In an empty library standing by a wooden bookcase was a young man reading a book. His hands could feel the brown leather of the book indicating its age and good care.
The rest of the library was plunged into darkness, with books lined up on their respective shelves and the room's chandeliers unlit.
The pages of the book were moving slowly in the young man's hands, only illuminated by a candle that was melting little by little.
Outside the castle walls a storm was beating down with its raindrops gently hitting the large windows of the library along with the occasional gusts of wind that interrupted that delicate rhythm.
The young man seemed to be engrossed in reading, his eyes fixed on the book in front of him with an expression of concentration on his face.
In the beginning, there was nothing, so the gods created the world, a place full of beauty and unexplored landscapes, where in every corner there was one wonder after another hidden behind every mountain and forest.
When the gods observed their actions, they were filled with pride, and even so, in the midst of such beauty, something was missing, the world was... empty. Realizing this, the gods in their infinite wisdom decided to create life.
While each god chose to create his own species, not all of them were equally successful; goblins, orcs, trolls, and some other species were so evil that they fell out of favor with their creators.
The great god of light, Garian, leader of all the gods, used his hands to mold from nothing a creature that had a small part of his charm: humans.
Garian took the stars as inspiration to create a being of light like himself. He forms the spleen from a-
Zack decided to skip this part where humans were the most perfect creature in the universe and everyone else isn't. This was the third book Zack had read, and he knew what he was going to put before he read it.
The kingdom in which Zack and his companions find themselves is Parmece, a country with strong nationalism, mainly inhabited by humans, highly warlike, and in constant struggle with its neighbors on the northern continent.
The world is divided into five continents: the southern continent which is inhabited by elves, the eastern continent which is inhabited by dwarves and humans, the central continent which is inhabited by elves, dwarves, and humans, the northern continent which is inhabited by demons, and the western continent, which is uninhabitable.
All areas of the kingdom, social, literary, artistic, and military, show an aversion towards foreigners, as well as an exaltation of the figure of human beings.
Parmece is at the northern end of the central continent and blocks the connection point between the two continents. Due to its constant war with its neighbors to the north, the country has developed a strong bond of unity around the figure of its King Terence II, together with... a hatred of other races.
Zack flipped through the pages of the book in his hands trying to find what he had set out to find in the first place, this book didn't even have religion as its main theme and even so, it appears every three pages.
(Blah blah blah, elves were created by imitating humans, blah blah blah, dwarves were jealous of human magnificence, blah blah blah. Here!)
The humans and allied races found themselves hemmed in by the other races, who had used their gifts for violence instead of harmony and cooperation among themselves. For this reason, the god of light Garian, together with those who were still loyal to him, decided to create a unique power for themselves with which they could defeat the traitors and return order to the world: the class system.
That is, Zack was finding out about the main difference between his home and this world, the classes.
Not all beings in the world have classes, with the information obtained from these books it was difficult to determine the criteria by which species have classes and which do not, but according to what Zack had read, a certain degree of awareness and self-perception is needed by a species to have classes.
When an individual has exceeded a certain limit of intelligence, he is given the only tier 0 class, Infant.
No matter what race you are, that will be your first class. Once the system has considered that you have enough maturity, you will be granted your tier 1 class. A higher tier class will never be granted, the only exception is…
(The summoning of heroes) Zack thought while he continued reading.
In the case of humans, the infant class is acquired at the age of one, and your tier 1 class at eight years. Unlike the infant class, your tier 1 class will vary based on your actions during that period.
While your education after birth can manipulate the direction in which your class will focus, there is no certain set of actions by which you are guaranteed to get a specific class; if you were taught about minerals you will probably get classes as a collector or craftsman, and if you instead focus on reading books you can get classes as a wizard or scholar.
In the book was a large list of the different classes one can obtain and their respective progressions.
The way to rank up a class is to level up. There are two ways to level up, but they're basically the same: do everything your class should be able to do.
The first way is to do what your class says: if you are a blacksmith, forge weapons, if you are a bard, play music, etc… The level goes up with the practice of your respective class.
The second way is to find out what your class can do. For example, if you are a swordsman learning one or several sword fighting styles will increase your level even if you don't attack anyone with it, similarly if you are a blacksmith and you learn how to make exotic weapons you will level up even if in your day by day you only forge spears. And for better or worse this second way of leveling up has brought with it an unfortunate consequence: Knowledge in this world is much more valuable than it was on Earth.
For example, a recipe for a special type of candy may be a baker's family heirloom or a sculptor's technique is something to take with him to the grave.
What is even worse is that due to the difficulty of making books most of the knowledge is transmitted orally from generation to generation so if a person had an accident then knowledge hundreds of years old could be lost without anyone knowing.
Zack looked up from the book and looked around where thousands of books were sitting on the shelves, waiting to be opened to share their knowledge.
On Earth, this would have been a normal sight in any library, but here the presence of these books demonstrates the power and wealth held by the royal family.
With a sigh, Zack closed the book he was reading and put it in his place, after which he left the library and headed toward his bedroom.
Once he got there he opened the door and lay down on the bed.
Zack closed his eyes, exhausted.
The events that had happened today are something that even in his wildest fantasies he would not believe possible.
Zack thought about Ronald for a moment before dispersing that thought, he had already done everything possible, if his bet works out everything will be fine, otherwise Zack will probably wake up in prison. It doesn't make sense to think about it.
Zack relaxed his body and got ready to sleep, tomorrow he needed the energy to face his new reality.
Zack opened his eyes and suddenly remembered something incredible.
He got up for a confused moment and said:
“Did I just read three books in less than two hours?”