New Year (2)

Classes were announced and Link had some time on his hands until they started. He sat in his room and mumbled under his breath, teleporting out and appearing inside a cave.

"This place still looks the same" Link spoke, looking around. This was the cave where he fought and killed Lyrius and his group and where he first discovered the psych core. After a minute, Link walked towards a wall and punched through it, revealing a passageway.

<You planning on exploring?>

"Indeed" Link answered, putting on the Dark Abyss Mage's mask and walking inside the passage. After a few seconds light could be seen shining from around a corner. Link walked towards it and exited the cave. He looked down and saw the same city he remembered back when he first discovered this place with carriages coming to and from.

With the skull flame mask, Link wore an average black armor he bought before leaving the Kingdom. He needed something that would go with the mask and he was successful. The armor and mask, even though they did not belong to the same armor set, looked good together. Link looked like a grim reaper dressed all in black with the skull mask giving him a dangerous aura.

He had been thinking about this small gap ever since he came back from the second continent after completing the test. Questioning if he'll be able to make good use out of it.

"Lionhart city" Link muttered to himself.

<You're thinking of revenge aren't you?>

"Tom was a good friend" Link spoke "He deserved a much better death"

Walking down the hill, Link appeared from the thick bushes and started walking down the dirt path, with people avoiding him completely.

"Who is that?" A merchant riding a carriage asked his guard.

"I don't know sir" the guard answered "I think he's an adventurer"

People would stare at him as they walked towards the city, but when Link would meet their gazes they would quickly look away. "I know I look intimidating but how can they be such cowards?" Link thought to himself.

After a minute of walking, he finally reached the city gates. Link looked up, seeing the magic sentries and soldiers stationed above. The wall was much bigger than he expected.

"What is your business here?" One of the soldiers guarding the gate approached Link and blocked his way.

Link looked him up and down, seeing the shiny dark red armor he wore and the giant double handed sword on his back got Link's approval. "This guy looks cool" He thought to himself.

"I need to buy some supplies and stay for some time" Link answered.

"How long will you be staying?" The soldier asked.

Link looked to his left and right, seeing the carriages and other travelers entering the city without much trouble. He looked back at the soldier and spoke "Are you fucking hitting on me or something? Why am i the only one being questioned?"

"We're only trying to determine if you are a threat or not sir" The soldier spoke "It's our protocol with Mages"

"Listen. If I were a threat, I would have come here wearing all pink" Link said. (What he meant was that he wouldn't be wearing intimidating armor and pulling unwanted attention to himself if he wished to get in and do harm)

"I understand sir" The soldier spoke "But please bear with me. Like I said, it is only protocol. If we do not do this properly we get punished"

Link took a deep breath and answered the soldier's questions. They all varied from what he was doing here, how long he'll be staying, what supplies does he require and so on. Link answered most of them, but one question made him stop this whole thing.

"What Level are you sir?" The soldier asked. (Level as in Tier)

"I will not answer that" Link said "This is starting to piss me off"

The soldier did not know how to proceed, and Link appeared to be adminant on keeping his Level a secret. He thought that it was not something he should share since asking about a Mage's Level back in his original continent was a taboo.

"Let him in" A man spoke from the wall. He looked down at them from the top and jumped down. Landing with a loud thud as the ground broke a little under his feet.

"Commander!" The soldier saluted the man and took a step back.

"We apologize" The man spoke "Welcome to Gilda city" The man bowed his head a little and pointed at the gate. Link thanked him and proceeded to enter.

"Commander, what about the protocol?" The soldier stepped forward after seeing Link a distance away and spoke.

"Protocol?" The man asked "He was annoyed at your question just now and he let his guard down a little, allowing me to sense his Mana" He continued after a few seconds of silence "I do not think he is a person we can afford to offend"

Link started looking around. The people avoided him and his gaze as he made his way through. Shops were everywhere as the smell of food filled the air. Link bought some and kept looking around.

<What if the Academy finds out you disappeared?>

"They won't" Link said "I'm scouting for now anyways. We won't be staying for long"

The city was exactly as Link expected it to be. It was as underdeveloped as Yanda city. This confirmed that this continent was nothing compared to the original one, which was probably why it was being used as test grounds and a hideout by the academy. Even if they are found out. It wouldn't be a problem to deal with.

"Poor bastards" Link muttered. He felt a little bad. This place was not viewed as a threat at all and was being used without them even knowing a thing about it. Link even thought that the academy and whomever else knew of this place were the reason why it wasn't developing properly.

Magic wasn't something easy, but it was not that difficult either. With enough time and practice they would start advancing and growing, but it did not seem to be that way.

"This city has nothing" Link thought. He entered the Adventurer's guild, catching everyone's attention. He walked up to the counter and bought some information with a map and other supplies before walking out. He had no interest in registering since he already did back in Yanda city. His Mana print will probably be detected by the Guild and his identity will be revealed, so he left after getting what he needed.

Compared to Yanda city the adventurer's guild seemed bigger and better. He was interested in grabbing some quests but resisted the urge.

After walking around for a while, Link went into an alley and teleported back to the cave, blocking it again.

Without anything to do. Link went inside the forest and started hunting some Level 4 and 5 Beasts. Compared to Dungeons, it was not as rewarding, but as much as Link searched for a Dungeon in this place he could not detect any, so hunting slowly was his only option.

****

Classes started and Link's routine went back to the same old. He met Abby again as his new craftsmanship professor, but she seemed to be ignoring Link for some reason. Although it confused him, it did give him some leeway in class, avoiding some of the work.

The new classes were as follows:

The craftsmanship class where he learns simple alchemy, scroll crafting and Rune drawing. It was not anything new and Link did not gain anything from it. He kind of hoped that he'll manage to unlock another option in the system but unfortunately what they were being taught was nothing but the basics.

The Elements class was still the same as last year with only new spells. Tommy would teach them how to read higher Level spell books and how to properly follow instructions. It was confirmed by Tommy himself that the test would be the same as last year.

Dissection was a very unpopular class taught by a hunter. Since learning how to properly dissect and cut a monster open to retrieve materials is very important. You wouldn't want to cut into a creature and accidentally poke the wrong thing and have poison, acid or god knows what else splash all over you.

Art of Combat class was the same old with Bai still being the instructor. Link did not need much instruction though but he did receive something from Bai that pleased him.

'Viper Sutra: Second Style' is what the book said when Link opened it. This was the second level of the skill. Link had god level martial arts but none of them used weapons. This will give him a boost, so this was what he practiced in the class ever since receiving it.

The last class was Ancient Tongue. This was some sort of language lesson. Mages needed to speak and write with it as it helps them greatly in many things. Runes, Imprints and many other crafting and spell casting uses this language. It was extremely difficult and required a lot of hard work.

Link learned it in a single day after scanning the books with the 'Scholar' Skill. His classmates would kill him if they found that out, having to suffer through it while he had that kind of cheat would piss anyone off.

***

With the weeks coming and going and with the occasional trip to the Forest, Link managed to Level up once, which took longer than he liked but he could do nothing about it.

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Don't stop the comments and votes, it helps. <3

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Currently :

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-- Status :

<User: Link>

<Race: Divinity>

<Level 7> <4th Tier> -- New --

<440 000 / 3 700 000 Exp> -- New --

<HP: 180 / 180>

<MP: 24 110 000/ 24 110 000> -- New --

<Strength: 15>

<Agility: 31> -- New --

<Stamina: 20>

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-- Martial Arts :

<Viper Sutra> <86 / 200> <2> -- New --

...

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