《A Tale of the Ages: Gods, Monster, and Heros》Chapter 7 The Husks First Request
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Explanation of the world and it's inhabitants
Classes and skills
The class system is one of the blessings shared by all Blessed races regardless of what god blessed them. We do not know when the system was made or who made it. Still, the accepted theory is that in an age long forgotten; the pantheon built the class system to give the Blessed races an advantage over the Cursed races, who are far more adept at manipulating the energy of the world.
Current understanding of the class system is as such, at the age of fifteen, one is prompted by the system to choose a primary class from a list of available options, all available options will be of tier 1 variety. We do not know what determines what classes, or how many, an individual will have available, but two theories stand at the forefront. The first one is that the natural talent of the individual determines everything, that the classes you have available will be better or worse based on fate and parentage. The other theory is that the choices are determined by the ability that one has cultivated up to that point, or that training a variety of skills before you are fifteen will grant you a greater variety of choices.
You will receive a new skill at level 1, level 5, and level 10 of every class, primary or secondary. The tier of the skill will be dictated by the tier of the class it came from; tier 1 classes can only give tier 1 skills. All skill can be trained to a level of 10 afterward you can attempt to improve the skill further to advance it to the next tier, we do not have a working theory on the upper limit of skill tiers.
To take a secondary class one must first level their primary class to level 10 and raise it to tier 2, at which point you can take another tier 1 class. A secondary class cannot exceed or match the tier of the primary class; if you have a tier 2 primary class, you cannot raise the tier of your secondary class. You may take an additional secondary class whenever you advance the tier of your primary class. We do not have records of anyone having a class higher than tier 5.
We advise that one be cautious about what classes they take. While it is possible through a complex ritual to remove a class and everything that comes with the class, the process is expensive and challenging to go through. According to those who have gone through the process, it ranges from extreme discomfort to agonizing pain. The method is derived from a cure used to block one's connection from the class system and may have unknown side effects.
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It is possible to opt-out of taking a class entirely. Some individuals are known to have done this and learned to manipulate the world's energy similarly to that of a class's skills, but doing so has proven to be difficult and time-consuming. Individuals that dedicate themselves to learning to manipulate the energy of the world without the assistance of a class or skills have been designated Manipulators by most scholars.
The Boy walked through the woods at night, a small orb of light floating above his head. The pale light barely illuminating the path and trees around him. The Boy treads confidently in the dark unperturbed by the long shadows cast by his magical light.
A small sound brought The Boy's attention to his left, where a blood wolf entered the range of the light, attracted by the contrast of the light in the otherwise pitch-black forest. The blood wolf snarled at The Boy, prepared to attack, but with a flick of his hand, a small spark of electricity jumped from The Boy's hand towards the blood wolf, causing it to yelp and flee back into the dark woods.
The Boy continued onwards and voiced his irritation with the current situation. "Call for me, it says. Like it's easy to just call out for a fucking husk, I'd be killed for being a follower of a dark god if someone spotted me doing that." The Boy's complaints seemed to go unheard by the forest inhabitants, giving him more confidence in his rant. "What did it even mean when it said that? Do I shout, look for it, say some stupid phrase? It can't expect me to believe that it can hear me all the time, can it?" Without anywhere to direct his rage and the unsettling nature of the woods around him, The Boy's irritation peaked. "FUCK YOU, HUSK. JUST CALL FOR YOU, MY ASS. IF YOU CAN HEAR ME THEN FUCKING SAY SO." The Boy cried out into the woods not expecting a reply
"Hello, Boy. How have these years treated you?" A rasping horror of a voice came from the shadows around The Boy.
The Boy froze. He'd forgotten this terror over the past six years. He'd forgotten how the sound crawled into his mind and dug at his sanity. He'd forgotten how his blood chilled at the sound of The Husk's voice. "I-I didn't th-think you'd actually b-be here." said the Boy looking around for the monstrous creature.
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"I will always know if you call Boy. Now, what did you need?" The Husk's voice emanated from every shadow hiding his location from The Boy.
"Uhh, can you show yourself? I d-don't feel comfortable t-talking with shadows like this." Said The Boy, his eyes darting around hoping to find some evidence of The Husk's location.
The air seemed to still for a moment before The Husk Responded, "Very well, go forward a little further."
The Boy walked forward until his small light revealed a sight that stunned him. The Husk was sat against a tree, heavily wounded. A large hole in its abdomen dripping a black ichor, it's left arm bent at an impossible angle. The wrappings of its head town away, revealing the horror that lay beneath the face's wrappings. Nothing, no skin, no bones, nothing at all. It was an empty black section of space as if reality itself was falling into the maul of darkness that once lay hidden beneath the bandages.
"What do you need, Boy?" Rasped The Husk, its voice somehow weaker sounding than before.
"What happened to you?" The Boy whispered, taking in the deplorable state of The Husk.
"Irrelevant. You called me. Now, speak." Rasped the Husk
The Boy's hesitated for a moment before stating his intent. "I-I called because your book is lacking a piece of information I need. I turn fifteen soon, and your book doesn't say what class I need to take. everything else it's given a detailed explanation on, but..." The Boy paused for a moment. "Are you sure we should be concerned about why I called you? You have a massive hole in you."
"Boy, the book doesn't mention a class because it was written for someone who can't take a class." The Husk ignored The Boy's concern continuing at his own pace. "You may take whatever class you want, or no class at all, the contents of that book will work for you regardless."
"What do you mean, can't ta... THAT DOESN"T MATTER. What happened to you?" The Boy's shout echoed into the woods ignored even by his conversation partner.
"I mean that the book was not written for a member of the Blessed races." The Husk responded to the unfinished question about the origin of the book.
"What happened to you?" The Boy said with as much conviction as he could muster.
"Haah," The ragged flaps around the opening of The Husks face were displaced slightly by the rasp of air. "Boy, have you ever heard of the husks curse?"
"Yes, my ma always said it like this, pity those who kill a husk for they will die within a half a decade. What does that have to do with this?"
"My kind does not die; we sleep, sometimes for years. It is rather hard to give us a final death." The Husk's rasping voice seemed more strained and restricted with each word. "Now, if my understanding is correct, you will need to leave the orphanage soon. I have prepared a place for you. It is perfect for practicing magic and researching new techniques." The Husk lifted its right arm, showing a small note to The Boy
The words of The Husk set The Boy on edge. "What will it cost me?" The Boy said with doubt.
The Husk took a moment to respond, the black ichor now forming a small puddle around his body. "if you choose to use the space, you will find a list of things I want you to research. That is the price." The Husk did not wait for a response before continuing. "I won't be around for a while, and I recommend not getting into trouble until we meet again."
"Wait, I still need to ask some things." The Boy said, but The Husk did not respond. "Hey I need to ask about the things you want me to research." The Husk did not respond. "Hey, speak to me." The Boy reached out to The Husk, hesitating before grabbing its shoulder.
The Husk's body fell lifelessly forward at the touch of The Boy, the wrappings falling away to reveal black dust and ichor that rapidly turned into smoke, and faded from sight.
The Boy sat for some time before picking up the note and returning the way he had come.
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Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. 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