The three roommates had a rather eventful time at school. Unfortunately, they were so busy learning and taking a written test they didn’t have time to hiring exp. All 3 are sitting at level 3 and they are in their 3rd year. The rumors of uncontrollable monster attacks continue to spread, and the school has patrolling guards. Halfway into the 3rd year, mangled bodies of students started appearing. Everyone is on edge and this had led to numerous random conflicts amongst stun dents over misunderstandings. The school is tense, and everyone can feel the pressure. Not all everything has been bad, however. Kinkaru and friends have gotten closer. Kinkaru doesn’t think of home near as much and he’s pretty sure he’s caught Sarah staring at him a few times. In his mind live is good.

Kinkaru sits in class listening to the teacher talking about the necessities of mana management. Most fights end quickly so it isn’t an issue, but I’m a prolonged conflict it can easily cost you the right and your life. After the teacher finishes her talk, she informs the class that they will need to think about their future. Their 4th year is coming up and it will be drastically different. The students will pick a form of fighting called an art. The entire year will be spent learning to use that art and combining it with their current magic. The students are given a small booklet with a list of arts and are told they must decide which one they want to specialize in. After class, the trio walks towards home and discuss their future arts.

“Well mine is going to be an easy choice, I am going with the bruiser art. It’ll focus on unarmed combat. My entire family specializes in it”.

Garth seemed almost bored with the topic as he spoke. Sarah also was confident she knew what she wanted. She wanted assassin art, which focuses on sneaky single target burst damage. Kinkaru had no clue what he wanted.

When he arrived in his room he sat down and looked at the book the teacher had given them. He stared at it with great frustration completely torn on what to do. The assassin class would work well with his dark magic, but he wasn’t confident that it would be as dependable in the long run. After frying his brain with heavy thought and indecisiveness he gave up. All he wanted was to nap. He crawled in bed and allowed himself to drift into the sweet void of sleep, he saw himself on a battlefield surrounded by enemies as the swarmed him his blade shimmered covered in black. He cut the first two down before they had realized he swung, the other two took their time blasting various magician attacks from a distance. That was when Kinkaru's body reacted and he did something so surprising that he woke from his sleep. His dream had helped him pick his art. Kinkaru circled the art and signed the paper in his blood. The paper vanished a messaged appeared *art registered* *New Skill Dream State" "Skill combined with Wisdom of Another Life" "Results unknown"*

The school was surrounded in black nothing could be seen except two solid red eyes. The eyes stalked through the brushes evading the armed guards. It wasn’t targeting blindly, it wanted magic blood, It vanished into the darkness when it saw two students sitting in the park, it appeared the love birds were trying to express their feelings for each other away from prying eyes. The creature licked its lips as it readied its fangs. It would wait for the moment the couple embraced each other most intimately. As the couple began to breathe heavily the creature crept out quickly. The man never had a chance to react, his throat was already crushed by the creature's fangs. The girl attempted to scream as she began to run away. Her body was completely exposed and the concrete tore into her feet. Her naked body was exposed and the thrill of the sight excited the beast. She knew she couldn’t escape whatever that beast was on foot, so she prepared to fight it.

She spun around allowing her aura to cover her. That’s when the sense of impending dread melted her resolve. The creature was gone, she looked everywhere in a panic, but it was too late, The creature came from the side and crushed her chest with a bite. The creature's fangs penetrated her heart and she lay limp. Unsatisfied with its hunt, the beast began to horrifically dismember the body of its prey. The meat on this human girl tasted dull and the fear hadn't had time to marinate in her flesh. The creature was disgusted with the flavoring, but this was its mission. Had he been in the wild hunting the adventures and mages of the land, he might be eating a high mana flavored hero at this point. Instead, the dark lord had tasked him with destroying and demoralizing the young and weak students of this school. He yearned for the freedom to hunt the higher classed students, but they were almost always well protected by multiple school officials and the beast wasn't certain it would be a hunt it could return from.

The creature did what it always does and left the bodies destroyed and in the open. e ripped her arms from their sockets and tore her breasts from her chest. He dismembered her with surgical precision and ensured the blood would soak deep into the concrete. The beast cut her head off and took her arms and legs with him leaving the torso in the location of the kill. It let out a growl as it backed into the shadows. The creature had an uncanny ability to blend in with the darkness. In video game terminology you could say this creature had a maxed-out sneak stat.

Kinkaru noticed the school was on edge. The tensions were high and that could only mean another body had been found. It was very surprising that a monster could get away with murmuring so many students. The last targets were a pretty strong second year. If it weren’t for the influx of new students every year the school would likely be almost deserted at this point. Tenue saw Kinkaru walking and floating to him. “We must walk in pairs friend.” He said as he flew around in small circles. Kinkaru had been in such a rush he forgot the school had added that rule. they arrived at kinkaru's class and Tenue bid him farewell. The teacher started the class by splitting the class up by their registered arts. They were the. Introduced to their new teachers. This would be the first time since he arrived at school. Kinkaru's teacher was a middle-aged man with a grey beard. On his bad, he has a monster of a sword. The man introduced himself as a Sir Michael. He told the group he would be teaching them the ways of the sword.

"All of you are weak right now. I could cut all of you down in an instant before you could register what had happened. Usually, he would slowly introduce you to the art function but as events outside the school's control are happening, we need to ensure the strength of our upper-class."

The group was escorted to the train grounds, “stick with my class, I’m going to show you the power you have when you don’t rely on just magic.”

“Right now, you guys wouldn’t last a second on an adventure. The world is much more dangerous than this school and you will have to fend for yourself on the outside. What do you do if you can’t defeat a creature with those pathetic spells of yours? You will die. There no in-between and it will be horrific.”

“But on the off chance that you are at least decent with a blade, you expand your horizons. No more relying on complex spells to win a fight. By the end of my class, you WILL be able to go on adventures and serve the residents of whatever city you happen to travel your spoiled ass too. “

“If you fail to perform in my class then you WILL NOT graduate. This is your last chance to back out of this art now. I am the strictest teacher here and I will not allow you to represent me in a shitty manner on the outside world. I have had students fail my class 4 times in a row. This will inevitably be a few of you.”

The knight spoke with absolute authority and no one in the class doubted his words. Just by looking at this giant of a man, it was easy to determine that he was strong. Kinkaru knew that unlike the people he was familiar with at this point, he wanted to be this strong. He decided after hearing Sir Michael speak that he would give his all to the training at hand. It certainly helped that he wouldn’t need to rely on his magic as he still was at a loss of the practicality of its usage.

The group collectively was nervous as they walked into the level 20 and up area. Sir Michael turned to the group and began to lecture them on the importance of situational awareness. As he spoke A crouching monster crept close. The monster was a feline with razor-sharp claws. It was similar to a tiger, but it had two horns on its head and was easily twice a tiger’s size. The creature leaped at the knight and was met with the end of a blade. Michel spun around and in one swift motion, he removed the creature's head and stepped out of the way of the body.

“The key is to always assume you’re being watched. Wait until the threat thinks they have won and then destroy them. Never falter or toy with your opponents, otherwise, you will be the one being lured “.

Kinkaru watched the man's movement and precision. The grace in which the knight acted with such a lethal attack left Kinkaru in shock. He one shouted a level 20+ creature and he did it so casually. Kinkaru wondered what level his instructor was and how long it had taken him to get to this level. He was aware that the higher the level of the individual the longer their life span would become. The mana in one's body would stimulate cell growth and would allow the person to remain young for a longer period. The knight in front of him had grey hair, if he had been strong from a young age he could easily be over a hundred years old. Kinkaru raised his hand.

"Sir, would it be rude of me to ask your level?"

"Normally that is a forbidden subject for most. Being as this is a class I will gladly tell you. I am level 30 and have not been able to climb above that. To supplement the fact that I am hard stuck 30, I have trained twice as hard in sword arts."

After this Kinkaru began the hardest training he had experienced since coming to the new world. They were instructed on the forms of swordplay and the vital locations of most creatures. Every morning he would meet with his class in the training center. They would be given wooden weapons and forced to spar each other vigorously. During this time, two students were failed when they were caught using magic to assist themselves in combat. It turns out the wooden swords changed color when the user channeled mana through their body. Kinkaru found he was excellent with a blade and took his training much more seriously than his classmates. Most of them were in the mindset that their magical power would protect them in the rare case that their swordplay wasn’t strong enough. Then they would be tasked with defeating a grass beast with the wooden weapon alone. It took Kinkaru a full week before he was able to subdue one of the weaker creatures without the assistance of another student. When he did he could feel the difference in his strength.

Sir Michael made it clear that not all creatures fell into each category but overall, most had a general genetic makeup similar to creatures of the land. There was your basic feline creature which could make up numerous other subspecies of various sizes and appearance. But overall, they all had the same general skill set. Fangs, Class, and Stealth. Then you had canines which used mainly raw biting power and, in some cases, fought in groups with extreme intelligence. There were apes, snakes, lizards (including dragons), birds, humanoids, and spectral creatures. By the end of the third year, his strength stat had naturally raised by 2 points but more impressively his agility rose by 5. He also noticed another area in his menu that had a level for arts mastery and sword mastery had risen to 3! Kinkaru decided to dumb the remainder of his 5 skill points into endurance bringing it to 15. This would keep him alive longer and would make drawn-out fights less dangerous. After repeating this process every day for the remainder of the year Sir Michael permitted him to continue onto the advance training for 4th years.

(Status Menu)

Inventory

Quests

Settings

General Information

Name: Kinkaru

Level: 10

EXP: 15000/20000

Affinity: Neutral

Dark/???

Skill Points:0

Class/Job

Magic Swordsman

Visitor From Another Life

HP: 1500

Mana: 600

Stamina: 2000

Status Information

Stats

Spells

Skills

Strength:22

Shock

Reading: 4/4

Agility: 20

Shadow Summon

Speech: 2/4

Wisdom: 30

Scan

Wisdom of Another Life?

Endurance: 15

Critical Thinking 4/4

Dark Manipulation

Blunt Weapon Mastery 1/10

Sword Mastery 3/10

Sneak 2/10

Shadow Memorize