[You have killed the entire patrol team]
[You have fulfilled the hidden requirement for follow up quest]
[Note: Quest will be given after class selection]
[You have received the permanent dungeon key “The Ironclad keep” (Outskirts)]
[You have acquired additional rewards]
[+50% Exp boost For lv 1-10 (7 days)]
[Murphy’s Blessing (can only be used once)]
Odin was excited after getting rewards, but he had no intention of reading about them after he read the following message
[Warning! You have killed the patrol orc leader and taken his sword]
[Orc shaman has detected your presence]
[Emergency quest: Survive for 60 seconds]
[Rewards: None]
[Penalty: Death]
Odin’s face soured when he tried to erase the tattoo on his right wrist after reading the penalty message.
‘Fuck!! it’s not working’ Odin gripped the damned sword with both hands and looked around in vigilance as he felt the tremor beneath his feet.
*Boom*
*Boom*Boom*
*Boom*Boom*Boom*
Odin’s heart trembled in tandem to the ground as he saw a three meter tall green orc charging at him with an iron mace in hands.
He was much faster than Odin and by the time he noticed him, he was already within a hundred meter range.
“KRRRRAAAAAAGGHH”
He bellowed in fury after seeing the gruesome corpses of the orcs that lay in the vicinity. Odin’s legs froze after hearing that roar filled with bloodlust. It was the second time he had felt this feeling of helplessness and despair.
He snapped out of it in just a second and started running away at full speed.
‘He’s strong, but it’s nothing compared to that “thing.” And besides, I only have to endure it for one minute.’ Odin thought while running with all he had.
The distance between them was closing with each passing second.
50 meters..40meters…20 meters…
Odin stole a glance at the pursuing orc and saw the floating text
[Lv 1 Orc warrior]
[Remaining time: 30 sec]
‘He will catch up to me within the next 10 seconds,’
Odin had no intentions of fighting him. He was not a coward, but his instincts were screaming at him to run, and he believed in them.
Odin stopped and threw the last rock from his pocket. It wasn’t to harm the orc but to disrupt his charge.
‘I would be dead in one hit if the orc attacks with this momentum’
Alas, the Orc warrior didn’t even flinch as the rock hit him. He stared at Odin with bloodshot eyes and stomped over.
[Remaining time: 20 sec]
‘I need to parry at least two moves or I’ll die.’ Odin gripped his sword with all his strength and stared at the orc without fear.
The orc accepted his challenge and swung his mace sideways. Odin planted his feet on the ground and slashed with his iron sword in response.
*clang*
Metal clashed against metal as sparks flew in the air. Odin stumbled back with numbness spreading from his arms, feeling as if his nerves were set ablaze in agony.
His face contorted in pain as he raised the sword against his chest to block the coming blow.
[Remaining time: 15 sec]
The mace hit Odin like a battering ram and he flew in the air, crashing into the cracked earth a dozen feet away.
His head throbbed in pain with his every ragged breath. His ribs had been broken despite blocking with a sword.
He lost his sword after he was sent flying in the air; it didn’t matter though, as he could barely stand up so holding a sword was out of the question.
Odin stood with shaking legs and looked at the charging orc who was about to hit him again.
[Remaining time: 5 sec]
‘One more’ Odin clenched his teeth and threw the dirt he picked up from where he fell towards the orc's eye. The orc didn’t even flinch as he closed his eyes momentarily without stopping his attack.
‘I survived, but this is going to hurt like hell’ Odin blocked the blow with his left hand, but the impact still hurled him a couple steps away.
Odin looked at his left arm which had become a gruesome mess as he lay there in a puddle of his blood and bone fragments.
He felt pain a hundred times greater than before but still, he smirked at the charging orc when he saw the floating runes in front of him.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
[Remaining time: 0 sec]
[Quest complete]
[You can return]
‘I won’t be the one running for my life the next time’ Odin vowed after looking at the orc that was about to smash the mace on him.
He bit on the tattoo on his right hand, ripping the skin apart. The pain he felt was nothing compared to before.
The orc was blinded by the purple light that flared from Odin, and when he opened his eyes again, not a trace of him remained. Even the puddle of blood and bone had vanished.
…
Odin spent the following 2 days researching more about his knowledge. He meditated with ominira and in the meanwhile, his sister had arranged for him to clean the area near the Storeroom.
The reason for that was simple, if a half-fool suddenly gets a job in the logistics department, it would get a lot of unwanted attention.
Olden was glad that he asked her; otherwise, he wouldn't have realized what a simple mistake he had made. Although he didn’t care as his life or death would be decided next month, it was better to avoid unnecessary troubles.
He started his work and a week passed by in a flash. As he lay on his bed, Odin checked the progress of the mission.
[Synchronization rate 62.5%]
He was making steady progress in absorbing energy From Vidre stones. He picked the stones at random and rearranged them afterwards, so no one would suspect him of anything even if they checked carefully.
Although ~60% progress was good in just about 10 days, he realized that the increasing progress kept getting harder and harder as the rate went up. To make things worse, he didn’t make any progress from eating food after reaching 20%.
'Fuu.. no point thinking about it'
Odin took a deep breath and opened the sroll of paper sister gave him.
The flimsy piece of paper felt heavy in his hands as he read under the moonlight.
His senses were now much sharper and he felt like he almost had a night vision. There was no difference between reading at night and day for him.
After getting used to ominira, he had 'intentionally' locked his bloodline powers, causing his strength to decrease by a lot.
Although he could still mine without a hitch, it wasn't like before when it was a child’s play to finish his full day shift in a couple of hours.
‘Finally at long last, the time has come for me to learn about this world,’ Odin thought as he propped his shoulders with enticipation.
Unlike what he expected, the first paragraph written on the paper roll was not about the power ranking or cultivation. It was about the history of the current world.
To be accurate, it mentioned what we currently know and believe to be the most logical order of past events.
It is common knowledge that a millennia ago this world used to be much larger, and people from here used to go to a ‘higher place’ in order to ascend.
The population at that time was much larger compared to now, and the average strength and lifespan of humans were far better. But due to some unknown reason, this entire continent was now surrounded by dark fog, one which no one can step out of.
Things like assceding to the starry skies were considered a fantasy in this time.
People of the surviving Noah Empire barely had a pitiful amount of information about the era before the apocalypse.
Some royal scholars even hypothesized that the world was split into two, and we are now currently isolated from the rest of the world.
Whatever people may think, no one can prove it. Over time, people got used to living here, and nowadays no one even cares about the apocalypse or the forgotten history.
What’s even more pathetic is that no one even knows what is located southwards from the city of Mizar, which was within the fricking fog.
"Haha.." Odin chuckled as he read the passionate curses written in his sisters pretty handwriting.
In the north, the fight with monsters keeps going on beyond the Wall of Nada, and the south keeps getting more and more weak and lazy, such has been the case for thousands of years.
As time went on, the story about the history of the world became more and more absurd and people started treating it as a folktale.
This was the first time Odin had come across any potentially real information, and from the looks of it, it seemed to hint towards what really happened a millennia ago and not some nighttime tales meant for little kids.
It implied that a war with otherworldly life forms was what caused the apocalypse. Humanity lost terribly and the strongest central continent, the place where the most powerful people resided and the only place that can help people ascend to space, was utterly devastated.
As for how the humans managed to survive, there was no clue regarding that.
All of a sudden, a dizzying sensation came over him and he felt like he was in the center of a whirlwind. He gripped the edge of the bed and sat there while fragments of memories appeared in his mind.
After a while, it all calmed down and Odin sat there absentmindedly with sweat dripping down from his forehead.
He leaned back in a more comfortable position and looked at the paper again.
As he obtained more information about the past, Ominira had given him more clues and knowledge about that as well.
Compared to the value of newfound knowledge, a slight headache and dizziness were nothing worth mentioning.
He found the missing coges of information, piecing together the wheel of time.
The so called ascension to the space was nothing other than space travel.
This world faced an alien invasion, and lamentably, they were against the higher life forms in the path of evolution.
The fate that befall upon this world was much more complex than it appeared on the surface.
He also got some memories about his time spent with The Wanderer in interstellar travel, but those memories were still fuzzy.
'Wait.. why do I know someone called The Wanderer? And most importantly, when the fuck did I go into space?'
He tried to think further about them while massaging his scalp, but after a while he gave up and started reading further by falling over.
She had written quite a bit of information about mages as Lucas recently became one.
'Before he went ahead and died, he might’ve told some things to his friends. Come to think of it, if Lucas had left some notes behind it would have been easier, what a waste.'
Odin didn't feel a least bit sympathetic towards Lucas, as despite receiving countless warnings from sister and his friends, he still decided to do what he wanted.
Odin didn't not look down upon him and he even slightly respected him for his bravery.
That being said, he had to face the consequences of his actions.
As for him being mean towards him, Odin didn't really care what others thought about him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t act like an idiot despite being more intelligent than half of them combined.
The only person he cared about was his sister. She was a parent, a sibling, and even a good friend for him.
The last section of the paper roll mentioned the method used by junior mages to practice. They had to train environmental energy around them, and then create structures in their mind to cast spells using mana that is present everywhere.
Unfortunately, Lucas didn't leave any methods to sense mana or environmental energy, and only two or three spell models were left behind. Sister had already burned them to avoid any suspicion.
It was very likely that even Lucas himself didn't understand much of it, and he had just gotten lucky and figured things out on his own. As for where he got the spell models, Odin knew about it already.
It was about one and a half month ago that Lucas suddenly came running into sister’s office when Odin was also there coincidentally.
But since he was so excited, he did not sense Odin's presence and told sister about how he found a corpse nearby when he went out to throw away trash.
The body was of a mage apprentice. He didn't take any money or any other things from his body, lest he got suspected.
Because he knew that whoever killed the mage would be some powerful person, He believed that maybe he was injured now, but he would most likely come back to erase any clues left behind.
So, he only took some notes and then hurriedly left the area. A mage’s greatest wealth was definitely his knowledge. Well, Lucas would have thought otherwise if he knew the true value of the coins in his bag.
As there was no place to spend money in the underground mine, there was no such concept as economy in a slave’s mind.
Lucas's father used to be the head of the logistics department, so he had learnt how to read and write at a very young age.
He was quite a rare case among slaves, possessing both a strong physique and literary talent. The fact that he managed to become a junior mage in just about a month without any external guidance proved his capabilities.
If only he wasn't stupidly brave and rash in making his decisions, he might've had a chance to escape underground.
Although Odin didn't get much practical information from the paper sroll, he was not disappointed as his only goal was to get some basic information regarding the power structure of this world.
He did not have any need for training methods, for that he already had ominira.
'Looks like I can only wait till the synchronization is finished.' thought Odin as he sat cross legged on his bed and focused his mental energy on ominira to meditate.