
As he climbed up on the winding stairs towards the top of the tower, he wondered what an old man was doing so far up in the building. It was doubtful that he climbed these stairs often. He had to be a wizard, and this had to be his wizard tower. Yes, that made sense. That way, the old man could conjure himself food and water, and would never have to come down. On the other hand though, where did he go if he needed to take a piss? Now that was a true mystery.
Mark reached the topmost room of the tower, and entered without prompting. There, he found a withered old man kneeling on the floor. He was holding a katana in front of him with its blade pointed towards his own stomach, ready to commit sudoku.
"No, don't do it!" Mark exclaimed.
"Why not?" the old man said on a sad tone. "I lived a long, long life with full of tears and blood. My guilt finally drove me to this moment right here. I'm a bane to this word, and I can't bear it any longer. I'm finally ready to end my life."
Whew! How fortunate that Mark arrived here in the last moment to stop him!
"You have one more chance to redeem yourself," Mark said, then stepped closer confidently. "Teach me what you know. My good deeds will wash away whatever blood you shed."
The old man looked at Mark for a long, long moment. His mouth trembled, then he closed his eyes and sighed dejectedly.
"Ah, whatever," the old man said, and flung the katana carelessly behind him. "It makes some sense. You convinced me, young one. Feel free to call me Master."
And thus, Mark found himself in a very unique situation. The old man was called Kawaii, a legendary assassin who had been the best of the bests when he was young. He would teach Mark everything he knew, and more.
It is worth noting out that these things happened by sheer chance. The author didn't specifically direct his protagonist to find the old man; indeed, anyone could have found the old assassin. Anyone could have become his apprentice, but as it turned out, our totally average MC was the one who met this old man first.
"MC?" Mark asked with brows furrowed. He didn't know MC meant Main Character. What a noob.
After Mark finished insulting the narrator, he turned his attention back to the old man. Suffice to say, he was going to face a very long and very excruciating training with the assassin. Let's say... five years long? Yes, five years sounds right.
**Five years later**
Master Kawaiii coughed into a clean, white handkerchief. As he put away the handkerchief, Mark could see that it was red with blood.
"Master noo!!!" Mark exclaimed dramatically.
"I have very little time left, my apprentice," the old man wheezed. "There is one last thing I want to teach you. It's the most deadliestestest technique of all time. Anyone who saw it before is already dieded. It is—"
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Before he could finish his sentence, the old master had coughed one last time, then died. Well, he did say that he had very little time left.
"Master nooo!!!" Mark exclaimed dramatically. (Note that there were three 'o'-s this time. This is actually a longer exclamation than the last one.)
And thus, Mark's apprenticeship had ended. He was very OP now. Of course he was. The story wouldn't be fun otherwise, would it?
"What does OP mean?" Mark asked, because being overpowered apparently didn't mean that he was clever too. So, yes. Mark was OP, but this didn't mean that he could hurt the narrator, no matter how much he tried to do so at the moment.
But Mark deserved to be OP. Unlike all those other ridiculous MC-s with the broken powers that just fell into their lap, Mark actually worked for this power! Five years of training wasn't laughing matter!
You might ask at this point: exactly why was Mark OP? What could he do? Well, there is a simple answer for that: it's a secret! Or a mystery, if you will. Slowly but surely, more and more details would be revealed from his past. This way, the author doesn't have to work on the details of Mark's power. He can figure out everything as the story progresses! This will also provide plenty of opportunity for mind-blowing power reveals.
For now, let's just say that among others, Mark has learned a new source of power that no one else possessed.
"Mana?" Mark tried to guess.
It was a pretty stupid guess, since with a world full of magic, obviously everyone had mana here. But we have already established that Mark wasn't a really bright one, and we shouldn't blame him too much for trying.
No, the unique power source that Mark possessed wasn't mana. It was salt. No, not the cooking kind. Salt was generated by Mark's enemies, and all the friends who envied him. The more salty they were, the more power Mark had. If Mark's OP-ness tilted them off the surface of the earth, he could store up literally limitless amount of power.
"That's a bit dramatic," Mark noted. However, he had already spent too much time criticizing the narration, so instead he made his way down the tower. He stumbled on the very first step and rolled down all the way to the bottom of the stairs. Accidentally. Hopefully it also hurt him a lot.
But Mark was OP, so it didn't took long for him to get up and be on his way. By this point he really should have learned that cursing the narrator was pointless, but somehow he still preferred to do it.
Mark began to follow the river, hoping to find civilization. However, he soon became lost. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, although he was a high level character now due to his training, he had a horrible sense of direction. Even following a river proved to be difficult for him!
He also never stepped out of the tower in the last five years, so it was easy to get lost. Nobody was perfect, and Mark wasn't an exception. Even if he was strong like a... uhh, gorilla, he still had his failings. Deep down, he was still just an ordinary man. That's what makes him lovable! (No homo.)
"Now, where the hell was that river?" Mark asked as he run. It was almost as if it had just disappeared for no other reason than to get Mark lost in the wilderness. However, for someone as fast as Mark, it didn't pose too much of a challenge. A few minutes later he came to an abrupt halt, when he heard voices drifting his way.
"What a bunch of idiots," Mark muttered.
"Huh? Who's there?" One of the bandits asked when he heard Mark's words, because of course he did. How else would there be a fight between a bunch of stupid bandits and our protagonist with his OP sneaking technique?
Damn, Mark thought in italics. I might as well reveal myself.
"Good evening," Mark said, stepping out from behind a tree. "I see you have a lot of stolen goods. Better hand it over, and I might spare your lives."
The bandits looked at him, smiles and sneers on their faces. Mark wasn't a really impressive sight, that was true. Although his body had been hardened through years of training, he wore simple clothes. He didn't have any weapons either, because he was retarded and didn't take his master's katana with him. And he was alone.
"Who do you think you are, kid?" One of the bandits asked.
"My name is xXxNoobSpanker720xXx," Mark replied. That was the character name he set for himself. Originally he had wanted to be xXxNoobSpanker360xXx, but that name was already taken. "I came here to punish you for stealing all those goods."
"Whaddaya blabbering about, xXxNoobSpanker720xXx?" Another bandit asked. "You say we stole these goods. Where is your proof? For all you know, we are honest farmers, having a drink out in the nature."
"That can't be," Mark said, shaking his head. "The narrator says you are bandits."
"Dafaq?"
"And you also smell. It's usually bad guys who smell."
For a long moment, the bandits just looked at Mark in silence. Then they began to laugh.
"Looks like we've been caught, lads!" One of them said, then pulled out a dagger from behind his back. "Let's teach him a lesson!"
What will Mark do now? Will he prevail? Will the bandits beat him into a pulp? Will the power of friendship be stronger? Find out in the next episo—
"DUDE!" Mark shouted. "What the fuck! Just let me finish this quickly!"
Unfortunately, this chapter has already reached the desired wordcount, and this is a perfect place to stop with a cliffhanger. Find out what happened with Mark in the next episode!