The Truth

Why are you so special? She blurted out. "Looks like one mission and me breaking my legs is all it took before it came to this," Draven said with a slight chuckle. I'll tell you when everyone is present I don't want to have to repeat myself.

"What do you mean who's missing?" She asked.

"What are you talking about Celine has been gone this entire time I haven't seen her at all." "I figured she was feeling guilty and needed some alone time so I didn't ask but I'm worried that she didn't come back to eat fish so can someone go find her?" Draven asked. "On it," Greg said standing up "I'll come with," Ross said. "But none of you dare touch my fish!" Ross pointed to the girls. "No worries I have more," Draven said waving. "Awesome I'll have seconds then when I get back!" Rebecca and Jennifer sat a bit closer now to Draven. Why did you launch us away from you when we could have helped? Rebecca said as she stared at Draven's legs. "You would have died" He answered immediately. "But.." She began to say. "No buts, had any of you become the golems target you would be dead right now. I saw a chance to get you guys out so I took it. that's all there is to it." Draven said interrupting her. 

Ross and Greg could be heard calling for Celine in the distance. Seeing she hasn't made an appearance yet can only mean she is hiding. "Celine are you behind me somewhere? Don't make me get up and turn around to find you. Come and sit down with us and eat some fish." No one answered. "Celine! I'm not joking I will force myself to get up and look for you if you don't come out right now!" Still nothing. "Okay on the count of three I'm going to get up. One… Two… T… Arent you mad at me?" Draven heard Celine finally answer back. "Why do you want me to sit with you and eat fish when I nearly got you and everyone else killed? All because I had to take this gem out of a statue. You all should hate me I mean look at Dravens legs they were twisted all the way around! She said while frantically waving her arms around as she spoke. "He nearly died twice! Even after May's Full Heal. All because I was there to screw everything up!" She said as tears began to stream uncontrollably down her cheeks.

"Come sit next to me Celine Draven said while patting the ground next to him. "Why do you want the person who almost got you killed to sit next to you?" She said sobbing even harder. Because it seems like you need me to forgive you so come in for a hug everything is ok now. You want to hug me? Why do you want to hug me? I'm full of snot from crying and your hurt and we all nearly died and... and… woosh Celine was lifted into the air by wind magic and then placed in a seated position next to Draven. He then wrapped his arm around her as she began to cry her eyes out against his chest without saying another word. After she calmed down a bit Draven finally spoke up again.

"I don't blame you for what happened anyone in your shoes would have seen a big gem and wanted to take it as well myself included. Not everyone understands that because not everyone can go invisible and sneak around to do that in the first place. So they aren't tempted by such things. Most people would not have acted any differently. It was an honest mistake well as honest as stealing gets that is," he said with a chuckle "but there was no way for you to know that would have happened. The only reason I knew to run away was because I have eyes that give me item descriptions when I look at things or even people. It told me I was holding 1 out of 3 cores from that creature so naturally that meant it was dormant and would now wake up and start looking for whoever stole his shit. Without that ability, I would have had no idea and would have even praised you for such a lucky find. Not once did I feel like any of that was your fault." Jennifer's eyes lit up at that. That's how you knew I was a kitsune! Exactly I slipped a bit when I read your race out loud as it seemed like a rare one.

Celine snuggled into Draven's chest more he was so warm and she had never felt safer since she arrived in this world than she did right now. Jennifer was glaring daggers at her but she decided to keep quiet for now. The guys were already back and had silently sat down and started eating the fish that had been cooking over the campfire they had made while Draven was sleeping. "You know I screwed up big time too last week." "What are you talking about you're the hero from last week you saved the town," Celine said. "No, I nearly doomed it. All I did was fix my mess. After I became mayor yesterday I quickly skimmed through all the options that I could change, edit, and buy there were so many of them but I clearly remember reading the option to change the barrier settings so only citizens can enter. And I didn't activate it I just kept looking through all the options thinking I would start changing things after I had some time to familiarize myself more with it all. Later that day we were attacked and 58 people died." Draven sighed remembering that day it still haunted him as the deaths of everyone weighed heavily on his shoulders.

"Had I changed that one setting they would have been stuck outside and long before they could have broken the barrier I would have been alerted and could have dealt with them outside of town without anyone getting hurt. But no they walked in and slaughtered 58 people by the time I got there, So their deaths are on me. And I have to live with that mistake but luckily for you, we somehow scraped by and everything will be ok. After a bit of time passes this story will be something we will use to tease you and we will all laugh about it. He said smiling. "I had no idea that's what happened Celine said looking at Draven. Yeah, I was feeling like real shit too until Jennifer came by to cheer me up he said as he raised his hand to his cheek. Jennifer blushed seeing her kiss was still on his mind. She was starting to get more and more annoyed that Celine was snuggling up with Draven right now. "So do you feel any differently about me after hearing about my screw-up?"

Celine just shook her head from left to right. "No, I don't think that was your fault it wasn't on purpose and you had no way of knowing that was going to happen." Draven patted her on the head and smiled warmly at her. And I feel the same way about your mistake so let's just leave it at that and move forward from here on. Celine nodded feeling much better now as she wrapped her arm around his. Jennifer was practically bathing in an aura of hellfire seeing this. Unable to take it anymore she sat right next to Draven as well as grabbed his other arm as she glared at Celine. Both Greg and Ross could feel the hairs on their necks stand up as they prepared themselves for a civil war. Draven was very uncomfortable right now he thought celine just wanted to hug him cause she was feeling bad and didn't think anything romantic about it. But seeing Jennifer take action by grabbing his other arm while leaking killing intent he was lost for words and was not equipped to deal with the situation.

Luckily Celine got the hint and reluctantly let go of Draven. He decided to do what he did best and completely ignored the situation and quickly changed the subject. "Everything I just said is your business to share I won't stop you if any of you are mad and want to tell everyone what happened yesterday. The only reason I didn't was because I felt that it would cause people to want to leave and probably lead to even more deaths. But everything I say from here on out is not to leave this group. So Think carefully about if you want to know what I'm about to say and get into the inner circle of knowledge about my abilities and thoughts of where we are and what's going on. If any of your opinions of me have changed after hearing about last week then please speak up now that you do not wish to hear the rest. As I will not allow information about my abilities to spread." Draven said with a very grim expression. "Jennifer asked me the question so I'm prepared to answer. Are all of you prepared to hear the answer?" They all nodded. "You stayed back to save our lives and almost died twice in the process I can't ask anything more of a friend I got your back," Greg said Ross nodded as well and so did the girls. "Ok then like most of you have heard I woke up in the woods and not in Novice Village. What you haven't heard is that my primary species is not Dragon it is Djinn and Ancient Dragon as well as Raiju.

I have a combination of 3 very rare Species intertwined with my genes. I even have a system called Djinn System which counts as one of the racial abilities of my Djinn race. This is why I know quite a bit and seem to have a really good memory and knowledge of things or places that I shouldn't know about. It is why I don't use a pod to rank up and instead deal with incredible pain as everything that happens to me is suited and tailored especially for me and not programmed into the pod. With every level, I get to choose which attributes I want to increase and I can even gain skill points to enhance my body further with gifts from all of my 3 species which also hurt a lot. My Djinn Race is why I'm so good at magic and have strange magical abilities and is why I have so much mana to cast crazy spells. Whenever you see electricity flowing around me that's my Raiju species kicking in it grants me great speed increasing attacking power and movement. My Ancient Dragon Race gives me a very strong body and high defense and attack power. Most of my physical changes are Dragon in nature. I'm currently working on getting wings." Draven said taking a moment to pause to let all of that sink in before continuing.

Seeing they were all patiently waiting he continued. "My Class was generated from my system I had to unlock it after hitting level 10 and then went on a quest to fulfill the requirements in order to obtain it. that's why I was so familiar with the shadow creature I told you guys to watch out for when we walked through the split in the mountain. Seeing as one of them almost killed me I know quite a bit about them now. My class is called The Magus of Shadow and War. It was deemed to be incredibly powerful be it magical or physical while having utilities such as my new shadow abilities. That is pretty much me in a nutshell. Any questions so far?" Draven said looking around the group as they all stared at him with their mouths hanging wide open. 

What the FUCK! They all cried out in unison. Draven was actually curious as to how people would react to this information but after seeing theirs it seemed to have been predictable. "So you're a Djinn? Are you able to grant wishes and shit or do you have some kind of lamp or something?" Greg asked. "No Draven laughed but I thought the same thing as well when I first read it." "So why keep all this a secret? Wouldn't you have more to gain if people knew how strong you are? I mean even though you haven't told anyone it's not like you hide your abilities or anything." Ross asked as he couldn't understand why he would want to sell himself short when he was so strong. "True but most people brush it off thinking it is because I'm a higher level and have access to things others don't but can eventually get or think it has something to do with being a dragon which other than my dad no one else is. But as to why I kept it a secret was because the system went out of its way to hide my identity to the terminals. When I first went into Novice Village to get my ID card and whatnot I went into incognito mode, whatever that means before I went through the barrier. And then my system activated again to do something before getting my ID card as it printed out only mentioning that I am a dragon and nothing else. So clearly the system is trying to keep me a secret from the terminals and I don't know why yet. When I got to town it was also to stop people from coming for me for being special but I stopped worrying about that as soon as I read all their levels. Draven explained.

"So that's how you knew when we reached level 5 back in the training grounds. Jennifer said as she began to understand how his abilities worked. "Exactly, those with races that are higher quality require more XP orbs to level up than others with more average Races. I have the privilege of having three high-class races but that also means I get to farm three times as many XP Orbs as Jennifer would have to to level up. But then how are you at such a high level? Rebecca asked. Draven shrugged "High risk high reward. I kill a lot of things very fast. Speaking of leveling up you guys can divide these amongst yourselves I already leveled up 3 times today so I'm good for now. Draven said as he passed out all the Iron-ranked XP orbs from the elementals he killed earlier today. They took them and divided them up equally as each person got 4.

I have a better understanding of you now but you mentioned information on where you think we are and what's going on right now. Can you explain all of that? Jennifer asked. Hearing this everyone scooted in closer as they were deeply interested in this information as well. Draven explained the first clue he found carved into the boulder by the river saying he was certain they were still on earth and something happened that changed the planet. Rebecca looked up into the stars and said I think you're right there is the little dipper so we have to still be on Earth right? Draven had never even thought to check the constellation but she was right he also found the little dipper that was solid proof they were still on Earth. He then talked about the Auction house and the Town communication tab that still hadn't listed any other town yet. He then explained the significance of the Golden Portal and how that means there shouldn't be any creature at gold level or definitely not above gold level in this area or perhaps even the planet. 

That kind of reminds me of a tower defense game" Greg said as he pondered the Golden Portal. What do you mean Draven asked genuinely puzzled on how he thought about that. Well after it's activated it won't close so anything can go through it both ways. So we have to build around the portal on both sides and protect it from being invaded by beings from other worlds so that they don't invade ours. Seeing you said they sell resources on that Auction House you can conclude that they may want the resources from our world to help them speed up their progression. Which means we might need their resources to speed up ours. Maybe some worlds have certain types of resources that we don't have and vice versa like what if they don't have copper that conducts electricity so they can't build crazy electronics but we don't have some fantasy metal like orichalcium that conducts mana?" Greg concluded. "That makes a lot of sense Greg I'm impressed," Rebecca said with a shocked expression. Even Draven was impressed he hadn't thought that deep into it and he considered himself to be an overthinker. 

But that is where we are right now. The plan is to level up professions as we need a lot of money in the future and also get as strong as we can to not only survive our world but the next as well. We also need to recruit as many other villages as possible. The best-case scenario would be to unite all the survivors in one camp but that seems unlikely so i will settle for being the largest and strongest camp. Everyone agreed on those priorities and goals. How do you plan on recruiting other villages the ones that are desperate will be easy but we have to assume that there are plenty that don't need our help Celine asked. By being the strongest and having the most fair rules and economy. Sooner or later they will get attacked and people will want to join us be it for better treatment or better chances of survival. We will target the weak if the strong don't want to join us and then power-level them. their number will fall over time as our numbers grow. Draven answered with confidence he had no doubt he could accomplish this he was sure no one could surpass him in strength and no one at his level of strength would treat their people as well as he did. He knew how corrupt people were and he vowed not to fall into that trap. He had been humbled more times than he could count in his life and he had no desire to become the bully. 

After his story, everyone finished eating and May was finally able to help Draven's other leg. "That feels much better thanks May." He said appreciatively. "No need for thanks I'll send you the bill later." She said giving him a wink. "Pfft" this made Draven and everyone else laugh. They began to pick up all their things as Draven created another platform that had seats with roller coaster bars that they could pull down to lock into place. "Let's head back home."