I woke up in a forest. At least, I was pretty sure it was a forest when I saw the fifty-foot tall trees that covered up the sky.

“You’re wrong, “ Sarah interrupted my train of thought. “There is no sky. It’s a simulation.”

“Sarah! Where have you been?”

“Somewhere,” she evaded. I decided not to press.

“This looks so… real.”

“Well, yes. It’s Legendary rarity.”

“Legendary? How much would that cost?”

“Oh, maybe five thousand Sapphire Marks?”

“Which is?”

“Five hundred thousand Topaz Marks, fifty million Ruby Marks, five billion Gold Marks, five hundred billion Silver Marks, fifty trillion Copper Marks, or five quadrillion Gold.”

“How much?”

“Oh, and it’s only producible in Tier 8 or above. Damn, this Academy is rich.”

Hary’s voice jolted me back to reality. He was whining. “It’s so cold here. This is unfair. I’m leaving. Actually, I’m going to be drawing. Look! It’s much better than what you could have done and-“

An angry shout cut into the cool air. It was Chad. “Hary, shut up.”

“But look at this art! Isn’t it-“

“NO!” Chad snapped.

“But you have to admit, right, that it’s-“

“STOP TALKING!” all of us yelled in unison.

I got a notification.

Your reputation with Hary Chew dropped by 300.

-500 to Hated.

Congratulations! You have gained a new Skill!

Insulting

Rarity: Common II

Effect: Drop in reputation from target, and gain in reputation for all people with negative reputation with target in range

Range: 40 feet

Hary muttered something under his breath, then stomped off angrily. I couldn’t care less. A distant scream was heard, and I decided that a leader who doesn’t check on a scream that just so happened to coincide with the direction that Hary walked in was something with the intelligence of Hary, a.k.a. a chair.

“Come on.” I led my team towards the sound of the disturbance, and saw a wolf over a blood puddle, and no Hary.

No sign of his corpse was anywhere nearby, however.

“Remember, it’s just a simulation. Hary will still be alive in real life.”

Suddenly, I got another notification.

Your reputation with Hary Chew dropped by 500.

You are now Hated by Hary Chew.

-2000 to Grudge

“Uh, something just happened,” Waras spoke up.

“No shit, pervert,” Beatrice spat out, disgusted. She shook Waras free from her thigh, then said: “Hary blamed us for that?”

“I guess,” I said.

Suddenly, I got a message.

Event: Mixed Cooperative Enviromental Combat Test

Wave 1 of 6 starting…

Wave 1 monsters: Level 20 or below, Uncommon or below

Boss: Giant Rat (Level 24), Common

Monsters Remaining: 28

When the message faded, I saw a squirrel running at me. Squirrel in very loose terms. I used Analyze on it.

Analyze Complete!

Level 14 Rabid Squirrel

Level Up! Analyze Level 2

If somebody would have told me that this three-foot monster with glowing red eyes was a squirrel, I would have thought they were as stupid as Hary.

With a war cry, Waras charged into the battle and bravely killed the squirrel. Waras then headed back and said to Beatrice, “Were you impressed?”

After several very resolute “No”s, Beatrice finally flung off Waras. We continued deeper into the jungle. I had barely made it several steps before I crashed into an invisible barrier.

“This is the limit of this Instance of the simulation. You won’t be able to go further.”

I managed to convince my team, and we proceeded on the opposite direction.

For four hours now, we have been killing Squirrels, Rats, and even a couple Level 19 Frogs. We have been going in a spiral the whole time, and are getting closer and closer to the center, which is when I saw the giant Rat.

Waras charged into it idiotically. I facepalmed. The rat took a giant slash at him and managed to catch him, throwing him fifty feet into the air.

Thankfully, his Fall with Grace skill saved him, and he asked Beatrice, “Did I look cool?”

Her response was, “No, and if you try that again, you will die.” Was that genuine concern I heard?

I rushed in with my dual rapiers.

Damage Dealt:

3600 to Giant Rat

Overkill!(1200 Damage)

Wave 1 Passed!

Level +1

Wave 2 of 6 starting…

Wave 2 monsters: Level 30 or below, Uncommon or below

Boss: Wasp Queen(Level 36), Uncommon

Monsters Remaining: 34

Well, it looks like we wouldn’t be done anytime soon.

Forty eight hours later, we were all exhausted. One thing kept us going, however.

Wave 5 Passed!

Level +16

Wave 6 of 6 starting…

Wave 6 monsters: Level 70 or below, Epic or below

Boss: Aetheric Golem(Level 73) Legendary

Monsters Remaining: 42

“Yup. Rich. They’re absolutely loaded.” Sarah said for the fiftieth time.

“What is it this time?”

“The Aetheric Golem is a Construct from the Aetheric Plains, which is Tier 5. To scale a Legendary Construct from Tier 5 down seven and a half tiers… Rich doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

“We’re almost there, guys!” Chad proclaimed excitedly.

“Let’s put in our stat points first,” I began, “Then, we can-“

“Done!” Waras hopped, “I now have H-34 Dexterity and H-45 Agility! Are you impressed?”

“For the fiftieth time, no,” Beatrice said.

I decided to make Intelligence and Wisdom G-tier, then put my remaining points in Strength. With my 102 attribute points, I should have decent progress towards my Class.

Attributes (Unspent Points: 0)

Strength (Talent: Average)

Rank: Basic H-39

Dexterity (Talent: Excellent)

Rank: Basic G-00

Agility (Talent: Excellent)

Rank: Basic G-03

Constitution (Talent: Poor)

Rank: Basic H-01

Intelligence (Talent: Above Average)

Rank: Basic G-01

Wisdom (Talent: Above Average)

Rank: Basic G-01

Psych (LOCKED) (Talent: Excellent)

LOCKED: Proceed to Tier 8 to unlock

Meta (LOCKED) (Talent: Above Average)

LOCKED: Proceed to Tier 4 to unlock

“Guys, let’s not lie,” Chad said, “what are your attributes?”

“I have H-34 Dexterity, H-45 Agility, and H-29 Strength! That’s a lot!” Waras proudly said.

“I have H-96 Strength, H-46 Constitution, and everything else at base,” Chad proclaimed.

“I have G-10 Wisdom and H-68 Intelligence,” Beatrice supplied.

“I have… um… H-89 Strength, H-45 Dexterity, and H-43 Agility,” I lied.

“Come on, there’s no way that H-43 Agility can dodge a charging Rabid Bull,” Waras doubted.

“Fine,” I disclosed, “It’s not that. I have G-rank in Dexterity, Agility, Intelligence, and Wisdom, with H-39 Strength.”

There was a pause. Then an eruption of laughter from Beatrice, Waras, and Chad.

“Four G-rank attributes? At level what? 93? Impossible!”

Suddenly, a Level 64 Aether-Corrupted Vicious Beetle(Epic) reminded us why we shouldn’t stay for too long in one place.

After beating back what felt like hundreds of beetles, rats, and even level 68 squirrels, we got to the boss. It was a towering 20-foot tall golem, which was basically a blueish-green R2D2 on steroids. None of our attacks did anything to the golem, which just fired a huge blueish laser beam out of its singular eyesocket. I decided to try Spells. I used Thunder Shock on the golem, which, by a stroke of luck, resulted in a defense bypass, which instantly killed the Golem.

Event Passed!

+32 Levels

Admission into the Academy

Before I had time to react, I was back in that starting room, with a very annoyed Hary because of the two day wait.

“I bet you didn’t even beat it, did you? Without my awesome, powerful, charismatic, humorous self, you all miserably failed at the first-“

This was my breaking point. I had spent the last two and a half days straight killing monsters without a rest, and I had none of it.

“You,” I pointed at him, “are part of my team. And as team leader, I have to tell you that you are none of those things. We beat a legendary Level 73 Aetherian Golem, and you died at the hands of a Level 5 Squirrel. I will have none of this while I’m team leader.”

“But it’s not fair! You cheated! You all cheated! I’m the best one here! You’re not team leader - I am! I’m leader! I make you not leader! Get out of the team! Everyone! Force him out!”

Hary looked around, but everybody was already gone. Desperate to prove himself, Hary went out to the forest to hunt some things to level. As he went, he muttered: “Stupid teammates. Stupid people. They all deserve to die.” He looked forward. He saw a stone brick entrance, and thought: ‘I’ll go in there. I can beat whatever’s in here!’

He never even saw the Level 1 Ant bite him, and he died to the Ant.

After that chaotic experience, we were finally allowed into the academy for a day’s brief rest before our classes officially began tomorrow.

“So, what are you guys going to sign up for?” Chad said with a mouthful of lamb. We were in the room that we all shared. It was a nice room, a bit small, but that was because of the four separate bedrooms that branched out of this central room.

“I don’t know yet,“ I admitted, “I don’t even know what classes there are.”

“Well, there’s first Mana Manipulation, and its more advanced version, Mana Imbuement. Those are required,” Chad began.

“Oh, don’t forget about Mana Theory and System Study, those are important,” Beatrice chimed in.

“I know. Then, you can go one of two routes: Professions or Spells. Whichever one you pick, you can then pick any number of classes in that route, but you must pick one. The Professions are Artificer, Manasmith, Enchanter, Scribe, and one more than I’m missing.”

“Actually, you’re missing two; Alchemist, and Researcher,” Waras told us.

“Then, there are the spells,” Chad continued, “those have different Attunements. There are supposed to be twelve, but the ones you can learn here are just the main elements: Air, Earth, Water, Thunder, Fire, and Metal.”

“Well, I’ll take Air, Earth, Water, Thunder, and Fire.”

Everybody stared at me oddly.

“What?”

Waras was the first to break the silence. “If you can’t learn the element, it says it in the System.”

It was my turn to be confused now. “What? I can learn those!”

“Suuuuuure. Even if you hypothetically could learn them-“ Waras suddenly stopped speaking.

“What?” Beatrice asked impatiently.

“If he could learn them, big IF by the way, there is nothing that can stop him.”

I smiled. Looks like his new class will be gained very quickly.

A week later, I looked up from the map of the Academy. Apparently, since so much space was required for training zones, this Academy was enchanted to have more space.

Think about this. A Fire spell like my Fireball could travel for a hundred feet before stopping. The Academy has just accepted five hundred students. If a fifth of those students took Fire magic, that was a hundred. Room for a hundred students to throw flaming projectiles that could travel for a hundred feet without hitting anything was just for a Tier-1 spell in one school. And that didn’t even account for the big things, like room for an Enchanter to make their first Mech, a fifty foot tall giant pilotable machine. Again, a hundred fifty foot tall giant machines had to have space to run, jump, and even do a freaking obstacle course.

An obstacle course the length of the Entrance Exam. For giant robots.

Therefore, the route to every single one of my classes were extremely convoluted. And by that, I mean “take eighteen right turns, then take a left on the fifteenth corridor, which will take you to the ninth floor’s third section, then take seven left turns with one right turn every three left turns” complicated. To make matters worse, every floor has five different sections, and every subject has one floor; this means that going from, say, Mana Manipulation to Thunder Magic would require going up eighteen floors of stairs.

Thankfully, the Minimap in his system kept him going in the right track most of the time.

What made the layout even worse was the amount of different assignments I had. Already, I had to write an essay about the origination of Mana for Mana Theory, make a model of the air currents involved in Fireball, think of five offensive uses of Air and Water magic, use Mana to form a sphere, make a presentation about how Thunder magic can be used for healing purposes, and grow a banana in the freezer using Earth magic.

Luckily, though, I had no classes on the weekends, and I could ignore what I’d come to think of as my friends’ laughter and focus on my homework.

Suddenly, as I was writing “Mana was originally a mutated form of energy”, I thought of Hary. Where had he been the last week?

I shrugged. Even if he was missing, it wasn’t like anybody would care.

By the time I had finished writing the word “energy”, all thought of Hary was already out of my mind.

Ven Globenhemmer was an Adventurer. He was part of a very small group in Vartur who were Adventurers, and he would delve in the Training Dungeon of Vartur weekly.

Suddenly, as he moved towards the first floor, he saw a corpse lying on the floor. “Hey, Frank, look at this!” Ven motioned towards the corpse.

“Yeah? Woah. This guy? Seriously? How’d he die on floor 1? And he’s Level 36? What a noob.”

“Heyo- woah! That’s Duke Chew’s son, Hary Chew!” It was the rather more wealthy Martin Valez.

“Duke Chew?” Ven said suspiciously.

“Yeah! The one who married a pig! People say he’s insane.”

Duke Chew was fuming.

“What. Do. You. Mean.”

“Sir, news from Ven Globenhemmer. Your son’s- dead.”

“WHAT? I’m going to find the person who did it and tear him to pieces!”

It didn’t even strike the Duke’s mind that it might have been an accident. It never even got past his Severe Psychosis debuff, nor his H-00 Wisdom.

Well, it has officially been two months since that Exam. And what a wild two months it has been!

First of all, I got Level 1o in all the Magic skills, Level 15 in Mana Manipulation, and Level 1o in Mana Imbuement. That means that, as of right now, I am Level 200 exactly, and I have 214 Attribute Points to spend.

I also got 2 Talent Points, which Sarah explained to me that they were used to upgrade any talent up a tier. Of course, I dumped them into Constitution, in order to not be as much of a glass cannon. However, then Sarah told me that I would only get one point per hundred levels until Level 300.

Trying not to think too hard about the things I could have done with those two points, I raised Dexterity and Agility to the next Tier, Intelligence and Wisdom halfway, Strength to G-Tier, and the rest to Constitution.

Status:

HP: 540/540 (5.4/min)

SP: 4570/4570 (45.7/sec)

DEF: 2

MP: 1510/1510 (15.1/sec)

Rank: Bronze

Advancement 0 Stage 0 Tier 0 Level 200

Attributes (Unspent Points: 0)

Strength (Talent: Average)

Rank: Basic G-00

Dexterity (Talent: Excellent)

Rank: Basic F-00

Agility (Talent: Excellent)

Rank: Basic F-03

Constitution (Talent: Average)(Birth: Poor)

Rank: Basic H-54

Intelligence (Talent: Above Average)

Rank: Basic G-51

Wisdom (Talent: Above Average)

Rank: Basic G-51

Psych (LOCKED) (Talent: Excellent)

LOCKED: Proceed to Tier 8 to unlock

Meta (LOCKED) (Talent: Above Average)

LOCKED: Proceed to Tier 4 to unlock

Skills:

Dual Wielding

Uncommon II

Level 15

Basic Rapiers

Common IV

Level 20

Inspect

Common IV

Level 3

Analyze

Common III

Level 1

Fire Magic

Common II

Level 10

Thunder Magic

Common II

Level 10

Air Magic

Common II

Level 10

Earth Magic

Common II

Level 10

Water Magic

Common II

Level 10

Mana Manipulation

Common I

Level 15

Mana Imbuement

Common I

Level 10

Mining

Unranked

Level 10

Quests:

The Legacy Of The Eviolodons(Locked)

(Locked)

Unlock Quest: “The Legacy of the Eviolodons”

Advance to Tier 11 (Level 200/1000)

Location:

Macro: Subspace - Aggressive Realities - Tier 12 - Instance #434

Micro: A’dreya - Dlamalar - Sayamn Plains - Vartur

A waypoint can be set anywhere within the current Macro Location (Waypoints Active: 0/5)

Inventory:

None

Affinities Unlocked:

Fire, Thunder, Air, Water, Earth

Potential Affinities Dormant:

Life, Death, Light, Dark, Wood, Metal, Nature, Spirit

Affinities with No Potential:

None

Spells:

Aerial Blade

Tier 2

Common

Thunder Shock

Tier 1

Uncommon

Earthquake

Tier 1

Common

Water Surge

Tier 1

Common

Fireball

Tier 1

Common

3 more tabs locked - Gain something that modifies those tabs to view them

12 more tabs locked - Advance System to a higher Level to view them

I was feeling lost. What now? All my skills are good except for Mana Manipulation and Imbuement, I had every Spell I needed except for one more Air Spell, and I was only missing about four hundred Levels worth of Attribute Points.

The thing was, up until now, almost all of my Levels had come from leveling Skills. Sure, there was an occasional Quest now and then, but that was about it.

Suddenly, a new Quest popped up that might just be the solution to the Level problem.

New Quest: Become a Verified Magus(Quest Chain)

Reward: 100 Levels

Failure: -500 Reputation with the Magus Circle(Pre-Great Continent), -1000 Reputation with the Circle of the Great Magi(Great Continent), -1000 Reputation with the Inner Citadel Core(Unknown Location), -500 Reputation with the Council of Magi(Unknown Location), -1000 Reputation with Archmagus Vaen(Unknown Location)

Become a Verified Magus (Part 1):

Graduate from the Academy

Reward: 50 Levels

Failure: -100 Levels

Accept? (Yes/No)

Suddenly, a voice popped out of my head:

“Don’t accept, Everlon! This quest will have far-reaching implications, the like of which you cannot imagine! If you accept, you will-“

It was too late. I had already pressed Yes.

“Oh, no,” was all Sarah said.