"Argh!!! Haa... haa… haa…"Inside a small white hut, a young man abruptly shot up from bed as he gasped for air.
Sweat dropped from his head as the young man, Axel, clutched his chest while his breathing began to calm. He looked left and right before he said, "Where… am I?"
The sun gentle shone through as Axel looked at his body and realised his wounds were healed. He quietly muttered, "Wasn"t I injured from the fight against that giant snake? System, what happened?"
[While host was unconsious, your emotions at the time somehow contacted that girl, Olivia. She later saved you and brought you to someplace she called, "Basecamp."]
Axel slowly nodded before he said, "System, show me my status."
[Name: Axel
Age: 15
Gender: Male
LVL: 5
LVP: 9%
HC: Healthy
MP: 200/200
STR: 10
AGI: 10
STA: 20
INT: 20
DEX: 15
MEN: 27 (+3)
LUC: 10
CHA: 20
Status Points: 0
System Points: 20,000.]
Axel looked at his status in shock. He quickly said, "System, why did the mentality stat increase!?! I haven"t leveled up yet!"
The screen disappeared before the system said, [Host, you can gain stats by doing something that would increase it. By having a near death experience, you"ve gained mentality stats.]
Axel followed up as he asked, "Then, can you give me a simple description of the stat?"
The system said nothing as a screen appeared.
[STR: The numerical value of strength, determines explosiveness and physical power.
AGI: The numerical value of Agility, determines speed and reflexes.
STA: The numerical value of stamina, determines the amount of physical power can be exerted before exhaustion.
INT: The numerical value of intelligence, determines memory and magic power.
DEX: The numerical value of Dexterity, determines reflexes and senses.
MEN: The numerical value of mentality, determines mental fort.i.tude.
LUC: The numerical value of luck, cannot be increased pa.s.sed 50.
CHA: The numerical value of charisma, determines elegance, eloquence and etiquette, can be turned off and on.]
After the screen disappeared, Axel quickly lay back in bed and began to think. He opened his mouth to say something when a woman wearing a lab coat walked in. Axel quickly closed his mouth and acted asleep. He began communicating in his mind as he said, "System, you said something about Olivia and how she brought me here, how long was I out."
[1 week.]
Axel jumped from his bed and screamed, "A WEEK!?!"
*crash*
Axel suddenly froze as he turned to the source of the noise, only to find the doctor collapsed on the ground while a tray and bottles that were filled with different coloured liquids were scattered everywhere.
The doctor quickly stood up after picking up the bottles and acted like nothing happened. She lay one bottle besides Axel, glared at him and started to leave. However, before she could walk out the door, she heard Axel mutter, "Black-lace..." causing her to fall again.
Axel forcibly shut his mouth with his hands but ended up getting a death glare from a red-faced doctor before she said, "Hmph!" and left.
Axel slapped his head and sighed. Suddenly, Olivia burst in through the door and screamed, "AXEL!!! YOU UP!?!"
Axel and Olivia made eye-contact for about 20 seconds before Axel lay his head against his pillow, closed his eyes and said, "I"m asleep."
Silence sounded in the hut as Axel pretended to sleep. Olivia looked stunned by his shamelessness before grinning and walking way. A couple minutes later, she came back with a huge pot of food.
She grinned and said, "Oh, if only Axel was awake. We made way too much food and can"t eat it ourselves. Guess we"ll have to-" but before she could finish, Axel sat up and grabbed the pot before he said, "Guess it can"t be helped. I"ll take that off your hands."
Axel lifted the pot up and began chugging. Olivia watched him and laughed as she thought it was going to spill but after a couple minutes, her laughter became amazement as he dropped the pot and burped. She looked him up and down and didn"t see a single trace of the food anywhere on him besides his lips.
Actually, Axel didn"t eat it all. When he finished eating, he stored the rest of it inside the inventory. He licked the remainder off his lips and said, "Thank you."
Olivia tilted her head as she said, "For the food?"
Axel rolled his eyes and said, "Yes, and for saving me."
Olivia only smiled before she stood up and left. Axel then turn towards the bottle on his bed. He picked it up and looked at it. It was a simple gla.s.s bottle that looked like a test-tube and was covered with a cork. Inside the bottle was a strange orange liquid.
Axel pointed his palm towards the bottle and muttered, "Best time to test it… Appraisal."
Suddenly, a screen popped in front of him.
[Detecting a form of Appraisal… Fusion into system… Congratulations host, for gaining the appraisal function.]
Axel stood silent for a couple minutes as the screen disappeared. He said, "System… What is this?"
[Appraisal function.]
Axel double face-palmed and said, "Show me the details on the appraisal function."
[Appraisal Function - Able to show information on a target. Information already known by the host will be shown alongside information gained from using appraisal magic. Instead of the information being sent to the host"s mind, the information will show up on a screen. Function is used in unison with any form of appraisal.]
Axel looked over the screen for a bit before he sighed and said, "System, Isn"t getting functions way too easy?"
[Not at all. Out of the multiple system functions, some are extremely easy to get while others are extremely hard to get.]
Axel used appraisal on the bottle. He felt his magic power diminish slightly before a screen popped up.
[Stamina Potion.]
He shurgged his shoulders, drank the potion and got out of bed. He quickly tidied the bed before changing into his clothes and walking out the door.
The sight that welcomed him was a small community of people. Tents and huts were strung everywhere as people travelled through out the place. In front of the hut Axel just came from were 2 tents. A large bonfire was ablaze as a group of people sat around it, laughing and eating.
Axel was about to leave when a voice echoed from behind.
"Where are you going, Axel?"
He slowly turned around and said, "Nowhere, just getting some air. By the way, Where are we Olivia?"
Olivia"s head popped up on Axle"s head as she climbed his shoulders. She ignored his attempts to shoo her off as she said, "This is basecamp. It"s basically an examination area. Everyone here is trying to take the test to enroll into one of the adventure schools."
Axel"s heart began to race. He looked at her in confusion and said, "Adventure schools?"
Olivia slipped from above him and fell to the ground. She dusted herself off before she smiled bitterly and said, "So I"ll have to start from there?"
With a cough, she pointed to the area filled with red tents and said, "Pyro Academy, school of fire. Basically, anyone who wants to use anything related to fire, that"s where they go."
Next, She pointed to the area filled with blue tents.
"Aqua Academy, school of water. Mainly teaches support magic but also teaches water magic."
She pointed to the area with yellow and green tents and said, "Quake Academy, school of earth and Slyph Academy, school of wind. Quake teaches defensive combat and magic while Slyph teaches a.s.sa.s.sin techniques."
Axel noticed a few other groups of tents and said, "And those ones?"
Olivia looked around before she said, "Black and white tents represent unholy and holy magic. They don"t have an academy but get taught in churches. Those tents with no colour represent the Sects. And finally, where we are. We represent the Adventure Academy."
Axel sat down before the bonfire and thought, "Adventure Academy… The Prince must have wanted to go there because my heart started beating faster when she said it…"
Suddenly, Olivia said, "Did something good happen Axel?"
Puzzled by her question, Axel tilted his head and said, "Why?"
She pointed at Axel and said, "Because your smiling."
Axel touched his face and became surprised. He was smiling. Axel turned towards Olivia and said, "Hey Olivia. How do I join Adventure Academy?"
Suddenly, Olivia"s face broke into a wide smile.