First Fight

That night, Alexander dressed up and left his house.

Today, the gathering in Bravehearts Bar was taking place.

Although he had no expectations to find the Barbarian formula, he still wanted to try and purchase some extraordinary items.

In the past two days he had noticed that even though he had bought two items so far, he had traded both of for FP.

This caused his combat power to remain the same as an average Laywer, a Sequence that already doesn't have sufficient combat power.

Reaching the Bravehearts bar and entering the secret door to get to the party, Alexander sat down and started analyzing the participants.

He had already participated twice and he could roughly guess the situation of each of them.

There were currently 5 people, not counting Isengard and himself.

One of them was a young woman who probably had a craftsman friend that also appeared in the book.

Two of them were middle aged men, most likely official Beyonders, with one of them being a Folk of Rage and the other being a Student of Ratiocination.

Finally there was a young man who, similar to him, was also a wild Beyonder of unknown Sequence and pathway.

These were only his guesses but he felt that there was a 90% chance that he was right.

After taking a look at everyone, the party started.

Everyone stated their requests, with most of the requests being Sequence 8 ingredients and low level mysticism knowledge.

Alexander was interested in neither and waited until it was his turn.

"I'm looking to purchase the Barbarian formula.", he said but nobody responded.

Slightly disappointed, he continued on.

"I'm also looking to buy an extraordinary item."

"Preferably a gun, but I will also be content with it being in the shape of any ordinary item that you can carry around.", he stated his request and most of his attention was on the young woman.

The young woman saw that and could only cough awkwardly.

"I have an item that matches your description.", she said.

"It is a gun with the effect of charging up before shooting a critical blow."

"Its downside is that while it's in your possession, you will be very afraid of shadows and dark environments."

"The price is 800 pounds."

Hearing the downsides and the price of the gun, the people could understand why she was feeling awkward about selling the gun.

Not to mention that it was obviously overpriced, what type of people were the Beyonders that would participate in such a gathering?

Even if they were members of the church, they still had a paranoid nature.

Most of their activities would take place at night, making it easier to hide their tracks.

Alexander thought about it and wasn't very concerned about the price.

Even though he had been purchasing many items these past weeks, the inheritance he had received was enough for him to become a demigod.

As for the downside, Alexander wanted an item that would provide him some self protection, he was not planning to go out hunting at night.

"I bought it.", Alexander said and received weird glances from the rest of the participants.

Ignoring them, he took 800 pounds out of his wallet and traded them for the gun.

The party continued as per usual before Isengard decided its ending and allowed Alexander to leave first.

Obviously, his excessive spending had made some of the participants greedy.

Alexander didn't mind and proceeded to use his usual routine of changing clothes in the public bathroom, taking a ride to the university and from there walking home.

Just as he was walking home, his intuition warned him that someone was following him.

Looking at his build, Alexander could identify that this was most likely another participant, most likely a Sequence 8 Folk of Rage.

Recalling his knowledge of the pathways, Alexander knew that Beyonders of this pathway mostly had abilities related to the sea.

Having said that, their abilities were limited on land and thus had to rely on their physical prowess to overwhelm their opponent.

Luckily, the road that led to his house was full of people, making him unable to act.

Weighting his strengths versus his opponent's, a simple plan formed inside Alexander's.

Continuing to act as if nothing happened, Alexander changed his route towards a less populated area.

By the time he was close to his destination, the people around them had mostly disappeared.

Reaching an empty dark alley, Alexander no longer acted but started running, opening the distance between him and his enemy.

The Folk of Rage, who was maintaining a certain distance, was surprised but quickly reacted.

Simultaneously, the two people pulled their guns out and aimed at each other.

Both of them believed that they had the advantage in their fight.

The temper of the Tyrant's pathway seemed to have an effect, as the Folk of Rage was the first to pull the trigger.

However, it seemed like shooting wasn't his strong point since the bullet compeltely missed.

Seeing the opportunity, Alexander immediately shot back, trying to aim the enemy's vital points.

The Folk of Rage seemed to have regained his calm, as he promptly moved his body just enough for the bullet to miss his vitals, while illusory scales appeared on his body, blocking part of the bullet's impact.

Obviously, the previous loss of temper was just a disguise.

From the start, his goal was to to trade an injury for an opportunity to quickly finish the battle.

Just as he aimed at Alexander's head and was about to pull the trigger, a faint shout reverberated in the dark alley.

"Whisper!".

Before the Folk of Rage could react, indescribable whispers resounded in his mind.

The whispers, coupled with the pain caused by the bullet gave rise to multiple feelings inside him.

Just when he was about to give into these feelings, the sound of a gunshot sounded, as a bullet pierced through his head and caused him to collapse.

Seeing his enemy collapsing, Alexander slumped down and nervously took deep breaths trying to calm himself down.

Time goes back for 10 minutes.

When Alexander noticed that someone was following him, he quickly judged that with his current combat power he couldn't overpower his enemy.

With that in mind, he quickly traded the gun he had just bought for FP, before pressing the [Simulate] button and thinking about gaining something that would instantly level up his combat power.

[Simulation starting...]

[Three weeks after your awakening, you have managed to become a Sequence 9 Lawyer.]

[You just finished participating in a Beyonder gathering, only to realize that you are being followed.]

[Making a quick judgment that you aren't your enemy's opponent, you visit the church of the Earth Mother, attempting to buy some time.]

[There, you consider your options.]

[Knowing that most orthodox gods aren't going to reply to your prayers, you remember that you have a strange affinity with the True Creator.]

[Taking a coin out of your pocket, you decide to pray and request that he lends enough power to make an amulet.]

[The True Creator, for some unknown reason, finds you particularly pleasing to the eye and chooses to send down his power.]

[Holding the newly made amulet in your hand, you find out that it causes the enemy to hear whispers, with power equivalent to a Sequence 6 Beyonder.]

[You already know that you have paid a certain price, but you are surprisingly okay with it, as if everything other than gaining power is meaningless.]

[With the power of the amulet and through an ambush, you manage to kill your enemy.]

[Angry with how he forced you to waste an extraordinary item, you throw his corpse in the river.]

[Two days later, the Punishers have yet to contact you.]

[You guess that they attributed the Folk of Rage's death to Aurora Society and will not hunt you down.]

[Having already obtained enough power and having no further motivation, you decide to join Aurora Society.]

[The next day you get an assassination mission.]

[Your target is an Intis spy that recently moved next to your house.]

[You enter his house, only to find out that he already knew of your existence.]

[He catches you by surprise and shoots you in the head.]

[Suddenly, a great will awakens inside your body.]

[You die.]

[Simulation ends...]

[Choose one of the following options:]

[1. One Whisper Amulet. Cost: 120 FP]

[2. Folk of Rage characteristics. Cost: 100FP]

[3. Lord of the Storm's Wrath. Cost: 20FP]

His goal of obtaining a power up obviously made 'him' even less adaptable than usual.

Having said that, Alexander was ready from the start to pick the first option.

With the amulet in hand, his priority was to drop his enemy's vigilance.

By walking into the dark alley, the Folk of Rage would think that he was affected by the gun's downsides and let go of most of his guard.

At the same time, by avoiding close combat and with the element of surprise, he managed to kill the enemy.

Ten seconds later, Alexander managed to regain his breath and looked at the Folk of Rage's corpse.

This was the first time that he had killed someone in both of his lives, but he didn't feel any guilt.

"This is a crazy and twisted world."

"Me not going around and killing people to collect materials already makes me kind enough, not fighting back in this situation is just stupidity.", he thought and strengthened his resolve to survive.

Walking towards the corpse, Alexander noticed a dark red glove that was obviously extraordinary.