Chapter 4: First Manual (1) – 3

"Psssssshhh!"

I watched as the doors on the train closed, and we slowly departed.

The city that I was currently in was the capital city of the empire, named Cavil and I was currently on the train to Ornam, a city that was about 8 hours from Cavil by train, and was most famous for its Forest of Mist.

The Forest of Mist was a (D)-ranked area that was most famous for the fact that the forest was perpetually filled with mist.

It was also my destination as my first manual was hidden in there.

So to explain, in this world, you could see something called your status window with a special gem. Of course, I didn't have one right now as they were pretty expensive, so I couldn't see my status

But yeah, if you've read any number of web novels, then you know the usual ranking system starting from (F-) to (EX).

Manuals however, were ranked differently in this world.

First off, manuals were basically books that humans in this world dropped upon death, kinda like how monsters would drop monster cores here.

The star ranking of a manual that is dropped is based upon the mastery of the user up until their death.

They were rated from 1-star to 9-star with 1-star meaning the most basic of basics and 9-star meaning something like a legendary level.

When you received a manual, the star ranking was used to determine the potential of your manual, but mastering the manual also had the same ranking system so if you mastered the first part, that would be called 1-star mastery, the second part would be 2-star mastery and so on.

There were also such things as 10-star manuals, but currently, only the royal family possessed them, another reason why the nobles couldn't do anything to them.

When you mastered the first level, you would be considered a basic _____ (whatever the manual was teaching). After breaking through the 3rd realm of mastery, you would be considered an intermediate _____, breaking through the 6th realm of mastery would make you an advanced _____, breaking through the 8th realm of mastery would make you a master _____, and breaking through the 9th realm of mastery would make you a grandmaster _____. The people in the royal family and the few nobles that broke through the 10th realm of mastery were called _____ Demigods.

Of course, Monarch of Darkness was also a demigod, named the Shadow Demigod, and in the future, would, along with the hero, surpass all things and break into the 11th realm of mastery and they both would become _____ Gods.

But, back to the topic, the reason why there weren't that many 10-star demigods in the first place was because it was an almost impossible achievement to break into the 10th level of mastery. Most 10-star sword manuals disappeared after one generation with the exception of the royal family and their broken manual copying method.

Also, manuals, once used, disappeared, and it was only the royal family that possessed the capabilities to copy manuals, so the noble families and the academies were always in debt to the royal family.

So the only way that a regular person could become a master or grandmaster would be to practice the manual for long enough, so much so that they reached enlightenment in it, breaking through the star ranking barrier and upgrading their manual, so if you were practicing a 6-star manual, but then reached enlightenment, you could upgrade the manual into a 7-star manual.

The manual that I was aiming for in the Forest of Mist was a 10-star lost manual that was the obscure legacy of a forgotten hero from the war.

According to the auxiliary volume, the manual was going to be found by a minor villain in the future. Due to their hatred of the protagonist, they would scour the archives of the school library and find clues about where this manual was, but even after they got it, they still lost to the protagonist as they hadn't even reached 4-star mastery of the manual yet.

'Well, I'm sorry, but I'm gonna be taking it now, as I'll make much better use of it.'

After planning a few last-minute things in my mind, I decided to sleep for the remainder of the 8-hour trip.

...

"Attention passengers, we have arrived at our destination, Ornam, please depart the train. Attention passengers, we have..."

I woke up to a female robotic voice announcing that we had arrived.

As I stepped off the train, I saw that it was already dark outside, so instead of heading into the Forest of Mist directly, I decided to go to an inn instead, as if you couldn't see that well in the forest during daylight hours, it was almost impossible to see through the mist during the night unless you were somebody that had achieved a master ranked mastery in your manual.

Stepping into the first inn that I saw, I just booked a room for a single night and then immediately retired to my room, not ordering any food, drinks, or a bath. I mean, I guess this was kind of a habit from my past life, as my mind just didn't think about "wanting" stuff like food or cleanliness.

I fell onto my bed and immediately fell asleep.

...

I woke up early the next morning, before the sun had even risen.

Leaving the inn quietly, I started moving towards the Forest of Mist.

I arrived at the border between the town and the forest right when the sun started peeking its head over the horizon.

The forest was a (D)-ranked area, meaning that the beasts in the forest were at most at the (D)-rank.

Of course, due to the mist, it was more like a (C+)-ranked area, as the beasts in the forest had already adapted and could move normally in the heavy mist.

Also, I'll give you a brief explanation on why magical beasts are in this world. Basically, because of the unstable amounts of mana in a plane that wasn't used to it (same reason why Earth became a single continent again), portals would occasionally open that led to other planes, and monsters or other intelligent civilizations would appear out of them.

On the continent of Esgardia, most portals were closed almost immediately after opening by either students from one of the 4 major academies, or passing masters, but some were left undiscovered and grew, basically making it so that they created an environment where magical beasts were common, and it would just be a pain to get rid of all of them.

That was why there were places like the Forest of Mist on the Esgardian continent.

Of course, what people didn't know right now was that there was another continent on the opposite side of the Earth, that was filled with magical creatures and other races like elves, dwarfs, orcs, gnomes, and other fantastical species.

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This would be discovered in about a year or so, but I was planning on interrupting this situation anyways, so the second continent probably wouldn't be discovered until a few years later.

Anyways, back to the present, I was currently warming up on the edge of the forest.

If I had to judge my pure physical strength right now, I would probably be around (D+) rank, which was way ahead of what even the protagonist was at right now, so I should have no trouble fighting the monsters in this forest, but the problem was that I didn't know how to use any skills or learn any techniques from any manuals, so my fighting style was extremely crude.

And, as I didn't have a weapon, I could probably only kill (D-)-ranked monsters with my bare hands.

After I finished stretching, I entered the forest.

Immediately, I white mist surrounded me, limiting my perception to only about 3 meters in front of me.

The mist also blocked sounds and smells, and had some mild drugs in it that hindered your taste and touch when breathed in, so in reality, all of my 5 senses were hindered right now.

I had to walk blindly, with my arms and feet in front of me, probing for any unknown objects.

I actually walked into a few trees and got hit by a few low-lying branches, but it was still manageable, so I continued forward.

Then, right out of nowhere, a red eyed wolf jumped right at my neck.

Reacting quickly with my honed reflexes, I caught it by its neck and quickly broke it.

It fell onto the forest floor with a thud.

This continued on for the next few hours, as I would have to defend against attacks that came from all directions by a variety of magical beasts.

Then, after wandering around for a few hours, I found what I was looking for.

In front of me was a grove of trees that looked like they were bent over, trying to protect something.

I searched around using my hands, feeling for the opening that was hidden between the tightly packed trunks of the trees.

Finally finding it, I squeezed between a small crack in between the trunks of the tree, finding myself in what could best be described as a mystical garden.

As the trees covered the sun, it was dark in the garden, but there were hundreds of bioluminescent flowers brightening up the darkness.

'It honestly looks like a scene from a fantasy novel or something!'

'Wait... I AM in a fantasy novel!'

And in the middle of the garden was a strange statue.

It was shaped in a way that was impossible to describe, impossibly messed up, congealed, with odds and ends scattered randomly, everywhere.

But it was a sort of beautiful madness, as whenever a gust of wind passed through the statue, it would make impossibly wonderful sounds that felt like they resonated with my soul.

I then proceeded to take a wooden flute out of my backpack.

You see, back in my old world, there was one other hobby that I kept up with, other than reading, and that was music.

For some reason, I just loved the simplicity of music, and how it could express a thousand emotions with just one pluck of a string or one breath of a flute.

So, I had proceeded to learn as much instruments as possible while reading as much books as possible.

I had fully mastered about 200 instruments before my death.

And the flute in my hand was one of them.

I started playing an improvised song, trying my best to use the support that the statue gave me.

I played for a while, creating songs out of thin air, using the statue as the harmony to my melody.

It was only after 5 hours of playing that a noticeable change appeared on the statue.

Its seemingly random parts all came together, clicking into their places as the statue of a beautiful woman was created right before my eyes.

A bright, dazzling light accompanied this transformation, as well as a dramatic piece of music that riled up the heart.

As the transformation completed, the woman looked down at me with sad eyes, apparent sorrow that was as abundant as the water in the ocean as she asked,

"Just why is it that you play music my child?"

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