Old Magic — Magic from outside the system. From before. I didn’t know when Before was. But apparently the great magics that preceded the system shaped much of the world — the great works of the multiple Precursors had reshaped the planet multiple times.

Countries existed in the ruins they left behind.

Poppy, Eros, and Anna had headed directly back out, making a night run to a small, distant village to evacuate them from the wandering threat. A Calamity called an Earthscale Titan had apparently been spotted by scouts hours north, and the city’s military would take days to fully rally and organize to face it.

The others had invited me to join. Apparently, even a scratch on the beast was probably enough to earn a level — if you lived through the fight. Deaths weren’t common among those fighting safely, apparently.

I had fallen asleep quickly in the inn room they rented for a day. Now, I rested in the bath. The water had grown cold a long time ago, but I still meditated to refill the massive amount of qi I had spent. The air here was filled with it, and I drank greedily.

Most of my day blew by cultivating.

When the dimensional rebound occurred, I wanted to be ready to breakthrough.

[Dimensional Rebound in 9 Hours]

There was just one other thing left to do; to assign my two attribute points. I didn’t know if I would keep them when the rebound happened. Or if I would keep any of the system’s skills.

The attributes I spent carried a sense of finality, though, like they were changing part of me that was inherent and not something inside me. Like raising my cultivation base, not like a temporary technique.

I had two attribute points available. I debated Strength; but cultivation could make me stronger. Constitution; but cultivation could make me healthier. Intelligence and Agility, cultivation could grant me.

Perception might answer more questions I had about the world, if I use my [Identify] skill further.

But Willpower would help me cultivate.

So I put both points into it.

[Feng Sai][Level 12][Anti-Light Insurgent]

[Health: 100%][Spheres: 9]

[STR 21][CON 19]

[INT 11][WIL 17]

[AGI 20][PER 13]

[Cultivation:]

[Grim Tempest Darkwind Scion] [95% First Realm, Qi Condensation] [CON +9] [Warning! You have a low compatibility with this path.]

[Zones:]

[Slow][Accelerate][Carve]

[Skills:]

[Fourth Lesser Grim Tempest Sect Martial Art Style X] [STR +10, AGI +10]

[Identification 3] [PER +3]

[One Cut, One Kill 1] [STR +1]

[Meditation 1] [INT +1]

There was a pounding on the door. I threw myself out of the bathtub, grabbing my sword and the outer layer of my robe.

“Hello?” I asked.

“If you want to stay another day, you need to pay!” The barkeep’s gruff voice said.

I paused.

I had been in here all day.

“Apologies. I’ll be out in a moment.”

After another meal downstairs, I headed into the city.

It was already night time outside. It was less chaotic, though. Oil lamps illuminated the tight side roads of the city.

Almost every I saw had levels in the tens — though only a minority of the active people actually had combat classes.

I watched the lives of people in the night, stumbling out of bars and restaurants. Many of the warehouses and businesses of the city ran through the night, and there was a constant stream of arrivals to the city, both of merchants transporting wares and refugees from the nearby towns.

It made me wonder what life would be like in my own provinces if the system was there. How much did skills affect levels of productivity? Did tavern keepers have skills to produce better wines?

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I found myself in front of the Trailblazer’s hall. The doors had been permanently propped open. One seemed broken, which must have happened sometime since yesterday. I stepped inside.

It was still a bustle of activity, but I didn’t have to shove people out of the way. Now that there was less of a crowd, I started to notice the lingering stares on me. Back home, that was not unexpected — I was the Second Young Master Feng, after all.

But here, they recognized me immediately as a stranger in a foreign world.

A wielder of Old Magic.

One of the receptionists at a desk between a line of sweaty men smiled at me. I stepped between the lines, walking up to the counter.

“Apologies. I’d like to register for membership.”

The receptionist — a short haired, nervous looking teenage boy — gave me a strain smile.

“We are all out of rooms at the moment — unless you’re Gold Rank or higher with the Trailblazers or a sister organization?” He sounded hopeful.

I shook my head.

“Then it’s three silver registration fee, and annually after that. If you reach gold or higher, we waive the membership fee. That’s level one hundred by the way — you know this, right?”

The young man reached under the counter and fussed around with something. The sound of metal clinking came from below, then he resurfaced with a necklace on a chain embedded into a large coin. The metal of the necklace was iridescent.

In a smooth motion, I pressed three silver across the counter.

“Just detach the necklace from the coin, if you would.” The young man said.

I gave it an experimental tug.

The necklace popped free of the coin — and then it bit me.

With a sound of alarm, I dropped it back onto the counter and took a step back. My hand fell on my sword hilt reflexively. It felt like my hand should have been bleeding, but there was no damage.

Half a dozen system prompts appeared and disappeared. The necklace gradually lost its iridescence, colors disappearing one at a time until it was copper. There was a green sheen to it though, like the metal was sick.

“That’s… definitely copper.” The young man said. “You can accept assignments off the boards and get paid copper rate for them now. Do you have anything you’d like to announce to potential parties? What role do you play in your teams?”

The young man pulled the copper disc back across the table, flipping it over and writing on its back with a metal stylus.

“I’m not looking for a team right now.”

The young man nodded, whispering to himself as he wrote.

“Feng… Solo… Sword user… do you want to share your class? If there’s an emergency assignment you’d be a fit for — ”

“No thank you.” I had a bad feeling about telling anyone my class. Anti-Light Insurgent didn’t sound like a good thing. And the legacy I had inherited was clearly still tampering with my system. I didn’t know how people would react to that.

“Alright. You’re all set.” The boy said.

“Poppy said you have a library?”

“Poppy? We do. It’s upstairs. Right that way!” The boy leaned forward and pointed left over the counter.

“Thanks.” I said, stepping away. Someone immediately stepped forward and started a new conversation with the boy.

His job seemed exhausting.

The wood of the Trailblazer’s stairs creaked with every step. This building seemed to be among the oldest in the city, the wooden walls already falling apart to time.

I found the library a hallway up, slapped between storage closets. It was practically one itself. Books and scrolls littered the ground, piled on shelves. Torn out pages molded in the corners under piles of dust.

Half a dozen hand drop maps were tied to the wall, locations of interest marked on them. Many were yellow with age. The only consistent thing on all of them was Spearpoint, some of its outlying villages, and a route to a port city miles away, marked with boats and monsters.

It was terrible to let all this knowledge languish. With a disapproving shake of my head, I began to pick up and reorganize the books.

Most of the contents of the room were bestiaries. Almost all of them had additional notes added in, including locations they discovered the creatures on the Savage Continent and known weaknesses.

Some beastiaries were wholly sketched.

There wasn’t a single book on Magic or it’s history — let alone Old Magic.

I did find books on the history of the Trailblazers and decades old tomes describing the history of the eastern continent that Illyria rested on.

Poppy had sailed a long way to get here.

It took hours to rearrange the entire room. The entire time, I practiced actively meditating, pulling in qi with my freshly enhanced Willpower.

A single point of Willpower was enough to change the lives of almost every cultivator. The idea was almost terrifying to think about.

I wondered if Tavern Keepers gained Willpower stats.

After sweeping the floor, I sat in the center. The only chair in the cramped room was covered in loose pages and books.

So I read, and read, and read. The history of the Trailblazers and Illyria was clearly written with a bias for the winners. Most of the passages felt more like embellishments than records, detailing glorious victories that crushed their enemies, and describing unstoppable empires of scale.

It was only because I was cultivating that I noticed when the qi in the air began to shift in makeup. Earth qi began to overpower every other attribute. It was slow and subtle at first.

Then I felt the earth tremble.

It was so slight I wasn’t sure I would have noticed it without the points I had in Perception.

[Dimensional Rebound Imminent]

I closed the book and stood, carrying it in my hands and walking to the door. The downstairs was as active as ever, though I didn’t recognize a single person here. There were snores coming off the tables from sleeping parties.

I pushed through and walked outside.

The droplets of earth qi turned into a river in minutes. A river of power poured into the sky. I looked around the street.

There were a few people in robes looking up as well.

I started jogging north following the crest of power filling the sky. It was as if the Feng Patriarch had unsealed his full cultivation — like a Fifth Realm monster was doing battle in the sky.

The earth shook again.

I started jogging for the wall, to find high ground to get a better look. I shoved through the guards at the stairs. They shouted warnings at me, but I was already flying up to the wall, taking the steps two at a time.

In the distance, the sky glowed gold. From on the wall I could hear distant clashes — explosions and fighting, hidden in the sprawling treeline.

“Stop! This area is restricted!” One of the guards shouted from behind me, chasing me up the stairs.

I hoped Poppy and the others were alright. That monster was on the same level as the Patriarch — powerful enough to rule a nation.

[Dimensional Rebound Imminent, brace for expulsion]