Oath of Diminution

There was a bright flash of light and Anthony opened his eyes, only to find himself back in his home.

"Anthony is something wrong?"

His father asked him concernedly, noticing Anthony wheezing loudly, panting, and sweating as if he had just fought a battle to the death.

"I'm fine, dad", was Anthony's reply as he quickly checked the date and time in his smartwatch, only to find out that he had regressed about 5 years in the past.

"Actually I'm not hungry right now so I'll just go up and study now."

He was happy simply seeing his family all alive and jovial once again and didn't have the time nor the energy to spare in meaningless talks as he couldn't explain to them that he had regressed. It was said that knowledge could be dangerous and, if he did ever inform them about it, he might have to deal with the consequences if the news got leaked out. No human is perfect and the more people that know about secrets, the harder it gets to keep them aligned with their purpose of staying as a "secret". While thinking about this, Anthony formulated a training plan for himself to get as strong as possible in the next few months so he could secure a decent rank in the Academy.

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{A few months later}

"I'm stronger."

"NO, I'm much stronger than you. Just look at yourself, you're so skinny and ugly."

Inside an elevator, two people could be seen arguing and the third was sighing and shaking his head.

'These guys never change, always so annoying', Anthony spoke to himself while glancing out of the Elevator. He prepared himself to once again meet his best friend Asher.

Even though Asher had killed all those people and even his lover, Anthony didn't resent him as much as one would expect. This was because Anthony knew the reasons behind why Asher did all that and he was sure that if he were to actually be put in Asher's place, then he would do the same. Not only that but he doubted if it was possible for him to kill Asher in the first place.

This was because not only Anthony, but all of their friends had always suspected that Asher was a regressor. They knew that with everyone's growing powers and a developing world where new research and theories were made every day, something like Regression might very well be possible. At least, regression was the only way that would justify the knowledge Asher had depicted in various instances.

Not only was Asher probably a regressor but, he was extremely strong and also helped the world against several threats that they weren't capable of dealing with. Making up his mind to once again get close to Asher but watch over him to make sure he doesn't make the same mistakes as the last time, Anthony put on a friendly face, stepping out of the elevator and waving on to his best friend.

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{The next morning, Asher's POV}

It was five in the morning when my alarm rang off, prompting me to get up and prepare for my daily training. Becoming a fitness fanatic after inheriting Asher's memories, I had to live up to his name and train early in the morning every day. This routine had simply become a habit for me at this point.

I got up and went down from my dormitory to take a morning jog. While the fresh air was hitting my face, my mind was continuously working to make out some plans for the future. This world had a lack of things such as decent games like the ones that the Earth I came from had. This gave me the idea to come up with ways to make the world's first Virtual Reality game that would not only be available to Humans but also to all other races such as Elves, Dwarves, and even Dragons!

This world had the existence of mana which made several things that weren't possible back on the original Earth become easily accomplishable here. What I planned was to make a Virtual world with the help of people who possessed all kinds of basic elements along with [Light], [Darkness], [Space], and [Time]. If my plan of making a super realistic AI worked, it could even help alleviate the tension and slight hostility caused due to discrimination between races. The Virtual Reality world could become a place where each and every single race could come to exist in harmony.

To make this happen, I'd have to recruit the tech genius, Isaac Turner. Another person whom I would have to include in this project would be the Mad Blacksmith and Scientist, Simas Mendel. He was one of the most important characters in the novel apart from the main cast as he assisted all the main characters throughout the novel.

A genius who had reached the [A-] rank at an age of 27, he was known far more for his prowess in constructing crazy monstrosities. Golems? Mana machine guns with each bullet using special technology to blow up mountains? Or maybe an army of Golems each armed with those weapons? While Simas might certainly have gotten hit on the head when he was a kid, throughout the whole novel, he was the one responsible for creating the weapons for each of the main cast. Not to talk about the fact that in the fight against demons, he could remotely control [SS] ranked, Golems thousands of miles away from the basement in his home.

Isaac was a student at the Academy whereas Simas was actually an alumnus, staying in the Academy too. He would rarely take up substitute classes for some professors and would mostly spend his time researching in his laboratory. It wouldn't be hard for me to recruit these people but..

"I need to find a way to start up my own company from within the academy before I get into the third year."

There were some ways to achieve this and one of the best ways would be to get in contact with the [Council]. It was simply put, a collection of the big shots of the Human race from each guild, organization, and even the [Association] itself. But even before getting in contact with them, I would first have to find a way to attract their attention

'Luckily for me, I could use my knowledge to do so. These bigshots aren't some kind of idiots who get "offended" over why a kid was talking to them as if an equal. They wouldn't try to eliminate me if I only showed a bit of knowledge from my novel.'

If I give them knowledge and try to help them with things related to the Human race itself, nobody would want to eliminate me as long as I work for the betterment of humans. Unless I turned hostile, I probably wouldn't be investigated in-depth much either. The principal who's one of the members of the [Council] has surely taken notice of me so it'll be easier to get in contact with them in the future and I might even be able to become a member of it if my Virtual Reality game works out. Once I get the help of the [Council] they could lax out the rules of the Academy for me, allowing me to travel back and forth from managing my business to attending the Academy.

"I should probably get the [Oath of Diminution] too while I'm at it."

The [Oath of Diminution] was my second objective for now and the one that was much easier to obtain. This was a skill that could be found during one of the trips organized by the Academy. [Oath of Diminution] was a special skill, given the fact that its rank was [Void]. This indicated that it was akin to being rankless.

This skill revolved around "Diminution", which would in return give you other advantages. In short, you had to put "restrictions" on yourself. Say in a battle you decided to use this skill to seal off your right hand. In return, you could decide which aspect of yours you'd like to boost by an amount decided by the system based on how much you "restricted" yourself. If you "restricted" your right hand, you could choose any kind of buff, say a boost in speed, strength, mana, or anything.

This skill had two tiers of functions. One was a temporary "restriction" whose time limit would be decided by yourself. The other was a permanent one, which when used would never give you back the thing you restricted. While this method did sound quite dangerous, it would give overwhelmingly high permanent buffs that would boost you by a percentage rather than numbers.

If you permanently restricted the use of your left hand, thus disabling it, then you could get a permanent buff such as [+60%] strength forever rather than simply booting your strength up from [C-] to [C+]. An increment in numbers would simply stay until you reached that particular rank whereas an increment in percentage would help you throughout your journey, overwhelmingly so when you reached high ranks like [S] or even more.

Having decided my course of action, I finished up my jog and headed back to my dorm only to find that the other three goons had gone off to meet the faculty. Having a moment of peace, I went over to a nearby restaurant to have coffee. As I looked outside the window after having sat down, I found some people who had already gotten into a relationship and become couples.

"This.. HOW is this even possible? We just came to the dorms yesterday!"

Having my mood soured from watching "youth" at its finest, I got up after finishing my coffee and expressed a desire to go over to the [Mana Chambers], rooms designed for the students to train in an environment with mana in high-density. These increase the rate at which students rank up, which is why even the weakest of the students graduating from here could easily be a decent Awakened out there in the real world.

'It's basically heaven for a training maso- *cough* I mean training lover like me.'

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Authors comment: Sorry guys I was a bit late in posting this but, this chapter is about as big as two so I hope it makes up for it~

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