Kernoel77

Chapter 44: The Meaning of Breath

Chapter 44: The Meaning of Breath

/Alright motherfuckers, gather round to hear some more of my venomous wisdom today. Gods, I love the anonymity writing gives me so much.

Oh yeah, it's time for another episode of my ranting about this shithole of a world! Today's topic? Well, just about anything this time! But to be quite perfectly honest, I wanna talk about how much it sucks that most of the information that would help us advance is hidden away from us.

Like, ser...

Chapter 43: Ragnarok and Runes

Chapter 43: Ragnarok and Runes

/Music, who'd think to write about that, eh? I reckon this is a little exploited topic, maybe even a niche in the market. Yes, a niche... my niche now! I shall patent this as... Musico Telofio!

Ah, a good name indeed. Now, at the beginning I shall make some musing of myself, of course. After all, it is most certainly required for me to at least state who I am and why I would be doing such a thing... oh! Why do I not simply use my thoughts ...

Chapter 42: Dining together, newfound respect

Chapter 42: Dining together, newfound respect

/Obuk Ba'chak Iknog Arg! Eyldir ah unuga, eh eyldir ah murkska! Olok gnarig kum ustra at eyldir en grunga! Oh! Oh! Eyldir burut ah wallat, dra bokon eh spalat! Lugunga.

Un drika ehn chink, ehn wappor! Spika di Eyldir un wallat! SPIKA DI EYLDIR UN WALLAT!!

At drika un wappor, wappor at eyldir kum olok. Olok gnarig, iknog ... iknog murkska! Murkska Eyldir! Murkska, murkska, murkska!!! OOOOOHHHHH!!!!/

A t...

Chapter 41: Punishment and Coin

Chapter 41: Punishment and Coin

/Yo, waddup bitches!! It's your main man, big FFF back in the house, comin' at you with some straight facts. Today on Homeboy Radio we got a new hot topic in da city of Stormbraver! 'Parently there's some fuckin' trial going on. Real beef between da church n the city, ya hear?

Honestly, this is some real slight political maneuvering shit tho. Like, man, who actually gives a fuck? Just let people live, if someone fucks up, have 'em tried, ...

Chapter 40: The day of the Trial

Chapter 40: The day of the Trial

/Cusarius: "What is a noble if not knightly, and what a knight if not noble?" He falls to the floor, pounding it with his fist.

Martor: "A fighter the second and a politician the first, dear Cusarius." He steps on the other man's fingers. "Yet while fighters are clear, politicians be not. The snakes hide in the highest grass, and snap at any who dare come close to discovering them. Their venom goes deep and kills at a touch, and they are...

Chapter 39: The morning of the Trial

Chapter 39: The morning of the Trial

/Ah, yes. The good old grind for exp. The grind, where exp is only announced after monsters, if that is what people expect. But the thing is, not only killing monsters awards exp.

The system hides many things from us, and some of them we may gain insight to later, but so much for the gaining of exp. Now, what does this mysterious thing even stand for? Excommunication practice? Extermination portfolio? Perhaps extra poisonous?

W...

Chapter 38: Ihn'ar

Chapter 38: Ihn'ar

Hello!

It's been a while, I know, but it's me, your narrator. Lately I haven't been giving as much commentary, to preserve the intensity of the scenes, but I am still here! After all, this is my soothing voice you all have been hearing this whole time.

I've simply decided to take some time, just so I could let you all know that I'm locking my door whenever I go on break now, just so Jeff can't come in and snoop anymore. Hopefully there will no l...

Chapter 37: Coming Together

Chapter 37: Coming Together

/You know, mana gets too much rep for its usefulness. Stamina is at least as important and powerful. Actually, scratch that, any direction of growth should be valued just as much as mana. And in some regions they do, but not if you ask the mages guild. Pah, old idiots.

For now, I wanna focus on stamina though, ya know? Usually, we only talk about stamina as endurance, but that's not quite what I mean. Stamina, like, in the system, those Sp we...

Chapter 36: Mana uses

Chapter 36: Mana uses

/Woooooo, Skill shop time! The thing fucking sucks!

No, but seriously, hear me out there. The Skill shop is a total piece of shit. So, first of all, for a system that prides itself on fairness and equality, it's pretty dumb that some species will just be able to get Skills for cheaper, but you know what, FINE. We all start at different levels after all, and since everyone is affected by these requirements, it's still somewhat fair.

My biggest...

Chapter 35: New Visitor

Chapter 35: New Visitor

/It has puzzled many people before how the system handles these "stats", hasn't it? What decides your stats at birth? How are they influenced by your parents? How do they grow as one becomes older? How are they influenced by our actions and training, and how does this influence the stat bonuses we receive upon levelling up? What even is experience granted for?

Well, today I will try my best to clear most of these questions up. Not the last one ab...

Chapter 34: Detective Mercury

Chapter 34: Detective Mercury

/I love spiders, but by the gods, they terrify me./

Some biologist, probably.

- - - - - -

Mercury understood some of what was going on in the city from his regular check-ins with Marcel, and admittedly, he was a bit curious about this investigation on some sort of criminal trial. Also, since the notices for some jobs, such as witnesses rather than quality checkers, were rank E, he thought about a...

Chapter 33: Politics

Chapter 33: Politics

/Dear audience, today I have come before you to talk about but one topic. It may be a tall ask, but please weigh the words I say closely in your mind, yes?

I have come to talk about the leaderboards today. Those that separate us people into fame an infamy, that show minor and grander villains and heroes. I ask, today, why it is made as such? Why is it, that all our actions need to be presented to the public? That everyone gets a right to judge you? ...

Chapter 32: Library stroll

Chapter 32: Library stroll

Mercury woke up after the best night of sleep he had gotten in a while. His log was comfortable filled with blankets, and the night had been silent. He had some amount of money and was slowly making more.

Things were progressing. Maybe it was going a little slow, but he couldn't do much about that. Oh well, for now he had to be patient.

After getting a good stretch and a morning jog in, Mercury headed off into the forest, snacking on som...

Chapter 31: Nightly Business

Chapter 31: Nightly Business

/You know, some people may say that there are too many guilds to count, but I wouldn't quite agree with them. The problem with getting an accurate count lies not within the number, but much rather the constant founding and disbanding of new and old guilds. In addition, some guilds prefer to stay hidden, a guild of thieves, for example.

Now, there are however a few quite major guilds, one of those being the Merchants' Guild. Holding major swa...

Chapter 30: Trouble brewing

Chapter 30: Trouble brewing

/Well, this is a predicament, isn't it? I can't really start this by saying "sometimes the system doesn't put things clearly enough" because, well, I don't want a raging mob going after me. No, I definitely couldn't do that. I would never say something so blasphemous, no.

Actually, I would say that sometimes, the system is plain wrong!

Now, now, down with the pitchforks and torches, this is anonymous after all, so what are you gonna do ...

Chapter 29: Dreaming

Chapter 29: Dreaming

/"Anoth is a fickle mistress. She is the queen of spiders, the webspinner, the veiled one, the lady of lies and the spinner of secrets. The great weaver is many things, but if one had to nail her down to one, she would be a lover of pleasure. The fun she gains from intrigue is her greatest pleasure, and for a trick great enough, she would trade a thousand things."

While stories of her may be exaggerated, they still hold some truth. Even in Stillwate...

Chapter 28: A new city

Chapter 28: A new city

/Order is a magnificent thing. In the end, all things lead back to order. It is the one determining force everything relies on. Without order, there can be no rules. Without rules, there can be no existence. These laws can be as large as whatever attracts us to the floor beneath our feet, or the rules magic follows, or, even grander, the rules of the system.

Yet order can be found in the smallest structures. Buildings need to be built orderly or c...

Chapter 27: Reminiscing

Chapter 27: Reminiscing

/Arches. A curious thing, those are. Doors or gates, sometimes, and again others are rifts, tears, cracks, or breaks. What are these curious things, to make them so potent? What is it, that allows them to make a small town into a city, or level an entire capital?

Well, to keep things short, they are essentially like tunnels, connecting us... somewhere. Where exactly? Well, sadly I cannot say. Neither can anyone else, however, simply because of ho...

Chapter 26: Double Robbery

Chapter 26: Double Robbery

Status:

Mercury Rainfall Starlight

Lv.: 13

Species: Zetraspa

Titles: <Tenacious Genius>, <Forest Usurper>, <Tutorial Completer>

- - -

Hp: 105/105

Mp: 306/306

Sp: 170/170

- - -

Strength: 50

Vitality: 26

Dexterity: 39 (+1)

Agility: 31 (+1)

Intelligence: 51

Wisdom: 49

Willpower: 54

Luck: 17

- - -

Ability points: 37

W...

Chapter 25: Faraway strangers and a home, left to return.

Chapter 25: Faraway strangers and a home, left to return.

Mercury continued with a similar routine for quite some time, straining his mind and magic as much as he could without creating major problems for himself.

In essence, it was like working out with a plan. If one strained their muscles too much, they might tear and cause long-lasting damage, so it's important to know one's limits and where the limit of those limits was. That was what Mercury viewed as the key to i...

Chapter 24: Knowledge is Power, an interlude

Chapter 24: Knowledge is Power, an interlude

And then, Mercury practiced. He had thought about his next step, no, his next steps. Controlling individual masses of magical energy was only the first one. The second step was learning how to use it in energy conversion, and the third was figuring out how to have it push against something, as it did when he separated two instances of it.

For the first bit, he didn't need to know much about the properties of magical energy, b...

Chapter 23: Setback, Step back, Grow

Chapter 23: Setback, Step back, Grow

After a while, Mercury felt visible improvement, both when it came to his training as well as in his relationship to Kintra. She was scared when he disappeared first, and even more scared when she saw him come back covered in dirt and heavily panting.

But while she was scared, the moment that her heart skipped a beat was when she saw Mercury smile.

He hadn't done so in a long while, so Kintra decided to ask what he had done, an...

Chapter 22: Steady Heart, Calm Soul

Chapter 22: Steady Heart, Calm Soul

Unfortunately for Mercury, he didn't quite know where to start. I mean, what was there for him to do? He couldn't really stop all evil in the world. He couldn't stop the war. He couldn't start a country.

There was a simple reason for that: His weakness.

He had no money, no connections and little to no strength of his own. In the end, all he had was the effort he was willing to put in.

There was really only training to do. ...

Chapter 21: Heart(ache)

Chapter 21: Heart(ache)

Seeing Mercury after the eclipse might have been crushing for Gladiator, Juno, Second or Cherry. He was in a sorry state, to say the least.

After having their home destroyed, the survivors of the eclipse didn't have much of a choice on what to do. Their fields and family were gone, the city destroyed, and the soil tarnished with bodies. Rebuilding was nigh impossible, and with the memories still clinging to this place, they instead opted to move ...

Chapter 20: One hell of a finale

Chapter 20: One hell of a finale

The first one to rush in was, as usual, Gladiator. He snarled at the charging fighter for a moment, then looked at Mercury and began his run as soon as he received a nod. It only took a few seconds until he and Cerno met each other on the field of sand, but when Gladiator expected a collision, he saw his enemy place his feet down firmly and stop his momentum by stabbing the shield into the sand, before hiding all his exposed body parts behind ...

Chapter 19: Approaching magic

Chapter 19: Approaching magic

Overall, the arena fights went well. Mercury made quite a bit of progress trying out different roles on the battlefield, working even harder to fill the gap left by Second and keeping that same pace up when he was back.

There was a simple reason for this. Mercury wanted to be a king who didn't get his subjects hurt.

He didn't feel like being a figurehead with no power, nor did he want to be a king who only has money. He didn't want to...

Chapter 18: The Arena

Chapter 18: The Arena

With that first day in a city, Mercury's journey had truly begun. It was the first step towards creating his own kingdom, but before he could do so, there were more things he needed to know, namely how one actually went about starting a kingdom. Yeah, he kinda missed that point, but he was sure of one thing: To start a kingdom he would need to have a lot of money.

Now, how could he get a lot of money as quickly as possible? Maybe as a farmer? No. A...

Chapter 17: A whole new world

Chapter 17: A whole new world

While leaving the forest, Cherry could still serve as a guide, since she had been to the town on the outside multiple times already, mostly to buy supplies and the like. That's also where she got the Skillstones from! Turns out there's an old-ish gemcutter in the town who specialized in <Language> stones. Handy.

The city was a little ways away from the foot of the mountain, so the journey took them quite a while, which was long enough...

Chapter 16: Journey's beginning

Chapter 16: Journey's beginning

The three of them looked up to him, seemingly stunned that they could understand him. Seems like comprehending the fact that they could speak now was still a little much, so Mercury decided to explain a bit of stuff to them. Essentially, he gave them a tutorial, just a quick rundown, explaining all the stats, the concept of Skills and the Skill shop, as well as skillstones. And, after taking an hour or so to go over everything a little more, th...

Chapter 15: Moving forward

Chapter 15: Moving forward

Just kidding, he wasn't naming them yet. Like, seriously, with the nightmares he had with getting himself a name you should have expected him to wait until they're able to consent to what he wants to call them. So no, no wolf names yet. Instead, he took them back to his trusty log. That was, after all, his territory. He felt much more comfortable there than in a new, unexplored area.

So, he brought friends home. The trek back took another thre...