The moment he stepped through the portal he fell up.
~!!!?!?!??!?!?!???!!!!!?!??!???!????!?!???~
“Ow ow ow that fr***ing hurt!”
Alexander clearly hadn’t expected that. Sitting up he rubbed the back of his head. Due to the fall on his head he had lost nearly 200 health points.
Dimension: You are the first player to discover “The gateway to the spirit realm”
Reward: Fame +250
Every day for two weeks, double EXP and double item drops.
The rarest items will drop from killing the first monster of each type.
Subsequent kills will drop common items.
~Awesome that such a reward is given for discovering a new location.~
Activating Soul-Sense, which has become natural for him. He has already managed to increase his Soul-Sense ability to Beginner Lvl. 6: 83% and could now use it with his eyes open.
Looking behind him he saw how the portal shrunk until finally disappearing with a *plop* sound.
Still rubbing his head, Alexander stood up and looked around. He was stunned. Maybe he had hit his head to hard on the ground, since the place he was seeing couldn’t exist.
Alexander was studying physics and thus he couldn’t cope with the irrational sight in front of him. After closing his eyes and pinching himself to see if it was real and not a dream or hallucination, Alexander once again took a look at his surroundings.
Alexander was standing on a small piece of a chunk of earth that was floating in the air. Around him hundreds, no thousands of other platforms could be seen. Some were upside down, some were at a right angle to how he was standing and after a few minutes of looking at this bizarre place, Alexander had to close his eyes since he became dizzy.
Opening them once more, Alexander saw that the sky was a shade of red with a hint of purple. Black lightning raced across the sky or was it the ground? He looked under the platform and saw that the same sky/ground was below the platform, so he had no sense of where up and down was other than how he was currently standing.
The platforms were spread out on all sides of him, so also above and under him. He got lost in a normal city, how should he manage to find his way in such a 3-Dimensional maze, after finding a way to venture from platform to platform without falling down or maybe up. Especially since the platforms were sometimes at a strange angle.
Looking at the scene in front of him, Alexander thought of an idea, which might be very stupid if it won’t work, but he doesn’t have much of a choice or else he will stay on this platform until finally dying of thirst or boredom.
Taking out some of the blocks of iron he had formed and his portable forge, Alexander proceeded to forge two one-handed pickaxes. Using his memory he tried to shape them like the ice axe mountaineers used.
After being satisfied with the result, Alexander packed the things he wouldn’t need away and held one pickaxe in each hand and started sprinting towards the edge of the platform he was on.
At the edge of the platform he jumped of as far as he could and held his pickaxes up above his head. He jumped far enough to reach the platform that was nearest to the starting platform and readied himself to hold onto the axes, which would embed themselves in the earth and prevent him from falling down.
Suddenly however he was pulled towards the platform that he had almost reached and accelerated towards it. He slammed face first into the ground. He had gripped the pickaxes hard to not fall down, but suddenly noticed that he was lying on the platform.
Confused Alexander continued to lay on the ground and only after his heart had calmed down, sat up. It seemed as if each platform contained some sort of gravitation and one could walk on each, even though he was now at a right angle towards the platform he started on. It was as if he was walking on the walls of a room.
Pulling the pickaxes out of the ground after bandaging himself, since he had lost quite a bit of life after smashing down on the platform.
Looking around he found another platform that was close to this one, since he didn’t yet trust the platforms magical gravity he still held onto the pickaxes.
Before running and jumping to the next platform, Alexander once again activated Soul-Sense, which he couldn’t yet keep activated while walking or moving in general. Making sure that there was no sign of life in the surroundings, Alexander once again ran to the edge of a platform before jumping off. He had chosen a platform, which was at an angle similar to a steep hill to him, to not hurt himself as much if the gravity would work. He had miscalculated his jump however and slammed against the edge of the platform with his stomach.
Pulling himself on the platform, since his legs were dangling ‘down’, Alexander noticed that this platform also had the magical gravity and even a tree. Since all the platforms seemed to have this gravity, he stowed his pickaxes in his backpack.
After choosing the next platform he would jump on, Alexander proceeded to run when suddenly the earth under him began to shake. Jumping back he curiously looked at what was going on.
The earth continued to shake and suddenly something came out of the earth on the opposite side of the platform to where Alexander was currently standing. Looking at what came out of the ground, Alexander strained his eyes to see.
You have learned the Passive skill: Vision
Vision Lvl.1:0%
The ability to see further. The ability to notice more details.
It was the first time he had gained a passive skill so he called up the information about passive skills, while still looking at what came out of the ground, but didn’t seem to move or do anything now. The earth was still rumbling.
Passive skills
Passive skills are skills that don’t take up any skill place, so they don’t count as part of the limited amount of learnable skills. Furthermore passive skills don’t have to be activated or cancelled and don’t require any usage costs.
~That’s nifty thing.~
Slowly walking over to what had come out of the earth, since he couldn’t really recognize what it was, he was surprised once again when all around the platform more things shot out of the ground. One of those things was only two meters away from Alexander, who now recognized a skeletal hand. He saw how it once again went into the earth, just like the first one had done and could now see that whatever was the owner of the hand seemed to be digging itself out of the ground.
Taking his claymore into his hands and taking up a defensive stance, Alexander watched as skeletons started to climb out of the ground. Not taking any chances, Alexander started to use the flat side of his word to break the bones of the skeletons that were still in the ground with half of their bodies. He also used the blade of the claymore to cut through joints of the skeletons, since he didn’t want to directly cut the bones, which would dull his blade.
Especially when he noticed that close to fifty skeletons came out of the ground. He couldn’t attack them all while they were still not out, so he limited himself to hurt and damage as many of them as he could as fast as possible.
Slashing, hitting and even kicking at the skeletons around him, he managed to make his way to the lone tree on this platform. Positioning himself with his back to the tree to prevent these skeletons from attacking him from behind, Alexander once again took up a stance.
All the skeletons on this platform had pulled themselves out of the ground, except for those that had lost an arm or two due to Alexander and couldn’t hoist themselves up anymore.
Even skeletons, which had their heads chopped of had stood up and were walking without their heads towards Alexander. Alexander hoped that he would manage to survive this, since these skeletons were quite different from living humans, whom he has fought so far.
These skeletons didn’t feel any pain and probably had no emotions and would ruthlessly try to kill him without regards to their or their comrades lives. So the only thing he would and should do is to aim to maim them. Cut of their legs to prevent them from walking, cut of their arms to prevent them from grabbing him, bash in or slice of their heads to keep their teeth away from him and generally inflict as much damage as possible after that to reduce their health.
If they had no health points remaining they should fall over dead even though technically they already were dead.
But Alexander only had a claymore and no fencing sword or normal one-handed sword, so aiming at critical spots to maim them all would be impossible with such a heavy and large blade against so many opponents. He would instead rely on his high stamina and strength stats to continually strike all skeletons in front of him.
All these thoughts were racing across Alexander’s mind in the few moments before the skeletons reached him. Now he swung his sword in a half circle around him and with great effort stopped his blade and changed direction. This way he swung his sword from left to right without pause for over an hour and finally managed to take care of all the skeletons or at least prevent them from attacking him.
After resting for a few moments, Alexander stood up on wobbly knees and using the claymore as a brace walked amongst the already regenerating skeletons that were left alive and dispatched of them by letting the tip of the claymore drop on their heads. Sometimes he had to drop it a few times since those skeletons still had quite a lot of life remaining.
During the battle, Alexander was completely immersed in the fight and hadn’t noticed that the screeches and wails of the skeletons on this platform had raised skeletons and other undead creatures on all surrounding platforms as well, but luckily they had stayed on their respective platforms and had only watched the battle and Alexander with their lifeless eyes or rather eye-sockets or their one remaining eye or their rotting eyes or …
After taking care of all the skeletons on his platform, Alexander rested to regain the lost stamina and also to bandage himself. With bandages covering his entire body, Alexander ran up to the edge of the platform and jumped.
Twisting his body in mid-air he landed on his legs in a crouch on the next platform in the middle of more undead creatures. Swiping his claymore in a full circle around him, he cut of the legs of all those skeletons surrounding him.
He continued these reckless fights in the middle of dozens of undead creatures, which he apparently couldn’t see with his Soul-Sense ability, Alexander continued his way from platform to platform. He only spent minimal time, while he was in the game for most of the day in Real life, to rest, eat and heal himself.
The undead creatures he encountered steadily grew stronger and stronger and Alexander also grew at an incredible rate for fighting thousands of undead each day. He soon grasped the fighting styles of the different undead species and didn’t have any problems with the Lvl. 50 to Lvl. 60 normal Skeletons, Lvl. 70 Ghouls, Lvl. 70 Skeletal archers, Lvl. 75 Skeletal rogues Lvl. 80 Zombies anymore. Even the Lvl. 90 Skeletal warriors and the Lvl. 100 Skeletal knights weren’t dangerous to him, even though he had only reached Lvl. 67 in the past two weeks and they were attacking in large groups.
Alexander had a lot of fun these past two weeks, since this place was exciting and something entirely different to what he was used to. He had lost all sense of direction after only a few platforms after coming to this place, but he knew that he was moving in the right direction, since a few days ago he had found several giant claw marks, that he had followed. These claw marks suggested claws the size of Alexander’s arm and such a large monster could only be the final boss of this place.
Alexander had almost caught up to his friends level. They were around level 75, which was impressive in the rather short amount of time, since the game had started. Only Daniel was still lagging behind with his level 15. He was currently relaxing on a grassy hill with many fruit trees and bushes full of berries near the city, in which he had started. He had managed to raise his level due to lying down next to green slimy monsters, while his party had fought against them. This party however had soon left him, since he was just too lazy, even though the special debuffs his class provided were quite useful.
Alexander had caught sight of a huge stone building on a platform not to far from his current position. It was located around 2 km away from him and upside down in relation to his position.
Quickly dispatching the undead creatures on the platforms leading to this building, Alexander arrived only two and a half hours later. When he had come close to this building, Alexander noticed several things. It was a building made out of a weird stone that seemed black with purple layers, it was a large building resembling the pantheon located in Rome and no undead seemed to be on the few platforms surrounding it.
Cautiously walking inside with his claymore drawn and held in front of him, Alexander followed the path that was illuminated by purple glowing orbs. He was walking in the middle of the illuminated path, since the shadows on both sides creeped him out, since they seemed to be alive.
Hearing the distinct ring of a sword being drawn behind him, Alexander ducked down just as a sword cut above him. Rolling away from his opponent, Alexander used the motion of the roll to stand up. Quickly turning around and raising his claymore, he barely managed to block the claymore of his opponent.
Gritting his teeth due to the power of his opponent, Alexander pushed the claymore of his opponent away from his body. Judging by the heavy armor and the sigil on the breastplate, a Skeleton knight was standing in front of him.
Using his past battles as reference, Alexander judged this Knight to be at level 130 at least.
~This will be a tough battle!~
Using an overhead strike, Alexander attacked his opponent, who still had one eye that wasn’t rotting away. The Knight blocked the claymore, without buckling even though Alexander had such high strength. This was possible due to level gap of the two and because the claymore of Alexander was already too weak for his current level.
Breaking apart, they both backed off and began to circle each other. Suddenly the knight dashed in and was immediately in front of Alexander, who had luckily managed to react and jump backwards and narrowly dodged the blow of the knight.
The dash of the knight had surprised Alexander, since it seemed to be a knight skill that was probably at quite a high level. He had encountered the undead using skills before, but never had they been at such a highly developed level.
Surprising Alexander even more, the knight spoke:
“For Fremwyn! Sword Edge! Swift Wind!”
After shouting those words, the claymore of the knight glowed in a red light and seemed much more powerful than before and also his body glowed in a soft silver sparkle.
~OMG!~
Using the dash skill once again, the knight approached Alexander quickly, but Alexander had expected the knight to use that skill and dodged to the side. Incredibly swiftly the knight turned towards Alexander and swung his sword towards Alexander’s chest.
The blade cut right through the leather armor that Alexander was wearing and sliced deeply into his chest. Without stopping and moving incredibly fast, the knight moved to the side of Alexander and swung his claymore down Alexander’s right side towards Alexander’s neck.
Ducking under the blow, Alexander stumbled backwards and almost fell down if not for the pillar behind his back. The knight was already preparing for his next swing, which was aimed at the left side of Alexander’s stomach.
Frantically Alexander jumped out of the way and rolled on the ground to again stand up. Turning back around, Alexander saw that the claymore of the knight had cleanly gone into the pillar but was now stuck in it.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Sometime during the last few strikes, Alexander had dropped his claymore and now was looking on the ground searching for it. Using his left hand to press on the sound on his chest, he ran towards the claymore when he had spotted it.
He saw that the knight had pulled his claymore out of the pillar and was heading towards Alexander’s claymore, which was between the two of them. His body didn’t glow in the soft silver sparkle anymore and he again moved in his normal speed instead of as fast as before. His sword however was still glowing and judging by the way it penetrated the pillar, it would cleanly slice through even his bones as if cutting butter.
Jumping on the ground and sliding on his stomach, towards the claymore, he reached it and immediately flipped his body over to lie on his back and managed to block the sword strike of the knight. The tip of Alexander’s claymore was in the ground next to Alexander’s head.
Rolling sideways away from the knight, Alexander rose up to his feet. The blood was flowing freely from the wound on his chest and Alexander saw that he only had 328 health points remaining and they were steadily dropping.
Since he was about to die soon anyway, Alexander would act desperately. Running towards the knight with heavy steps, he raised his claymore above his head in the last second and struck down on the claymore of the knight. Using every bit of strength that he had he pushed against the claymore of the knight and brought his face close to the helmet of the knight.
Spitting into the remaining eye of the knight, Alexander backed off and quickly made his way to the back of the knight, while he was swinging his claymore around wildly screaming angrily at him for being dishonorable scum. Striking his claymore under the helmet into the neck of the knight, he let out the breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding.
After a few seconds of struggling the knight finally collapsed and Alexander pulled his claymore out. Falling down in exhaustion, Alexander only managed to bandage his wounds enough to prevent death, before falling into blissful unconsciousness.
--------------
Blinking his eyes, Alexander woke up on a cold stone floor and soft glowing purple light. Sitting up, he remembered the fight and quickly looked to his left and saw that the knight had truly died.
He had also gained a new stat after his fight with the knight and probably all his fights had contributed to him getting this stat.
Toughness
Reduces damage and pain. Raised by getting hit or receiving pain through other means.
No stat points can be distributed to this stat.
Walking over to the pile of bones and rusty armor that the knight had dropped, he noticed something inside the pile shine. Bending down he picked it up and looked at it in his hands.
Alexander was holding some kind of pendent with a black stone in the middle of it. Even after using his developed Identifying skill, he couldn’t get any information on the pendent.
Shrugging his shoulders, he put the pendent into his backpack along with the few pieces of armor that the knight had dropped.
Looking at his health bar, Alexander judged more than an hour to have gone by for his health to regenerate completely. Continuing to follow the path he arrived at the entrance to the building once again.
“Damn it!”
Turning around he went back the whole way and passed the pile of bones from the knight without a spare glance. A while later, Alexander had finally arrived at a stone door. It wouldn’t budge or receive any damage even though Alexander was trying his best.
Looking closely at the door, Alexander finally found a small slit. Thinking intently what would fit inside, Alexander tried pushing a knife inside and even his fingers, but nothing worked. He pulled out the pendent that the knight had dropped and it fit perfectly into the slit.
Pushing the pendent into the slit, mechanical gears could be heard turning around inside the stone door. Pulling the pendent out and stashing it once again, Alexander waited for the door to finally open.
He had to wait an agonizingly long time with his claymore already drawn, since it lifted extremely slowly. Slipping under the stone door as soon as it was high enough for Alexander to fit under, Alexander looked around to see that he was in a large room with a dome-shaped ceiling.
At the other end of the room was a altar with a statue behind it. Walking towards the altar he suddenly stopped moving, when he realized that the statue was a huge undead drake. A drake is a draconic creature, which was much smaller and weaker than a real dragon, but nonetheless huge in comparison to a human. Also drakes were very strong and dangerous creatures.
Looking at the drake, Alexander feared for his life, since his sword would be like a toothpick to this drake, which was at least 35 meters long and a couple of meters high. This drake would probably see a human as a mere snack.
Watching for any movements from the drake, Alexander waited at his position for a couple of minutes. Then he started moving to one side and then the other to watch if the drake followed his movements. After ensuring himself that the drake indeed seemed like a statue that only looked forward, he started to slowly shuffle towards the altar.
He always kept his eyes on the drake, which hadn’t even moved a single bit. On the altar were two simple items: A mask with a fascinating swirling design and only holes for the eyes and also a thick leather-bound book.
Picking up the mask, Alexander identified it, but it simply said:
Simple mask
Durability: 5/5
A simple mask with an exotic design
Putting the mask on his face, since he would probably look mysterious with it, Alexander then picked up the book.
Diary of a forgotten god
Whistling, Alexander was happy to have found something interesting. He started reading the book.
I pen these words out of spite.
Not for posterity, not to seek the understanding or empathy of those, who will come after. Not to justify any of my past actions. Nothing of the sort.
I simply refuse to give another of my brothers or sisters the satisfaction.
My name is unknown, though it is likely that you know one of my many titles. I have worn names as other men wear suits of clothes.
I am known as Fallen. And this is my story.
Alexander read the book for an entire eight hours and gained two points in wisdom, one point in intellect and even one point in concentration. Even though not much was said about the powers of the god or how he had fallen in the book, it still was a good read. The life of the god had been described, how he had been before coming into godhood. He had wandered the continent meeting friends and gaining enemies, he had suffered much in his life and Alexander had really connected with the character of the god.
Many passages had become confusing and totally non-relating to the main story. These passages had become more frequently the further he had read. They seemed to indicate certain madness and rage in the god.
Suddenly a message popped up in front of Alexander.
Do you wish to convert to a hidden class?
Yes | No
It was probably the class of the god, but Alexander was skeptical, since no information was given about which class the god had held or how exactly the god had fallen. However in the end the decision was an easy one, since Alexander didn’t have any class yet due to having waited for a hidden class. This hidden class was now presented to him and it even was the class of a god.
“YES!”
Thinking about it, it was a good decision, since this didn’t seem to be the average hidden class either, due to the strong undead monsters in this place and the extremely strong Skeleton knight guarding this room.
Your profession has changed to ‘Gwyn ap Nudd’
~That sounds really weird~
Simple mask changed properties
Gained new class skills
Good thing that class skills weren’t part of the limited amount of skills one could learn.
Change of old skills due to new class
~Wait. What??~
Looking at this message he quickly read the details.
Sword mastery, knife/dagger mastery and archery changed to Soul weapon mastery.
Due to the respective levels of these skills, you gained Intermediate level 3: 48% in Soul weapon mastery.
He would now be able to increase his proficiency and level in the taming skill. So that would be a good thing.
He heard a low rumble from above him, turning towards the sound he quickly gasped and reached for the claymore that he had laid down onto the tablet due to him reading the book.
The drake was looking down at him and suddenly let out a terrifying roar, which almost let Alexander fall to the ground. The drake spread his bone wings out and flapped them to fly up. Following the drake with his eyes, Alexander held onto his sword tightly. When the drake was twenty meters high in the air and almost reached the ceiling, it pulled his wings to his body and sped towards Alexander.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh”
Screaming in terror, Alexander strikes at the drake but the sword just passed through the drake without harming it. The drake then slammed into Alexander, lifting him completely of his feet and flying through the air a couple of meters. While flying he felt how the drake went into his body completely and disappeared. Stunned, Alexander sat up and couldn’t comprehend what had happened.
Gained new skillset: Dragon Soul
Skillsets are extremely rare skills that require special occasions to happen to acquire these skills.
Skillsets only count as one new skill.
Looking at everything that had happened, he was quite happy.
The new skills he had acquired were:
Soul Weapon Mastery Intermediate Lvl. 3: 48%
Increases Attack Power with a sword depending on skill level
Increases Attack Speed with a sword depending on skill level
Attack power: +130%, Attack speed: +45%
Room of Sound Lvl.1: 0%
You can control sounds in an area around yourself. Letting sounds disappear or amplifying them.
AOE: 1m
Mana cost: 50 Mana per sec.
Mist of Weakness Lvl. 1: 0%
Mist is generated on the ground around yourself. Can slow enemies down, decrease their stats and decrease their will to fight.
AOE: 1m
Effect: -2 STR, -2 AGI, slow down by 3%, +5% stamina consumption, -5 fighting spirit
Mana cost: 50 Mana per sec.
Soul Suck Lvl. 1: 0%
Immobilizes target touched by left hand and sucks the life of the held target, converting it to mana.
Effect: Suck 2 Mana per sec.
Passive skill: Shadow-walk Lvl. 1: 0%
Shadows are drawn towards you, letting you become less visible by all means and skills.
Effect: Visibility -3%
Dragon Roar Lvl. 1: 0%
Roar ferociously, causing 10% of Attack Power to all enemies within three meters and stunning them. Ignores all armor on the target.
Mana cost: 250 Mana
Dragon Hide Lvl. 1: 0%
Increases your defenses for a limited time.
Effect: +3 Toughness, +5 Defense, +1% Magic Resistance
Mana cost: 300 Mana for 10 min.
Dragon Power Lvl. 1:0%
Increases your strength in various ways for a limited time.
Effect: +3 STR, +3 AGI, +3 Fighting Spirit, +3 WIS, +3 INT, +3 STAM, +5 Attack
Mana cost: 300 Mana for 10 min.
Shortly after reading the description on all his new skills he stood up and started inspecting the room to search for any exit, since some time ago the stone door had closed without him noticing.
Suddenly the room he was in started to distort at the edges at first, but blackness and shadows crept in steadily and forced Alexander into the center of the room. He couldn’t run anywhere and was now trapped inside this room of blackness.
A huge misty form appeared in front of him. The form had a huge sword in one hand and had on a cloak with a deep hood. The form also expelled an intense pressure and almost made Alexander want to disappear and sink his head into the ground like an ostrich, since he felt an enormous amount of fear from the figure.
“Young traveller. You will face an incredibly hard journey ahead of you. Will you be able to accomplish it or fail ultimately like your predecessor? If you do succeed, we will see each other again.”
He then disappeared without a trace and the shadows were gone in the blink of an eye.
“EPIC!”
Alexander loudly exclaimed. That was so much cooler than anything he had imagined relating to his class. With the disappearance of the shadowy figure a portal had formed. Looking around once more to check if he had maybe missed anything, he went through the portal.
He never noticed the small unnaturally formed shadow following him through the portal before it closed itself.