"Hello new arrivals! Welcome to Aeon!"

He looked around for a bit and saw that he was in the middle of a large group of people. He tried to use identify a few times and saw that pretty much every was a salient since he was still getting the [N/A] tags on them. They were in a well lit domed room made of stone. He couldn't tell where the light was coming from and even as he glanced down he couldn't see any shadows that pointed to the light coming from above. There was only one opening in the wall for entrance and exit that had a set of double doors that were opened outward. In the doorway stood a tall man in what looked like priest's robes in gray with a smile on his face. The hood was up and covered his hair but there was a look of definite joy in his electric blue eyes.

[Terrasi][Priest]

"If you all would please calm down for a moment. Thank you. I'm here to provide you a bit of an explanation as I'm sure many of you are confused and have questions. For the more detailed matters you'll have to speak to your mentor, which I will be leading you all to meet shortly after this. So allow me to get some of the answers to the more common questions out of the way first. You had a choice to be here, so no you can't leave and go back to wherever. No, you don't necessarily have to go through the entire trial if you don't want to. Yes, you're free to make your own choices. Yes, killing things is common and how most people progress but it doesn't mean there aren't other ways. No, residents are not mindless...umm...what was it...NPCs. Some residents are even former salients like yourselves. Are there any more immediate questions?"

"Where are we?"

"Temple. First layer of Aeon."

"What are we supposed to do?"

"For now we wait until your mentors are ready. Then I'll bring you to meet them and they can help you figure out what you should be doing from there."

"Isn't there some king or something we're supposed to meet?"

"There are several sovereign rulers but this is a neutral zone so you likely won't meet one soon and unless you're in their territory then I don't believe you would ever have to meet one. I'm not involved in those politics, though."

He stood there silently as he listened to the man answer all the questions people threw at him. His gaze wandered around the room and all the people in it. He tried to to start counting people to see how many were here and soon lost track after about a hundred. Using that as an estimate he figured there had to be several hundred people, maybe even a thousand, all standing around in this room. Having them all go through the door was likely to take a long time.

"Alright, I believe it's about time. You'll see some other priests in the hall as you leave that will be pointing you in the direction to go. Please start coming out of there and head to the yard where your mentors await."

Everyone started to flow out of the room like a dam had been broken. They went through the halls, taking turns when directed by the priests standing around, until they could see the light of the outdoors shining through while another priest stood just outside the doorway repeatedly shouting the same announcement every few second to make sure that everyone could her them.

"Please head towards the person with a 'Mentor' tag!"

He looked around as he finally stepped onto the grass and saw that people were forming groups across the wide expanse of the yard. There was a low stone wall that would barely come up to his knees surrounding the yard, which he had to guess was at least a hundred square meters in size. Beyond that wall he could see buildings in almost every direction and the stone building they had just come out of behind him seemed to be placed directly in the middle of the yard. He also saw one particular person who stood out from everyone else in a unique way: there was the word 'Mentor' above their head.

He walked in their direction and saw a few people already standing their looking awkwardly around. He joined them and looked his mentor over while identifying her. Compared to all the salients like him nearby, who had the simple grey shirt and brown pants they started with, she wore a nice dress that was mostly black but had little silver sparkles that shone here and there, reminding him of a starry night. What he could see of her footwear looked like black leather combat boots and her hands were covered by black leather gloves that held metal claws over her thumbs and fingers made of what looked like silver. Her hair, which went down to the middle of her back, was straight and also a silver color. Her face, showing the only amount of skin he could see, was a dark color that almost seemed purple and had strange silvery markings curling around on her forehead and cheeks. The black sclera of her eyes made the white irises stand out as she glanced around at everyone. She was likely around the same height he was but was standing on what looked like an upturned wooden crate so it was difficult to judge her true height while she towered over everyone nearby. She was quite pretty and intimidating.

[???][Assault]

That was slightly different from what he was used to seeing. He considered asking her about why he could see question marks where her race should have been but decided against for two main reasons. First off, he wasn't sure whether using identify on people like he had been doing was considered some breach of etiquette or not. The second reason was how intimidating she was while looking like she barely even wanted to be here much less answer questions at the moment and he had no desire to anger her. He looked around at the other people gathered and the few that were still heading their way and saw how no one else seemed to want to meet their mentor's eyes either. He noted how almost everyone seemed to be of completely different races and species, with one guy even looking more like some kind of robot or android than a living person.

"Alright. Now that everyone's here, let's get started. I'll tell you right now that some of you messed up. Changing your species is somewhat understandable I suppose but the expensive and exotic one aren't worth it. Most of them have some kind of percentage negative which is about the worst thing you can have. Then you also add that a lot of them are also extinct or something and there's a reason for that. You can ask the priests or read in the library later for more details but all of you who chose to change your species like that need to change it again. You can either do that by dying before you reach level ten or ask the priests if you're too much of a coward. Got it? Good!"

This wasn't exactly what he was expecting from having a mentor. Sure there was some knowledge mixed in there about dying before level ten but telling everyone they had to change seemed wrong to him. Granted, he could probably have spent a little more time actually looking through things to make his decisions but he was happy with what chose and had no intentions of changing it.

"I'm sure some of you were smart enough to pick up identify as a skill and noticed that you can't see my race or anything. I'm Sherry of the Nightwind Clan, a Lunar Elf. If you haven't picked up identify yet, get it. I don't care if you already have all your slots filled. That's your fault for being too stupid so figure out something to drop for it. You can change things out in the same way you can change your species. Roles will never be able to be blocked from identifying type skills but blocking skills will be able to hide the other parts of your status. Speaking of which, for those of you who haven't figured it out yet, you can customize how anyone's status is displayed for you. You should probably do that before you go to sleep tonight. There's two things that are highly recommended to add to your status while you do that. The first thing is your identification number, which is the number you were given when you first became a salient. It's something you'll need to know to get into certain places or do certain things as time goes on. The other thing you'll want to add is an abilities list even if you don't have any abilities yet. It's a good idea to keep track of them and there's a few ways you can get them. Both of these will have a 'hidden' tag on them meaning that nobody but you will ever be able to see those areas in your status no matter how good their skills are, compared to the 'blocked' tag that may show up based on skills or items that can block identifying skills."

He was definitely not a fan of this mentor. He did have identify already but he didn't like people who arbitrarily decided that everyone needed to do things or be a certain way. He was kind of hoping that there might be a way to get reassigned a different mentor. He figured he'd just listen and do what she said for today and then ask around about how to change out for a better mentor later. At the very least he could probably still learn some things as long as he didn't pay attention to any of the demands she seemed to be making.

"So now that we covered the important things here let's go out to the field," she said as she turned and started walking towards on of the openings in the stone wall. "Since this is the first layer we won't find anything but except low tier, low level creatures which is going to make this a little harder. The idea is to get all of you to level ten so you can have a role and a class and get to the next layer and I can go back home. Ah! Speaking of roles. You can choose one at level five but there are a few you should never pick up as a salient unless you want to be considered useless or a murderer. Worker, support, and soloist. If you want to become a resident and have one of those roles then fine, whatever. As a salient, they are more than useless and picking those is like saying you just want everyone around you to die. I don't want to die, so if you try and choose any of those then I'll kill you myself. Understood? You're here to help your teammates, fight your way up, and make it through the trials, not cower behind everyone while doing your own thing and actively trying to get those around you killed."

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Everyone looked at each other nervously as their mentor continued to lead them through the town while talking. He thought about what she was saying and came to the conclusion that something must have happened to her in the past to have such prejudices like that. He felt a little bad about that but at the same time he also felt that there was still too much misplaced anger there and he had no intention to just follow everything she was saying about his future life choices. He fully intended to find some time to somehow learn more about everything she was talking about in a more appropriate manner, like from a book at the library.

As she continued talking while leading them she told them about various things, some of which ended up being useful instead of just demands. Experience was awarded to all things with a level that killed anything else with a level. The experience awarded was the level of whatever was killed with a 1% bonus for every 7 levels of difference and 5% bonus for every tier difference. Experience was split by how much classes were used, with multiple classes eventually becoming possible, and remaining experience filtered into species level. So if someone who was level 1 with a class somehow fought and killed a level 15 creature but didn't use any feature of their class to do so then they would get 14 experience to their species. Technically they also would get a bonus 2% but the system rounded down to whole numbers in experience resulting no real bonus. No matter how much a class was used at least 1 experience would always be allotted to the species, though.

They were also taught how to form parties, teams, and the raid variants. Parties were a temporary group of up to 7 that gained a small set of advantages as long as they were within 100 meters of each other, such as shared experience and party telepathy. Teams were a slightly more permanent version of parties with much of the same benefits, except there was no experience sharing, it worked across a whole layer, and there could be up to 21 people. There were a few other minor differences as well but nothing he needed to worry about for the moment. The raid variants of each followed a new set of rules that were made for the leaders of parties and teams during large events such as world bosses or large dungeons. She refused to go into too much detail of the raid types and said that everyone would learn about it in time when they needed to.

Eventually she brought them to a the edge of a forest slightly outside of town and told them that anyone willing to go ahead and let themselves be killed to fix their starting choices should do walk in alone. After seeing that nobody volunteered she clicked her tongue and left a final ultimatum for them to make sure they did it before noon of the next day or she would be pissed off. Then she told them to wait and disappeared into the forest herself. Nobody spoke for a few minutes as everyone looked around in confusion, wondering what they should do. Then Sherry reappeared holding ropes attached to nets with a bunch of captured creatures being dragged behind her. She looked at them and simple said "kill them" while she crossed her arms and waited.

He considered using his revolver but seeing how everyone was rushing towards the nets in an attempt to keep their mentor from growing in displeasure he opted to use his karambit instead and joined them in the awkward slaughter. Once that was done with, a few people unsteadily walked off to the sides, fell on their hands and knees, and began puking and dry heaving. He looked down at the bloody carnage they had all wrought and felt slightly weird himself but in a different manner. He still remembered hunting in his part life so the idea of taking the life of animals didn't perturb him nor did the sight of dead animals and blood. The state these particular carcasses were in might have been a little too gory for his past self but part of what was making him feel strange was that the sight of the blood all around was making him hungry. The other part was that he knew he wasn't too bothered in his past life about killing animals but he could still feel something of the weight of taking a life whereas right now it felt...surreal. He felt somewhat detached from the whole thing as if it were something he did normally and barely had to think about. He though about that for a while and finally decided that it could be attributed to his new demon half while hoping that it wouldn't eventually lead to him becoming a homicidal sociopath. At least for now he didn't feel a need or urge to kill so he figured it should be okay.

Sherry spent the next few hours constantly going into the forest and netting a bunch of things to drag back for everyone to kill. A few times she would ask someone or another how much experience they had gained or grumble about how slow things were going or complain about the people who couldn't seem to stomach the way the slaughter was going. Seeming like she had finally had enough of it all herself, she finally announced that everyone could split up the corpses to do with as they pleased and that everyone was done for the day. She gave some rough directions on how to get to the library, some cheap places to sleep, and back to the temple before telling everyone to meet her outside the town where she was pointing by noon or she would leave them behind before storming back off to the town by herself.

He thought to himself for a while as he walked back to the town by himself. He had no intention of following his mentor anymore. The knowledge she provided to help them understand their new lives was sparse and filled with demands and ultimatums rather than advice or explanations. He decided his first stop was going to be the library where he could hopefully learn what he really needed to know and then he would decide what to do from there. As he walked back and thought about what he should ask any librarian he could find in order to get the information he needed he checked his status and made a few minor alterations.

Name: -

ID(Hidden): 1095341C47-9

Sex: M

Age: 17

Lvl: 1 *(2)

Exp: 9/6

SP: 1

Species: Cambion(T2)

Race: Etherai, Blood Demon

Role: N/A

Sta: 146.3/146.3

(Vig/2)

Sta Reg: 62.6/hr

(Dex/5)

Mana: 170.2/170.2

(Mag/2)

Mana Reg: 42.4/hr

(Mind/10 +50%+2%)

--- Vig Dex

Vit: 95.8

(94+2%)

Con: 104

(102+2%)

Str: 92.8

(91+2%) Fin: 101.4

(88+10+1.5+2%) Agi: 106.5

(93+10+1.5+2%) Spd: 105.5

(92+10+1.5+2%) Mind Mag Int: 89.7

(88+2%) Wis: 97.9

(96+2%)

Will: 91.8

(90+2%)

For: 113.2

(95+10+5+1+2%) Pow: 111.1

(93+10+5+1+2%) Spi: 116.2

(98+10+5+1+2%) --- Class: N/A Lvl: 0 Exp: 0/0 Skills: 1. ---

Traits:

Angel Blood, Bidirectional Hearing, Blindsight(ground sense, hearing, water)(5 meters), Blood Domain, Blood Magic Affinity, Glossophobia, Bloodhound, Carnivorous, Curse Absorbent(blood), Dark Magic Affinity, Demon Blood, Dragon Blood, Endoskeleton, Farsight, Four-limbed(bipedal), Kinetic Vision, Night Vision, Nosocomephobia, Trypanophobia(minor)

Racial Skills:

1. Blood Magic (1) 3. Detect Life (2) 2. Minor Regeneration (2) 4. Meditation (2) 5.

General Skills:

1. Identify (3) 4. 2. Magic Circle (1) 5. 3. Mana Manipulation (2) Ultimate Skills: Titles:

Abilities(Hidden):

Blood Manipulation, Draconic Might, Enduring Mana, Mana Burst, Unholy Intimidation

*Awaiting Level Up