CHAPTER 6

Power from the Earth

Catie's part (lvl 6 inventorial s)

Finally I arrived! I am currently in line in the hero’s sanctuary. It used to be a spot where the hero pulled the hero’s sword. Hero’s sword is currently located at the center of the sancutary, which nowaday is a popular tourist spot. In fact it’s one of the most popular tourist spots in Runaenia. However, there are requirements to enter the sanctuary. Like every other sanctuaries, hero’s sanctuary requires the person to be orderly to enter. For the pulling the hero’s sword part, nothing bad will happen even if you fail. So the Runaenian government made this place a national park, and charges small fees for people to try and pull the hero’s sword. Childrens love it, my purse hates it. At least I don’t have to do anything shady in the mid of night, at least not yet. Plus it only costs 5 silver, I can probably earn it with a couple hours of transporting work.

Most of the people trying to pull the sword is here just for fun, and/or to take pictures. However there are some people who is serious about pulling the sword, including myself. Most of them try a creative approach since it’s obvious they can’t pull it off with shear force. Oh, that girl over there looks serious about pulling the sword, let’s watch how it goes. “Monastic Stance”, oh it’s a monk skill, she just activated monastic stance. Then, mmm… she is punching the platform which the sword is stuck in. Her arms are setting in fire, whoa that’s cool. It must be the passive skill ‘Fire Fist’. Obviously though, the platform didn’t even budge. I think she changed her plan, she is now holding the hilt of the sword, “Qi Kick” she shouts and kicks the platform. Mmm… that didn’t go too well, I think she is injured. The platform must have reflected her skill. Hero’s sword and it’s platform is known to reflect active skills directly targetting either of them. Only reason the ‘Monastic Stance’ wasn’t countered is because it’s casted at the monk herself to enhance her punches and not at the sword or the platform. I hope she is okay, she looks severely injured. At least the medic team is probably coming right now. Oh they are here, well… I guess she’ll be okay.

After the monk girl, 6 people tried to pull the sword. To litterally no one’s surprise, all of them failed. It is now my turn. I am going to try something really crazy, I hope it works. I grab the hilt of the sword and close my eyes. Then I think to myself, ‘store’. After the split second, I open my eyes. Nothing happened, the sword was there without any trace my skill. However, just before I turn to leave, I hear a voice instead my head. “Your skill level is too low kid, come back when your stronger.” This, this, this, gives me hope, hope for my next try, hope for my plan, now I just need to get stronger.

Ace's part (lvl43 Illusionist, Philosopher, Spy, Monk s/h)

I decided to travel to the sleeping forest instead of going to Runaenia. I thought farming silver and exp was more important than practicing the battle moves. Side note, in this continent, there are regions called the Lawlessland, those regions are part of a certain country but not governed or regulated by that country. For example, if you kill an innocent person in Westend Isle, capital of the Coastal Republic, you would go to jail. However, if you kill an innocent person at the Coastside Inn place (Lawlessland), you wouldn't be arrested nor punished. Considering that, people who set up inns there must be really strong. I wanna spar against them someday, but for now I'm going to search for the legendary philosopher's stone, left by the legend.

Melarie's part (lvl3 Nothing)

Ugh, since we met the archer duo, which was 3 days ago, Red Point has been pushing my training a lot. At least it increased my level. Also I found an easy way yesterday.

The conversation went like this.

I said "150kg is insane, this is impossible!". He replied with "Mmm… something is wrong…, wait don't you know something called qi?"

I obviously said, "Wtf is qi? Am I supposed to know it?" He said "mmm… that explains it, ok I'll explain about qi right now". Neat!, he is gonna tell me about the greatest secret of weightlifting! I CAN'T WAIT! He started to speak, "ok so qi is a kind of a lifeforce, mmm… like what makes flowers blossom and stuff like that. Qi comes from the Earth, while Mana comes from the sky. You can control the qi to use skills or endure damage, for your case, to lift weights. " Ok I vaguely understood. "Ok, continue!" I hollered. "Qi regenerates naturally over time, but meditating is best for regeneration, sleeping is also better than nothing. Now try focusing your energy into your lower belly." I tried, I really did, but it didn't work. "Red Point? It's not working."

"Well, it usually doesn't work the first time, you should keep trying for days or even months to grasp the feeling. Though sometimes people grasp the feeling in hours or even minutes, the younger you are the easier you can grasp the feeling of chi." Ok fair enough. I am not that old, well I would say I am young, so I could probably get it faster.

"Melarie, I think I know what you're thinking, by young, I mean at the age of 3 to 13."

He read my mind! How did he do that! Wait a second, I heard that mind reading spells or techniques made the person who was being read, dumber. I'm too young to be dumb! "Stop with the mind reading! I can't be dumb yet! I gotta do tons of stuff before becoming dumb!" He thought for a second, then replied "Alright I'll stop reading your mind, even if your face literally shows what you're thinking."

Ok now he is talking nonsense, I sometimes wonder if he is actually sane or not. It doesn't matter though, because he is one and only Red Point, my Red Point.

Red Point's part (lvl138 DS u)

Ok, I taught Melarie about qi, she couldn't use it at first but after one hour, she got the hang of it. That's quite fast for someone who has never heard of qi before. Not gonna lie, fisherins were a rare race back then, before Country in the Sky was open to everybody. I was genuinely surprised when I saw a fisherin as one of the first creatures I saw. Now though, still rare, fisherins, and zinds probably are nowhere near as rare as before. Fisherins have a passive that can counter close ranged fighters, while zinds have an active innate skill that counters many of the spells. Obviously, both of them are not immune, since fisherin still takes the damage, and zinds have a cooltime, but they are still good against certain kinds of enemies.

Anyways, now I taught Melarie about the qi, I think she can start actual weightlifting. “Melarie, I’ll be increasing the weight of the spear now.”

“WHATT? Already? I just learnt about qi just now!” shouted Melarie. Her face right now is really cute, maybe I should tortu- train her harder. “How heavy will the spear be when you increase the weight?” asked Renova. “It’ll be 300 killogram (661 pounds)”, then I whispered to her “It’ll actually be 500 kilogram (1102 pounds), don’t tell Melarie that though, she will complain harder”. “Whoa! That’s heavy!” Renova exclaimed. “Well, hard training will make her tougher, and that is exactly what she needs to survive in this harsh world, and that’s the best thing I can teach her, I’m not good at speed and magic stuff.” I explained to Renova. “Also, the strength will be a base for the spear skills I will teach her later. Someday, she will thank me for the training I made her go through.”

Ace's part (lvl44 Illusionist, Philosopher, Spy, Monk s/h)

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‘What is life?’ I heard it was patience, suffering, joy, glory, struggle for power, money, love, health, moderation, motivation, assassination, music, art, and so on. Ok, so there are a lot of things in life, then what is a purpose in life? Many different people have many different answers to this matter, but my answer is, you are born without a purpose, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing though, because throughout life, you can choose your purpose. Why am I saying this? Well, for one thing, I gotta choose my path in this world’s progression, and that concerns a lot with my purpose in this world. Being a foreigner in this world is both good and bad at the same time. Choose which one I should explain first, the good one or the bad one? You want the bad one first? Ok, so, since I am not from here, I do not have citizenship anywhere in this country, no tax is a good part, but I can’t get any support or anything from any of the countries that citizens would get. Also, it took me a pretty long time for me to get used to this world, I still got a lot to learn. Good part? NO TAX, and also I get 1.5 times the all the exp gain. I heard everybody from a different world gets this buff, instead of the racial buff that people here would get. That's a good enough buff, especially when you know this world's geography, at least some of it. Mainly because there was a game like this in my world, maybe somebody from this world made it.

Other than that, I found various spells, such as ignis, which makes my hand spew flames, like a flamethrower in my world, and jurzium, it deals high damage and curse stacks the enemy and makes them unable to move or be attacked for couple seconds, people with curse stack will get more damage from all sources, and finally armis, it shoots a ray that if hit, disarms the enemy. These spells are pretty basic but fundamental spells for being a mage in this world. How do I know when I'm not from here? Duh! I read a book about magic. I'll make a magic scroll list on this book I guess. For newbies in magic.

Melarie's part (lvl3 I hate training)

Alright I hate Red Point now. Don't ask me why! I'll tell you before you ask. When I could comfortably hold 300 kilogram after training qi for days, he made it heavier. Now it's 500 kilogram, but it feels heavier! He said "It will help you train" but that's vague. I heard that vague goals aren't good, aren't I genius, hmmm?

"Hey Red Point! I once heard that VAPID goals will make me miserable!"

"What's VAPID?" he asked

Hmph! I am smarter than Red Point, EPIC!

“VAPID means Vague, Amorphous, Pie in the sky, Irrelevant, and Delayed. See, training better is a vague goal, and 500 kilogram is a pie in the sky amount, while it will take forever, which is a delayed part!”

"Melarie, trust me, and just start trying for real! You will start to get stronger quickly if you do so"

"No, that's too hard!" I shouted

"Well, we part our ways here then, goodbye, Melarie."

Noooo, what? He never said he would leave me if I refuse, that's unfair!

"Melarie, you might think what I said is unfair, but the world is unfair, so get used to it."

Ah… he read my mind again! Cheater!

"World might be unfair! But we should try to make it fair! And I can't do that without you!" I started crying. Why? Cause I'm sad now, duh!

I heard him say "Ok, fine, but promise me not to be lazy about your training ever again", as I fainted, I nodded my head.

Nora's part (lvl 53 assassin s)

Alright so I farmed the sunken passage day and night, there was tons of stuff there. Not to be mistaken, sunken passage is a really big maze, it has over 3000 chambers and 10000 passageways. It's a mystery how such a grand thing exists in this world. Anyways, I farmed about 80 chambers . There was loot in only about 30 of them, and some of them had monsters, which I barely survived against, this place is surely dangerous.

Anyways, I made about 550 silvers worth of trinkets and other stuff. If I also sell other stuff like gems and scrolls, I would make about mmm… 1500 silvers. It's a bit more than I expected. Obviously it was with a cost, first it took me 3 days to farm that much, halting my training. Also I got a mental illness called cliffo by accidently looking at the Redo eye, cliffo makes you insane and forces you to dive to death when you walk close to the cliff, so I had to purposely injure both of my legs and crawl to the nearest hospital to survive, and had to pay 50 silver! My money ㅠㅠ. Well at least now I could progress almost to max assassin, I will be able to learn and upgrade more skills that way. Each level in base class costs 50 on average. For super it goes up to 250, for ultra 1250. However it's different by every class and the assassin superclass only costs 160 per level. Much cheaper than the average superclass, which is why many people choose to progress as an assassin. Classes have corresponding skills that you can learn. Right now. My main skills include lethality, bane, triple dagger throw, night’s edge, assassin's leap and some more. I am going to try to make a skill set best suited for the chain lethality combo. Skills like assassin's leap and execution dash are going to be perfect, I haven't had a chance to learn the execution dash, which can be learned from a book after maxing assassin. It costs 15000 silver, damn expensive, gotta save up for that later, cya sunken passage, we were miserable together and I will totally not be looking forward to seeing you again!

As I walked out of the sunken and into the flowerlight city, somebody said in a menacing voice "Hey little assassin, I saw you coming from the sunken, drop all you got or die, and I'm an sigil knight commander ultra class, so better give it now."

It's really funny how karma in this world is just about quests, kills and rots. That's why such an 'orderly' class like sigil knight commander is trying to steal money from me. However, I am not gonna give this money to the sigil, not without a fight!

"Assassinate" I whispered, it's an active skill that sets a target, whom I would deal 20% more damage for 30 seconds.

"Ha? What? Couldn't hear you noob, are you sobbing?" He teased and then said "money NOW!."

"Assassin's leap," I jumped at the sigil, he was 5 meters away but my skill covered that distance in an instant. "Bane," I attacked him with a basic dagger slash and it teleported me right to him even if I missed the attack. "Flame charge" he shouted as his sword bursted into flame. At this point, I knew I had to try to deal as much damage with combo before he could fight back. "Triple dagger throw" 3 daggers popped into existence and launched at my enemy, one right at I aimed and other 2 at 30 degrees arc to different directions from the middle. As soon as one of those hit him, I attacked him with basic dagger attacks. For the dagger basic attack, if I manage to attack him 5 times successfully in a row, it would do extra damage and knock him back. That's called a full basic combo, and I succeeded in doing that. What I failed on, however, was dashing fast enough to his knocked location to start the next combo, as a consequence of this mistake, he got up. Mmm… that's not good!

Ace's part (lvl45 Illusionist + 3 s/h)

It was this day I met her for the first time, a curious person really. I traveled from North Sentinel Republic to Kalania then to the Flower Light city from the other way. I have gained several levels that I haven't spent yet while traveling for a couple days and fighting new kinds of mobs. I was going to stay at an inn in the flowerlight town before I set off on my adventure, when I heard the sound of a bane being used.

To investigate what was happening, I went to the entrance of the flowerlight town on the sleeping forest side. It was a minute run there. When I arrived at the sound, I saw an assassin fighting against a sigil knight commander, I could tell from their skills and weapon. I saw the assassin do a full basic combo, then failing to connect to the next skill. Sigil commander took that chance to "flame charge" as he said this, his sword ignited. Then he took a leap then “charged blow” a cut in the air ignited in fire, aimed right at the assassin, as the assassin said “night’s edge” a barrier appeared around the assassin and nullified the attack.

Assassin then used "Buffed agility", the same skill you can learn from getting spy, however I didn't learned it yet, it makes you faster for a duration"

Assassin fled in my direction, probably to regroup, I asked what was going on. The assassin said that the Sigil Commander Ultra class tried to steal the stuff she farmed from the sunken. I decided to take the assassin's word for it and readied myself to help the fight against the sigil. "Ice charge", sigil's sword was covered by ice, when he used "charged blow", giant ice appeared in front of the sigil as we dodged the attack. I casted my fire spell 'ignis' and my hand started to spray fire in front of me, knocking back the sigil who was on fire now, but not for long though, because it went out as the sigil rolled on the ground. However it gave just enough time for the assassin to attack 3 times before sigil blocked the 4th one. "Dagger's tip" then the assassin broked the sigil's block and poisoned the sigil. "Lethality!" Yes, I know this skill, it's really scary, as I was thinking that in my head, the assassin disappeared and then there were several cuts in sigil body. When assassin reappeared, I knew sigil had low hp, because the assassin used assassin's leap, which has 50 seconds cooldown by the way, and then the sigil was down. Assassin gripped the sigil (gripping means killing in a formal way), then said "Neat, he must have had 900 silver worth of stuff, I just got 450 into my pocket." So basically when you grip somebody, you get half their possession converted into silver, and they will lose a life, if it's their last life, they will truly die. I found some books that said people were reborn in this world, but I can't be sure about that. Right now I have 3 lives, which is what you start with. I died once a couple months ago but I got a phoenix down from the flowerlight town a month after my loss of life and could regenerate one of my lives.

"Here take 150 silver, I think that's a reasonable amount for you", the assassin said. "Thanks" I replied. "I'm Nora Antonio" I am also from Earth like you. "Ok, so this Nora person knew I was from Earth, how interesting. "I am Ace Lee, nice to meet you Nora," I replied. "Well, Earthfolk, wanna eat dinner together? To celebrate our victory," she said. I replied with "Sure, what do you want to eat?"