Volume 1 - Chapter 1 – The old man remembered (1/2)

As the night ended, the sun could be seen in the horizon, rising into the sky.

It was sunrise, and it was time for my daily training. Grasping my trusty, overused sword, I left my home. My sword wasn’t a flashy sword by any means. It was merely an easy to use, thick and heavy long sword. However, it was a magical sword which possesses a highly advanced magical enchantment, “Restoration”, possessing the ability to recover any damage sustained to the blade. It was my trusted sword which has kept me alive until this point. I prayed that it would never break and I would continue to wield it. It was the sword that I loved, and will continue to until the very end.

I began my training which became a daily routine for me every morning. I closed my eyes, pictured an imaginary enemy to battle with in my mind. Then I slowly traced the techniques and skills that were ingrained into my body during my adventuring days, slowly allowing my body to remember the sensations when I was risking my life fighting powerful enemies.

In this world, things such as “Levels” and “Stats” existed. It determined a person’s Attack power, Defense, 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 doesn’t 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, then it is pointless. Hence a person’s status does not measure his full combat capabilities. However, with training and proper techniques, a person’s combat effectiveness could surpass the limit of their status. Techniques allowed one to utilize their whole body to add weight to their attacks as well as target vital points and defend against attacks beyond their defensive parameters.

I believed this. No, I had to believe it.

If a person’s combat effectiveness was determined by their status, then I would be the laughing stock of all warriors. An average person would have their stat parameters increase by 2 whenever they leveled up, but my stats was inferior to that. My stats had only increased by one. This went on as Youya approached the level cap of 50.

Even so, I desired to get stronger and realize my dream, refining my sword techniques and training my body everyday, refusing to give up. I believed that a person’s “Status” was just a strength that existed to compensate for 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 isn’t as old as I thought. I can still move pretty well.] (Yuuya)

Every-time I swung my sword, I could feel my body’s senses sharpen to their limits. It was as if my nerves were connected to the tip of the sword and my whole body moved as one, following the image in my head.

However, techniques wasn’t enough to fill the gaping hole in my status. At level 50, the difference in my stats and an average person was so large that no amount of training and swordsmanship would be capable of filling that gap. In order to overcome that gap, I had obtained a secret power. A power that no one was aware of, a power only I possessed.

I was always curious about the phenomenon known as “Status”. I wanted to know why and how a person became stronger as his level increases. However, curiosity killed the cat as I had found myself in a dangerous situation piqued by my curiosity. Thinking that my life was over, I closed his eyes assuming it was the end. Suddenly, I saw a door appear in front of him. When I tried to push it open, I understood that the door that signified the limit of my status. I understood the mysterious power that is the “Status” in the world and obtained a secret strength which no one has seen before.

A power which allowed me to obtain a status on par with others, a power given to me by the world.

A world, that was only for me.

After completing my morning training, I headed over to the guild.

I approached the reception lady to look for requests to complete. Fortunately, there wasn’t any request that required my attention. However as it was my last day, I wasn’t going to say it out loud as the guild staff approached me, giving me gifts and their words of thanks. Loneliness crept up into my heart, as I knew that I would miss everyone in the village.

After visiting the guild, I returned home to prepare my luggage. As I was preparing my luggage I came across a set of photographs that I placed faced down when I arrived. They were the photographs depicting my party before we decided to challenge the Tower of Trials.

One of the photos showed Youya’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 verison of me, another young man, an Elven 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 both my disciples. They were people who were brimming with talent and blessed with high statuses, surpassing me extremely 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.]  (Yuuya)

Feeling nostalgic, I 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, I felt a wave of despair rush over my 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%.

I refused the young man’s invitation and left the party knowing that with my incompetence, I would only be dragging the party down. I was too weak to utilize my hidden gift and that would ultimately lead to the party’s demise. Thus I found a substitute for myself and left the city.