“Well, that certainly looks boring” Lucas thought to himself as he finished a introduction video presenting him something called “Sword slasher”, a class that was all about slashing with a sword. Lucas utterly failed comprehending why this class was even an option. Furthermore, he failed to see the allure in any of the classes he watched. Sure, some of them looked powerful and he could see himself in some of them, but just barely. No other class had the right mix of speed and mobility combined with a high potential damage output, even though it was sometimes slow on the uptick. Anyways, he had stuff to do and places to be tomorrow so he put everything aside and went to sleep.
Usual chatter that adorned the woods in the morning woke him up and he immediately shot up from the bed, finding the old Loremaster already awake.
“Care for breakfast?” Bruce offered, by his side some hearty food radiating warmth. Lucas dived right in, finding himself pleasantly surprised as prompt appeared, System notifying him he ate some fucking good food.
“You ate Bountiful Breakfast. All stats increased by +5 for the next twelve hour”
Bruce was already smiling, his mouth to full to properly mock Lucas for his surprise. Lucas wasn’t completely ignorant on this, however, having contact with this kind of food already. Of course, he didn’t eat it much, due to it being pretty expensive, especially for someone like Lucas, a young orphan with no inherited wealth. And they were a hassle to carry while on jobs.
“Good food” Lucas spoke while stuffing himself. Bruce just nodded, his face radiating pleasure and smugness in equal measures. Lucas had to admit it was well deserved, seeing as the crafty Loremaster supplied them with a high – quality meal in the middle of the woods.
“How did you manage to do this” Lucas decided to sate his curiosity and learn something more about the resources his mentor possessed.
“I told you, I still have friends in town. I called in a few favors and here are the results. And also, I made sure to leave a opening for you entry into the town after we reach the needed level” Bruce responded, and Lucas once again felt under tension. It was obvious the old man was looking for an answer and Lucas still didn’t have a clue what his moves should be.
“Actually, I know exactly what the best move here is. But I just cannot shake the feeling of cowardice” Lucas corrected himself, as he did an ungodly amount of time during his downtime yesterday. Faces of his now dead comrades haunted his vision and no amount of reassuring both them and himself that he is going to deal with Michael didn’t appease anything. The fact remained that he just ran, while everyone else stayed and fight.
“Why are you so interested in this matter? You don’t exactly strike me as a politics kind of guy” Lucas asked, stalling for time.
“Well, I wasn’t. But if the General succeeds, the effects on Earth are going to be catastrophic” Bruce responded, his general demeanor still expecting.
“The multiverse is vast” Lucas said, an echo of his thought from their yesterday’s conversation.
“And exactly how are you hoping to explore it? Do you have any means to leave the planet?” Bruce retorted.
“Not yet, but in time” Lucas said, before Bruce interjected “In time, all traveling will be restricted, except for a chosen few”
“How can you be so sure of that?” Lucas asked, visibly frustrated by the flow of the conversation.
“Because you have to keep control, and how will you be able to do that if there are rogue individuals, groups or whole communities that you just cannot reach? Use your brain for a second, child” Bruce answered, matching Lucas’s frustration with his anger over Lucas’s obstinacy.
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“And what happens if I help you? You will just take over? How do I know you will not just do the same thing?” Lucas asked, hoping his sudden shift will threw Bruce a little of balance.
“Easy, you will take over, and then you will make me your governor. This way you have complete control over the big picture while I deal with the minutia of it all.” Bruce answered and then quickly continued his speech, seeing a big frown on Lucas face “Second benefit of this arrangement will be that you will have a proper support system in place, allowing you to train and develop without the burden of maintaining a good logistic network behind you. And believe me, a proper logistic is a lot of time difference between dying and achieving higher levels” he finished his suggestion.
Lucas was displeased with the turn the conversation took, but he entertained the idea he just heard. He knew the basics of settlement managing System provided, at least enough to verify Bruce was telling the truth about the governor thing. Still, managing a settlement is a huge commitment and despite insurances from Bruce he will be free from all of the chores, he highly doubted that. Still, the old Loremaster was telling the truth, a good support system often made a difference. If it wasn’t so, even Lucas realized there where would only be highly powerful individuals flowing through the empty multiverse, and Lucas was fairly certain most sentient beings would dislike that outcome.
“Take some more time to process everything, we will talk later. Now, onwards to more training” Bruce thankfully ended this conversation. Lucas eagerly nodded his head and with a simple “Follow me” Bruce started going to the east. They were marching for about one hour, Lucas forced multiple times to slow down, as his new passive skill built up his speed extremely, to the level he was forced to turn it off. Rounding up the thick tree line, Lucas and Bruce found them staring at the large beach with a body of water that could measure with any pre – System ocean. Lucas had a vague notion he should know where they exactly were. Fortunately for him, Bruce was a never ending font of information.
“We stand at the Deep Blacker Sea. As you can guess, if you remember the lessons from two days before, this is what was known as the Black Sea during pre – System geography. How did it found itself here, so far from its former location is still a mystery, like so many more head twisters System throw at us with its geography. What is known, however, is that System increased its depth by fifty of it’s former depth, while remaining the same length. Hence the name.” Bruce explained.
“Our goal, however, is close to the shore. If you would look to your right, you will spot wreckage. That wreckage is now dungeon, with heavy accent on long forgotten treasures and slumbering guardians, as is tradition with old forgotten wreckages here on Earth.” Bruce continued, while Lucas tried to locate the landmark Bruce spoke about. What he saw left him speechless. A massive juggernaut of steel and armature stood overturned to his right, so near to the shore that it almost looked like someone threw him from somewhere further into the sea, where it looked like the sea and sky connect. Bruce continued about type of enemies found and what was expected in haul, but Lucas stopped listening to him somewhere after hearing the average level of creatures found there was about forty. He just stood there, gazing longingly at the wreckage, eager to enter it and start exploring. After some time, he realized Bruce stopped talking and threw him a questioning look. The old Loremaster gently nodded and that was enough for Lucas, as he immediately started running towards his goal. It took him less than five minutes to cross the distance, his passive skill proving his worth and he arrived at the base of the massive ship. What was standing in front of him was a conspicuous breach in the hull and Lucas could say for certain it represented entrance into the dungeon. He admired the quality of the steel used in building the ship, looking like something that could hold its ground against newer, mana – infused materials Earth had today. Just before he entered, a sharp whistle drew his attention. Bruce was running full throttle, trying to catch up to Lucas. He waited for the old man and when he caught up to him he took a second to catch his breath before reaching into his pocket and taking out a incredibly white looking stone.
“Take this and don’t be afraid to use it. It will defeat the point of training if you die” Bruce said to him. Lucas took the stone in his palm and inspected it with “Eye for details”.
Training stone (Common)
This stone is linked to the anchor point, allowing for a quick teleportation in radius of 50 kilometers from it. Name is derivate from its common use as a training tool, allowing a student to quickly extract itself from dangerous situation. Breaks after use.
“Of course, I’m the anchor and dungeons don’t increase the range, due to its spatial nature. And remember, there is no shame in using it. Doing dungeons solo is hard” Bruce spoke.
Lucas just nodded and prepared himself for the challenges ahead.