The Forgotten Legacy

Upon waking up, he moved his way to the D grade settlement Crystal, its size much larger than that of the E grade ones and teleported to the school. When he did finally make it back to the school it was the middle of the night, but even then, there was still people out rushing around looking to be doing last minute things.

Sending out his echo he found Eric still in his office with a few people. That wasn’t strange though, at this point in their advancement through E grade sleep wasn’t needed as much, if you pushed it you could go days without rest, unless you had pushed yourself to the limit in a fight and needed to recuperate.

Shaun moved his way through the school and when he came to the office he went in without alerting anyone that was inside. Eric was sitting at his desk and Gabe, Viv, Li and a number of others were in the room.

He identified each of them and was impressed that everyone in the room was about halfway through the E grade at this point, whether their skill levels reflected that he didn’t know.

“We are glad you are back, we had some doubts that you would make it here before the event started.” He had no idea when the event actually was, he had lost track of time in the dungeon but he assumed it was soon.

“The event should be soon, right?” Shaun asked no one in particular and just assumed someone would answer.

“Two days actually. Or closer to one now if you consider this a new day, it is the middle of the morning.” Shaun thought about it and figured that nearly 6 weeks in the dungeon was about right, considering his initial time with the Arachne was slow going. He had spent several days in trances and didn’t notice time passing when working with the core.

“So, we are ready for the event then? I assume The War was chosen and all the deals are in place with the factions?” When he finished there was an awkward silence that he didn’t like.

“Yes and no.” Viv broke the silence but she also wasn’t confident in what she said. “The deal was struck, that’s the good part. But whether we are ready? We are in a good position for the most part. We are well equipped, mostly, everyone has been levelling and for the most part we are ready to go. The issue is, even after trying to recruit people to our side there has been more siding with The Pantheon than The Empire when it comes to settlements. The independents we don’t know about. Until tomorrow we won’t know if we are on equal footing in terms of numbers or whether we will be outnumbered.”

Shaun processed the news over a long few seconds. The fact that most settlements sided with The Pantheon was troubling as they would be the more powerful people on Earth for the most part. If they were outnumbered it would mean they needed to be more powerful on average, and by a decent amount. Viv said they were as ready as they could be and with him in the mix they still had a good chance of winning even if everything went to shit.

“Anything that needs doing right now? Or is the plan to just wait until the event starts?”

“There is some last minute things but nothing for you to do. Until the event itself starts we don’t know how it is going to fully work. We may be split up or grouped together, so just in case everyone will gather before sunup tomorrow just before the event. We have plans in place for as many outcomes as we could think of, but until then we just wait.” Viv waited a moment before continuing. “Will you be fighting with the main army or will you be doing your own thing?”

He had already considered this and the answer shouldn’t be shocking to any of them. “I will go at it alone for the most part. I will join the army only if needed or if we are getting slaughtered. Until we know more though I wont commit to anything. For all we know there will be rules around having to fight together.”

Not much more came out of the conversation and when they started talking about preparations for the army he just left. He returned to his home and after having something to eat decided to rest for a few hours more. He had no plans now that the event was in a day, it was not enough time to do much of anything. He was surprised no one mentioned him claiming the D grade area, but with the event about to start he couldn’t blame them.

The first thing he did when he woke up was gather more food and water to store in his inventory. He didn’t know how exactly the event would work but he didn’t want to be caught unprepared. After that he looked around to see what had changed in his absence, finding that for the most part things were the same as before.

The only thing he really wanted to do was check up on Eli, more so out of curiosity, but also so that the boy knew that he was back. When he found the group, he saw all of them moving out towards the pseudo treasures, he identified them before they could see him and he was impressed to see that they had all levelled up into the E grade.

They all looked determined to get in some last minute prep work so rather than interrupt them he let them be. They would catch up later, he knew for them these final hours could make or break their performance.

With everyone off doing their own thing, he had nothing to do. This had been the aim though, get everyone used to him not being here and make his part in the settlement obsolete.

Now having some time on his hands he spent the day using his Mana Mastery skill and his Stone Skin skill to see if he could piece together how the skill worked within him and maybe change it up a bit.

He hadn’t used his mana skill like this and he really wanted to test out how it worked on his own skills and whether he could dissect a skill that he didn’t care for and make it something better.

Hours passed in silence as he simply watched as he turned the Stone skin skill on and off and traced out the full pattern of the skill into a planning orb. He didn’t want to rush ahead and do something to hurt himself right before the event but that didn’t stop him from planning out all the little details of the skill.

What he found was that the skill, when used, no longer relied on his affinity at all, instead it used his mana. The skill also formed a complex network throughout his body when activated that pulled mana into his skin and then formed the stone skin.

The more he looked at the skill the less he liked it. But seeing how it worked was the first step in being able to change it into something better. His current plan for the skill was to have it reinforce his body with pure mana rather than changing his skin to stone. On top of that he would want it to boost not just durability but also his speed and strength, potentially tapping into his Mana Body title.

When night fell he only stopped to grab food and then got back to work, it wasn’t until he felt like the morning was coming that he put a pause on his work and went to the area that everyone was supposed to be gathering to enter the event.

Shaun was one of the last to arrive, they had chosen to use one of the F grade areas that had yet to be incorporated with people and by the look of it, people had been staying here for a good few days, needing to travel here by foot. There was a mix of humans and elves, some intermingling and others clearly staying with their own kind.

He only had to wait around for 30 or so minutes before Viv got up and started making a speech which he immediately blocked out. Instead, he found Eli and made his way over to him.

When he got to his side Eli didn’t say anything, he did give him a smile but apart from that he listened to Viv talk on about what they were fighting for etc. etc.

As the sun started to rise Viv finished her speech and only seconds later they all got what they had been waiting for.

**World Announcement**

The event has been decided, The War has been chosen as the event in which all those who wish can participate.

The War will be a battle fought between two opposing sides. The sides have been chosen based on the two strongest individuals and their settlements at this point in time.

The first side will be led by Shaun Clermont (Factionless) – System contract in place with The Empire.

The second side will be led by Jason Charlo (The Pantheon).

If you currently own a settlement then you will need to choose a side which all those under you will automatically join. If you do not currently belong to a settlement you may choose either side but will be unable to work towards earning points for a settlement unless one is chosen to join within the event.

The War will have several stages. The first part of the event will be consolidation. All participants will start at their sides main compound, but between the two compounds many strategic positions can be held to push the other side back throughout the war. To claim one of these positions a side must claim and hold that position for 24 hours.

The second stage of the war will be claiming as many of these positions as possible from the opposing side, before launching a main attack on their opponents main compound. This can also be done during the first stage.

The last stage is claiming the opposing sides compound. Once one side holds both compounds that side is declared the winner and the event shall conclude.

Throughout the event points are earned on an individual level through killing soldiers from the opposing side, being apart of claiming strategic positions or being involved in taking over area from the opposing army.

Points gained at an individual level will also be replicated to that person’s settlement score. Bonus points are rewarded depending on how you accomplish a task and who it is that you kill.

If you wish to join the event please pick a side in the next minute otherwise you forfeit entering the event.

Option 1: Shaun Clermont

Option 2: Jason Charlo

As a leader you have no choice.

Reading through the alert he gained more information that he could use. First he should be able palm off all the work to Viv and just focus on winning the war. Second, the first thing he needed to do was claim some areas while killing any idiot that joined Jason and The Pantheon. This is going to be fun.

Shaun felt the world shift the moment the finished reading and processing the message, moments later he found himself standing in a huge compound that should be able to fit millions of people. It spread out in every direction but right in front of him was a huge open area. It was slightly below him, but he was also standing on top of a stage.

He was alone for all of a few seconds before the first people started appearing in bursts of light. The amount of people appearing increased quickly, the first people he noticed was those from his own settlement, the choice having been taken from them as they were technically apart of his settlement.

It didn’t take long after that for more and more people to start appearing in the area, he had no idea who these people were but if he was to guess these would be the people who were either independent and had chosen to fight for him or the few settlements that had decided to join their side.

It took a few minute for people to stop appearing, there was yelling and a lot of movement with people trying to find others that they should know or just looking around. Wanting to get everything here over with Shaun unleashed a small part of his aura over the crowd. The results were instant, those that were caught in his aura immediately stopped moving and looked to him, the source of the power.

Like a chain reaction everyone standing before him looked up at where he stood. He made a conscious choice to just look over everyone gathered before he decided to speak. “You made the right choice.”