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Downward Ascension

After unfortunately passing away in his old life in a modern world, our protagonist Chris finds himself reincarnated in a fantasy world like no other. After coming to terms with his death, he sets out to live a normal life filled with peace and hapiness. Sadly, Chris finds out the hard way how cruel fate truly is..... NOTE: None of the reference art belongs to me, all credit belongs to the creators. If you would like me to remove your art, let me know by commenting on the latest chapter.

TheCravenLord · Fantasy
Not enough ratings
11 Chs

Chapter 4- Knowledge is power

Vantralis.

An unfamiliar word that has no mention in any dictionary, mythology , and refrences in his previous world. He wasn't surprised that was the case, but it would've been nice to draw some similarities between the worlds for some context.

According to the books, vantralis appears to be split into multiple powerful empires and smaller kingdoms that are either independent or in some way, in service to one of the bigger empires. In total, there appears to be 7 current empires that stand on top in this mysterious world. As for the kingdoms, there are 4 smaller kingdoms, along with some exceptions. According to the city lord, he was in a town called Midvake which is situated in the northern provinces of the Atheria Empire, which was unofficially the 'human' empire, though it did consist of other races aswell.

The Atheria Empire, was founded by the late great grandfather of the current emperor thousands of years ago, which meant people in this world had a life expectancy that dwarfed his previous world's. The thing that bothered chris though, was the reason for such case...

"Ah, here it is!", spoke chris,as he reads through a new book this time. This particular one though, had intricate carvings along the cover and spine of the book, giving an elegant appearance.

Magic.

As a weeb in his previous life, chris already had a general idea about magic through consuming various shows, movies,and more importantly anime which helped him understand the concept of it faster.

Mana seemed to be the essence of all magic in this world too, except the concept and utilization of mana itself varies from magic type to magic type, aswell as race you're born in and soul constitution. Other things such as life experiences can factor in, allowing one to develop special classes or jobs granting them a boost in their respective fields.

Information regarding the neighboring empires seemed to be scarce, no doubt it being in the possession of higher rank citizens such as nobles and wealthy merchants by the looks of it, which chris understood as the main government or 'Royal family' wanted to reserve that info to themselves. However there was one empire that was constantly being referred to as restricted territory and to be avoided at all costs....

The Gehenna Empire.

Which was portrayed as ruled by nefarious demons and ruthless and conniving demon nobles under the one and only demon king.

Fortunately the demon king, is reported to have been killed as of 15 years ago thanks to the combined actions of multiple empire's champions and warriors. Yet it's still regarded as suicide to travel there, due to the very terrain being enriched in Nether, which is a form of mana that is nourishing to demons but toxic to other races especially the elves who have a high affinity for Nature related magic.

Ranks in this world depended on one's power, and soul purity that is emitted out of the user's body in the form of an aura. Beasts however, are ranked on their danger threat and impact on vantralis as a whole. The ranks are as follows:

# Humans/Elves/Dwarves/Beastmen

Beginner

Intermediate

Advanced

Master

Expert

Grandmaster

Saint

Sage(Demi-God/Deity)

God

# Beasts;

Normal

Danger

Magic

Super

Disaster

Catastrophe

Apocalypse

(A/N:Beasts may have less ranks, but 1 Normal rank beast can defeat 2 beginner rank humans.)

# Classes and Abilty Rank

*Abilties and class ranks will solely depend on the rank of the skill user with them being parallel in nature.

e.g; A Grandmaster would poses a skill of the same rank, or an already had skill would evolve and upgrade to a new tier.

Eventhough mana is the essence of magic, a person still needs a medium in order to use it, most notably the four core elements like water, air, earth, and fire element allowing the person to use mana properly. Although there are exceptions, where warriors channel mana from their cores through their muscles to empower themselves to perform unbelievable superhuman feats.

The more chris read, the more his sanity was leaving the chat, because by this logic a beginner Expert level on this world would be more than enough to be classified as a planetary threat ,atleast.

Luckily for chris, according to these documents the only recorded apocalypse rank beast was felled long long ago, and the only catastrophe rank beast left was in the dragon continent which is separated from the rest of the world, hundreds of thousands miles away from him, which gave him some sort of relief.

'Thank god, I wasnt one of those heroes sent by a goddess to slay some demon lord,' thought chris as breathed out another breath of relief and pondered how was he going to make any money to buy food.

Chris spent two more hours reading up on the Atheria Empire and it's royal family, aswell as it's political and economical structure to see what type of job would allow him to get some quick cash.

So far, only adventures and assassins were his only options as the others wouldn't bat an eye for a poor kid.....

'Adventurer it is then, considering the type of training to be a proper assassin would take,I would better off doing small jobs as an adventurer which conveniently requires no training' thought chris as he puts back the books in their proper shelves.

He makes his way out of the library and back out to the chilling cold street of Midvake, only to be met with an empty street.

"Luckily the library is always open otherwise I'd have been kicked out by now" spoke chris while warming himself up by hugging his thin and starved body.

Chris makes his way to the alleyway he first awoke from then used some dirty nearby box as a bed after emptying out its contents. He presevered under the cold wind and ever-growing hunger, he looked up to the moon that was shining above him so beautifully and couldn't help but notice how much more radiant the moon was in this world.

"....atleast SHE'S not here" mumbled chris under his breath in self comfort, which unknowingly brought a small smile to his face.For a moment, chris genuinely forgot he was hungry or cold and had what people would call inner peace.