“Hello everyone,” Nikki said. “I’m happy that so many people answered our call. We plan to formulate a basic cooperation between everyone here and start forming a plan for the Upheaval. This will take some time and effort. I ask that everyone has patience and cooperate with our instructions. Also, anyone that has leadership experience please come forward to assist us.”
“Hey Sam, you should go up,” Brad said. “You currently have a job in upper management, right?”
“Fuck that,” Sam replied. “I didn’t come to a world filled with magic to spend my time reading pointless documents and emails. I’ll die ten times on the battlefield before I even think of returning to that life.”
“Amen,” Britney added.
“The first thing we need is information,” Adam said. “I would like to ask for everyone to separate into groups based on their class. We need to have an understanding of how many people will be participating in the Upheaval and what they specialize in.”
“What if we don’t want to reveal our class?” An elven asked. “Some of us have reached the first tier and no longer have the six basic class.”
“You can choose to join the group you think represents your current class the best.”
A few minutes, and a lot of shuffling later, people had formed groups based on the six starting classes. Someone came through each group and asked a person their name while making sure they understood what group they were in. At first, Zane was confused why someone would check to see if he understood what group he was in. However, it didn’t take long for him to understand why.
More than a few people were seen leaving the six groups after the people taking down names spoke to them. Zane was surprised to see that some people could mess up such basic instructions. It made him feel a little bit of worry for their ability to work together and defeat the Upheaval. However, it also made him more confident in Adam and the others leadership skills. They were able to predict such a situation occurring and made preparations for it.
Something else that surprised Zane was how balanced people were among the six classes. He expected to see more laborers and craftsman based on his understanding of the different worlds. The mage class would have been the next most popular class. It would be followed by warrior mystic and then walker. Either the Divine Spirits or the system influenced who went where and created the current balance.
People were able to leave the groups for the six classes and rejoin their original groups that were much smaller. Everything was going well, and Zane was excited to see what the next step would be. However, he could have never predicted how dreadful the next step would be.
Endless talking with no end in sight. People would take turns standing up to make suggestion and everyone would be able to discuss the benefits and harm of their suggestions. Countless ideas, countless questions and countless answers. Zane started to hate every second that he sat through the endless talking. However, what he hated the most was that the discussions were actually beneficial.
The talking led to a better understanding of their strength and how it could be used to defeat the Upheaval. Zane could see a clear plan starting to form, but the creation of the plan had nothing to do with him. Zane experienced an Upheaval before, but his experience didn’t give him the skills needed to create a good plan or lead others. So, Zane spent his time sitting in silence and suffering. However, nobody would be willing to suffer forever.
Zane decided to activate Meditation and continue training his Mana Manipulation and Mana Control. He didn’t want to draw too much attention to himself, so Zane created weapons that were very small with his mana. It was difficult in the beginning, but Zane became more familiar with the process as time passed. Eventually, Zane managed to easily form weapons that were as small as his fingers.
I never thought of training my mana by forcing it to become smaller, Zane thought to himself. I usually focus on controlling and manipulating larger amounts of mana, but it seems like focusing on small amounts of mana is also a good way to train. In the future I can use this method more often. It’s true that the best way to improve yourself is to go through struggles and hardships. I would have never figured out this method if I wasn’t forced to suffer through this planning session.
Mentally, Zane started patting himself on the back. He was able to overcome his difficult situation and even managed to benefit from it. However, the pleasure of success was fleeting. Zane was extremely focused on mana and the little bit of focus he had left over was spent on praising himself. Therefore, he was unable to notice the slap approaching the back of his head.
“What do you two think you’re doing,” Sophie scolded mentally. “Your actions are rude and offensive. If you keep this up do you really think nobody would notice.”
Rubbing his head Zane turned to see Sophie glaring at him. She then turned her head to glare at Jason before glaring back at Zane. Zane hung his head in repentance and Jason mimicked his actions. Once Sophie stopped paying attention to them, they both shot each other a grin before turning their attention back to the endless talking.
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Part of Zane felt like Sophie was being unfair. He wasn’t trying to be rude. He wasn’t helping by sitting down doing nothing and he wanted to use his time in a more productive way. After all it wasn’t like he could stand up and leave.
A light appeared in Zane’s mind bringing him clarity. He could stand up and leave. Since staying was pointless to him why not leave. Zane stood up and interrupted the man currently speaking to speak to Adam.
“I have a suggestion,” Zane announced.
“Zane someone else was speaking,” Adam stated with a slight frown. “We have a system in place and if you want to speak you at least have till way until the current person finishes speaking.”
“Thank you for letting me speak Adam. While planning is important, I think getting stronger is also important. I trust your ability to create a suitable plan to face the Upheaval. While you’re doing that, my friends and I will focus on getting stronger so we can be more effective in the plan you create.” Zane waved as he started walking away. “See you later and try not to work too hard.”
Immediately after Zane started walking away, Jason, Sam, Britney and Shane stood up to follow him. The others hesitated for a few seconds before standing up and joining the five of them. As Zane walked away with a smile on his face, he heard other people following his lead and leaving.
“I was close to reaching max level in a skill that will be useful for the Upheaval.” a woman said. “I’m going to go perfect it now. Goodbye.”
“I forgot I have some quest to hand in,” a man said. “I will be able to receive a lot of experience and improve my level for the Upheaval. Goodbye.”
“I think I left the stove on. Goodbye.”
After a few minutes, more than half of the people left the arrival location. It was clear to see that Zane wasn’t the only person who wanted to leave. Many people were happy that Zane took the lead and left. However, there were a few people who were angry at the chain reaction he started.
“That guy named Zane is really a troublemaker,” a woman with short blond hair said. “If he wanted to leave, he could have left quietly. A few words and he caused everybody to run away. If I see him again, I’ll teach him a lesson and make sure he learns to keep his thoughts to himself.”
“Typical humans,” a male elven said. “Week willed and in capable of behaving in an orderly manner. If we fail the Upheaval Defense quest it will be because of your race.”
“You-”
“Stop,” Nikki commanded. “Being disrespectful to the human race is damaging to our overall teamwork. Your leader already told you to work with us and be helpful. I’m sure you don’t want us to find her and explain how uncooperative you are.” The elven looked away and Nikki continued speaking.
“We don’t have to worry about people leaving. We expected this to happen from the beginning.”
“We did?” the blond woman asked.
“We did,” Adam answered. “Why do you think I mentioned that we will be hosting meetings every morning and evening until the Upheaval? We only needed people to stay so we could get a rough count of the people we could expect to participate in the Upheaval. We didn’t need all these people to help with planning. I’m sure you noticed that most of the people didn’t say a single word the entire time.”
“Then why didn’t you tell them to leave earlier?”
“I didn’t expect them to participate and I’m happy they didn’t. if they did things would have become much more chaotic. The reason why I kept them around was to see if they had any information that could be useful. There’s a lot we don’t know and the people that left were able to provide us with information. A few of them spoke up out of boredom or to refute what we initially thought was correct. Also, Zane was right in saying that it would be better for him to focus on getting stronger. We can’t place all our focus on creating a good plan. We need powerful people capable of carrying out that plan.”
The blond woman started to nod as Adam finished speaking. “You’re right but I still don’t like the way he acted as he left.”
“A word of advice,” Jade said while brushing back her green hair. “Zane is extremely powerful so if you plan to teach him a lesson make sure it’s a verbal one and you do it inside the starting village. Now, I think it’s time for us to get back to work. I think we should go against Zane’s advice and try to work as hard as possible. Everyone’s success in the Upheaval rest on the plan we create.”
Zane’s group had no idea that the disruption Zane caused was something Adam expected and preferred to happen. Britney and Jason openly applauded Zane’s actions while Shane and Sam were more covert in their praise. Sophie openly scolded Zane and told him that he should have discussed leaving with the group first. Once everyone agreed, they could have discreetly left the arrival area. Brad and the rest took a neutral approach to the situation.
“Although Zane could have chosen a better way to leave, I don’t think leaving was a bad decision to make,” Frank said.
“Yup,” Brad added. “I’m pretty sure that all of us were ready to leave that place. I was actually starting to fall asleep back there.”
“Boring,” Lana said.
“Zane can’t escape guilt because it worked out in the end,” Sophie said, “For the next four days you aren’t allowed to eat.”
“I’m going to upgrade to the next tier tomorrow or the day after,” Zane said. “Am I supposed to go through my upgrade on an empty stomach?”
“Fine, you can eat before the upgrade, but no food for the next four days after your upgrade.
“What about the Upheaval? Am I supposed to face an Upheaval on an empty stomach?”
“I, you-” Sophie stopped trying to speak and folded her arms. She silently glared at Zane to convey the annoyance she felt.
“I’m glad that we left the arrival location, but where are we headed to?” Shawn asked. “I know Zane said that we would focus on getting stronger but what does that mean? Will be separating to train, or will we go kill mana creatures as a group to gain experience? I would prefer working on my skills by the shelter. I don’t think killing mana creatures is what will give me the greatest increase in strength at the moment.”
“I thought about it,” Zane said “I think what we should do right now is complete the den quest and then everyone can go where they feel like they can improve the fastest. I plan on heading to mage training ground so I can practice my Mana Manipulation and Mana Control skills. Everyone should follow the path that will help them reach the first tier before the Upheaval.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Britney said.
“Then if nobody has any complaints, let’s head over and get the den quest from the Quest Hall,” Sophie said.