The man sat in his room quietly meditating until the following morning. No matter what he did, he simply could not calm his mana down and bring it under his complete control. It would follow his mental nudges here and there but it would spike erratically all on its own. Letting out a few curses, he realized that it was dawn. Slowly and with a strained back, he walked out of the room and towards the desk with an untouched bell and tray of food on it.

*RING…Ring Ring*

Soon, a well-dressed attendant knocked and opened the door. “You rang the bell sir? How may I be of assistance to you?” The attendant calmly and professionally asked.

“When is the training?” The man asked the attendant.

“It is in about one hour.”

Something weird happened when the attendant said the unit of time. The man clearly saw the attendant’s lips say something strange, yet heard the word “hour”. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why it looked weird, but he decided to leave that can of worms for later. “Where is the training at?” The man asked instead.

“The courtyard sir. In fact, everyone should already be there. Would you like me to show you the way?”

“Sure.” The man replied.

The attendant didn’t say anything more as he led the strange man toward the courtyard. This past two days, none of the other attendants knew what he was up to. While they were curious about what he was doing all by himself while others of his group talked to each-other, their curiosity was overruled by their professionalism and figured it was one of his quirks.

Eventually after walking through numerous hallways and one flight of stairs downward, he reached an old wooden door that lead to a wide expanse of grass with stone walls in a short distance of about 100m away. It was a fairly large grass field with a couple trees off to the side of the courtyard. Perhaps it was a garden?

To the left were his “classmates” eagerly talking to each other. The man calls them classmates, but he personally doesn’t feel any connection to them…well except one certain tall student athlete. He simply felt a slight irritation for him, nothing more. Current goals aside, he swore to himself that he wouldn’t trust anyone, especially since he was at this castle again.

The man walked up to the group that was chattering incessantly with each other about various things with a slight frown. He backed away a couple of steps from the group and felt comfortable again, so he remained there until the instructor called out with a gruff, masculine voice.

“Alright kids!” The armored knight said. You could tell that he was slightly different from the other knights by the red fist emblem with lightning bolts on his shoulder, as well as his temperament. He looked calm and relaxed, yet if you looked closely, he had no openings that you could take advantage of.

“My name is Lonnie Boone, and I will be the instructor for you lot.” He disdainfully said with a slight glint in his eye. You could easily tell that he was riling them up for something yet no one seemed to notice it, except for the man who was standing off to the side slightly and two girls that rolled their eyes.

Several faces began to frown and other were slowly getting angry. You could clearly see Dan starting to get irritated as well.

“Before we begin, we will be handing out this.” He held up a slightly blue and transparent card. “This card is to be with you at all times AM I UNDERSTOOD?!” The sudden outburst from Lonnie startled the entire group except for three individuals.

“What is it?” Someone in the group asked timidly.

“This is called a Saetus. Think of it as a card that is a part of you. It will represent your worth in society, figuratively and literally. It will show your name, what your class is, what your approximate strength is, and what you need to advance.” He handed out the thirty-eight cards to the 6x6 formation while he talked. He handed one to the teacher in front as well as the man standing off to the side a little bit.

“Does everyone have a Saetus?” Everyone nodded. “Good, now this will be a little painful but you need to prick your finger and let the blood flow onto the card until it glows. I will be passing around a knife.”

Some of the squeamish started to shake uncontrollably while others looked very apprehensive about the idea of harming themselves. Slowly, everyone pricked their finger one by one and let the blood fall onto the card in their hands except for three. Two girls simply used their nails to cut open a vein on their arms while the other man just stood there.

“Have you used the blade yet? Here.” A knight offers a short dagger while smiling. There was a strange symbol on the blade.

The man stared at the knight while glancing at the symbol.

“It is perfectly safe…besides the sharp ends of course. Well go on.” The knight held out the dagger.

The man took the blade into his hands and briefly considered mass murder of everyone present. He twirled the dagger in his hand, seemingly comfortable with the motions. He gave the dagger a once over and saw it slowly oozing a magic aura and shook his head. After handing the dagger back, he immediately bit into this non-dominant thumb and drew blood. With just a few drops, the card began glowing so he licked his thumb to begin the clotting process.

“O…okay then…” The knight was slightly unnerved about the strange man who just ripped his flesh without a second thought or even a twitch. The poor knight hurriedly walked away.

The man felt the throb in his thumb and inwardly laughed. Tearing skin was child’s play compared to his memories. Cut himself and let foreign magic from an unknown spell invade his body via the wound? No thank you.

“Alright, now that everyone is done, take a look at your cards.”

Shouts of excitement and fervor echoed in the courtyard one after another as the people looked at their plates. The man also looked at his while all of this was going on.

***

=SAETUS= -ERROR- [Please state your name after an additional drop of life essence]

You're broke (lol)

=CLASSES= =REQUIREMENTS FOR ADVANCEMENT= SPELL FANG - ROGUE 1 of 2 pre-requisites completed ????????????? of ?????-???? 0 of 10 pre-requisites completed H$%# of ****** 0 of 3 pre-requisites completed =TITLES= (ERROR) RANK: D Guild Rank: NEET

***

The man cursed once more under his breath. He forgot that he didn’t exactly have a name, so it wasn’t a surprise that there was no name on the card. He was surprised because not only did he have three classes, even though one had question marks and the other looked like a corrupted file, but rather it was about the only legible class he had.

Spell Fang…rogue variant. He said in his mind.

Not only was it a mythical existence, but it was inversely said to be the weakest and hardest class to utilize. For example, if a mage were to fight a spell fang, the mage could use spells with his staff and instant-cast or delay-cast spells however he pleased. The spell fang, on the other hand, had to use his abilities to cut through the native magic to weave spells. Yes, it can cut through magic itself, but the class wouldn’t differentiate between your enemy’s magic and your own. Thus, causing misfires unless you could cut ONLY the enemy’s magic as you weaved your spells…with daggers or your hands. Kind of like shooting through a gap in someone’s fingers ten paces away to hit an apple with an old pistol. You would need to be very precise.

Then again, he only heard stories about this class and possible attributes from his brother, when he would endlessly talk about his research. Whether his brother’s information was credible or not was something else…

Thankfully, the man already knew almost everything about being a rogue, and sometimes thief, due to his service over the past ten years…for his…sister…

He thought about his sister and her untimely end. The anger within him was trying to claw its way out of his heart, trying to free itself from the depths of his mind once again. He quickly put his hand on his head and almost reflexively took a knee to stabilize himself, as his mind raced and mana became even more chaotic. It was even harder this time to keep it contained as he unintentionally uttered a low gutteral growl.

Slow, deep breaths eventually calmed him down and he looked back to the knight instructor to hear what he was saying. Something about magic oriented classes and sorting. He eventually calmed down the anger in his head, only to find himself all alone while everyone else split into groups.

“Why are you here still? Go find your class group.” The knight instructor quipped and strolled away into the castle. All around the courtyard, there were various knights, magicians, scholars, and other people with various classes teaching all of the groups the basics in their respective fields. Behind these people were wooden boards with a class title: How to hold a sword, basic mana control, this world’s religion and geography, the list went on.

Since the man already knew most of this from being Zeno, he quietly went back upstairs to his room to meditate and think about his Saetus. He opened the door and sat on the decent bed that they let him use during his stay.

That error though…I guess I need to name myself for it to work properly? Maybe that is why the other classes are garbled. He looked at his thumb that just recently stopped bleeding and bit into it again lightly. Just hard enough to draw a single drop of blood and have it fall onto the card.

What should I call myself? Jake…or Zeno? No. They are both me and I am them.

The man thought for some time, it would also be awkward during conversations once he revived them. He went through all of his memories from both lives. Years flashed by in his mind as he searched for a fitting name from both Jake and Zeno. He decided his first would be from Zeno's memories and the other would be from Jake’s.

Steve…Josh…Jack…Allen…Robert…Jason… Then he recalled a nickname...Roland… Oddly enough, both Zeno and Jake were both nicknamed Roland. Satisfied with the name Roland, he started to look for his last name from Jake’s memories.

Dagomir…Hanson…Zemat...Walker…Anderson…Foster…He paused in between each name to see how it fit with Roland and if he liked it or not. Eventually he settled on Walker after his favorite manga exorcist hero when he was Jake.

The man looked at the glowing plate and said in a calm, determined voice. “Roland Walker.”

Nothing happened for some time but then a sudden surge of his energy entered the card, making it shine a bright blue and black. After a while, the card returned to a normal non-glowing transparent blue. All of his chaotic energy stopped completely for a moment and began to seemingly dance inside him. As if his magic and energy was given life when he uttered his new name. Surprised, he stood up, excitedly said “Saetus”, and the card came back to life.

=SAETUS= ROLAND WALKER

You're broke (lol)

=CLASSES= =REQUIREMENTS FOR ADVANCEMENT= SPELL FANG - ROGUE 1 of 2 pre-requisites completed AD???????A??R of ?????-???? 0 of 10 pre-requisites completed H$%# of Nolene 0 of 3 pre-requisites completed =TITLES= (ERROR) RANK: D Guild Rank: NEET

Roland was happy to see that some of his card became readable, but not much since the corrupted text was replaced with question marks. He also didn’t know who Nolene was or why this person was a part of his class, but he would work on one thing at a time. For now, he needed to practice his innate magic to get a better feel for it, and meditate to increase his mana capacity and purity, while keeping the erratic spikes from messing everything up.

Roland felt like he finally made the first step towards his journey to reviving Jake and Zeno, as well as killing the ones who were responsible for taking their lives away. For taking his lives away. He couldn’t forgive those responsible and would definitely hand out revenge on their behalf.

Roland quietly walked back to his bed and sat down with his legs crossed. He had his magic, he had his targets, he had his reason and undying hatred. Now all he needed was a chance to put it all together.

But little did he know that his intention would be the catalyst that spurned the gears of fate to turn once more in this corrupt and stagnant world.