Looking back on that day five years ago when Leon had gained his Messiah Of Violence Title he wished that every title were as easy to gain as those first few had been. It had taken him over nine months of concerted study efforts gain Tinkers Lore and nearly a year more to gain Alchemical Lore, but oh were the Titles worth it. Smiths Lore had only taken him a month to get after that as there was a lot of crossover knowledge between the different Lore’s. As it turned out Lore books were fairly cheap and easy to find. The Dungeoneers Guild handed out different Lore books for free even. The Lore of Monsters, The Lore of the Spear, The Lore of Swords, The Lore of Shields, The Lore of Daggers, The Lore of Hammers, The Lore of the Survivalist, The Lore of the Hunter. All of those and more, were easily gotten for free from any Dungeoneers Guild for free. Conspicuously, there were no Lore books on enchanting, or magic in general that most people could access easily. Leon wanted those more than anything, but he’d made sure to get all of the free ones offered by the guild.

Each Lore book was a series of five books and depending on the subject matter were either fairly small or incredibly large. There were Lore Titles that went with every profession imaginable. And for every Lore Title there was a set of five books to read to get the Title. And from what Leon understood, the books themselves were given out by the System itself. The people of this world attributed everything that the system did to their gods and goddesses.

Monster Lore had taken Leon only about a week to pick up for some reason. Survivalists Lore had been even faster, only taking Leon two days. Hunters Lore had taken two weeks. Bow Lore, and Arrow Lore had taken two weeks a piece. Spear, Sword, Shield, and Dagger Lore had each taken about six months a piece. All in all, Leon had gained twelve Lore Titles in the past five years. And every Lore Title had the same basic set of effects, all of which were useful.

The effects were as follows: Any form of Identify skill used on something pertaining to one of the Lore Titles gave significantly more information than it otherwise would. Skills pertaining to those particular Lore Titles were easier to learn and level by 2 times, and all information pertaining to those specific Lore Titles would be forever ingrained inside of your mind.

Leon had become a bit of a Lore Junkie over the last five years he would admit. But he was also a skill collection maniac. The only problem was his damn trait eating up most of his skills and making their effects permanent fixtures in his life. Over the past five years Leon had had at least twenty-five skills consumed by his trait. And those were just the ones that he was aware of. It seemed like the system no longer asked him about skills that would be eaten by the trait. It simply gave them to him, and they were immediately consumed without even giving him a message about it. It had been particularly bad when he’d suddenly gained tremor sense one day out of the blue and had suddenly been assaulted with a whole new form of stimuli that he’d not been ready for. It had actually taken him several days to adjust to that particular one. All of Leon’s senses were so acute that it actually made him very happy that he didn’t need any sleep. Otherwise, he’d never fall asleep because of all the hustle and bustle of the city around him.

Aside from the skills that were eaten by Body And Mind Of The Traveler Leon had gained only a few skills. Mana Control, Invasive Strike, Double Strike, Power Strike, and Reinforce. Mana Control kind of confused Leon as it basically did the same exact thing as Mana Manipulation. Though with more power behind it. Using both skills at the same time made using his mana as easy as breathing. Invasive strike allowed Leon to dump mana into whatever he was hitting with either his hands, tools or weapons, for extra effect which was pretty cool. Double Strike allowed a near instantaneous double hit with hands, tools or weapons. Power Strike was pretty much all in the name a singular powerful strike. Reinforce was awesome, it let him use his mana to make things tougher and harder. He could make a piece of paper be as strong as steel for a short while with the skill.

Overall, Leon had managed to get most of his skills over level twenty by now. And those that weren’t above level twenty were the ones with plus symbols on them. And Leon had figured out what those Plus symbols meant. Each plus sign signified one higher Tier of the skill. A Tier one skill did not have the plus sign, Tier two had one plus sign, Tier three had two, and Tier four had three. Every skill would Tier up after reaching level one hundred. And on average most humans would die with only one or two Tier two skills. The higher the tier and level of a skill the harder they were to level up.

With as many skills as Leon had it was easy for him to get lost in trying to train them up. But he honestly didn’t get much time to train his skills. Really only at night when his family was asleep. Ever since he had gained his first three Lore Titles’ he’d been helping his mother and father with their business during the day. Forging knives and other small things with his father. And helping his mother with repairing things that were brought to them, as well as assisting in preparing alchemical solutions to treat the knives and other tools that his father made with. Leon also babysat his little sister all the time now. Ellie had moved on when Leon turned six and he hadn’t seen her since. Apparently, she’d gotten married and had a few kids of her own the last he’d heard.

Today was Leon’s tenth birthday in this new reality. And it was a significant day because it was at ten years old that the Dungeoneers guild would allow parents to have their children tested for their magical affinities and possibly accepted into the Dungeoneers Guild School or DGS as everyone referred to it. The school was known as the most prestigious school in the known world. Emperors, Kings, and Queens, and everything in between would fight to give their children the opportunity to go to DGS. The Dungeoneers Guild was the most powerful organization across all of the layers, and it kept the peace across the entirety of this world which the locals called the Heavenly spheres. And because of their power they also had the most information. And therefore, the best schooling available came from them.

Leon wasn’t particularly excited by the prospect of possibly going to a school. But his parents were so excited about the possibility of him getting in for free if he had good affinities that he couldn’t deny them. If he got in for free it would mean ten years of dedicated schooling followed by ten years of working for the Dungeoneers Guild as either a Dungeon Diver, or a worker of some sort for the guild. Leon wasn’t really sure he wanted to dedicate the next twenty years of his life to something like this. But wasn’t going to deny his parents.

It had taken a while, but he had truly grown to love his new family in a way that he had never experienced on Earth. And he was weary about giving that up. He still avoided thinking about those people from his last life. They were more than just dead to him. But that was a story for another time. Now he was headed into the city with his parents to get his free education. He knew that he’d qualify for it seeing as how his Titles had given him perfect affinities for several types of magics. He didn’t actually know what the Wretched and Divine magics were. But he knew that his affinities for them were perfect. Let alone the affinities from his Monster Biologist Title.

Walking through the city was strange experience for Leon. Every time he did walk around the city, he was always bordering on the edge of having his senses overwhelmed by everything. But it was also good practice. His body’s capabilities were something that he was still not used to and every time he strained to keep up, he got better and better at dealing with the extreme sensory overload.

Leon followed his father into the main Dungeoneer Guild building at the center of Dungeon City. It was a huge building that reminded Leon of the Library of Congress back in DC. There were guards outside the massive doors with the emblem of the Guild on their chests. They were standing without much care their hands resting casually on the hilts of the swords on their belts. The Guards eyes appeared to be taking in everyone in a casual way, but Leon could feel them using skills constantly. Their mana in a constant state of flux.

Gerald led on, oblivious to Leon’s observation of the guards. He led Leon to a large waiting area where probably fifty people were seated. It seemed kind of like the DMV and that thought almost made Leon laugh. His father took a number and they found seats to wait for their turn.

Leon entertained himself by feeling out the world around him with his different senses as they waited. He tracked rats scampering through the streets outside the building. And estimated where birds were in relation to himself as they flew by or landed on the roof. It was like he could see with vibrations, both in the air and through the ground. Solids gave a clearer picture, but air worked as well.

They couldn’t have waited more than five minutes when their number was called, and Leon found himself being guided into the building away from his father. Gerald whishing him good luck as he was guided into the building by a female Talen which were a humanoid salamander species that were fairly common in Dungeon City. Her name was embroidered on her uniform “Killi-Ka” and she seemed like an exemplary female specimen of her species. No nose, smooth orange skin, no hair, whipcord thin, with a long prehensile tail. The only reason he knew that she was a she was because Identify had told him so and he’d seen enough of them around to know that the females were larger than the males with more muted colors to their skin.

Killi-Ka guided Leon to a room that was labeled with a carved bronze plaque “Examination Room #105”. Killi-Ka knocked on the door, waited three seconds, then opened it in one smooth motion.

“Please enter and take a seat. The examiner will be with you in just a moment.” She hissed out in a strange accent that seemed to be shared by all of her kind.

Leon obliged and entered the room. Finding it to be a small office with a large desk at one end. A chair on either side of the desk and nothing else. Shrugging to himself Leon just sat in one of the chairs and popped his latest lore book out of his utility pocket. It was The Lore of Carpentry, and he was on the last book of the series. After a few minutes he was lost in the pages of the book when someone cleared their throat, startling him out of his reading as he looked up to find a human man sitting behind the desk.

“Interesting choice of literature for a ten-year-old.” The man said his voice was pretty average and his posture was sloppy. His face was covered with a mask and his hair was hidden under a hood. The only defining trait that Leon could see were his brilliant blue eyes.

“You could say that I am a collector of Lore Titles.” Leon replied pushing the book into his utility pocket with barely a thought.

“Indeed, Mister Crumbl. The Guild has already taken note of you. I believe it was when you came to us for your One Against Many Title that we first began to keep our eyes on you. And we’ve definitely noticed your rather ambitious acquisition of every Lore book available.” The man paused as if expecting Leon to say something. But Leon just shrugged he’d lived in 21st century earth where practically everything you ever did was monitored. It didn’t really bother him that people could be spying on him.

“The Dungeoneers Guild always encourages continual growth of the people around it. So, we often keep tabs on those who seems to be very self-motivated. Tell me… Which Lore Titles have you pick up so far?” the man asked. As he asked this mana suddenly billowed out of him and became a cloud around his form.

Leon did his best not to react to the sudden use of a skill, and simply responded. Listing off all of his Lore Titles. The mans blue eyes seemed to widen slightly as he listed them off.

“Collector indeed. Most people get two or three of those titles and call it quits… Now enough about that. You are here to test your affinities. Are you familiar with the classifications of Affinities young man?” he asked in a hushed tone, as if this were all a secret.

Leon shrugged, “The only classification that I am aware of is Perfect. I don’t know of the others.”

The man nodded, “Yes most people only really care about Perfect affinities. But there are several other classifications. Low, Medium, and High then comes Perfect. To qualify for what you are here for you need to have at least three Medium affinities, two High affinities, or a Perfect affinity. Are you aware of how we test for this?” he asked

Leon shook his head. This was actually something that he was fairly interested in. The man nodded and extracted what looked like a ball made of clear glass from his pocket. The ball was about six inches in diameter and seemed terribly familiar to the crystal that made up everything inside Leon’s inner world. On its outer surface were very thin lines that Leon could barely make out. Lines that made Leon very sure the thing was enchanted heavily. Lifting it above the desk, the man placed it in a little divot that was obviously made for it.

“This is a SoulStone. Harvested from a creature that took a team of Tier three combatants to take down on layer five of the Heavenly Spheres. It is actually an enchanted SoulStone for the exact purposes of todays test. It has many other uses as well, but the simplest is to insert mana into the SoulStone and it will illuminate from within with different colors, the clarity and brilliance of those colors will tell me what your affinities are. Honestly, all you have to do is place your hand on it and it will draw your mana into itself without any effort from you.” The man explained, gesturing to the crystal ball and Leon.

Leon just sighed and placed his hand atop the crystal and felt his mana suddenly being drained into the crystal on the desk. The draw from the crystal was actually so powerful that he wasn’t sure if he could stop it from taking his mana even if he wanted to.

After a few moments the crystal stopped draw in Leon’s mana, then the thing started glowing. The glow grew brighter and brighter until Leon was having trouble looking directly at the thing. There were definitely three distinct points of light within the crystal that were brighter than the rest of the crystal. But Leon had no idea how to tell what it all was. After several minutes the colors inside the crystal slowly faded out until there were only three blobs of light within it, and then the three simultaneously winked out.

The man behind the desk calmly grabbed the crystal and pocketed it before presenting Leon with a wooden token.

“Take this out to the receptionists and they will start up the paperwork with you parents. You’ll be happy to know that you not only meet but exceed our standards. In fact, you have met the requirements for another program entirely. Once your parents have signed the necessary documentation, we will inform you of your options and what you can likely expect out of the next ten years… Now let’s go and get this process started.” The man said gesturing towards the door.

Leon took his token and headed out. Presenting it to the lady behind the desk in the waiting area. She took the token, looked it over, then extracted a set of paperwork and called over Leon’s dad. Leon looked into his father’s eyes when the man looked over the paperwork then back up at Leon. There was a fierce pride Gerald’s eyes. And Leon knew that his parents were going to be proud of him.

Silvester GreenStone

Silvester could almost not even believe his eyes when he administered the test to the young man known as Leon Crumbl. The first SoulStone they always used was one specifically enchanted to only draw mana from an individual if they had the Hero Title. He’d not expected to see another Hero Titled youngster for at least another decade. The last time he’d seen one was nearly two hundred years ago. The Hero Title seemed to crop up randomly from time to time in children who were born in the right place at the right time. Their birth itself seemingly having fulfilled the conditions necessary to receive the Title. It was half the reason why the guild conducted these tests. The title itself seemed flexible in exactly what it granted, but it always awarded at least one Perfect affinity. Sometimes more. This boy, Leon, was different though. He had so many affinities that were perfect that even with Silvester’s heavily enhanced senses he could not distinguish them. That in and of itself was amazing and promised a bright future for the kid. But not as amazing as the boys’ affinities for Flesh, Blood, and Bone magics. Silvester had only ever once seen someone who had a Transcendent rank affinity. And Leon had three.

There was a time… long ago, when the Dungeoneers Guild had still been young that a kid like Leon would have been snatched up and bound with magically enforced oaths of eternal servitude and a myriad of other things that would have ensured that the Guild could control him. But the Guild had since outgrown that outdated mindset. Instead of attempting to control outright, the Guild was going to train the boy. They were going to pour resources down his little throat until he was so loyal to them that he wouldn’t hesitate to throw away his own life for the good of the Guild. Yes, the Guild had learned that it was better to buy loyalty over time with kindness than it was to enforce compliance. They always slipped the leash when forced but would gladly put the leash on themselves when treated right.

Grabbing his communications crystal Silvester contacted Dungeon City #1 of the first layer. It was nighttime there, but the person that he was contacted was one known to sleep. The crystal connected and a smooth feminine voice came out of it. “To what do I owe the pleasure Silver?”

Silvester sighed, “You know I don’t like people calling me that Silvia, I’ve got a new kid here with the Hero Title. The thing is that he has three Transcendent Affinities. Flesh, Blood, and Bone. I think we are going to want to go all out with this one. He had more Perfect Affinities than the SoulStone could distinguish. If we do this right, we may be getting another Tier four or perhaps even five asset within the next hundred years.” he explained

“Oh my, that does sound exciting. Flesh, Blood, and Bone. He could become a terribly powerful mage or a ridiculously powerful healer… Perhaps both. I will personally acquire the correct Skill and Lore Books for him. How long until you can send him to City 1?” Silvia asked.

“It will be a week or so. Not going to waste a teleport on just one kid to get him there earlier. He’ll be along with the next shipment of SoulStones and materials from the Dungeon. His father is filling out the paperwork as we speak. Oh, and I’d suggest just grabbing every Lore book series available. The kid already has twelve Lore Type Titles, he says he’s a collector of them. He made a bunch of inquiries about magical Lore Books a while back. Obviously, he didn’t find any, but giving those to him will go a long way towards buying his loyalty.” Silvester said in a hushed tone.

“That’s easy enough for me to do. I’ll have it all collected and ready to go by the time he gets here. The biggest problem we’ll be facing is who to select as his mentor. Any Ideas there?” Silvia asked with what sounded like a pout in her voice.

Silvester tried to think it through, but he wasn’t able to come up with anyone he knew who could be trusted to handle a triple transcendent student and be guaranteed to get the kid to eventually join the Guild entirely.

“All I can do is suggest that you pick someone who truly believes in the Guild. Hopefully it’ll rub off on the kid as time goes on.” He shrugged.

“Well, we will see what I can do… I have to go Silver; I will talk to you later once everything is confirmed to authorize your bonus.” Silvia said sweetly before the crystal went dead.

Silvester sighed and threw the crystal back into its drawer. Once the boy was gone it would no longer be his issue. The boy would go through some incredibly intense training and would likely end up going to the deeper layers soon enough. Leon Crumbl’s life was about to get significantly more interesting.

Ameillia Crumbl

Ameillia was excited. She was so very excited. Gerald and Leon had come home earlier that day and her husband was raving about how amazing it was that their son had managed to get the scholarship of the Dungeon Guild. Ameillia couldn’t wait to send word to her family that her first born had been accepted into the most prestigious school on the Heavenly Spheres. They had been informed that they would need to deliver Leon to the Guild building in exactly ten days where he would then be teleported to Dungeon City #1 to be mentored personally by a Tier three individual. That Leon was being given a personal mentorship over top of the entrance to the school was even more incredible. Gerald and she had needed to sign a non-Disclosure agreement about the mentorship. But she was beyond happy that her Leon was going to get everything that would make him successful in his life.

Ameillia was now in her area of the workshop putting bits and pieces of a time piece together for Leon. She would love to get the thing enchanted so that it never needed to be wound. But there wasn’t time to send it off to an enchanter. She wanted to make it as a going away present. Leon had given her the idea to make a time piece that was attached to a bracelet, and she was doing just that. Gerald, meanwhile, was busy making his own gifts for Leon. They’d kicked him out of the workshop area of the house to be able to make the surprises for him. Her boy was working on getting even more Lore titles in the meanwhile.

Gerald Crumbl

Gerald was working on crafting a full Rogues Kit for Leon. The Kit would contain a Lockpicking set, throwing knives set, Garroting Wire, a handful of caltrops, a punch dagger, a quillon dagger, a dozen large needles, fifty feet of braided metal wire. And a vest with Steel threading in it to help ward off blades and the like.

Gerald didn’t expect his son to be going into a dangerous situation any time soon. But these were the things that he created and was good at making. And he wanted to give his son a fitting going away present. He wouldn’t be able to see Leon for many years and hopefully his gifts would serve his son well.