Chapter 1

Orion try to make his footsteps as light as a small child just like the claim of the older hunters brought home the larger game. Of course it was much easier for them because there new things like agility skills and acquired skills that help them be more quiet due to the time they had invested. Orion being a level 5 guarantee that compared to the other hunter’s themselves around 15 even 20 was at a disadvantage when it came to hunting. He looked around, the tops of the forests blocked most of the light coming in, some directly still shown through the leaves. Compared creatures in the distance most he recognized the few he did not. 

          The things he did not know about his small world he tried not to think about, at first it was opposite. The world to him seemed like magic itself and if he could just go beyond where he had been before he could see things that can only imagine.an online realize that what he could imagine the pitiful compared to what's actually out there. 

Orion continued what he had been doing the past hour, slowly going through the forest making sure not to step on anything such as groups of small twigs that break with the sound of a screaming child. For a moment he was focused to the deer in front of him, he knew he had gained a new passive skill for the bow recently that had slightly improved is accuracy over short distances. Yet thoughts of recent events still invaded his mind.

Orion found out accidentally three days ago that his namesake city had been attacked and is now under siege by the rival kingdom his nation had been at war with on-and-off over the few decades but now had had a piece home more like a switch to a Cold War for the past several months. Recruiters had been coming to the villages in order to bring up more troops to retake the city staring at the main Army was several weeks away. When the recruiters came to his village his father had sent him into the forest with a bow with the pretense of ranking up his bow skill and hopefully unlocking the first bow mastery. There are over thousand ranks per skill and if the rumors were to believe if your skill was of the uncommon variety or even rarer there would be more ranks. 

Most things you do and all abilities or actions related to combat were represented by a corresponding skill in your Life menu. From there you can see your core stats, the passive abilities you have acquired and skills unlocked with their ranks.

Strength agility intelligence wisdom luck and endurance Orion chanted that in his head over and over again trying to so now what was happening in the world around him to what was in front. Those words were the six main categories of a person's body and given enough life points can make you superhuman. If you train your body you could level yourself and in turn two new points were granted to you be put into any of the six categories at your discretion. The average level of the village was 4 and with Orion near 5 only those who fought or lived longer that were hunters of some sort were higher than him. Orion thoughts were cut off Brandon's speed yet again stepping on a branch, the deer and final quickly ran away at the sound.

“Brandon!” Orion yelled 

“You wanted me to help you learn how to shoot a bow but if you don't at least try to do what I had asked it's a waste of both of our free time”

 “I don’t mean to” Brandon complained

 “You never do I don't think you’re as serious about this is you should be”

 Brandon stopped looked at the ground for a moment kick the branch of the tree that was sticking out. His face was a mix between rigidness and sadness 

“I don't want to get killed” Brandon finally said more to himself than to Orion.

 When the recruiters came to the village unlike Orion Brandon had been forcibly assigned to the military forces and they were coming today to pick him up along with the other men so two of them spent the last several days working on breaking up Brandon's bow skill. Brandon's current skill level was 20 while Orion's was 97 and for the common version of bow skill having the highest rank 1000 it was clear to see what the common person was what the greatest are.

Orion walked over to Brandon and pulled the ax out of Brandon's belt and shoved it into this freehand 

“This will keep you alive not that bow can barely fire or the sneaking you can't do” Orion stated

They both laughed at the truth of it 

“Now I think it work better if you swing that ax of yours and I support you from the back after all between the points you have acquired in those passive skills I think between the two of us you can take more hits”

 Orion said smiling as he looked behind him.

After some time as they neared the village a question occurred to Brandon 

“So how long has your brother been in the Army now?”

Orion thought for a moment as he gazed around thing the village from atop the hill. 

"It's been nearly 5 years"

His brother unlike him and never lost his strong desire to see the world but in his case that world was a bloody one. Two years after his brother joined the sun war started in the southern land has been claimed by no nation. He remembered when his brother had left, family was never good with goodbyes. Their father had shaken his brothers and in their mother's soft words and a bag of food.

Orion wanted a land of his own, a place where he could manage his city build the walls from the ground up but do that to break up the shell this was first step. Now they were the village center where all the boys and men that had been picked were waiting. They all had their families around them soon after him and Brandon's families standing beside each other waiting for them to come to say goodbye. 

“Boys your back did you get anything?”

Orion looked at Brandon could tell by the expression of his face that he embarrassed to say so he stepped in. 

“Brandon had many battles that could be sought after as an example of Masters, his bounty could feed 8000 giant men that is those men could eat trees”

 Both of the families laughed and they each went to their own, Orion could tell the mood was better. 

“Well it's a good thing I planned for that

With that Brandon's mother opened a pack revealing an assortment of food 

“Orion I made this with your mother so that the both of you would have full meals for the next week”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

 Inside the pack were also bread apples even meat wrapped in cloth, and it seemed to Orion this could last or more were likely would more than a week and he was very grateful.

Still he was shocked at the quantity of food in one place not for a special occasion. Then the thought came to him that this was a special occasion, the difference was this was a bad one. Orion thanked his and Brandon's mother 

All you have to do is make sure you come home safe and in one piece” responded Brandon's mother

 “I will ma'am, and I will make sure Brandon's there with me” Orion answered. 

Brandon went back over to his family and Orion looked back at his. His father was a man in his fifty’s with short gray and white hair, he was wearing a brown vest with a white shirt under it. His mother was standing next to him wearing a simple blue dress with her brown hair falling past her shoulders. 

“I want you to wear this at all times, our family has served this nation proudly for the last twenty five years and in that time I have gotten few things that saved my life and I hope it will save yours to”

 And with that his father held up his sword, nearly three feet long of good steel and a simple handle. Orion thought his father would give him something but not something so dear to his father. 

“Are you sure father?”

 “I am, I need you to give this to your brother when you see him”

 This is the only way he could keep me safe, by promising to give this sword his brother. As soon as Orion turned his mother hugged him 

“All you have to do is come back, that’s it. Just remember we are here waiting for you”

 “I will mom” 

And with that he joined Brandon and the others men leaving the village. When they start to walk away he wasn't sure how well the promise he had just made would be kept in the end. Orion look behind the group they are making their way out of the village and all the families watching them leave, it would not be a stretch to say that not everybody was going to come back and there was a chance that none of them would. His village was in a valley so he could clearly see it once again as he left, it made a circle on the relatively small opening to allow paddlers to come in and in this case for him and Brandon to leave. If he did return Orion thought the person he is now would never return and he wasn't sure how he felt about that.

It was night now after a few hours of walking and they'd stop for the night now instead of some small road surrounded by trees there were sitting in a wide open area with farms dotted here and there in roads that splintered throughout. In the group he and Brandon were in there were only about a dozen people and none of them liked either he or Brandon. This was mainly Orion’s fault considering how distant he was in for Brandon he never did any favors for people at his father's forge so they get something for free. Also the fact that both spoke their minds when people asked about something, after all what can Brandon do Bruce's father charged prices that were too high for what the work was in that hatred passed from father to son. 

Open life menu Orion commanded to the air, a blue floating menu appeared before Orion displayed his six core stats and looked over the values. 

Strength 8

Agility 5

Intelligence 2

Wisdom 2

Luck 3

Endurance 4

 His total point’s at level 3 are 24 when it should be 15 that was because he was born with a rare blood variant that gave him eight life points when he was born to each core instead of the usual five. Beyond the three extra points at the start of his life instead of 5 points each time he leveled he earned 8 due to the passive ability he earned from the rare variant called Easier was what allowed him to level faster than the usual and with more soul points each time he did. As Orion looked over his stats of his cores Brandon was continuing to poke the fire with a stick, due to the relationship with them and the other men they decided to camp farther away from the group. Orion closed the menu after confirming he needed to kill one or two more creatures from this area to level up again spoke up so Brandon could hear 

“Brandon it’s late we should go to sleep now in order to be rested for the morning”

 Brandon looked up from the fire to him 

“What is going to happen to us?”

 Orion took a deep breath before answering 

“We will go the rest of the men from our village to wherever the new Army is stationed so that soon will be ready to free the city of Orion and save my brother”

 he said cold automatic voice like he had heard so many others say these past few hours, it was something seemingly believed would happen with no thought of failure. Brandon could see that Orion did not have as much faith as others did 

“But do you really think we can?” Brandon asked doubtfully

 Orion laid down on his makeshift bed on the ground 

“The brave ones are usually the ones that don't come back”

 Orion was awakened suddenly by Branden with fear in his eyes and with that Orion was worried to what is it he thought as he quickly lifted himself up. In truth something going wrong in the first day was so unsurprising is was expected now he just want to know how bad.

“Everyone!” Brian stands up and started pacing around pointing his hands from one direction to another

 “Everyone who we're traveling with and their supplies are gone!”

 Rhine's eyes widened, he thought this would been a possibility didn't think they would actually do it. 

“Maybe they thought the two of us would die on the road” Orion offered in response without thinking.

 This made Brandon even more worried about what was going to happen to them. He regretted saying in the first place and tried to calm Brandon down because between the two of them even though he was scared too relaxing Brandon would be the best in this situation. 

“Brandon we will be all right, we can see their tracks they are probably going to a town we heard about from the recruiter if we follow their footprints we should be fine” Orion pointed to the footprints to the right of them.

Brandon looked into the direction that Rhine pointed in a measured relief could be seen on his face. Saying nothing Brandon grabbed Orion sword off the ground and handed it to him

“So what do we just keep walking until we see town that hopefully is a place that we're supposed to go to in the first place?”

Orion started walking down the road 

“Pretty much, come on, we have a long way to go”

 Brandon quickly followed from behind which was good because the worry on Orion's face he feared was clearly showing and the shame of walking back to the village to tell what happened is too much for him to think about.

“I can't give you answers I can't get myself answers I only know that if we walked down this path we have a chance, so let's see if we can figure out what to do next.”