Isekai Magus: A LitRPG Progression Saga Page 4

  “So, he what, punished you into realizing you were doing something wrong?” I asked.

  “Pretty much. He didn’t blame the child, but he did blame me. You… Toneba was a devout believer in the old ways before the gods converted Nordan.

  “He grew up a farmer’s son, and his mother happened to be an apothecary. Any of this ringing a bell?” she asked.

  “No, just that I had to talk to cast my magic. It came to me naturally. The image on the end table held no pull, yeah pull works,” I replied.

  “Yeah, magic has triggers. Great mages just act or react while basic mages force the magic out or in. When you become proficient, things will change,” she said.

  “Thank you. Tell me more of Toneba,” I said.

  “Before the cataclysm, Tew didn’t exist. It was only Arax, the god of justice. Fifty years ago, the Creator, a pantheon of gods or whomever created the great spell that rocked Nordan to its foundation. At the time, Toneba lived a simple life on his hill with his wife. Both were farmers for the village. I say this so you get a feel for the man. He didn’t welcome the changes when the mists finally vanished,” Desra said.

  “The orbs?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Exactly. He hated them. On the day we awoke with our changes, everyone received a message, and it was stamped without a name but with a ‘yours truly’ signature. The exact verbiage is lost to me at the moment, but it informed the masses of a few things.

  “Our world now contained Z and everyone was affected by this new magic. Everyone earned a single magic type and to advance in that magic, you needed to earn Z. Not only that, Z also gave younger life, upgrades, quick refreshes, and power increases. The downside is to gain, you need to take, and taking required death.”

  “Without death, there’s no power. Yikes. I can see an astute person taking the moral high ground. The changes are inherently evil and are geared to the strong, not the peaceful,” I said, and she frowned at astute and then my last line.

  “Interesting that you say that. Maybe a bit of him exists in your foggy memories. Yeah, I’ve had nine children since that day. Four have moved on to other cities and occasionally visit. Two died fighting in the south. Two went missing in the south. And my youngest - you killed her bunny this morning,” she said sharply.

  I raised a hand to protest, but she shook her head in dismay.

  “So, the orb, if you touch Rexa’s for example, can you see his information?” I asked.

  “Only if you will the orb to allow it. Now, with that said, there’s certain places that simply won’t grant you access without an inspection,” she said, dodging a divot in the rough road.

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  “The system knows all. Alignment determines your trustworthiness to humanity, and it only does so much. Affiliation is really just how you’re born. Your alignment score is what defines if you’re pro-human or pro-mythicals,” she said.

  “I take it if I betray you I earn negative Nordan points?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “There are only positive points and no atoning for your sins. Well, besides racking up more positive points in the other column. For example, I have a 33,474 Nordan Score. My Ostriva score is 393. Mostly from bar fights that ended poorly, or me flaming teammates with fire magic, and not on accident. No matter what I do, I cannot lower that number. Keep that as a reminder.”

  “So, you’ve made mistakes and the guards will let you in,” I asked.

  “To the city? Yes. To the market? Yes. To the upper city? No. I’m banned. Anything above a hundred is prohibited,” she said.

  “Ouch, how’s the point system work?” I asked.

  She sputtered her lips. “It depends. I know, not a great way to answer, but the truth it is.” Her exaggerated smug smile made me sigh.

  She continued, “To earn Nordan points, help humanity. This can be as simple as helping an old fallen lady to a healer. Kill any vile beings trying to kill humanity or that are from Ostriva and earn points. That part is simple.

  “It’s the human on human interactions that become complex. Humans can con humans without hurting the species. Let’s say you have a friend with a girlfriend he shouldn’t have. You take the husband hunting and you successfully bag three boarmen while your friend bags his wife.

  “Did you hurt him? Yeah, you did. Did you hurt humanity as a whole? No, not really. Now, if you took him to a cliff and a sand scorpion killed him, without you doing anything else, the system knows these things. Not sure how, but it knows. You’d get a whole lot of Ostriva points for luring him to his death.”

  “Okay, so there’s a way to tell the good from the bad and the good guys use this to ensure you’re good,” I said, understanding in a sense.

  “And if you wanted to join a tribe of centaurs, you simply show them your 15,000 score for Ostriva and they know you’re not on Nordan’s side,” she said.

  The concept felt invasive, but if you committed a crime and were caught on Earth, you would end up with a criminal record. This just meant you paid a price for betraying your kind no matter what. Sort of because the rules allowed some leeway apparently.

  “So Z, you mentioned it could be used for other things besides donating to gods,” I said.

  “Yeah, I’m a level sixteen fire mage. The issue me and many others run into is that I’m ready to go to fire mage seventeen. The cost to do so is,” she paused to touch her belly button. “Seventeen hundred Z. Ouch.”

  “Ouch indeed. What does the upgrade get you?” I asked.

  “Uh, the ability to cast a stronger fire spell, a tiny percentage boost to my mana, and increased recharge. Of course, all those are waiting for upgrades too,” she said with a sigh. “Getting the picture that at some point you stop investing in yourself because it's too damn expensive?”

  “Yeah. Not sure it’s a smart system, but it does keep it easy to understand which was probably the point. Alright, so you have to consume Z to improve?” I asked, and she nodded. “Are power increases and upgrades the same thing?”

  “Some upgrades are magic specific. For instance, Rexa is a berserker mage.” She waved her hands animatedly, shaping out her large husband. “He can enhance his muscle mass. That only goes so far until he needs to upgrade his skin spells to, for instance, fire resistant skin. The vast majority of both rarely achieve greatness, but those who do become godlike,” Desra said with awe.

  “Okay, so I need to study my specific magic type and then improve as I go,” I said, feeling grateful.

  Desra was standoffish at first, but now I was starting to think she wasn’t so bad.

  “Yeah, the regional capital will have plenty of texts written by healers for healers, including yourself. Yours is considered blasphemy but it still is readable,” Desra said with a scoff. “Pacifists have little place in Nordan.”

  I grunted, not sure what I’d be. I had killed that bunny to live. If I had coins and could buy Z from those who ventured out to collect it, would I ever need to kill if I got a job? My resume didn’t have me being a super serial badass warrior on it.

  Hell, I didn’t even fight in school or play fight with dad. I wasn’t a wimp, but I wasn’t a macho ass-kicker either.

  I also didn’t need to rush into battle. I could do this right. Time was not pressing, and I was immortal after all. Assuming I had enough Z to manage the day by day which seemed cheap.

  The more I thought about the system, the more I went back to thinking about Desra’s kids. All of them had moved out, meaning they had to find their own place in Nordan. If both sides could be immortal and keep having kids, that would mean cities filling to the brim and incentives to… fight.

  It all came down to the fighting.

  I rambled out the uses of Zorta while I summarized what I learned. “Recharge I have experienced. Same with my death timer increase. I haven’t needed to level anything up, but with zero Z, I doubt I’ll have that problem. Besides upgrades, donations, and to boost my health or recharge, what else can I use Z for?” I ask
ed.

  “Trade. Everyone wants Z, on both sides. To do this is simple. Just don’t consume an orb and cultivate it for trade. You’ll learn that real quick. And yes, the strivains trade Z too.

  “The Centaurs who ran off with your wife left knowing you were coming back. They gave up their cave to a lower tribe and traded supplies for a migration,” Desra said.

  “Whoa, diabolical of them. Bait and switch while extorting,” I said.

  She grunted happily and said, “You’re catching on. I had to torture a few souls to learn the truth.”

  “Ah, I’m sad that the mythicals aren’t mindless drones?” I asked.

  “Not in the slightest. Humanity is not winning the war even if they should be. The mythicals are called strivains, but most will correlate your meaning. And before you ask why they dropped the o, they did and I can’t explain it,” she said with a nonchalant shrug.

  “Wait, what do you mean we should be winning?” I asked.

  “The enemy, who crave the same thing we do, are fractured by their own internal struggles. Humans at least have a superior numbers advantage because they are a single species.

  “Right now, you’re in King Karn’s realm. Duke Mardo rules Tarb. The next closest kingdom is Fraunt which is led by Empress Sarass. She hates King Karn, and they never unite to squash common threats,” she said.

  I grunted, watching the massive trees pass us by. A few squirrels rotated around trees, hiding from our loud approach. The road was just a worn trail, jostling us the entire time.

  The only thing saving my back was our slow and steady speed.

  I used the pause to mull over what she had said. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised that conflict among humanity prevented victories. Humans always found ways to disagree and create strife.

  If my goal was to free mom and dad while retiring on a beach, I didn’t care what the kings and queens of this world squabbled over. Focusing on my narrow goal would be more than enough.

  An hour passed with us sitting in silence, watching the road go by.

  I yawned, not feeling that great. I had four days to acquire more Z or I’d die.

  “I need to pee and then rest,” I told her, and she stopped so I could use the treeline.

  After I climbed onto the yellow sticks, I laid down for a nap.

  CHAPTER 5

  Nordan - Err Forest

  I awoke with my hands bound tightly behind my back. My breathing puffed dirt from the side of the road telling I no longer rested on the wagon. Both of my shoulders burned with an arthritic fire, and the left side of my face tingled with numbness.

  Moonlight revealed a bag resting in front of my face that obscured my vision. With a painful groan, I rolled over and onto my back.

  A shimmy to remove the bag from my vision revealed the road to my right and the forest to my left.

  It didn’t take long to figure out I’d been ditched. I couldn’t make heads or tails of the reason, but I did see the gleam of my dagger embedded into a nearby tree.

  I scraped myself off the rough terrain, managing to get my aching body upright.

  “Well, shit,” I grumbled, walking over to the knife.

  Turning my back to it, I almost knocked the blade free of the trunk because of my unsteady arms fighting my inputs.

  The next twenty minutes of me sawing rope back and forth drove me crazy. At one point, I worried I wouldn’t succeed.

  When the frayed rope burst, I moaned in ecstasy from my arms leaving their confines.

  “That bitch,” I said with resentment. “I don't get it. My purse is here, my dagger, and walking stick. Why ditch me?”

  I opened the purse. A single silver rested inside. Then it made sense. I had been robbed, sort of.

  When I reached down to my belly button, I touched the orb. The interface populated in front of me, and I navigated the options to view my stats.

  View All or View Changes

  I tilted my head, hearing a crack from the minor movement. I just wanted to lay down and die in this body.

  I sighed and selected View All. I had been using the full drop down to familiarize myself with the data and figuring out the changes on my own.

  Name: Damien Moonguard

  Race: Human

  Affiliation: Nordan

  Zorta: 0

  Nordan Score: 0

  Ostriva Score: 0

  Location: Err Forest

  Magic Type: Healer

  Healer Level: 1

  Magic Type 2: Unknown

  Unknown Score: Unknown

  Fighting Level: Pathetic

  Mana: 12

  Mana Recharge: 1

  Strength: 1

  Stamina: 1

  Dexterity: 1

  Constitution: 1

  Willpower: 1

  Cultivation: 1

  Intelligence: 25

  Wisdom: 25

  Charisma: 1

  Tracking: 1

  Endurance: 1

  Perception: 4

  Burst: 1

  Reflex: 1

  Healing: 1

  Melee Combat: 1

  Aim: 1

  Hunger: 3

  Thirst: 3

  Aging: 4 days 14 minutes until death.

  I exited out the drop down, returning to the main screen then asking to see changes. If I could, using a quick update check seemed more efficient than pulling down the whole list.

  Mana: + 5 recovered

  Perception: - 1 point.

  Hunger: + 2

  Thirst: + 2

  Aging: - 13 hours.

  Wow, being old sucked. I had slept through being robbed, tied up, and tossed onto the side of the road. Thirteen hours gone. My only hope was she -

  It hit me then. “She traveled without stopping to drop me in the middle of the trip. Where do I go?” I muttered. “Tarb, I gotta go to Tarb.”

  I glanced left and then glanced right. My tracking skills were about on par for an average librarian - zero. Then I realized I actually had a 1 in tracking.

  The tall trees spread their canopy wide which drowned out most of the moonlight and made my job of figuring out which way Desra had gone difficult.

  Taking my time, I saw the tracks swerving from the middle of the dirt road on my left until it crushed the light grass on the side. Her cart swerved back into the road to my right.

  Knowing this, I picked up the pack, and went right. Taking a moment, I inspected the contents. The rummaging reached bare bottom pretty quickly. Inside, I found a flask of water and a small packet of jerky.

  My chapped lips welcomed the cool water that I drank slowly. A minute or two later, I slung the bag over my back, starting the journey for Tarb.

  A hoot gave me a pause not even five steps in. I glanced up to find an owl watching me from up high.

  I continued my walk, not in the least bit in tune with nature. Every chirp, rustle, or odd noise sent me on edge.

  Five minutes into the walk, I had my dagger out defensively without a clue what was lurking around the next bend.

  A light would have done wonders, because in my mind, I was certain a thousand vile mythical creatures were coming to kill me. I knew I needed to distract myself to calm my rapidly beating heart.

  I guessed this was a good time to reflect on the fact my accountant of a father didn’t go camping. I grew up in a city without wilderness and never hungered to tame the wilds.

  We never went hiking or visited a national park. We went to Atlantis and stayed at the resort, not even venturing to reefs so we could avoid sharks.

  The trip to New York City was great, and we used a trail in Central Park. It sorta was outdoorsy.

  The DC trip meant a free zoo, also no wilderness. I guess I never prepared for a creepy walk at night scenario.

  The more I thought about my situation, the more I felt the urge to laugh.

  Eventually, a mad cackle escaped my lips at the absurdity of my reality. No, not in a million years did I expect to find myself on a different planet, alone in the dark, a
nd walking between trees taller than California redwoods.

  Ten minutes of muttering and mumbling later resulted in me hating life. My bones ached and my joints throbbed.

  I really, really hated Caitlyn the Temptress at that moment. No amount of positivity would change that fact.

  An hour into my trek, I sheathed my dagger. By hour two, I wanted to die because my body protested endlessly with every step. By hour three, I persevered, pushing through the pain until I forced my numb limbs to carry me.

  A warm sensation pulsed through my guts.

  I walked over to the small grass outside the forest and barely peed, noticing I needed water. After a gulp from the flask, and a bit of jerky, I started walking again.

  For the next half hour, my stomach sensation continued even after I peed.

  Realizing it was likely the orb, I rubbed the device while still walking.

  You have increased Constitution, Willpower, Endurance, and Stamina. Are you ready to invest in upgrading these stats? (YES) - (NO)

  “Awesome,” I said.

  I selected yes and was forced to pick a single stat or to select them all. I selected Stamina.

  Stamina 1 -} Stamina 2 = .001 Zorta. Option unavailable.

  “Right, I lack the Zorta so it’s an automatic no,” I said, keeping myself company.

  I glanced up, expecting the morning’s dawn to crack the canopy at any moment. My steps faltered when I heard a shrill scream piercing the night.

  “Desra,” I said to myself.

  The voices were similar and I could be wrong, but I was almost certain I wasn’t.

  I tried to force my legs into a jog, but they refused no matter how intensely I tried.

  A massive ball of flame crackled high into the trees from around a bend in the road. The night illuminated brightly as upper branches turned to cinder and the trunk lit up like a match.

  “Holy shit,” I exclaimed, seeing the intense power magic for the first time.

  A primordial cry of anger sent my hurrying.