Chapter 3

The materials used for the task also had an effect on the reward, the stronger the material the stronger the final reward will be, a claw from a dragon with make a sword much more sharper and durable than that of a normal beast's claw, the material also had a chance to impart special abilities from the creature it came from to the reward, poisonous material would likely make that reward before to deal poison damage. After find that information out, he started to think about what he wanted his reward and eventually what "class" or "job" he wanted to be, he decided to be a mage or magician just like Merlin and chose to have an orb be the object rather than a ring or staff, in merlin's book regarding a mage/magicians choice of weapon, he stated that while the latter 2 were more conductive in moving/utilizing magic, the former have the ability to hold more power and in some cases the user didn't need to be able to use mana in order to utilize it.^

After making his choice of becoming a mage, he started to flip through the rest of Merlin's books on the different elements, John didn't want to be a basic mage, he wanted to specialize in a specific field so he looked and found some of the more interesting elements, Spatiomancy , Chronomancy, Necromancy, Astromancy, Technomancy and Soulmancy. Spatiomancy is the ability to control space and being able to warp it, Chronomancy is the ability to control time and of course time travel, Necromancy is the ability to control the dead, Astromancy is able to do divinations and fortune telling through the studying of stars, Technomancy is the use of magic on technology or some times the other way around and Soulmancy is the ability to control and manipulate souls.^

After taking notes of the different elements he went onto material books which listed all materials that can be found in new lands and the rarity of obtaining them, Time and Space was on the rarer side and there was very few ways of obtaining them and they were usually in a special zone that was hard to get to or were guarded by beasts that planned on using it, either way there was no way a normal human was able to venture to those areas. Necromancy was a no go as creatures of undead in nature were able to use debuffs and curses and it wasn't easy to remove either using the materials in new lands, a wraith pass through you? Boom debuffed with weakness. Materials for Astromancy was even rarer having only 1 entry to where it was discovered and there was no way to make an orb with just 1 material. Technomancy technically didn't have any "Material", as long as it was related to technology and you were able to use magic it was doable.

Soulmancy was special, to obtain materials for Soulmancy you could get it from undeads but they were limited to very specific undeads and were extremely rare, but there was another way, special trials hidden all across new lands that gave special rewards for completing them and the amount of trials for Soulmancy related items was higher than others but they were very hidden which were unlike others where you could just stumble upon them, in Merlin's book about trials, he stated that while other trials were popular, soul related trials were the most sought after, it wasn't easy getting items and abilities to deal with souls and so was the trials, unless you were very bored with your life or were planning on going to a place where your soul could get damaged or had your soul damaged, you would never venture into a soul trial, the success rate was very low and you could only challenge it one person at a time, those who succeeded in the trial were forced to keep quiet about the trials they went through by the trials and the rewards they were given, that was something no other trials did and showed how special they were, there was roughly 20 trials recorded by merlin and there was virtually no information regarding the trials except that merlin himself went through them and confirmed that they were soul related.

After looking through all of that information John decided to be an idiot and yoloed and choose to be a Soulmancer, trials were usually extremely hard but not impossible, even someone who hasn't finished their task and obtained their reward would be able to complete it, John already died once and chose Hell task, so why not continue down this line of hell by choosing the hardest but completable way and if he did somehow complete all trials he would be able to make the strongest orb in new lands (recorded) history, and that is what he did for the next 2 years, he decided to learn how to harness external mana (pulling mana into his body to use magic) while also learning different martial arts from Merlin's books, after that he went onto learn various basic magic and then soul magic while also reading the rest of Merlin's books.^

Half a year into arriving to new lands John finally completed his first trial.

1 year into arriving, John finally headed towards the village and found that it was occupied by people, he decided to use a magic that made him invisible and walked into the village and learned that, 1. some taskers had finished their tasks, 2. the second batch of summons had just arrived and that he was part of the 1st batch of summons, 3. there was a portal that lead to other worlds. He never revealed himself and quietly watched what happened in the village and that they had renamed the place to fire village from azure village.

1 and a half year into arriving, john had completed 14 more trials but he was injured and exhausted from all the previous trials so he had to rest for some time. 5 more trials to complete.

"Finally! After 2 years of running around, I finally collected all the material needed to complete this."

In a dimly lit area sat a young man with a bunch of weird looking objects in front of him, he placed them together and held his hand above the materials as a white light slowly came out of his hand and covered the materials which slowly deformed into liquid-like state and merged and formed into a round object, while the white light dissipated revealing it's true form, black orb.

"Pewh finally, that took longer than expected and I almost failed, damn I am exhausted, I am going to call you soul orb from now on.

<Congratulations for completing your mission.>

"That's it? I heard about it but this is just sad, no follow ups or special rewards.

Well looks like it is time to head out to the village."