The Forgotten Legacy

Shaun spent the full next day either catching up with people or making his presence known. He spent a good amount of time with Eli after having a good talk about where Shaun had been and what he had been doing. Curious to see what the day of a student was like he also attended a number of Eli’s classes, seeing what was being taught and even jumping in a few times to give his own verbal instruction. He was impressed with the progress of the kids in general, a good number of them were fully committed to learning and improving. Even the instructors spent time running the dungeon during a set time to help them improve their own skills and level.

He met with Eric’s kids and even Fiona at lunch. It was an awkward meeting as they really didn’t know much about each other outside of what Eric had told them. Mostly Fiona thanked him for looking out for Eric and helping to get the school started. The kids even took some time to express how much fun they were having learning all the different things that they offered here.

He explored the crafting areas, finding that there were several teachers in the forge, all teaching kids the basics of smithing. They were smaller classes and the kids that were present were the ones that chose metal work as a profession they wanted to gain the profession as soon as they could.

When he went through the rest of the crafting areas he notices that leather work and alchemy were also very popular with the kids. He spent a decent amount of time watching everyone work, even going so far as to drop off any old loot he still had so that they could work on new materials. He didn’t have much, having gotten rid of most of it, but to them it was a trove of treasure that they wouldn’t stop thanking him for.

When he did everything he needed to do at the school he retreated to his own home and sat at the table and thought about different things he could contribute to help others grow in the areas they needed.

The biggest advantage he had over others was his magical ability, specifically his affinity. He couldn’t just give others an affinity though, it was a very personal thing that one had to really focus on. That was the case for most people though, not him. He had attempted to help others gain a basic affinity before using the gems in his gauntlet and he was making some progress in this until he was forced to stop because of what happened in the tutorial.

This got him thinking about his gauntlet. It had helped him a lot in the past but as he grew he used it less and less. Most of his skill now weren’t being channelled through the gauntlet, he did use it every now and again but his main weapon was the sword. Outside of fire and air, which everyone knew he had as affinity, nature was used to heal himself which no one could really see anyway, he rarely used water or earth through the gauntlet either.

It was a great weapon, one that anyone would like to have, but the more he thought about it the more he realised that in his hands it was really not adding much, if anything, to his fighting ability. The elemental orbs that were in it were good, they reduced the amount of mana he needed to use when using his affinity, but not to the point that it made much of a difference considering his mana pool.

His sword and armour had the runes and gems in it that made the gauntlet almost obsolete to him. But it was also the first epic item he ever created, did he really want to disassemble it for parts?

He didn’t need to make the decision now, but that didn’t stop him from exploring options around what he could potentially create using the parts of the gauntlet separately. He didn’t attempt to use his new planning skill, not yet. He would give it another day before he attempted to channel mana or any skill through his body, but he still had old fashioned paper to use.

He had already started the process of creating a ritual circle to help draw out and then contain the attuned energy from the natural treasures he had. Using this as a base he got started creating a new ritual that would work with the orbs in his gauntlet. He had been pretty close to perfecting his old design so he already had a near finished plan to go off of, all he needed to do was make some amendments.

This was how he spent the rest of his day, he took breaks to eat and stretch out his body, slowly testing out his recovery and how close he was to being fully healed. Like the night before, Eric and Gabe bought him food and they dined together. It was a more relaxed meal, not having to really go over anything that had happened while he had been gone and instead just spoke about the day.

The next day Shaun felt well enough to start testing out his new planning skill, his body and mind felt like they were nearly recovered but he would still take things slow for now, not wanting to do something that would push his recovery out further.

As soon as he activated his planning skill he felt just a small twinge of pain in his mind that he was able to ignore easily. The moment he activated the skill his mana drained instantly to create an orb of mana in his hand and he got the knowledge of how to use it. It was based off of willpower, he simply willed the orb to project the design he wanted and light would shine from the orb, projecting his thoughts.

He took his time playing around with the skill before he was comfortable enough to move the ritual he had finished designing the day before into the orb. As he mapped it out he felt that the orb was connected to him but as soon as he finished he felt that connection sever.

Curious, he accessed the orb again and the connection reappeared. It was an interesting skill, one that he was happy to have chosen. He could see the perks of having such a versatile planning skill, not just for crafting either, but for planning out anything he wanted and didn’t want to forget.

He had just left his home to find someone who could help test out the orb, to see if they could access it and if so how they did t and if they could amend the design, when he got an unexpected message from the system.

**Hello to all surviving beings of the integration, you have now survived 3 months on your new planet after the conclusion of the tutorial. In another 3 months’ time a planet wide event will begin, one that will offer great rewards for those who participate and do well. The type of event that will be held will be voted on by those who own settlements. F grade settlements will count as 1 vote, E grade will count as 10 and D grade as 100 votes.

Regardless of which event is chosen, you will be unable to truly die in the event. If you are killed within the event you will simply be ejected. The event will pass in an instant on your planet time but may go on for months inside the actual event.

The event, regardless of what form it will take, will have two major reward categories. The first is based on individual performance and the second is based off of settlement performance.

Settlement owners will have the following options to choose from for the event:

The Arena– Battle off in the arena to claim the number 1 spot.

The Hunt – Search and claim as much as you can.

The War – Two sides fight, only one will win.

Good luck.**

The message just detailed much of what he already knew, although the settlements having a different amount of votes depending on grade was interesting. Looking around it seemed that everyone had gotten the message, even the kids.

The three options were all combat based, at least that is what it appeared at first glance. With every single on of these you would need some support classes as well as people with professions to help boost your settlement. One thing was clear from each event though, you had to be strong to do well, both at an individual level and a settlement level.

3 months was also not that long, he had already been on Earth that long since the tutorial and he had felt it pass in the blink of an eye. Sure, he hadn’t exactly been present for a month of that, but even then, the first 2 months went quick.

He expected Viv to show up pretty soon, probably with her own opinion and how she wanted to plan for it. This event was going to set the stage for the actual war, if she didn’t have this settlement finish in first place then it would have a big impact on her reputation as well as that of The Empires.

This was not something he really wanted to deal with at current but this event was also one of the biggest reasons he was here on Earth and not with The Alliance. The rewards you got from winning this event were apparently good enough to have a big impact on your progress for a long time to come. At least in this he would work with Viv, he needed to win on an individual level as well as make sure that the Settlement won as well. He owned the settlement so he assumed he would also get some reward from that too.

Rather than continue to find someone to help figure out his orb plan he just turned around and went back inside. Those that wanted to find him would come to him here so there was no point walking around.

Instead as he waited he looked over the 3 options. The first being an arena fight he immediately ruled out, he had done that in the tutorial and didn’t want to do it again. The second one, The Hunt, was definitely more interesting. He didn’t know what he would end up looking for but it sounded fun.

The last one though, The War. If he was to guess this was probably the best option for Earth. Seeing as you couldn’t die in the event like you could here, this war they were in the middle of could be fought and finished without the need of so many people dying. It didn’t sound as interesting as The Hunt but it would benefit more people.

If he was right, winning the war would win you the settlement reward, or something close to it anyway. Maybe on the individual level it would be about how much you did to contribute to your side? He didn’t know for sure, but it sounded plausible.

Eric was the first to show up at his house, followed minutes later by Eric. They started to talk about the message but he just said to wait for the others who he assumed would also show up at some point. Instead, he had them test out his orb plan. Interestingly they could project the plan out with a little bit of mana usage but they could amend the plan.

That gave him so many ideas, not just to help himself but to help a lot of people at the school. He was about to start talking about his plan when someone started knocking on the door. He already had a good feeling about who it was and when he opened the door he was that Viv, Li and Josh had showed up along with a few other people.

He invited them all in and he got comfortable on a couch to listen to what they had to say.

“Shaun, you own the settlement so it is your choice. But I am asking you, pick The War event. I have already communicated with Xavier on the way here and he is going to propose that if we go with this event that the losing side concedes the fight for Earth and any claim they have to ruling. You know this is the right thing to do.” Viv spoke quickly, not letting him interrupt, not that he was planning to.

It was as he had expected anyway. So long as there was an agreement with the factions then he didn’t see an issue with picking the event as they wanted. As long as he got the rewards he didn’t care too much anyway.

“Agreed, as long as the factions have an air tight agreement in place, and that I still hold ownership of the settlement and whatever rewards will come with it when we win, I will agree to choose The War event. Understand though, we have to win. I will be fighting to take the top spot in both reward categories. You need to push everyone that is going to join the event to be at their peak power. No more holding back. We must win.”

Viv was taken aback at how easily he agreed with her and by just how forceful he was in that they needed to win. It was more for selfish reasons and she likely knew that, but she wasn’t going to pass up how easily Shaun gave in to what she wanted.

“Good, that’s… great actually. Let’s get planning.”

After that everyone got comfortable and they stated hashing out some broad plans regarding what they needed. Viv was to take care of building an actual army and managing people. What they also needed was better quality weapons to be made, a full focus on growing in levels and power as well as allies. The war would only have two sides, and how that was done was as of yet unknown. But there was a lot of people on Earth that would be joining this event that would need to pick a side and although quality was better than quantity, if they didn’t manage to gain enough people to their side they would could be taken out by sheer numbers if they were unlucky.

It was going to be a busy 3 months. But at least he could palm off people management to Viv, this was why she was here and why he agreed to the contract with The Empire. He wished her luck as for this event her success just added to his own.