Chapter 23: What remains
Soon after the light faded Sam quickly turned his attention back to the battlefield, opting to fully go over his notifications after he was done. The scene before him as he brain finally registered what it was looking at made him scream in frustration. There were only three survivors left in the battlefield apart from those that he was able to save before he went into that cocoon of light. Whatever changes happened to him as his signature skill was being made, it took too long. The only people still left breathing were the couple of dozen he was able to save right after he figured out a way to heal them and about three others who he hadn’t healed yet but must’ve been afflicted with the poison later than the others did, that or they were more resistant to the poison. Regardless, Sam wasted no more time and used his signature skill to treat the three of them. Now that he had used it, he realized just how amazing and versatile Requiem Arrow could be. His desire to be able to use the effects of all his spell matrices at once coalesced into the form of Requiem Arrow. It was that and far more. The skill he could feel was deeply tied to his trait. He sensed the arrows he loosed pulling on the trait in the same way he did when he activated it in order to record something. The moment the healing affected the final victim, more messages from the system came.
[The Birth of Conviction, Signature Skill creation has been recorded in your Archive of Creation]
He quickly looked into his soul space to see a new dome-like structure similar to the one that recorded the dance of the Radiant Soul Cherry Blossoms. A distinct difference from that particular record though is that this one seemed like an exact recreation of the events that had taken place on this planet, from the moment he cast the first soothing light to the moment that Requiem Arrow healed the last remaining victim. He could see a miniature version of himself shooting arrow after arrow and casting spell after spell within the boundary of the dome which itself was a faithful recreation of his current surroundings.
Having now checked out what the recording was like, Samson turned his attention back to reality. There were only a handful of survivors and now that he knew he had a way to cure the poison, he was no longer wary to approach. The battlefield was quite eerie considering it now lay mostly empty, save from the scars of battle that the ground itself bore. He used Inexorable Stride to step right up to the side of the first person he had been able to save from the contamination. Understandably his sudden appearance spooked the guy, but when it became apparent that Sam meant no harm he lowered his guard a little. Sam asked the person if they knew where the poison might have come from and why whoever had used it seemed to choose no sides in the conflict, but he was mostly met with a face full of confusion. Upon closer inspection, the hats that he assumed were some kind of uniform were actually just part of these people’s skulls. It was like those aerodynamic helmets professional track cyclists wore if the helmets were actually just their heads. The alien he was talking to realized the issue before he did and immediately cast some kind of spell.
“Ah there this should be better. Can you understand me now?” Said the alien Sam had been talking to with the blue and orange head crest.
Sam wanted to smack himself on the forehead; this was an entirely different world in a wholly separate universe, of course they wouldn’t be able to understand his language. Thankfully the alien seemed to have a magic of some kind to get around that, Sam would need to learn that spell for himself some time, that was definitely going to be useful in the future, current circumstances excluded.
“Hi, yeah my name is Sam. Sorry I should have realized earlier that we’d have trouble speaking to each other.”
“No worries, it is one of the many blessings of the System that there are ways to communicate with those who are so different from us. My name is Majourn, I would say it’s a pleasure to meet you but these are not the most pleasurable of times.”
“Yeah now that we can speak by the way, do you have any idea where that poison that got most of you came from? Also what exactly was the battle that was taking place anyway?” Sam asked Majourn.
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As it would turn out, the fight taking place was some kind of territorial war among nobility whose primary fighting forces consisted of conscripted soldiers from each territory. As for the poison, it seemed to be the work of a high ranking noble who liked to dabble in alchemy and decided to treat the “minor” war as a good way to test another of their new concoctions and who didn’t much care for the reactions of the involved nobility given their difference in standing. Majourn was a lot more forthcoming with explaining everything once Sam was able to show that he had been the one to save the lives of all those who remained on the battlefield. The whole thing about the crazy alchemist noble was mostly just conjecture according to Majourn but it was the only thing he could think of that would explain things. Evidently the noble known as Masterius Madlound Maldivar was quite prolific in the area as being a particularly powerful and just as equally uncaring alchemist who was also the only that could be found this side of the kingdom.
Before Sam could continue his conversation with Majourn, another message from the system came.
[Your journey is getting cut short, the sages are unwilling to continue paying the price for your presence on this world after having paid the additional costs necessary for you to survive the creation of your Signature Skill.]
[The following is a brief message from the two sages who helped you: “You are quite the interesting child, when the two of us decided to give you this opportunity neither of us expected quite this outcome. After all these years, the worlds of the system still contain such surprises. Your path to power will be far more difficult now that you’ve done things so out of order but you make noble choices. Stay true to who you are. There is a lot more left for you to see; make sure to keep your eyes open.” – Looking forward to your exploits, The Sage of Sorrow and the Sage of Righteous Fury]
No sooner had a light breeze blown over where Sam was standing on the battlefield did he find himself standing once again on the brick road of the tutorial. He was never even able to find out the name of the planet that he visited. He took some time to ponder over the message from the two sages who seemed to have helped him survive the whole signature skill thing.
Sam was E tier now, not that that meant much to him at the moment. What he did know, however, was that he used to be a G tier meaning he skipped through the entirety of the F tier entirely. Right now he didn’t fully grasp all the changes that tiering up brought but if his understanding of the message from the system was right, it would now be a lot more difficult for him to be able to level up. At the moment though, he was just thankful to have survived the whole ordeal even if it was his fault for agreeing to the Signature Skill creation in the first place.
For the moment though, he would need to focus on seeing what he had missed during his absence. He wasn’t sure if the passage of time was any different between here and the planet he had been on so he would need to find a way to see how much of the tutorial had progressed while he was off in another world. He checked the system for any kind of progress and in doing so remembered the counter that had been there last time enumerating the number of mini bosses left needed to be subdued before the final boss of the tutorial could be fought. After a quick check with the system UI, it would seem that however long he was gone for was evidently long enough for the other participants to have beaten a number of mini bosses required for the final boss summoning. Actually it would seem like the fight with the final boss was currently under way since a message from the system arrived pointing him in the direction of the fight. Sam wasn’t completely confident in how useful he would be in that final fight but at the very least he could help heal people in the process. He highly doubted that the whole ordeal would be able to conclude without any injuries anyway so he decided to make haste and head toward the final raid of the tutorial.
In a way, Sam was feeling some anxiety regarding the fact that he seemed to have missed most of the tutorial that the average person was supposed to experience. His experiences so far pushed him toward the idea that the whole thing wasn’t exactly supposed to be a solo endeavour and there was nothing like life or death stakes to bring people closer together. At the same time though, he had purposefully avoided people because having your life on the line didn’t seem like the best time to be making new acquaintances on top of his already poor disposition toward socializing in general. He didn’t know what would remain after the tutorial though, and having some people to share in that uncertainty of the new world might have been nice. But decisions have been made and it wasn’t like he could change how he had done things, not that he would have even if he could in the first place.
