Chapter 1: The End, The Beginning

[You have failed in preventing the destruction of Fate] 

[Fate has allowed you to reverse time, Heavenly Hourglass has activated] 

[Attempt 100/100] 

[FINALE ATTEMPT] 

"So, this is my last attempt" 

Lorian quietly spoke out loud with a hoarse voice, Lorian had an appearance of a 13-year-old. Tattered pitch-black hair with deep black eyes, his face appeared ordinary, but with hollow eyes that were filled with determination. 

"Fate is truly an interesting thing. Fate gave me 100 attempts to prevent its destruction but would not provide more, was this another plan that fate had?" 

Lorian stood up; he was in a dark alleyway. This place was filled with nothing but dirt, and a putrid smell filled the air. Corpses were scattered throughout the floor; a sickly-sweet smell of blood and the smell of rotting corpses were deeply engraved within the air. 

"This doesn't get old, does it?" 

In this alleyway there were children, some were like him, others were older. They had all died due to starvation, diseases or coldness. Some have even resorted to cannibalism to save themselves, others robbed, it was every man for himself out here. 

Like the others in this alley, Lorian was an orphan. This city was called Meryl, Meryl was a medium sized city in the outskirts of the country, often visited by travelers from all over the continent. 

[Welcome back!] 

Once again, he was greeted by the familiar sound in his head. 

Name: Lorian Vale 

Race: Human 

Strength: 2 

Speed: 1 

Stamina: 1 

Intelligence: 100 [MAX] 

Path: Time 

Aptitude: D 

Mana: 0 

Path Rank: 0 

Path Progress 0/100 

Skills: [Heavenly Hourglass (EX)] 

Path Attributes: [Perception of Time (SSS)] 

Blessings: [Blessed by Fate] 

Curses: [Cured by Fate] [Curse of Chaos] 

Artifacts: ----- 

Lorian looked through his stats and was quite surprised 

"[Perception of Time] has reached SSS, and my intelligence has been maxed out, this is quite favorable for me." 

"I didn't expect much but it seems I still have a D tier aptitude, I guess even Heavenly Hourglass cannot help my aptitude." 

A person's aptitude was decided at birth. A person's aptitude would decide their innate talent over their own respective Paths, as well as their innate talent for mana. 

Lorian fell deep into thought, within this city there wasn't much an orphan like him could do. His aptitude was too low, and the closest city is over 1,000 miles away. 

There was very little he could do without power, authority or money. He needed a way to make this money and quickly progress to the next important destination. 

"3 years" 

"I only have 3 years" 

"Within those 3 years I must reach a rank 3 Path Master" 

 Lorian looked at the system and quickly felt troubled, he quickly thought to himself. 

"This will be extremely difficult for me to accomplish." Lorian sighed as he looked at the screen. 

In this world there were Paths. Each Path can vary, there was almost a Path for everything in this world, each Path was used for multiple purposes, Paths were the foundation of power in this world 

Your Paths would be decided from birth. Each Path had its respective skills to go along with it. 

Skills were the physical manifestation of these Paths into reality to use as tools, by using mana that the Path Master can accumulate, they can use their respective skills that they have earned to show their power. 

As people use mana to experiment with Path powers and using mana in different ways, eventually skills will be obtained. All skills start at the rank F and move their way up after a Path Master sharpens it and improves on it. 

Paths were given based on what fate has decided for you, it is impossible for any human to change their Paths, or to own more than one Path at the same time. As Path rank increases so does the strength in your skills and the mana consumption of skills decrease. 

Paths were the collection of the Runes, mana in this world was used as fuel to power Runes. Mana was the energy of life, while skills were created by Path Masters to use as tools.

Your Path progress could be obtained when you imbed mana into your Path's foundations. The more you imbed the more progress you'll gain. 

As you slowly gain more knowledge of your Paths, the more progress you gain and the higher rank you become. 

This is where a major part of aptitude comes in play. The higher your aptitude the easier it is for you gain Path progress. 

All Paths had different uses, there was no one Path better than others, however aptitude was a completely different story. Aptitude was spilt from S, being the very best, down to F, being the absolute worst 

Strength was everything in this world. Without strength one was unless. Just like the nobles in this town, people without strength are treated like trash, discarded like disposable paper. 

The strong sit at the top with overwhelming strength and live a glorious life disregarding others. 

A person's rank would dictate their mastery over their own respective Paths and skills, as well as their mana capacity and regeneration rate. 

There were 10 ranks in this world for Path Masters. 

Each respective rank gets more difficult to achieve as time goes on. Rank 0 were the insignificant mortals in this world. They made up a majority of the population. 

They lived like what any normal humans would. They had businesses, there were merchants. Mortals that did not have a source of revenue would starve to death, killed, or even used by Path Masters. 

Orphans like Lorian would often end up dead, starved to death or died from diseases. 

Lorian gazed up at the night sky that was filled with beautiful stars as he talked to himself. 

"Everything I have done up to this point was also part of fate, whether that be my fate, or due to what fate has planned for me." 

"But even then, it has been quite interesting." 

After taking in a deep breath, he quickly started walking east as he started thinking. 

Mortals have some capacity over their own Paths and skills but are extremely lacking compared to rank 1. The difference between the two was like night and day. Mortals had an aptitude of F and had no significant meaning to this world 

Ranks from 1-3 were considered low grade Path Masters, they usually had aptitudes from E or D. 

Ranks from 4-6 were mid-grade Path Master's usually contained aptitudes of C or B 

Ranks 7-8 were High grade Path Masters, they usually had an aptitude of A or S, High grade Path Masters were among the strongest in this world, everything they do would have immense power and authority 

Rank 9 were supreme Path Masters, only 1 supreme Path Master could exist for a Path. Once a person reaches this level, no other person from the same Path could reach it. 

Every documented rank 9 had an aptitude of S 

Rank 10 were called Heavenly Path Masters. Their power was so strong that it would shake the heavens itself, not much were known about this Path. Even within humanity 1 billion years of history, there were only vague mentions of this rank. 

Even Lorian himself couldn't reach this rank in his past life, 

Lorian was a person with an aptitude of D, normally speaking at the very highest he could only reach rank 3. But fate has blessed him with a skill that far surpassed anything in this world, [Heavenly Hourglass]. 

Heavenly Hourglass allows a person to retain their memories when regressing back in time as well as having the ability to control time to a certain degree. 

This allowed him to gain immeasurable knowledge and power which eventually let him reach rank 9.

But even with this Skill, Lorian has still failed over 99 times. Everything depended on this last chance. If he messes this up there won't be another chance. This will be the most important moment in his life. 

Even though there was an insurmountable pressure on the line, Lorian felt a sense of excitement. 

Lorian was once a scientist on Earth in which he researched the idea of time, but for no apparent reason he was transported here. 

He had lived the same life countless times, yet each time was different. 

"99 rounds... This was truly an interesting journey. This round will be the final one, as well as the one with the most meaning to my life."

After a while of walking east, Lorian slowly came to a stop, he slowly entered the woods that surrounded the city. 

After walking a Path that was etched in his mind for a couple of miles he slowly came before a small rock cave, covered with vines camouflaging itself. 

Something that most people would simply pass by, unnoticed. 

Lorian gazed at the cave with a sense of nostalgia, his eyes tranquil. 

Lorian slowly approached the cave, checking for nearby danger. After he confirmed there was no immediate danger, he entered the darkness that lurks beneath. 

His body disappearing from the soft moonlight, as he ventured within.