"Ethan, wake up," Yra says quite loudly. "Ethan Shadowmark, wake up this instant."

"Gods, Yra, I’m up for divine sake," I groan frustrated. "I had to be blessed by a dictator, it’s only six A.M Yra."

"Ethan, I wanted to teach you a special skill," Yra states annoyed.

"Fine, what’s this new skill?" I groan. "I hope it’s worth being woken up at six A.M."

"It’s a tier 5 skill Ethan," Yra states annoyed. "If you’re going to act like a child I can treat you like one. Don’t forget, you put your trousers on one leg at a time, do you understand Ethan."

"Oh, shut it Yra, unlike you some people actually need sleep," I groan angrily. "Just tell me what the new skill is."

"Its name is Shadow Drive, It’s a rare magic type known as Awakened magic," Yra informs me before continuing. "This skill allows you power up your shadow attribute Spells/Skills tenfold for10 seconds per level."

"Shadow Drive sounds like it would be useful," I exclaim. "Teach me it, please Yra, I’m sorry for snapping earlier."

"Very well young Ethan, I shall teach you how to use two new skills since you apologized, the first being Shadow Meditation," Yra Instructs.

"Yes, Master Yra or wait is it Mistress Yra?" I question.

"Master Yra or just Yra is fine. Now young Ethan, I want you to close your eyes and visualize yourself being surrounded by shadows, however instead of blocking your senses you feel them opening to a new level making them sharper and more alert," I’m instructed to do. "Now once you’ve managed to heighten your senses I want you to open your eyes."

After about half hour of focusing on my senses, I start to hear the breathing of everything around me, also I can feel the heat from the candle that is on the other side of the room as if it was next to me, the dampness of the morning dew on my tongue whenever I open mouth. As I slowly open my eyes to let them adjust to what I imagine will be a blinding light from the candle, I instead see myself surrounded by nothing but darkness. No not darkness but instead shadows moving like a wave all around me.

"Welcome Young Ethan, to my realm the Shadow glade, here in this realm is where you will learn all the shadow attribute skills and spells I have to teach you," Yra's voice echoes all around me.

Skill Gained: Shadow Meditation Level 10/10

Skill Mastered: Shadow Meditation

Title Gained: The Shadow’s Chosen

"Oh wow, I mastered a skill straight away and gained a title for it," I exclaim. "How do I apply the title, Master Yra?"

"Swipe your finger down until you come across, profile." I do as ordered. "Now a new option will have appeared known as, title."

Name: Ethan Shadowmark

Title: The Shadow’s Chosen

Age: 16

Blessing: Shadow Blessing

Species: Elf Level 1 0/100

Primary Class: Shadow Novice level 1 30/100

Secondary Class: Thief level 1 30/50

STR:15, AGI:20, WIS:20, PER:15, CHA:18, CON:25, INT:10, LUK:15

Health: 250/250

Mana: 300/300

SKILLS:

Tier 1: Quick Strike (LVL 2/10), Steal (LVL 7/10), Lie Detection (LVL 2/10)

Tier 2: Shadow Bind (LVL 1/10), Shadow Step (LVL 3/10)

Tier 5: Shadow Meditation (LVL 10/10)

"Now I’ve learned how to change the titles!" I exclaim. "Hey, Yra, you said Shadow Drive was an Awakened Magic type, so how many different types of Magic and Skills are there exactly?"

"Well, from what I remember there are ten different types of Magic and Skill powers," Yra explains. "They are as listed; Awakened, Celestial, Curative, Alteration, Incantation, Destructive, Summoning, Possession, Creation, and Caster."

As Yra finishes listing out the different Skill and Magic types I hear a loud knock coming from out of no-where so I focus on the tavern room again, the shadows seem to flow back into my body as my senses dull and go numb for a second. Once I come back around to being able to move without stumbling I walk up to the door and open it seeing the waitress who served me last night holding a tray with some sausages, bacon, scrambled eggs and toast with a glass of Orange juice which she leaves on the desk in the corner of the room before saying that my "friends" aren’t up yet.

"Ethan, I’ve got the books here on all the Magic and Skill types for you to study and read," Yra informs.

"Thanks, Yra, I appreciate it," I say digging into the breakfast.

After she left, I decided to study the book on Awakened Magic and Skills, however, as I read through I notice that using Awakened Magic alters the appearance of my physical body. "Uh, so it alters my physical appearance, nice to know," I say as I chew on a piece of sausage.

After about an hour of reading the books, I decided to go outside and practice one of the skills I saw in the Destructive type book. The skill was known as Frost Arrow, it summons up an arrow made of ice that the caster can control. As I walk around to the training yard that the tavern has set up out back I aim at the trees in the distance and hold my hands as if I’m holding a bow as I say Frost Arrow, an arrow of ice forms as I shoot it at the tree missing it.

Skill Gained: Frost Arrow (Level 1/10)

"Guess I need to practice some more, however, this will be a useful Spell if I need to hit a target who’s far away," I mutter.

Quest Received From Crown Prince Alexi Lightheart

Quest Requirement: Meet with the Rebel High Command in the Scorching Magician Tavern in Esellda

Bonus Requirement: Meet with Royal Grand Magician Vulmer Magikan

Quest Reward: 200 Class XP, 200 Species XP, 200 Gold Pieces, and a Quantum Pack

"Mister Ethan, I have a message for you from Mister Eric," one of the waitresses informs me.

"Go ahead, Miss," I ask politely.

"Mister Eric requested that you meet him at the table they were at last night in ten minutes, Sir," She says nervously.

"Okay, thank you for the message," I say handing her a gold coin causing her to look at me confused, "Think nothing of it, Miss, you were very nice to me last night when everyone else just shrugged me off or ignored my existence."

As she walks away, I decided to carry on practising Frost Arrow until I get it up to level 2. After six minutes go by I managed to get Frost Arrow to level 2, however, at the same time I have completely exhausted my Mana, deciding now would be a good time to go back inside and wait for Eric. Once inside I make my way over to where Eric would be meeting me, As I sit down at the table, I look around the room trying to figure out how to increase my perception, So as I’m about to close my eyes to try and use my senses to increase my perception, I hear some yelling coming from across the room, causing me to turn my attention to it.

As I turn to look at the obnoxiously loud disturbance, I notice some slight movements coming from one of the shadowy sections of the tavern, which would normally be of no concern for me, but I managed to pick up on what one of the three adventurers saying. It was along the lines of "I believe he is the target the king is after. What are our orders, Sir?"

However, when I looked closer at the one, I notice one of the hooded Adventures had a tattoo across his cheek, it was shaped like a lightning bolt, and furthermore, the spiritual pressure he was letting off was heavily soaked in death and blood-lust. Just looking at him is sending all my survival instincts into overdrive. As I attempt to look away, his eyes lock onto mine and all the pressure he had that was coming off him was directed right at me, it took all my strength to just stay conscious.

Perception Increased +3

Resistance Skill Gained: Mental Resistance Level 1/20

"Ethan, you're early, I expected you to be training that new spell you learned," Eric says coming from the door to the tavern.

"Yeah, I exhausted my mana practising it though, so I decided to come in and wait," I say still recovering.

"You look like you’ve just fought against a dragon," Eric says Laughing. "I’m guessing you’ve felt the spiritual pressure of our friend with the tattoo, normally you need to have a Mental Resistance level of 12 or higher to withstand it without dying or passing out. Yours must be fairly high."

"My Mental Resistance skill is only level 1," I replied breathing heavily.

As I fully recover, I notice that Eric is looking at me stunned and shocked that I’m alive or even conscious. After about ten minutes of him just staring at me shocked, he finally told me about the route we will be taking to Esellda and what we might expect along the way, such as goblins, wolves and if we’re unlucky a wyvern or two, furthermore he told me the different weak points on each creature we might face and what element they align with the most goblins being fire, wolves being earth, wyvern’s are unknown to most people, but they’re shadow elemental creatures. The whole conversation took about two hours during which James met up with us and the other three adventurers went to different shops to stock up on supplies they needed.

"So, Ethan, do you understand the basics of the different stats, we’ve covered skills and magic usage," James asked.

"I’m not really familiar with what each stat is I understand that PER is perception as it went up by 3 earlier before Eric joined me," I say honestly knowing it’d be better to trust them.

"Okay, Ethan, we’ve got another hour before we’re due to leave let's start off with Perception as that one's the easiest to start you with," Eric informs me before continuing.

"Perception is one of eight different attributes these attributes are, Strength, Perception, Wisdom, Agility, Luck, Charisma, Intelligence, and Constitution. Perception controls how you see your surroundings, which allows you to spot useful traps and clues or it can allow you to tell when someone lies to you about something, furthermore, it allows you to be able to increase the range you fire a bow of long-range spell such as your frost arrow spell."

"Okay, I think I understand perception what about Wisdom, what does that control," I ask writing down everything they’re teaching me.

"Wisdom influences how much pain both physically or mentally you can take without passing out. However, it also determines the likelihood of falling victim to mind-altering spells or skills such as the skill known as Fearful Roar/Terror’s anchor, which both alter your fear making you more likely to run in fear when you’ve no need to fear anything," James says. "It also helps contribute to your mana pool and the ability to learn magic. It works in tandem with Intelligence which is pretty simple to explain. Intelligence determines how much you know and how likely you’re going to succeed at puzzles and riddles."

"Also, Ethan, Strength is pretty straightforward too. It determines the amount of damage a skill can do and how much you can carry on you if you don’t have an extremely rare bag called a Quantum bag. Furthermore, Constitution determines how much health you have, and influences your poison, heat and physical damage resistances, like how wisdom affects magical resistances Constitution affects Physical resistances," Eric explains. "The only attributes left are Luck, Agility, and Charisma."

"I think I know what Agility influences and effects, wouldn’t it be the speed you can travel at for example running, as well as how many strikes you can do before your target can react and how fast you can react to attacks right?" I ask.

"Yes, Ethan, but that's not all it also works in tandem with your perception as the faster you strike, if you have a high enough Perception then, you can target critical points on the target." Eric adds, "It also works with Luck too as Critical spots are usually well defended if you know where you own is, so you need to be lucky enough to land a hit, furthermore, it also determines the likelihood of avoiding dangerous encounters and how much loot a creature will drop and how rare the loot will be."

"Lastly, Ethan, Charisma it’s pretty straightforward as it determines how people will react to you when you speak, depending on how high your Charisma attribute is, determines how likely you will intimidate a person or impress them," James says. "It also helps you when your bartering with traders as they are more likely to lower the prices of items they sell and offer you more for items your trading."

Intelligence Increased +8

"Okay, I understand now, thank you, Eric, James, I appreciate you teaching me this," I say sincerely. "Isn’t it about time that we head to the main gate now, I’m sure the other three are waiting for us."

"Yeah, we best be. Let's get going Ethan," Eric says. as I run up to my room and collect my things.

"Ethan, be careful on this trip to Estella, I sense that dark forces are at work here," Yra says.