"Urgh, I''ve been here for so long," A restless pathfinder groaned.
Lan looked over. The pathfinder in question was a tall boy with a shock of orange hair. He was lounging listlessly on the ground, glaring at the other side of the platform.
Suddenly, a group of six boys walked over to the ginger kid and started talking in hushed tones. By the time they left, his expression had gone from agitated and bored to excited.
Now that the group had Lan''s attention, he followed them as they stalked through the waiting pathfinders. Every once in a while, they would stop and talk animatedly with a particularly bored or frustrated kid.
"What are they doing?" Lan whispered, elbowing Archie.
Archie looked up and, after watching the group for a couple of minutes, sighed. "Hahh, it looks like we won''t be waiting peacefully for much longer. What place are you in the queue?"
Lan checked, "227th."
"We need to kill 26 people then," Archie muttered.
"Kill people? What are you talking about?"
Archie gestured to the group of boys with his chin, "They are inciting a riot. You see, it''s bad enough that we have to wait in the queue for 27 spots, but what if you were still on the first step? You might be 5000th in the queue."
"I see… So, they are trying to thin the numbers down," Lan glanced over at the boys. He noticed that each person they finished talking to clenched their weapon just that little bit tighter.
"Same things happening on the other side as well." Archie pointed at a similar group on the Moon Strider side of the platform, "Honestly, I wouldn''t be surprised if the two groups are working together,"
Lan cracked his knuckles in anticipation, "Well, it sure beats waiting here,"
Archie smirked, "That''s exactly what I was thinking,"
"But how are they going to do it? It looks like most people here don''t want to fight, even if tensions are high," Lan pointed out.
"Easy. If someone swings at you, what would you do?"
"Swing right back," Lan nodded in understanding, gripping his scythe. His hand had mostly healed thanks to the wonders of Endurance and Vitality, and his health was almost full again.
If Lan had to describe the process, it was like dominos falling in slow motion. The two groups went from person to person, riling them up. And then moving on to their next target.
After gathering maybe one hundred fighters on each side, the chaos began.
The first attack to fly was a single arrow. It blurred through the air and landed in a girl''s belly with a sickening thunk.
She looked up in confusion, not understanding why she had been shot. But it was too late. Another arrow landed in her eye, and she disappeared in motes of red light.
All was still for what seemed like an eternity. Both sides eyed each other with naked aggression as hundreds of pathfinders hauled themselves to their feet. And the more that stood up and grabbed their weapons, the more followed them.
This was a fight they couldn''t afford to abstain from, not that they would have wanted to.
Lan held his breath, feeling like he could cut the tension with a knife.
Counting down the seconds until all hell broke loose.
Tens and then Hundreds of arrows rained down on the platform, and scores of screaming pathfinders barrelled into each other. Their superhuman strength bent weapons and snapped armour as they tore each other apart.
Lan stuck close to Archie, staying near the edge of the conflict.
"Who looks the strongest?" He asked the boy.
Archie''s compound eyes widened as he surveyed the battle with blazing intensity. Finally, he stopped and pointed at a boy holding an axe.
"He should be strong enough,"
Lan nodded and slipped through the crowd, dancing between sweeping blades and flying knives. He appeared behind the boy, who seemed familiar for some reason.
"Mark, look out!" Another boy dressed like a ninja shouted, suddenly appearing between Lan and his target.
The axe wielder turned around, glaring at Lan. "Thought you could sneak up on me, huh?"
Lan frowned, trying to place where he had seen this guy before. The Ninja looked even more familiar. In fact, he was pretty sure he had fought a ninja just before the second step.
"Hold on, aren''t you guys the guards?" Lan asked, causing Mark to scowl.
"Not anymore… We were fired after…." Something registered in Mark as he squinted at Lan. "We were fired after you got past us, right?"
Lan smiled awkwardly, rubbing his neck. "My bad."
Suddenly, Mark started to chuckle and burst into manic laughter, throwing himself at Lan. The axe came crashing down, hammering against the indestructible floor with a dull ringing, like a bell being tolled.
Likewise, the Ninja blurred, becoming a shadow that hacked and clawed at Lan, flinging tiny blades and shuriken every time he was off balance.
Weaving between the joint attacks, Lan felt a strange sense of serenity. He wasn''t desperately dodging like he had before. Instead, he seemed to flow in the gaps between strikes. It was almost effortless.
''Is this the difference in strength between them and me?'' He wondered, marvelling that he even had the time to think like this in the middle of a fight. Just two days ago, the Ninja had almost killed him, but now he couldn''t even touch Lan.
It would be all too easy to just kill them and be done with it. But if Lan let the sense of superiority take over, if he let it control him, he would be no better than the man that killed his parents. He should only do it if he had a proper reason. There was no use in the strong picking on the weak.
"Are you two waiting for the third step?" Lan shouted over the din.
Mark stopped swinging, panting furiously. His face was bright red from the strain, and sweat poured down his back. He was scared, terrified even. Not one hit had landed on Lan. It was like fighting a ghost.
"Y-yes," He stuttered.
"Then I''m sorry, but I can''t let you go," Lan sighed.
His scythe blurred, and a gory red line tore open Mark''s neck. Lan pirouetted like a ballerina, dragging the scythe along the ground and producing sparks as he swung it towards the Ninja.
The boy in the black robe was fast, far faster than Mark had been. But he wasn''t quicker than Lan.
With almost no resistance, the scythe tip went through his chin and out the top of his head, ending his life instantly.
As the pair became red light and floated away on the breeze, Lan checked his status. Now he was 223rd in the queue.
Grinning, he slipped back through the raging battle to Archie, helping him finish off a guy with a metal staff.
"This is even better than I expected. I''m flying up the queue!" Lan shouted.
''It won''t be long now...''
"I know, sadly, we don''t gain any points for this since the steps are a safe zone. Otherwise, we would shoot straight to the top of the leaderboard!" Archie yelled, wiping blood off his sabre with the corner of his robe.
"Are they still losing points since we killed them in a safe zone?" Lan asked, forgetting what the board had said.
Archie nodded, scanning the crowd for their next targets, "Yeah, but only half,"
Finally, he settled on the group of inciters. The six boys who had started this whole brawl were grouped tightly together on the edge of the fight, letting everyone else do their dirty work.
Lan followed Archie''s gaze and nodded. Together they ran around the perimeter of the fight, dashing between crashing hammers and lashing chains.
In a moment, they were on the boys. Lan barrelled into one of them and punched the guy in the throat. While Archie ran one of them through with his sabre.
The other four didn''t react until their two companions disappeared in motes of red light. And then they charged, bearing down on Lan and Archie furiously.
Lan pushed a fist aside as if it wasn''t even there and gutted the first assailant like a fish. The golden ant''s scythe was unbelievably, impossibly sharp.
He blurred, appearing behind the next boy. Before the guy even realised what was happening, his throat was a tattered mess leaking blood, and he was back in the entrance hall.
Archie''s fights were similarly quick and just as bloody. When all was said and done, Lan had moved up to 216th in the queue.
"Soon..." He muttered, keeping a close eye on Archie as he wove between blows.
The intensity of the brawl only increased the more people died. Because the fewer there were, the higher they got in the queue and the closer they were to winning.
Lan and Archie flitted from pocket to pocket, Lan''s scythe acting like the grim reaper as it claimed life after life.
It wasn''t long before he had moved all the way up to 201st in the queue, and since the capacity was 200, that meant he was next. Now, he just had to survive.
"Don''t get any funny ideas," He glared at Archie, otherwise known as Mr 202nd in the queue.
Archie rolled his eyes, backing away from Lan.
''I need to get him away from the fight so that he has nowhere to run,''
Lan looked around, finding a spot on the platform''s edge where no one was fighting. He walked over and sat down with his back against a pillar, doing his best to look relaxed.
As he leaned against one of the pillars, surveying the battle, Lan realised something. ''I am stronger than all of them,'' It wasn''t hubris. He just was. The people gathered here were weak.
"Where are all the stronger people?" Lan wondered.
Archie, who was leaning against the other side of the pillar, laughed, "There''s no need for them to queue. The truly strong are already past the third step, and there aren''t enough people yet for them to queue. Besides, a lot of them are probably off in dungeons,"
Lan sighed, nodding, "I get it, but how can everyone here be so…."
"Weak?"
"Yeah,"
"Bad luck and hubris mostly. A lot of kids think that just because they went to an academy, they are guaranteed a spot on the bridge. So, they end up taking their foot off the gas and falling too far behind,"
Lan shook his head sadly, "What a waste,"This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
"I don''t see it that way. It''s only thanks to the weaklings that we can be in the top 100. If everyone was as strong as us, it would be way harder to stand out," Archie added
"The punishment for being weak shouldn''t be death," Lan snapped
Archie scratched his neck awkwardly, "Only the strong get to make that decision,"
"Yeah…" Lan took a deep breath, releasing his frustrations in one big burst of air.
"That''s the problem with the harder difficulty tutorial," Archie said, eyeing the raging battle.
"What?"
"The time crunch makes people desperate and do desperate things. Like this, for example. Now, for the strong like us, we can capitalise on this chaos. But we aren''t the only ones who benefit. Some thrive in turmoil, and sometimes, a monster is born from the madness,"
"A monster? Like the Prince?" Lan asked.
"No. Worse. At least the Prince is fair."
Somewhere in the crowd, buried beneath swinging blades and screaming bodies, an unknown boy died for the first time. He could hardly be blamed for dying, he was weaker than everyone else. Perhaps even the weakest person in the whole tutorial, for he was the only person without a talent.
Until he died.
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Alert: Talent awakened – Fool me Once
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Fool me Once – Fool me once, shame on you. There will not be a second time.
<hr>
Effect: Upon death, the user learns all there is to know about what killed them. Its weaknesses, its strengths, its uses. Everything.
<hr>
Penalty: Death places a greater strain on the mind. Dying too frequently can drive the user mad.
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Lan felt a chill run up his spine, but the system dinged before he could ask Archie any more questions.
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<td style="width: 99.052%">Alert- Queue 200/200 enter the third step [Y/N]</td>
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Trying not to show any outward signs, he looked over at Archie. The boy was in arms reach and wouldn''t have time to dodge if he killed him now. With one swipe, one swing, one cut, he would have his revenge.
But since escaping the dungeon earlier that day, Lan had time to cool off. ''It''s one thing for me to get my revenge and kill him. If I fuck him over now, he''ll lose out on the title and his advantage in the third step. But will I really benefit from that?''
Lan glanced at Archie, rubbing his finger on the shaft of his scythe.
''He''s annoying and untrustworthy, sure... But one thing is clear to me. He knows a hell of a lot. Whether it be skills, dungeons or details about powerful pathfinders, there''s a lot I could still learn from him. It''s a risk, but if I let him live, I could benefit greatly in the long run. And that''s what I''m here for,''
Taking a deep breath and trying his best to stay calm, Lan made his decision.
"I''m going in," He said, making a show of clicking yes on his notification.
Archie took a big step back when Lan said this, but after nothing happened, he blushed sheepishly. "I thought you were going to betray me..." He muttered
Lan laughed heartily, smiling as he began to fade into the ground, "Why would I betray someone who owes me a favour?"
"How can you trust I''ll pay you back?" Archie blurted. He seemed stunned that things were going the way he had agreed.
"Who else have you got?"
"What do you mean?"
"Other than me, is there anyone else you could even remotely call an ally?"
Archie frowned, watching Lan become one with the carvings on the ground.
"See you around, Archie,"
Lan melted into the ground and flowed like ink towards the first step. He became one with the moving pictures carved into the stone, joining the endless stories that never ended.
''I hope that was the right decision,''
***
Welcome, Challenger. The third step is yours to overcome. The enemy is yourself.
Lan let the booming voice wash over him, taking in his surroundings as he waited for the following announcement.
He was standing in front of a marble pillar, on which sat an ancient book. Its pages were yellowed with age and crinkled at the edges.
Looking up, he realised he was in a perfectly circular room. A spiral staircase snaked around the outside, climbing up into infinity. Dotted along the staircase were black doors with a white plaque in the centre. On this plaque was a simple number, going from 1 to… Well, Lan couldn''t see how far up the numbers went.
But the doors seemed endless.
Knowledge is strength, or so the intelligent say. Here, In the library of Aegis, we like to combine the two. Behind each door is a location. Within the book is the directory. Find the place you believe would be most conducive to creating your skill, and enter the door.
Lan gazed up the spiral staircase, praying his door wasn''t at the very top.
Please prepare yourself, as we will now implant a suitable skill for you to study. The process may be painful.
Just as Lan was wondering what skill he would get, a wave of pain like nothing he had ever felt hit him. He slumped to the ground like he had just been hit on the chin with a tonne of bricks, writhing and contorting in pain.
It was like someone had poured lava into his veins, as mana bulged in places it never had been before. Stretching and ripping his body from the inside out.
He writhed on the ground in agony, clenching his teeth so hard they almost cracked.
In the eye of his mind, an image appeared. It was illusionary at first but slowly burned its way into his very being, becoming clearer and easier to understand.
Lan was in too much pain to recognise this as an array. But if he paid attention, he would notice that mana was circulating throughout his body in the same pattern the array described.
After aeons of suffering, Lan rolled over, gasping for air.
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Alert: Skill gained – Strengthen.
<hr>
Effect – Channel mana through a tool of your choice to reinforce it.
<hr>
Cost – Initial cost: 25 mana Cost per second: 2
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Lan sighed in blissful relief when the system notification arrived. The pain had vanished like it had never even been there. And he could sense something inside him. Something new, something magical.
It was like an extra limb that had always been there. His connection with it felt slightly shaky at first, but the more he prodded it, feeling the array with his mana, the stronger the link became.
Finally, he managed to activate the array, feeling mana rush through his body in a way he had never quite experienced before. It followed the path set out by the array, and without any effort at all, Lan was able to channel mana through his scythe.
The golden scythe glowed slightly, pulsating with a magical blue hue. ''Is that it strengthened then?'' Lan wondered, tapping the scythe on the ground. It certainly felt sturdier than before, if only slightly.
''Maybe it''s because the scythe is already so strong. I''m sure if I use the skill on something weaker, the effect would be more pronounced,'' Lan reassured himself.
The skill was undoubtedly valuable. In fact, if he had the skill up until now, he would have been far stronger. But he wanted more than just upgrading it. He wanted to make his own skill, and there would never be a better opportunity than now.
The library of Aegis seemed to be a veritable treasure trove. The amount of potential here could only be imagined.
Lan wandered over to the ancient tome and began flicking through its weathered pages. ''I''m looking for something with water and maybe ice.''
As soon as Lan had that thought, the book''s pages began to turn independently. He watched in awe as it opened on a page with countless numbers and descriptions.
Immediately, a single room number popped out of the page. The second Lan saw the number, it just felt right. Like he belonged there.
2370 – The gulf of Dref
A freezing land covered in ice and snow. The creatures who live there learn to manipulate the ice and snow, allowing them to extract drinkable water. In particular, the Dref, a species of scaled penguin, are cable of propelling themselves through the water using jet streams they control.
''If I could control water like that….'' Lan imagined wistfully. ''No, when I control water like that. I''m going to do it,''
Lan began his long… Long climb up the stairs, winding and twisting all the way up to room 2370. Every door he passed looked identical, and soon the rooms began to blur together.
The steps he walked on were carved from ancient wood, smoothed from countless footsteps.
As he walked, he kept well away from the side of the stairs. Since there was no banner, if he tripped and fell, he might fall straight down the middle of the vast cylindrical room.
Step after step, he finally arrived at the room in question, and after cracking his knuckles, he twisted the handle and stepped through.
A gust of icy air blasted his face as he appeared directly on the edge of a steep chasm between two icebergs. A roaring icy river crashed into the sea in the middle, causing a ghostly mist to fill the chasm.
''Where should I go?'' Lan wondered, peeking over the chasm''s edge. Beneath him, pristine steps sculpted from ice scaled down the side of the cliff.
Seeing no other options, Lan began walking down the icy steps. The blistering cold stabbed at his foot, which still had no shoe to protect it. But he had felt colder. The streets at night were relentlessly baltic, and sometimes warmth was little more than a dream you escaped to when your toes started turning stiff and purple.
After descending the steps for a while, Lan was nearing the river between the two icebergs. There, he found two great hollows on opposite sides of the river.
On his side was a group of tiny, scaled penguins. Their reptilian scales were a pale green, and he assumed they were the Dref. They huddled together in their icy cavern, safe from the battering wind.
On the far side of the cavern was a different group of the Dref, presumable a rival flock. This group had black scales and slightly pointier beaks.
Even as Lan walked through their cavern, the Dref took no notice of him, as though he wasn''t even there. "They mustn''t be able to see me," Lan muttered, waiting to see if they would react to the noise.
But no such thing happened. The Dref remained ignorant of him no matter what he did. Even when he picked one up, the others did not react.
"How strange," Lan sighed, sitting down at the side of the cavern. He was pretty sure what skill he wanted to make. The problem was how did he make the array?
"I should just try it out and see how the mana feels," Lan decided, wandering over to the edge of the cavern and placing his hands inside the freezing water.
It was far harder to channel mana through moving water, but Lan supposed that was part of the challenge. If he couldn''t complete the skill under any circumstances, it would be ineffective.
He clenched his teeth and focused all his attention on his hands. Suddenly an idea struck him, and he decided to face his palms towards each other and channel mana between them like poles of a battery.
This allowed him to trap the mana and water between his palms. When he finally took his hands out of the river, the water between his palms came with them.
But that was it. He couldn''t do anything with that water unless he wanted to put out a fire or drink something.
"Was that an epiphany?" Lan wondered, trying to remember how he had the idea to face his palms towards each other and channel mana the way he had. It was an idea that had just suddenly sprung up in his mind. Although he may have been able to figure it out on his own, it might have taken him far longer.
"I really need to keep this title," Lan swore, marvelling at the feeling of holding a liquid in his hands.
After a few minutes of studying how the water reacted to different amounts of mana flowing through it, Lan''s mana was exhausted, and the water lost all shape. It splashed to the ground, and Lan sat back, exhausted.
He only had 340 mana, which was probably on the low to average side. On the plus side, it wouldn''t take long for his mana to fill up again. He was regenerating roughly 6 mana per minute, meaning it would take an hour for his mana to fill up completely again.
"Hm… I wonder if that is how mana regeneration works. If it always takes an hour for your mana to regenerate completely, then the more you have, the faster it will regenerate," Lan mused.
Sitting back against the cave wall, Lan rested and watched the Dref. He had obviously felt a connection to this place because of these little creatures. And perhaps if he observed how they used mana, he could learn something vital from them.
After watching for a while, he noticed something about the Dref. They seemed to hunt in pairs. One from either cavern would leave simultaneously and compete for food while the rest watched.
This turned their hunt into a duel of sorts, as they fought over which Dref would get the fish.
In particular, the way they fought was fascinating. They gathered water around their beaks and fired it like a laser beam. Although this water wasn''t particularly harmful, it distracted the opposing Dref enough for the attacker to grab the fish and flee.
"But how are they doing that? How do they get the water to focus down like that?" Lan wondered, watching them intently.
For some reason, as he watched beam after beam of water fly, he was reminded of his experience in the tunnel.
When he was chasing Archie, the tunnel had narrowed drastically at the end, forcing the water to fire him like a cannon. Lan wasn''t sure, but he thought he was onto something.
''Does that mean the narrower I make the nozzle, the stronger of a beam I can fire?''
After his mana had replenished, Lan ran to the water''s edge and tested his theory. First, he gathered water between his palms and then… what?
He wasn''t sure where to go from here. So, he tried to think back over what the Dref did. ''Their beaks are cone-shaped, so maybe they use that cone to focus the water down to a narrow point,'' Lan mused.
Unfortunately, he didn''t have a beak. But his hands would surely do.
Pressing his palms together, he allowed the water to fill up between his arms. Then he tried pushing the water through the gap between his palms.
Thinking of it like a cannon, his palms were the barrel, and the mana was the gunpowder. The more mana and the narrower the barrel, the further the water would go.
The principle was sound, but how did it work in practice?
Lan soon found out when he sent a beam of water hurtling into the opposite cavern''s wall, scoring a deep hole in the ice.
Seeing his success, Lan couldn''t help laughing hysterically as he collapsed in exhaustion. Before he passed out, he had one final thought.
''Next time, I shouldn''t use all my mana at once,''