Chapter 7

After entering, he went straight for the Training and Class Halls. There was someone that he needed to impress there, also he wanted to measure his attributes and see what class fit him best now that he had gained skills that he didn't have in his past life.

The city was easy to move through as Ryan knew it like the back of his hand, in fact, this was the city he was in before he was killed and reincarnated. Unlike before he was able to admire the beauty of the city and Ryan would tell you himself, it was a gorgeous place. It was one of the richest cities in the kingdom and it looked the part, the walls of nearly every house were pearly marble and the stone of the street were inlaid with gems. Because he was admiring the beauty of the city it took him nearly an hour for him to reach the Training Hall where he opened the stone doors and walked into the main atrium. It was beautiful, the ceiling was elaborately decorated with gold and paint and they created an image of the King of Morlir, Jacob I, (the king of the kingdom he was in) killing a massive wolf that was rabid and blood thirsty as presented by the foamy blood filled mouth and red eyes of the beast.

To almost any Player or person, this would make them think that the King was a great man as he killed a rabid and wild beast. But this could not be further from the truth, the painting is slightly accurate as the king had killed a wolf like creature that was trying to kill him, but the wolf creature was not evil. It was a beast man that went to the Royal City with its wife and son looking to talk to King Edward (King Jacob's father) about peaceful negotiations with the Beastman factions, but King Jacob, prince at that time, was a massive racist that hated beastmen. While his father and the envoy were negotiating, Jacob caught the mother and son with a few of his guards and tortured the son in front of the mother. He then smeared the son's blood all over the beastwoman, ripped her clothing off her and shaved her fur off, then let her free into the woods behind the royal palace so that he and his friends could then hunt her down and use her as they see fit.

After King Edward and the envoy finished their negotiations and peace was decided, the beastman learned of what happened to his family and sent word to his people to begin preparations for war saying that the humans had never wanted peace. Once he had done this he attacked King Edward and Prince Jacob, killing the King and crippling Jacob before being killed by the guards that had helped capture his wife and son.

This made Jacob king and started a 20 year war between Humans and Beastmen that only ended when the Beastmen suddenly vanished from Horizon. After this, King Jacob abused his power and led the kingdom into a critical state that if not for the discovery of a massive mana crystal mine would have eventually caused the downfall of the kingdom.

But that's not something Ryan cared about, right now he only cared about heading out to the training field and finding some dummies to practice his new spells and skills on.

"What do you want?"

An attendant said disdainfully as he looked at Ryan. Usually the attendants were very polite to those that entered the training hall referring to them as 'sir' or 'miss' but one look at Ryan's clothes caused his manners to fly out of the window.

"I don't need anything right now, but I might call upon you later though so be ready"

Ryan said with a smile on his face. Even though the attendant had been ever so slightly rude to him, Ryan was polite and tried his best to not make an enemy. After that brief encounter, Ryan turned to where the training fields were and walked towards them. As he walked through the corridors that led him towards the fields, he passed paintings and statues of the king and other heroes that never actually did heroic acts. Humans were actually the race despised by nearly every other race in Horizon, the problem was that they dominated the vast continents of the world so no other race except maybe the demon and undead race who lived in another dimension could threaten them. In fact one of the reasons that Humans accepted the Players was to boost their numbers and old the other races under their dominion with the seemingly immortal players. Before long he made it to the field filled with straw dummies that were indestructible.

The field wasn't really a field, it was more of just dirt and mud than grass. Every here and there were a blade of grass but they would soon be wiped out once the Players finally made their way here and began training. You can train here for hours and only gain one stat point or one level in a skill and that is what a lot of people that came here did, they were desperate for any gains that wouldn't require putting themselves in harms way and that was a poisonous mindset as only through real combat can you improve at an exponential rate and become strong enough to protect yourself.

But Ryan didn't have that mindset, he was only here to impress the head of the Training Hall and get some rewards. Once he found a training dummy near to the tower that was joined to the training hall, he started to attack it. With his axe in hand he danced around the dummy, swinging and slicing his axe in vital places. Every step he took had a purpose, a reason for its existence and eventually his movements became a blur to anyone looking. This wasn't because he was extremely fast, but it was due to the nature of the movements and how he was beginning one move before the previous one had finished.

His perception of time faded and it only became him and the dummy, even his axe seemed to blend into nothingness becoming only an extension of his body. What felt like hours passed and Ryan could suddenly hear clapping coming from behind him.

His movements halted and he turned to look behind him, when he had done so he saw a beautiful woman that any man would have fawned over and called her a Goddess the second they saw her. But Ryan was not any man, he was here with an unshakable purpose that beauty alone could not rip him from.

"You are pretty good, and I don't say that to just anyone. In fact, I have been looking for a prodigy to mentor and raise as an expert warrior, but I think you are already a fully fledged warrior. Hahaha" the woman chuckled as she spoke.

"Dear Latavia Head of the training and class halls, I am Ryan and I would be honoured to be your mentee and there is much that I need to learn before I can consider myself an expert. Please, can you teach me the art of the axe?" Ryan said while bowing the entire time. He knew that in order for him to get her respect he needed to be polite and respectful himself.

This quest line was discovered by someone in his previous that bragged about it for days on the world chat forums for Horizon, he was so happy with himself because he gained something amazing from the quest just by accepting it. And Ryan was aiming for just that, he didn't care for the rest of the quest he only wanted the acceptance reward as it would make sure that even though his level was behind every one else's by two or three right now, he would easily be able to contend with them even without his axe.

"I guess it might be worth my time, but first you have to do something for me. There is a creature in the woods that has been bothering the surrounding villages for quite a while now and I have been way too busy to deal with it, can you?"

[Quest!]

Kill the creature in the forest and return to Latavia, the training hall master, with the beasts head.

Reward: +10,000 XP, 1 silver, continuation of quest line.

Penalty for failure: None

Time limit: None

Accept

Yes/No

"It would be an honour for me to be able to carry out this task for you, but I must lament the fact that my body does not appear to be strong enough and even the guards said my body was tainted by something." Ryan said

"Well Ryan that is very true, I did sense something off about you but since you accepted to help you must be a good person. To help with your body's weakness I actually have an elixir prepared that I have been saving for you, my first disciple" Latavia said as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a vial of a royal purple colour.

Ryan inspected it and it was the same elixir that the man had described in his messages on the forum.

[Elixir of Strengthening]

Removes all impurities and strengthens your whole body. When using a stamina skill there is a 5% chance it won't require any stamina.

+10 to all stats

Instantly Ryan poured it down his throat and began to absorb the liquid. A white light emanated gently from Ryan's body as it seemed to be rebuilt, small muscles formed over his previously tiny skinny body and his facial structure became a lot more symmetrical.

[+10 all stats]

He took a quick look at his new status with a smile.

[Status]

Name: Ryan Spencer

Race: Human

Class: None

Titles: (Man who just won't quit)

Strength: 14 (+4)

Endurance: 12 (+2)

Stamina: 23 (+4)

Agility: 19 (+4)

Dexterity: 16 (+2)

Intelligence: 24 (+2)

Wisdom: 15 (+2)

Stamina: 127/127

Mana: 26/26

Skills: Stealth Lv1, Lighting Bolt Lv1, Block Lv1, Mana Manipulation Lv1, Corpse Explosion Lv1, Spiritual Slice Lv1

A/N: BTW the stat adding on the side are from the percentage gains from the different items he got earlier. It's weird it's either +2 or +4 but trust me, it's correct, I did the math for a solid 10 minutes.