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Chapter 82 (Bk 2). The System and The Hero
🕑 Added 2025-05-19 17:44:13 +0000 UTCA/N: Think I have enough semi-edited content for daily updates up till Saturday!
Rafe couldn't help it. He laughed. It was slow at first, his smile still frozen on his face. But it quickly became uproarious, unhinged. His body shook.
Of course the system had betrayed him. Why had he ever thought the damn thing benign? Was this perhaps the reason Devila wanted to destroy it? He couldn't rule that out.
If it had stranded her on some desolate rock while she was trying to get home, Rafe had no doubt Devila would want revenge. She was spiteful like that.
Rafe was not quite as spiteful, but things changed.
He wanted to smash his status screen. He wanted to smash it so bad.
He didn't stop to consider. Sometimes he liked to break things. He remembered that well. He remembered the time in Aeon when he'd lost his best friend. Probably his best friend in both lives, now that he thought about it.
The stone Warhammer he'd gotten from the first room of the training tower appeared in his hands. He swung it. Of course it only passed through the status screen, smashing up the ground below, raising a dust cloud.
He swung again and again, destroying the cave that had been his sanctuary. Why the hell couldn't he crack the damn screen? It was such an eye sore.
And before he knew it, his vision was cloudy and his swings were wider and wider off the mark. And then he was falling forward and onto his knees, his back and arm and thigh muscles smutting.
He did not know how long he'd let himself go. He did not know how long he'd just swung that heavy hammer around and around, but the cave was a mess now. His comfortable - barely - resting place was no more. He was exhausted, and his vision was blurry for some reason he wasn't going to acknowledge.
After he'd let the exertion die down a bit, Rafe looked at his still present status screen. Still somehow alive and well despite his desperate wish otherwise. He selected yes, because what else was he going to do? The system had him for rights.
‘Ding’ Special Tutorial Quest chain acknowledged.
Objective 1: Explore the Deufont Dungeon.
Rafe read through the first objective, seeing no clue as to what the system wanted. Did it just want him to map out the whole island or something? He couldn't fathom it.
And now that he thought about it, he was in a dungeon, but the quest system hadn't given him any quests so far. He had thought the whole thing about giving him clues on bonus objectives and even the main objective of dungeons was its main advantage, but apparently he was wrong.
“The quest system has been quiet all this time,” he ruminated.
And now it seemed to be fused with the tutorial system. At least on his end. It was unlikely anyone else on Earth had the quest system. It was supposed to be a special achievement that he'd gotten one as an F grade.
With a shrug, he put the matters of the quest and tutorial systems out of his mind for the time being. He had three months to complete some kind of special quest chain. He now had to shift his hope to thinking that maybe after those three months, following the tutorial system's disappearance, he would return to Earth.
Completing the tasks assigned to him, more like foisted on him, was a must. He had to maximize his chances of returning to Earth. Again, Rafe considered his dislike for having to depend on the system's whims.
First, Enith, and now her creation. Enith had been a misunderstanding, he acknowledged, but this damn system…
The first objective seemed like something he could achieve passively. What with his map ability and all. So in the meantime, he decided it was perhaps time he started to work on insights. Out here in the multiverse, fighting without that sort of advantage would be a major handicap.
He could get away with it in the tower, since everyone there had had very low level insights - if any - before they entered the trial. And most of them had only been in the time dilation a few months anyway. Not enough time to work on everything. The trial, for most such people, was designed to improve their basics in any certain field they chose, their foundations. The point of the trial was to make future advancement easier and more beneficial. It was not designed to make immediate benefits.
Rafe had benefitted more from the trial than anyone before him. He had spent years there. He had sparred with hundreds of warriors and mages. Somehow, Rafe had thought his foundations would be normal. He now cursed his foolishness for thinking he could evolve his class at the smallest possible threshold.
It was just that he'd thought his foundations were more geared toward conceptualisation. When Noid had given him his memories back, the two had discussed conceptualisation for weeks.
His sword journey, that he'd spent more than twenty years on, was more geared toward collecting inspiration for his insights than anything else.
He had a lot of inspiration to draw from. It was perhaps going to be the easiest part of his progression for a while. Until he reached the peak of concepts, after which he'd have to learn the next step and move on. He didn't think he was a genius at conceptualisation or anything. He was just over qualified. Over prepared for this kind of thing.
Besides, like Noid had advised, they'd come up with a very simple thing for him to conceptualise. His weapon. That he had been holding for thirty years now. That he knew like the back of his hand. He'd learned how to craft swords, how to wield them in hundreds of ways, how to maintain them.
The only caveat was that trying to use too many insights might jumble up his concept. He had to be discerning. He had to be careful.
And of course, even if he developed his concept right there and then, he wouldn't be able to use it with the level of his body, his race. Not to mention the strength of his soul.
It would tear him apart.
This was the argument for taking things slow. Taking his time.
He and Noid had decided, though Noid had mostly just dictated, that his soul was probably too weak to cultivate more than one concept. And even if he could get it strong enough to cultivate more than that, then it would be better to just use the extra soul strength to improve his one concept. Which was going to be a very simple sword. Simpler than the one Noid had made him.
As he walked, Rafe ran into monsters here and there. Some tried to ambush him, as he seemed distracted, but he had his first racial ability to warn him.
When he went to rest that first night, he took out his sword for the first time since leaving the Skyholm trial.
He watched it transform into its katana form. It was beautiful. Breathtaking even.
Name: ##(not named)(Epic, D-grade)
Type: A weapon crafted with rare D grade materials and rare chimeric monster cores common in a dungeon called the vaults.
Description: A weapon crafted by the soul remnant of a sword god for his favourite student. This sword has been infused with thousands of years of battle experience. And with the master's hope for his student's successful sword journey.
Enchantments: Transformer (This sword can change forms to fit the wielder's imagination. It only shifts to a sword the creator of the sword saw at least once when they lived. This is an enchantment infused with intent instead of engraving.)
Specifications: +200 off( 60 max in F grade).
He wondered why he hadn't thought to use his skill on the simple sword before.
“So it has no name?” he thought out loud.
And there was the thing about a dungeon called the vaults. The dungeon in which Liam, the first god of Skyholm, had first run into the librarian.
It needed a name. It might be an inanimate object, but it was now a companion. A part of his journey. A gift from his mentor.
This was not why he'd taken it out though. He remembered a lot of fights he'd been in on Aeon. He remembered them viscerally, as some had been rather violent and chaotic, frantic. He did remember a moment before a fight though. A moment where an old man had showed him art.
And so, Rafe swung his sword at a metallic looking tree. The sword managed to cut through, but there was still some shocking reverberation.
“Hmm? Note to self, the trees don't just look metallic, they are. Or at least semi-metallic.”
Later, he had to also note that maybe he should have started smaller. Using a knife to carve into small pieces of wood. Or maybe he should have started bigger, using axes like he'd seen more than a few people do on Aeon. Whichever method he would have chosen would have helped him get his foundations in order before he attempted to do what Gaoshom had done.
“Art is hard,” Rafe whined as sleep came for him.
He was not meditative, Rafe knew. He was not the kind of person who could just sit there and think of nothing for hours. Maybe it was because, even though he was internally very old now, he did not have a lot of life experience yet. Maybe it would change soon. Maybe he would become a quiet and introspective person.
Well, he was already a pretty quiet guy when he thought about it. He was just not very much in touch with his emotions or whatever. Maybe that could change. But for now, he needed a method to calm down. A method to elevate his mental state.
Noid had taught him smithing for this very reason. Apparently, focusing on creating some kind of art for a few hours every day was the best thing the god of swords could think of to help his disciple with concentration issues. But Rafe didn't have a convenient source of metal ore nearby currently. Using Gaoshom’s wood carving and sculpting was the next best thing, he supposed.
****
After a while, Rafe had fully explored and mapped out the forest. A week after his exploration had started, the monsters in the dungeon had gone up a few ranks. They weren't a problem for him still, yet.
The forest had turned out to be expansive, and yet even after he had it all mapped out, he had yet to see an edge to the island.
That was when he decided the piece of land he was on was no island. He had to come to terms with the fact the dungeon might be a whole continent.
The further he moved away from the forest, the more the creatures grew stronger and exciting to fight. It wasn't long after that he noticed he had enough experience for quarter a level. And his Skyholm's fighting Proficiency leveled once.
He wasn't using his other skills a lot, as there was nothing exciting happening. He hoped the system hadn't made him do this special tutorial quest as a prank or whatever. Not that he expected it to do anything so juvenile. Evil existences did not pull pranks. They tortured their victims. Slowly.
He had been in the dungeon three weeks when the next notification came. He had been trying to keep to a straight line of movement from the forest, trying to
find an edge to the continent. He hadn't managed to yet, when his plans were derailed.
‘Ding’ New Objective received.
Objective 2: A hero is required. Aid the Damsels.
