Over the next month, Trevor’s life fell into a nice normal routine. Kristie was heavily involved in the Healers Association. Kristie got the Association organized into different departments focused on their functions. She worked closely with Chief Janos to make a viable schedule for healers to visit each of the towns and villages on a rotating basis. Between the two of them, they made the Association an efficient organization that existed for the benefit of the people, not focused on gold. Healing in the towns and villages were essentially free because of Earl Corville subsidies.
Linsey was taking magic lessons from Professor Rither and the others at the new Magic Academy annex I had built for them. Her natural aptitude for magic was very high and she was learning quickly. Soon, she would outgrow Forest Glen and go to the Magic Academy in Decharte City. Linsey also assisted the Countess Corville by using her future sight. Her sight wasn’t as advanced as Ruberm’s, but it was still helpful when the countess had difficult decisions to make. Linsey had fully embraced her new life on Tellus Nova.
Most of the Earth refugees had adjusted to Tellus Nova also, so Trevor didn’t worry about them too much. Ajani had taken a position with House Tierra. He had taken over the supervision for the new Dungeon facilities. After everything was completed, he would move there and be the foreman. Blade and Batella went off on their own to explore Tellus Nova and find a way home. Rockfist and Gem would be setting up a smithy at the Dungeon site. They said they always wanted to own their own smithy, but there were too many restrictions on Verita for it to be plausible. Here, with Trevor’s financial backing, it was something they could easily accomplish. Rhonda wasn’t exactly happy to learn that she had to take reading and writing lessons with the other children at Covern House. The good news was that she made a lot of friends. Sharon became a guard and an adventurer. She would accompany Rodof and Medirre on their days off hunting monsters.
Trevor had discussed with Kristie about his ‘Path’ options. She listened to him, gave advise about how each one could be interpreted, but didn’t suggest one over the other. She realized quickly that any of the Paths would take Trevor away and didn’t want that. Kristie did ask one very important question. What would happen if he didn’t select any of them? Trevor hadn’t really considered that and didn’t have an answer to that and it wasn’t like there was anyone he could ask.
It was the last day to choose a Path and Trevor was in his office looking over his options, once again. Gabriel knocked on the door and announced Trevor had a visitor.
“My Lord, you have a visitor.”
A tall, heavily muscled man walked in, held out his hand to Trevor and said “Hi, my name is Raylin”. Trevor could feel the power radiating off the man from his dream vision.
*---------------*
After his discussion with Raylin, the Nephilim Legendary Blacksmith and his previous conversation with Kristie, Trevor had a lot to think about. He stayed in his office. He considered all the information he had about a Nephilim’s Path. It wasn’t really all that much. Most of it came from his dreams, and his one conversation with Raylin. The book on Nephilim that he had read didn’t really cover the Paths much. He also reviewed each possible Path again. No matter how he read their descriptions, they were all filled with a life of violence. That was a life he did not want. He had worked hard at recovering his wife and daughter, and wanted nothing more than to spend time with them.
He could not choose any of the Path options currently available to him. Raylin didn’t tell him that it would be consequence free, just it was an option. He had thought that was an option, but it was nice for Raylin to confirm it. The biggest problem was that the System had made choices from him before, as he remembered his class selection. The System had eliminated all possible options, and then selected it for him. Now he could only hope that the System didn’t make a choice for him, when he declined the available Paths.
It boiled down to a simple choice because a life of violence did not appeal to him and a possible life of quietly healing people did. He had had enough violence in his previous life and this one, so choosing a Path that promoted that lifestyle was not for him.
Trevor decided to decline all Path options. He would stay a free man, not one obligated to a Path. He wasn’t sure what would happen next, but he knew he was ready to deal with the consequences of his decision.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Trevor brought up his Path selection screen mentally chose none.
*---------------*
Malentine took its time considering how to respond to Rebital’s request for a meeting. It was in no rush. Rebital had taken Earth and it was questionable that humanity would survive there. Malentine felt it had time. Besides, Malentine had plenty to do with integrating another world, so responding wasn’t its first priority. Malentine didn’t know why it had to induct new worlds, it just knew he needed to. Nor did it question this drive to expand. It simply was and it did. Unlike Rebital, Malentine did use tutorials. It was reviewing the tutorials it currently had, because of the new world it would be inducting soon.
The first ones to review were the many special categories tutorials. All children under the age of 14 were placed in safe tutorials. Safe from external threats. No monsters, no traps or puzzles. With them were caretaker robots that would make sure they were cared for. Lessons on how the System operated were provided to the older ones. There were special tutorials for pregnant women also. These had a high level of medical care, since shock would cause many women to go into premature labor. Magical healing did wonders for those cases. Terminally ill patients were given the chance to be cured and made fully healthy through another tutorial. This one did have a high success rate, but lower than the 100% of the others in the special category. These tutorials had a success rate of 90%.
The nonspecial tutorials were notably more dangerous. Some slightly so, so almost impossible to survive. There were four ratings of tutorials. Easy, Normal, Hard and Impossible. Easy was not violence free and there were still deaths, but it was mostly populated by people who wanted to be crafters, parents separated from their kids, and those who shied away from violence of any kind. Levels were hard to come by because of the lack of challenges. These participants still had to defend themselves from attacks, but it wasn’t above level 1 monsters. The first few days always had the highest casualties, but after a week it normally dropped to almost zero. Almost. The historical success rate was 90%, but a lot the participants were disadvantaged after the tutorial. They lacked levels compared to the other tutorials.
Normal difficulty was the majority of participants. These participants could pursue crafting and had access to better training and materials, but they had to fight monsters to get it. Participants who chose Crafter were able to select their starting class. Those that chose Combatant were given a generic Fighter or Mage class. Crafters were given common gear, including their clothes, crafter tools and a long knife. Combatant Fighters were given common leather jerkin and pants, a long knife and either a bow or sword, a robe and a staff for Mages. Because monsters were higher level, teams or parties tended to form to fight them. Teams enjoyed bonuses in fighting and rewards over solo participants. Crafter normally joined a team to get access to the materials. The casualty rating was 25%, higher than the Easy level because the monsters were more numerous and dangerous. It was not that challenging and levels were moderate. Most participants completed the tutorial under level 10.
Hard difficulty was the domain of those who would become paragons. Most of the participants were loners and chose to go alone. Teams did form, but not a high percentage. The participants were provided uncommon gear to start and could choose their starting class immediately. They could choose between Ranger, Warrior, or Mage. Basic classes that would form their choices for the advanced classes at level 10. This level had a historical success rate of 45%. High level monsters and random encounter abounded. Many participants died in the first week. The dying leveled off in the second week, but continued throughout the tutorial. Most participants left the tutorial at over level 20 with rare equipment.
The Impossible tutorials were normally reserved for volunteers. Murderers were automatic volunteers, as were many other hardened criminals. Still, even these had real volunteers because some people just couldn’t figure out what impossible meant. Constant monster attacks, and human on human violence were a constant drain on the participants. Impossible tutorials had a 95% mortality rate. Many of the impossible tutorials would have no survivors. Those that did have survivors consisted of teams that worked together to ensure their success. It was the very rare individual that survived as a loner. The average survivor had a level of 35 and epic equipment at the end.
The tutorials had a 60-day limit. Not because that was all Malentine could do, but because that was the time it took to remodel their world. Malentine expanded the size, destroyed most cities, leaving only ruins. Monsters and Dungeons were added. Laws of physics were modified, and essence was added. This new world would include magic and magic needed essence.
The questions never asked started with why. Why did the Malentine System induct new planets into itself? Why bring magic to these worlds? What did Malentine get out of it? And did something control the System? Malentine didn’t care for the answers, so never asked itself these questions. It did know that after it completed his integration of this world, it would answer Rebital’s request and have Trevor of House Tierra meet with their representative to arrange the conference, where they could work out a solution.
That or go to war.
