Episode 1: The old man remembered.As the night ended, the sun could be seen in the horizon, rising into the sky.
It was sunrise, and Yuya was preparing for his daily training. Grasping his overused sword which he treasured dearly, he left his home.
Yuya"s sword wasn"t a flashy sword by any means. It was merely an easy to use, thick and heavy longsword. However, it is a magical sword which possesses a highly advanced magical enchantment, "Restoration". It possessed the ability to recover any damage sustained to the blade. It was Yuya"s trusted sword which kept him alive for his whole life. He hoped that it wouldn"t ever break and fight with him until the very end. It was the sword that he loved, and will continue to until the very end.
Yuya began his daily training. It had became a daily routine for him to perform training every morning. He closed his eyes, picturing an imaginary enemy to battle in his mind. Then, he slowly traced the techniques and skills that was ingrained in his body during his adventuring days, slowly allowing his body to remember the sensations he had risking his life fighting powerful enemies.
In this world, things such as "Levels" and "Status" existed. It determined a person"s Attack power, Defensive power, Agility and Magic power. However, a person"s strength did not come just from his stat parameters or his level. It also came in the form of a person"s spirit and their training. At the very least, in the most desperate of situations, only a heart of steel honed from vigorous training will a person be able to survive.
If an attack is unable to land, it does not matter how high your attack parameters are. If a person"s defense is inadequate, it does not matter how high your defensive parameters are. If an attack misses or a defense is sloppy, it is pointless. Hence a person"s status does not measure his full combat capabilities. However, with training and techniques, a person"s combat effectiveness could surpa.s.s the limit their status. Techniques allows one to utilise their whole body to add weight to their attacks as well as target vital points and defend against attacks beyond their defensive parameters.
Yuya had believed this. No, he had to believe it.
If a person"s combat effectiveness was determined by their status, Yuya would had been the laughing stock of all warriors. An average person would have their stat parameters increase by 2 whenever they leveled up, but Yuya"s stats was inferior to that. His stats had only increased by one. This went on as Yuya approached the level cap of 50.
Even so, he desired to get stronger and realise his dream. He refined his sword techniques and trained his body everyday, refusing to give up his dream. He believed that "Status" was a strength that existed to compensate the lack of training required to become stronger and training would be much more beneficial to becoming stronger and obtaining a heart as strong as steel.
[Phew. Feels like my body is not that old yet huh. I can still move pretty well] (Yuya)
Everytime Yuya swung his sword, he could feel his body"s senses sharpen. It was as if his nerves were connected to the tip of his sword, and his whole body moved as one, following the image in his head.
However, techniques wasn"t enough to fill the gap in his status. At level 50, the difference in Yuya"s stats and an average person was large, and no amount of training and swordsmanship would be capable of filling that gap. In order to overcome that gap, Yuya had obtained a secret power. A power that no one was aware of, and only he possessed it.
Initially, Yuya was curious in the phenomenon known as "Status". He wanted to know why and how a person became stronger as his level increases. One day, piqued by his curiousity, Yuya had found himself in a dangerous situation. Thinking his life was over, he closed his eyes a.s.suming it was the end. Suddenly, he saw a door appear infront of him. It was the door that signified the limit of his status. When he tried to push it open, he understood the mysterious power that is the "Status" in the world. He obtained a secret strength which no one has seen.
A power which allowed him to obtain a status on par with others, a power given to him by the world.
A world, that was only for him.
After completing his morning training, Yuya headed over to the guild.
He approached the reception lady to look for requests to complete. Fortunately, there wasn"t any request that required his attention. However as it was his last day, he was not going to say it out loud. As the guild staff approached Yuya to give him gifts and their words of thanks, Yuya felt loneliness creep up in his heart, knowing he would miss everyone when he leaves the village.
After visiting the guild, Yuya returned home to prepare his luggage. As he was preparing his luggage he came across a set of photographs that were placed faced down by Yuya.
Those photos depicted Yuya"s party before they decided to challenge the Tower of Trials.
One of the photos showed Yuya"s party in one of the big cities starting their adventure, with another photo showing everyone in the party.
In the photos, there was a young Yuya, another young man, an Elf girl and a large Dragonoid man laughing together. It was a fairly young party who were aiming for the top and were challenging a super high difficulty dungeon at the moment. The young man and Elf were also Yuya"s disciples. They were people who were br.i.m.m.i.n.g with talent and blessed with high statuses, surpa.s.sing Yuya quickly and becoming even stronger.
[Seriously. After living in this village all these years, i never expected someone to invite me to the Tower of Trials once more. Thanks you Ain, you helped me remember things that should not be forgotten]. (Yuya)
Feeling nostalgic, he smiled towards the young man in the photograph, remembering the young man"s words as he hit level 50.
[Master let"s challenge the Tower of Trials together! If it is us, our party, we can definitely do it! And once we do, we will finally be real heroes!] (Young man)
At the time, Yuya felt a wave of despair rush over his body. The tower was something that could only be cleared by forming a party composed of the best adventurers in the world. It was as difficult as it was rewarding. Clearing the tower would allow a person to go past level 50 as well as treasures that one could only wish for.However, that wasn"t all there was to it. Entering the tower would cause the party to be cursed, preventing any of them from leaving the tower. The only way to escape the tower was to clear the trials that appeared in the tower. The tower itself had a survival rate of 2%.
Yuya had decided to refuse the young man"s invitation and left the party. He knew that with his incompetence, he would only be dragging the party down. He was too weak to utilise his secret strength and that would ultimately lead to the party"s demise. Thus he found a subst.i.tute for himself and left the city.
After that, he threw away his dream of becoming the strongest. Time pa.s.sed and he became an exclusive adventurer in a village, challenging intermediate dungeons for his retirement savings while looking after the novice adventurers.
However, as he was about to enter retirement, one of his former disciples, Ain, asked him to challenge the Tower of Trials together with him, reminding Yuya of his partymate, Leonard. The flames that were extinguished when Yuya ran from the Tower, started burning once more. The pa.s.sion that was distinguished, the urge to become stronger and the drive to move forward. The waves of emotions became stronger and stronger.
[What this? You left your talented disciples behind. The disciples who respected and believed in you because you were afraid of challenging the Tower. Why would you behave like this now? After all these years? No, you knew the answer from the start. You knew it all along.] (Yuya)
As Yuya reprimanded himself, he knew the answer in his heart was always there. He always wanted to become stronger. He always wanted to be the strongest, even with the setback of having a bad status, he wished to become stronger. It was the reason why he had continued training everyday. It was impossible to maintain a person"s techniques and experience without practicing everyday. It was also the reason why he did not sell his powerful magic items despite being worth a fortune. It was a necessity for him to challenge a dungeon with these items. Realising his own weakness, he thought he gave up his dreams, but he never did.
When he heard rumors about his first disciple, Leonard attempting to challenge the Tower of Trials with a new party, his feelings was not the pride of having a disciple to cleared the tower, nor was it the relief of knowing his disciple survived the tower, but regret that he could not be there to challenge the trial with him.
Ain felt frustrated at his status, thinking that if he did not have such a weak status, at the very least he wished to go back to level 1. He thought that if it meant getting a better status, he would not mind restarting over. In fact he would welcome it. However it was impossible. The only other way he could compensate for his weak status was with extremely powerful magic items.
[Well i know better than everyone that i do not have overpowered magic items for that] (Yuya)
At that moment, Yuya felt waves of emotions take over his body. His hands were hot and his head felt heavy. Unable to control the emotions he felt, he struck the wall with his palm.
[Why am i acting so weird today. Did i drink sake earlier? It is not even noon!!?]
Suddenly, several sentences appeared into Yuya"s mind
A person who has reached level 50 can have their level reset in a hidden room of a dungeon
When their level is reset, their stat parameters will rise and they will obtain skill points.
Although the way to reset a person"s level is limited, there are ways to raise a person"s status to its maximum potential
Based on research, the best way to increase a person"s stats would be a Magical Warrior
Magic customs can create cheats and other magical numbers
Using magical equipments allows a person to exploit a bug in the status system
Do not challenge the Tower of Trials. The Tower is adjusted based on the a.s.sumption that the challengers are made of parties with the highest status.
[HAHAHHAA. That sounds ridiculous.](Yuya)
[That is basically all i ever wanted isnt it? Despite finishing with this s.h.i.tty status. I can just reset my level to increase my status!? And add the skill points i gain to become even stronger??? That sounds so ridiculous.]
Yuya felt bitter. After considering the possibility that his stat increments could be fixed instead of random, he felt like giving up. It was impossible to become the strongest. If someone blessed with the best status in the world, obtained the strength that Yuya took decades to obtain. The strength to compensate for his lack of status. That person would truly become the strongest.
Suddenly, the image of a hidden room in a dungeon appeared in his mind. It was like a dream come true, like a delusion. A pa.s.sion that could not be thrown away, after many years, was showing Yuya visions. Yuya wondered if it was possible to have something this convenient.
However, even so.
[There is no reason for me not to go. I should go even if theres only a 1% chance]
Yuya thought that he was definitely crazy. His brain told him that it was impossible for such a thing to exist, but his heart and body told him otherwise. He was bad at giving up. If he had truly gave up adventuring in the past, he would had training daily to maintain his body. He was not going to attempt to improve his status, but he was unable to accept his bad luck as his fate.
Still remembering the actions, Yuya prepared himself for traveling and left the city, heading towards the dungeon containing the hidden room, convinced that he would be able to start over.