Kinkaru spent the night pondering how to word his dark magic incantations. He honestly couldn’t think of a use for the magic as it was the only nonphysical type he had seen. He reached out to Garth and asked Garth to assist him in his training. “Hey, bro, do you mind helping me train, I know you already passed but I think it could help us both” -k “Yeah, I don’t mind helping you. My family,y believes in helping the needy. Plus like you said I may get a bit stronger doing so.” Garth “Do you happen to know any other dark magic users? It may help me if I can find someone who uses it in a practical manner”-Kinkaru “My dad has a friend who uses it, but I’ve never seen him do it. Honestly, most dark users are kind of creepy or completely useless. Sorry, bro”.-Garth This made Kinkaru a little upset, I mean Garth was likely right. I mean he does have more experience in this world than I do. Kinkaru thought carefully about the quest and the future. He could not think of a way to pass this hurdle and this depressed him. He should have take deaths offer for a boost. Now he risks being just as useless as he was in the previous life. When he dies this time would he only be known for being the kid who helped Garth achieve greatness? He wants his legacy this time and doesn’t want to be judged based on how well others did. This ignited his desire to improve beyond anything that he experienced in his previous life. He brought out his quest menu and read the quest carefully it said: “improve your magical ability and avoid elimination in the practical exam”. Kinkaru decided to take the quest literally. Maybe this meant he didn’t have to use his magic to win. What if he physically became stronger? With this line of thinking he and Garth decided to train. Kinkaru looked around campus for Tenue. He figured if anyone could show them a great training spot it would be him. Tenue was hovering next to a statue in the courtyard. The statue showed a giant horned man holding a staff in his hand. The stone man appeared demonic in appearance but he was surrounded by knights clad in armor. The statue's inscription said “Valarek the Uniter” Kinkaru noted this name because he seemed important. Kinkaru approached Tenue and asked him to show them a training ground. Why didn’t you just use the message feature as opposed to walking here? -Tenue Wh...what’s the message feature? Stuttered Kinkaru Kid, you are utterly clueless. Here watch.-Tenue Tenue displayed a status screen and clicked on the settings menu. He clicked a box that said, “send and receive messages from others”. Kinkaru saw this but didn’t think to turn it on. He had no clue how to send a message so he wanted to wait. Tenue then spoke out loud “Message Kinkaru” as he did an alert screen appeared saying “User Tenue would like to contact you, do you accept? Kinkaru clicked to accept and everything Tenue spoke began to play In his ears as if Tenue was right beside him. Kinkaru was excited this meant he could contact his father. He thanked Tenue and decided to try the feature himself. “Message Edward” when he spoke an alert appeared “user cannot be reached. Kinkaru wondered if his father's magic level was too low or he couldn’t access the menu because he couldn’t read it. This saddened him a bit but he had to take these thoughts out of his head. “Hey you little red shit, can you show us to the training facility or not” - Garth seemed to be getting super impatient. It was the first time he seemed to be aggressive. “Follow me,” Tenue said. His voice sounded upset as if he was holding back his thoughts. “These Demi-humans always try to act equal. They think because they had one great hero that they suddenly deserve a place in our society.” Garth said this with disgust as they walked towards the training center. This reminded Kinkaru of how he died. He never thought that this society full of magic would be hateful to those other than their kind. He figured it was unique to his original world. Do humans hate, simply to feel superior? The thought bothered him and he spoke up “I don’t see why he can’t be equal, after all, he isn’t that different from us”. This seemed to bother Garth as everyone he knew hated Demi’s. He never honestly hated them himself but he felt he had to act like everyone else. “They’re weak, the weak die or get taken advantage of. Don’t lower yourself to weakness.” Garth said as they arrived at the training center. Kinkaru decided not to respond, he refused to hate just for the sake of it. The training center was just like the classroom. It had a series of numbers that said 400-500 training grounds. So even the training center was designed with stats and rankings in mind. When they walked through the door they arrived in a giant green field. The field had forest surrounding it and mountains in the far off distance. There was a wooden podium beside the entrance that had a crude map as well as some text. The text read “ Meznor academy is not liable for injury due to training. Those under level 10 should stay in the plains and out of the Forrest.” Each section of the map had a number written on them. The plains they were in had 1-10 written on it. Kinkaru turned around to ask Tenue why there were levels but he was no longer there. When the pair took their first step the door behind them vanished. They were now surrounded by the expansive plains. The air felt very real. It felt as if they were physically outside. The grass made his legs itch slightly and it made his wish he was wearing pants and not shorts. He looked around thinking about how he could use this field for training and it seemed a bit useless. Were they supposed to just sit here and shoot magic off into the distance? Garth, on the other hand, was excited. He grabbed Kinkaru by the arm and said: “let’s go!” Pulling him deep into the plains. After a few steps the ground under the. Shifted and a creature stepped out of the tall grass. The creature looked as if it were grass tied together mixed with a Venus flytrap. It was green in color and the head was just a giant plant mouth covered in razor-sharp teeth. The creature seemed clumsy as it stumbled out the grass. When it made what appeared to be eye contact with the pair it began to swing its grassy arms threateningly at the pair. Kinkaru was unprepared for this development. The vine-like arms expanded and whipped across Kinkaru's bare arms. He received a small cut. It wasn’t even deep enough to draw blood. A message appeared “you are now in a combat zone” as it flashed across his eyes he jumped back into a haphazard fighting stance. He had basic boxing lessons from his old life but with his child's body right now he doubted he could even hurt the creature. Garth took a stance and started speaking. “Rage in my heart show my foes the fear of my strength!” As he finished the incantation his first began to glow. A very small flame covered them. It was more like a tiny latest glove of fire. Garth rushed forward to throw a flurry of punches. He was admittedly larger than any other child their age. But he was still a child and his arms were short making this a hard feat to accomplish. As he rushed forward the vines rapidly made contact with his body repeatedly. They began to cut his shirt and repeated shots to the same side drew small amounts of blood. Kinkaru felt helpless watching his only friend fight this monster. The vines combined into one large drill-like shape and shot from the body of the creature toward Garth. He sidestepped the projectile and buried his flaming fist into the body of the creature. The creature immediately Burt into flames and began to thrash about. It swung wildly attempting to hit Garth while blinded by pain. Garth never stopped punching. Relentlessly hitting the body over and over. The creature let out a screech as it stumbled and fell to the ground. The fire consumed its body quickly turning it to ash. After the fight concluded a message appeared “victory, 100 exp gained. Party share is active”. Garth smirked at Kinkaru “today the exp is on me. This is thanks for helping me learn magic in the dorms”. Then it finally hit Kinkaru, he has the shock spell. Why not use it instead of the dark spells. Sure it would cost more mana than his dark spells, but it could be his secondary affinity. It would also do actual damage. This made him excited. Maybe he wouldn’t be useless after all. Kinkaru saw something else that caught his eye, Garth’s health bar was now below his own. However, it didn’t have numbers but it did have a visual indication of how much was remaining. If he were to judge it would appear as if Garth lost 25 percent of his health in that very quick exchange. A ding sound revisited “items received - weeds x2, stick X1, plant tooth x1. Kinkaru opened his inventory menu and saw he had items in there. He also saw there were items he didn’t know about. One thing grabbed his attention it was a metal rod. When he was back at the farm he would pass time by pretending to be a swordsman and swing this metal rod around at the trees. He clicked it and it materialized into his hand.

(Status Menu)

Inventory

Quests

Settings

General Information

Name: Kinkaru

Level: 2

EXP: 500/900

Affinity

Dark/???

Skill Points: 13

Class/Job

NA

HP: 75/125

Mana: 100/400

Stamina: 250

Status Information

Stats

Spells

Skills

Strength:4

Shock

Reading: 4/4

Agility: 4

Speech: 1/4

Wisdom: 11

Wisdom of Another Life?

Endurance: 4

Critical Thinking 4/4

Dark Manipulation

Blunt Weapon Mastery 1/10

“Hey, what the hell? Where did you get that!” -Garth “Out of my inventory”-Kinkaru “I don’t have that option, you mean to tell me you have spatial storage?” -Garth “I thought everyone had this, maybe it’s unique to my affinity?”-Kinkaru “That would explain why dark is rare.” Garth As he spoke the pair were caught off guard by another plant creature. This one came out of the tall grass in full-on attack mode. It must have seen its brethren fall before it or felt the heat from the fire. Garth repeated the previous incantation and charged forward being hit repeatedly by the vines. These hits were doing a lot of damage this time and Garth seemed to not be moving as fast. “It’s got me, bro, help out a bit,” Garth said in a bit of a panic. Kinkaru saw that the grass had wrapped itself around Garth. This forced him to suppress his fire to not set himself ablaze. Kinkaru started swinging the rod at the vines and could feel the attacks weren’t impacting. The vines had too much leeway in them and weren’t solid enough to be damaged by blunt force. The creature shifted its focus to Kinkaru and wrapped itself around the rod and him. It laid its body flat on the ground and opened its mouth wide. The vines retracted pulling the pair towards its mouth. The creature's body expanded and it was apparent it intended to inject the two. Kinkaru began to panic and thought about how to get out of this situation. He tried to speak but the vines wrapped around his mouth preventing him from doing so. He shifted his eyes and saw Garth was entangled the same way. Neither could use incantations now. They seemed utterly doomed. Kinkaru thought hard and decided to pour his mana into the pipe. He activated the shock spell and sent it cursing thought the pipe like a stun gun. As he did the electricity pulsated through the pipe and down the vines. Kinkaru kept constantly pouring his mana into the spell giving it everything he had. The electricity flickered and traveled to the main body of the plant creature. It danced around his body in an elegant blue glow, as it did the creature began to convulse and shake. The vines went limp for a split second and the two freed themselves. The creature seemed dazed as if paralyzed. This bought enough time for Garth to finish his incantation while charging forward. He jumped and brought his fist down full force crushing the mouth of the creature. The creature burst into flames and turned to ash. A familiar message appeared “victory exp earned 500!!” This meant one of two things, the creature was either stronger or exp was given based on contribution. Another message appeared “new skill acquired blunt weapon (you deal 5% more damage while wielding a blunt object “. Kinkaru only needed 400 exp to level up. But both of their health was under half. The two decide to exit and come back better prepared.

(Status Menu)

Inventory

Quests

Settings

General Information

Name: Kinkaru

Level: 2

EXP: 500/900

Affinity

Dark/???

Skill Points: 13

Class/Job

NA

HP: 50/125

Mana: 100/400

Stamina: 250

Status Information

Stats

Spells

Skills

Strength:4

Shock

Reading: 4/4

Agility: 4

Speech: 1/4

Wisdom: 11

Wisdom of Another Life?

Endurance: 4

Critical Thinking 4/4

Dark Manipulation

Blunt Weapon Mastery 1/10

The two-headed to the nearest shop in the academy. They wanted to see if the items they had were worth anything. The lady at the shop informed them she would by the products but they weren’t too much. The only valuable object was the teeth. She would pay them 20 silvers for the entire inventory. The two talked it over and decided to sell the items. They took the silver and split it between themselves. Kinkaru decided to head to a weapons shop. He was greeted by a short and very fat man. He had a long beard and was busy polishing a blade. Kinkaru greeted the man and inquired if there were any swords available within his price range. He needed a weapon to cut the vines. The shop keeper said there were no swords but he could sell him a decent dagger for exactly 10 silver. Kinkaru thought about it and decided he didn’t have any other option so he purchased the dagger. The man seemed pleased and through in a sharpening stone for free. Kinkaru waited until he was out of view of the shop keeper and stored them into his inventory. He felt a little more secure now that he had a weapon to fight with. After he had finished his shopping he met back up with Garth. The two began the long walk to the training center. As they walked Garth was the first to initiate conversation. “Kinkaru you did a good job back there. There aren’t many people that are dependable in this world. You aren’t as strong as me but if I can I will ensure you pass this test.” Garth seemed lost in thought as he said these words. This was Kinkaru's first time seeing the boy in such a state. “What about your family? Aren’t they dependable ?” Kinkaru Asked “Family is a bond that can’t be severed by dependency. If my older brother were here you would see that he is the most dependable person in the world. Everyone else however.. who knows” Garth had a saddened expression on his face as he spoke. “Where is your brother?” Kinkaru assumed his brother was working somewhere important and too busy to visit. “Gone, he vanished during a demon raid on my dad's work facility. I plan to become an adventure and find him or his killer.” Garth had an aura of vengeance around him as he spoke. The two proceeded to the training facility and began to improve on their magic.