Ryder was only 9 years old when his parents were killed right in front of his eyes. The Fallen had spared his life, but in return he had inflicted him with a horrible curse that prevented him from using mana. In the novel, the mana in Ryder's body kept getting built up, unable to escape. It finally exploded on his 17th birthday, taking his life.

His death was quite an emotional scene, which helped the heroine, Rachel, unlock her powers to their full potential and also helped her grow closer to the main character, Rhian.

Though what shocked me more than the horrible backstory was the even more terrifying real life.

I mean, what are the chances that I met the most influential Cursed person in the novel, right after I found a Curse Breaking Potion?

There were so many theories running in my head but I decided to bag them for later.

Just add it to the list of things I would need to check when I get back to the Academy to see my diary.

Noticing me, staring at her brother, Rachel spoke up, “Oh, right, you haven’t met. Sir, this is my younger brother Ryder.”

“Good to meet you, Ryder. I am Ray Laxon, a Professor at the Star Academy.” I introduced myself.

“Laxon? So you are the son of the Aurum Guild’s leader.”

“Well, that I am.”

‘Though I won’t be for long.’ I internally thought to myself.

“So what were you two up to?” I casually asked Rachel.

“We were just going out for lunch.”

“Well, then, I don’t want to intrude on your family outing.”

Saying that we left for our different ways. Rachel seemed quite happy, talking to her brother. Too bad, it won’t stay that way for long. As someone who has recently separated from his own family, I could understand how much pain the female lead will have to suffer in the future.

It was almost evening by the time I got back to the Academy. Students were hanging out in the Academy gardens after their daily training. In my office, I took out the diary where I had written down the events of this world. Since I had read the novel long ago, I didn’t remember some of the events that didn’t have much influence on the story but all the major events were there. There was even a map at the back where I put down all the Dungeons and locations.

Aries had a lot of ideas for Dungeons and other events in the novel. But sadly, he had to select only the best of them to appear in his novel. The rest he left in his ‘Idea Book’. Now, I wasn't just an average reader. I had helped my friend during his writer’s block quite a lot of times, so Aries allowed me to read through it a few times, and I have to say, the dude was born to be a novelist. Even his ideas had such vivid descriptions that I still remembered them.

So, now I have to check whether this world had factors that were not mentioned in the novel and left buried in the Idea Book. I pulled up a list of all the Dungeons that had been discovered in this world. There was one event I remembered that had not been introduced in the novel.

The Hero League Headquarters Relocation.

In the unrevised set of events, a Dungeon had opened in the building where the Hero League was located. Monsters destroyed the entire building and the organisation was forced to relocate. This event was supposed to have happened a year after the League was established, meaning it was an event that took place decades before the present time, so its existence, or lack of it, would clear all of my suspicions.

I googled up the old Hero League Headquarters in the browser and the web page opened up.

“Hero League: Is it strong enough to represent Humanity?”

“The scandal of the century: Hero League destroyed a year after its establishment!”

I read multiple similar news headlines, just to make sure, but the news still existed.

“Sigh! This is bad.”

Till now, I was confident in my survival, because I thought I knew everything about this world. But this piece of discovery was very detrimental. Just like how I found that Curse-Breaking Recipe on Ray’s laptop, I didn’t know how many other things would deviate from the original timeline. I didn’t remember everything from that ‘Idea Book’ so I didn’t know what to expect.

“Well, the good thing is I found out about this sooner, rather than later. Otherwise many of my plans would have caused more harm than good.”

But the fact that I had found and cleared Vritra’s Dungeon also meant that the main events were going in the correct direction. Mike was a major villain, so the details about his backstory remained the same. Well, that was the case until I decided to interfere. Since Edward Martin and the fall of the Laxon Family was a major event as well, this would mean that my plan for them would have to stay the same, as long as I didn’t make any major movements.

'Too bad. I could have used their power and wealth for all the things that are gonna happen in the mid and later parts of the novel.'

I took out my laptop and opened up ‘The Pandora's Box’.

My first plan right now was to sell the potions I had just made. I opened up the auction page and typed in the names and details of the potions. For the targeted audience, I put the Speed Potion up for Heroes and the Monster Repellent for those researchers who go for Dungeon Explorations. Since this Potion was more like a security item, I am sure I would get a pretty penny from them.

Once I had filled up the form, the website instructed me to place the items in front of the screen. I decided to keep 5 vials of each potion for myself and kept the rest down on the table. As soon as I placed the vials in front of it, the screen opened up into a portal and swallowed them up.

This was one of the many reasons why people bought stuff from here. Their portals made the entire transaction anonymous. They were also one of the very few organisations that had an ‘Item Gauge’. It was an item that had a function similar to Appraisal but it only worked on assessing the value of an Item. It couldn’t mimic the other functions of my Appraisal skill.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Now that the transaction was complete, I decided to go and do some training. It was midnight and since the training room on the first floor of the teacher’s dorm building was usually empty at this time, I decided to go down there. My house was equipped with its own training facility, but the ones downstairs had more advanced equipment.

I changed into a training uniform and went down. My goal today was to start practising on the second stage of the Brahma Sword Art. But when I went down, I found someone already training. Misa was already practising in the gravitational room, fighting multiple dummies with a whip.

I quietly slipped in and started to do some weight-lifting. Most Heroes could lift about 200 kg of weight, but since my body wasn’t used to such monstrous exercise I kept it in a more humane range. After two hours of physical training, I switched to training my Sword Art.

The principles behind the first and second stages of the Brahma Sword Art were very different. The first stage depended on controlling the internal mana of my body. But the second stage depended on controlling the natural mana in my surroundings. And unlike internal mana, I didn’t have any way to feel the nebulous mana in the surroundings.

So I decided to try something unorthodox. I got down in a meditation posture. Air was the most abundant element around me, so I decided to start with that.

I closed my eyes and released Air Mana making it swirl around my body. My idea was that this push of internal mana would move the natural mana with it, and hopefully, my 5.6 Perception Stat would be able to sense it.

“You are doing it wrong, you know.” A voice interrupted me as I was starting my exercise. I opened my eyes to see Misa standing by the door, her arms crossed. I couldn’t even sense her approaching. The power of an S+ Rank was astonishing.

‘Appraisal’

Name: Misa Amore

Rank: S+

Stats:

* Strength 11.2

* Stamina 13.1

* Agility 14

* Perception 15.3

* Magic Power 16.2

* Intelligence 7

* Charm 8.6

Abilities:

* Drifting Steps(★★★★): A special technique that increases the agility of the user as they move. Upon full mastery, it can allow the user to teleport short distances. [Advanced Level]

Skills:

* Voice of The World(SS): The world is submissive to the user of this skill, shaping itself to their wishes. The user of this skill can change their surroundings just by voicing their thoughts.

* Syren(A): A skill worthy of its names, full of seduction and deception. Whoever listens to this voice will fall prey to its sweetness obeying all the commands of its owner.

All her stats were in double digits, especially her Magic Power which was 16.2, which was equivalent to the average SS Rank. Quite a fearful combination with her Skills.

I had seen this before but the Intelligence and Charm Stats of everyone I had used Appraisal on, never seemed to be more than 10. Seems like the two Passive Stats had an upper limit of 10, while the non Passive Stats could go as high as 20, if not more.

“Greetings, Miss Misa.” I stood up to greet her

“Misa is fine outside work hours, Ray.”

“All right. And may I ask what you said I was doing wrong?”

“I meant your technique. You were planning on using your internal mana to sense natural mana, right? That’s never gonna work.”

I felt embarrassed that my technique had been revealed when I barely started to practise it.

“Then what do you suggest I do?”

“I am a bit familiar with your Sword Art, Ray. Isn’t the first stage of the Brahma Art, which is heavily dependent on Fine Mana Control?”

“It is.” I confirmed her facts.

“Do you know why most Heroes don’t start practising it until they are in their A Rank?”

“Isn’t it because the majority of them focus on increasing their Physical Stats?”

“Well, that is one factor. But it's because Fine Mana Control depends heavily on your ability to perceive the mana around you. The Brahma Sword Art gives you a shortcut by allowing you to use it just by perceiving your internal mana. But unless you learn to do it the natural way as well, you won’t be able to start learning the second stage of your Sword Art.”

“Hmm. I guess I was a bit impatient.”

“May I ask you what your Perception and Magic Power Stats are?”

I hesitantly looked at her. A Hero’s stats were a secret to everyone around them, since revealing them would be akin to telling someone your weakness.

Seeing my reluctance, Misa spoke up, “If you are curious, my Perception is 15, and Magic Power is 16.”

Now that she has revealed her Stats, I was forced to return in kind.

“Perception 5.6 and Magic Power 7.5.”

Misa’s eyes widened in surprise. “Wow, your mana Stat is almost at B Rank.”

“The rest of my Stats are quite low. Mana has always been an exception.”

Truthfully, I had raised them to C+ Rank recently. Ever since I had gotten back from the island, I had been training to increase my Rank and I was sure I would break through any day now.

“Well, my advice to you would be to raise your Perception and Magic Power Stats to at least 9 before you start your training again.”

“What happens then?” I asked out of curiosity.

Flames shot out of her hands, hitting the space in front of me. I took a step back and raised my hands in peace. “Um, Miss Misa, if I was, in any way, rude to you, I would like to apologise.”

“Oh, this wasn’t for rudeness. I was just showing you what happens when your Stats get enough.”

“Um, I am not following you.”

“Tell me, Ray, did you notice I was gonna use Fire Mana before flames came out of my hands?”

I shook my head. Misa went on to explain.

“When your Perception and Magic go above 9, there is a very big change in how you see the world. When you look into a room, you see the furniture and people there. But when I look into a room, I see colours floating all around me. I see green, brown, red, and blue. I can literally see the movement of a particular element’s mana before the magic can even be evoked, like smoke flowing in the air. If your Perception was high enough, you would have seen something akin to a red fog collecting near my hands before I invoked the spell.”

I could understand what she was talking about. If my Perception was high enough, I would be able to see my natural mana like a fog swirling around me. This would be a big help for my Sword Art training.

“How should I raise my Stats?” I asked.

Misa flashed me a coy smile. “Follow me.” she indicated.

She took me to another room. It consisted of a large circular podium with a control panel on one side.

“Go and stand in the centre of the podium.”

I followed her instructions while Misa went to the control panel and began fiddling with it.

“Begin!” she yelled and I got into a pose with my sword. At her cue, robots materialised in front of me. They seemed about E Rank in strength. I engulfed my sword with fire mana and swung. But before my attack could connect, the robots disappeared.

I stared in confusion at where the robots were just a moment ago.

“Woosh!” I sidestepped the attack behind me. I swung my swords upwards and detached the arm that was gonna strike me.

“Clang” The robot that just attacked me fell. But the attacks didn’t stop there. The other two robots continued to strike me. Whenever I tried to launch an attack, they would disappear and attack from behind. It took me five minutes to take the other two down.

“How was it?” Misa asked as she jumped on top of the podium.

“Tough?” I answered, breathing heavily. “What were they?”

“They were the practice robots. You can change their Stats to suit your training. I set their speed as B Rank.” She explained. “Surprise attacks are a very good way to increase your Perception. Now then, we should continue.”

For the next hour and a half, I was sent through hellish training. Misa abused her authority and kept sending dozens of robots toward me. Whenever I thought I would get accustomed to their fighting style, she would send another group of robots, one with a completely different fighting pattern.

After it was over, I lay down on the floor. But before I could get a chance to catch my breath, a shockwave travelled through every nerve of my body. I could feel all the pores in my body opening up, thirsty for the mana around me. There was a slight change in my Aura.

“Clap. Clap. Clap!” Misa approached me with a huge smile on her. “Congratulations, Ray. You are now a C+ Rank.”

I opened up my status screen to see if it was true, and it sure was.

Name: Ray Laxon

Title: The Otherworlder

Rank: C+

Stats:

* Strength 7.2

* Stamina 7

* Agility 7.3

* Perception 6.7

* Magic Power 7.8

* Intelligence 5.9

* Charm 7.7

My stats had jumped a bit.

“I can’t wait to see the look on Professor James’ face tomorrow.” Misa joked. But I was way too exhausted to laugh with her.