gaze- life has no meaning
staring at the ceiling with a dead stare, Cain can swear he's hallucinating things at this point
'18 hours.. 18 hours of no rest.. this headmaster, no. this kid! every time i finish one stack of paper she simply brings the next! this is why her last worker quit damnit!'
but before he can lament further, the door opens, a well kempt, serious man enters.. yet that impression is already gone, looking at his dumb face. Cain cant help but wonder what's his deal
"what is it? i have more papers to work through."
not even bothering with being polite due to how tired he is, Cain asks bluntly
"e-excuse me?"
quickly gathering himself back up, removing the shock of the headmaster sitting on the lap of a man he had never seen
"A-ahem. its the students, their done with their entrance exam, i have the paperwork here."
slamming his fist on the table abruptly yelling "shit!" the neat looking man jumps back, before Cain takes a big sigh calming himself
"are you busy?"
"i shouldn't be for the rest of the day no.. is.. something the matter?" suddenly feeling a bad premotion, he takes a step back. before a wide grin plasters Cains face
"take a sit over there, and grab a stack of paperwork. chop chop!"
full or resignation.. and a little resentment, the man takes his seat as he interduces himself
"Azazel.. that's my name."
briefly raising his eyes from the mound of papers as a form of acknowledgment, before returning them to said mound
"don't waste your breath on useless talk. we have another 10 stacks not including the two were doing right now."
feeling the back of his hair rise Azazel quickly gets to work
-a few hours later-
"done.."
giving each other a nice, crisp dap
and then the both of them run away from the office.
soon he finds himself in the noble dorms, kept separately from the others, directly next to the elite class dorms
'room 8...'
walking down the rooms, he cant help but notice there isn't a single other person
'the test only ended today, their probably only gonna be brought here tomorrow'
the academy of Celestia is situated atop a chain of floating islands. with the only way in being teleportation gates
'unless your as powerful as the headmaster, where you can travel half the world with a single spell'
soon finding himself in his dorm.. despite the fact a commoner like him would be amazed by how amazing the room is, he's already far too drained to think of that. instead he simply flops atop the lavish bed
'sweet release.. ah, am i not forgetting something..?'
due to how busy he was with the paperwork, its no surprise he forgot he had gotten his new gift.
[STATUS]
Name: Cain
Age: 18
Stats:
Strength- 14
Agility- 15
Endurance- 11
Charm- 21
Intelligence- 18
Owned artifacts:
[cigarette box (black rose design)]
[blood rose ring]
[black metal kusarigama]
[earbuds(black)]
{blessing}
-gifts of the past-
{owned gifts: 5}
gift of the drinksmith
gift of the craftsman
the collectors gift
gift of the playboy
gift of the undying
gift of the Maren crown
'another artifact?'
-gift of the Maren crown-
description: echidna von Maren, the great serpent, ruler of the Maren kingdom and most importantly.. the fallen tyrant, killed by the only person she had ever cared about.. and her only daughter.
type: active/passive ability
-ability-
Function 1: bear the mark of the Maren royal family.
Function 2: call upon the Maren crown and bask in its power.
[STATUS END]
'...power?'
till now, Cain had no true combat power, sure the ring gave him blood magic but its more of a secondary ability to throw his opponents off than anything.
'better see what it does than dwell on it.'
about to activate the second ability, he looks at his wrist, seeing a scaly thing poke out, and taking off his shirt and looking at the mirror he can see a dark bluish serpent tattoo coiling around his right arm, weaving through blue roses, a crown of thorns atop its head
'you bear the mark of the Maren royal family..'
while not fully aware of its abilities just yet, he can feel it might come in handy one day.
and so, he activates his gifts second function, and slowly. he can feel his body changing in real time, going from a tall young man into a stunning, dark blue haired woman with teal eyes, a twilight dress hugging her figure, and a wreath of blue thorns resting atop her head
"this.. is me?"
speaking, his voice sounds noticeably different, very deep for a woman but instead of manly, its rather a seductive, sultry tone
'I'm.. Echidna?'
its rather likely he had taken the form of Echidna, the past life he had once been.
'its easy to connect all the blue and the serpent stuff with water.. and i can sense an aura core, albeit faintly due to the fact its newly made. so had Echidna been a water element martial artist?'
unlike mages, who form an aura core and slowly build layers upon layers over the core. the aura core of a martial artist gathers the surrounding mana with a cultivation technique, slowly expanding the existing core over time.
and eventually, after using it enough, a persons aura will slowly take upon the quality's of its owner, such as if you were a blood crazed killer, your aura would take on a blood red hue, and make it so whoever you slash bleeds more easily
'but iv skipped that stage, my aura core already has the original Echidna's trait.. although i haven't understood what it is yet..'
deciding to test it later, he notices that while the crown is summoned, it is considered an accessory, and thus has a buff.
'a minor increase to charisma.. useful.'
another thing he had noticed in this form.. is that he can do another two things with it
'i can manipulate water despite not being a mage, that's likely the original Echidna's blessing.. and i can transform into some creature, though i don't know how large it is, so il hold off on that for now'
however, Echidna already has a guess.
"in order to become a grandmaster a martial artist must be able to summon their domain."
the first step to being a martial artist is to form an aura core by then you would be considered a beginner, then there's apprentice and advanced
what really makes you different from the rest is becoming a master, which requires you to manifest a domain, kind of like a mental manifestation of your soul, it could be something abstract like an item or a scenery you like, but most commonly its a creature you can use various abilities upon manifesting your domain, and to become a grandmaster is when you can summon that domain into the real world
'that creature is probably Echidnas original domain, and since she was called the great serpent, its not too difficult to guess what it is.'
"oh well.. guess i need to go buy some dresses huh.. that's gonna suck.."
while the thought of being a woman should be weird to him as a man, it seems that by becoming a woman, so had his mind, making it so him being in the form of a woman feel natural
'i have a second identity now i guess'
such things can be incredibly helpful in this world, and another bonus on top of that is that he can walk both on the path of a mage in his main body and a martial artist in his second.
"though il have to put in twice the work aswell."
after all, there are people who train in the martial arts alone for years by itself, adding magic on top of that? its a tall tall order
'its about time sleep though'
transforming back into a man, Cain drops on the bed once more
'I'm guessing echidna has better physical stats due to being a martial artist.. shoulda checked..'
-TOMMOROW MORNING-
inside a huge hall, filled with students, he can see a familiar man walk up to the podium for the entrance ceremony
"hello everyone. my name is Azazel, i am the vice headmaster of the academy. it is with great pleasure...."
continuing his speech, Cain, who had already gone through the entire schools paperwork yesterday, already knows what will be said, he was the one who signed the approval for the speech after all, so he decided to simply put on his headphones to listen to one of his playlists.
"and it is with great honor that i will be introducing the rank one student of Celestia academy. may sylvia Ashford!"
'the granddaughter of the sword saint.'
not only does she come from a prominent family meaning there wont be any resistance due to her status, she also ranked number one in the practical test, while it didn't include any of the nobles, it was still a fierce competition
'it would be weird had she not been ranked one'
while he was the one who had placed each students in their respective class and decided their rank, he couldn't abuse his power, thus only placing himself at a good 8, enough to catch attention but not backlash.. well he did abuse it to put himself in the noble class
'the perfect sweet spot'
it is a tragedy that due to her grandfather turning down any attempt at making him a noble, he was forced to place her in the elite class
while he wasn't exactly listening to her speech.. he was paying attention to her
'i... can beat her. atleast that's what my gut is telling me..'
it was clear she had already imprinted her trait on her mana
'and atleast as echidna.. my trait directly counters hers.'
due to the fact he had around two hours before the opening ceremony, he was able to spend some time figuring out his trait
'tyranny'
his trait basically makes it so that unlike other aura's, who simply follow the will of their users, his practically revere him, following his every whim happily, but it also has another effect
'dominion over aura, i can basically attempt to take over another persons aura, while i cant do that to her, or anybody on my level, i can still disrupt it.'
sylvia's trait s perfection, any movement and attack must be perfect, so her aura wont even take effect unless her strike is perfect.
'but her attack wont be perfect if her mana is disrupted even the slightest, i can basically nullify her aura'
the rest is simply a matter of beating her without her mana, which while would still be difficult.. its not impossible.
'alas though, Echidna is a second identity, and i cant use her publicly.'
lamenting his luck, he finally notices the speech had come to an end, the only thing in the day left being the celebration ball, which he wont be attending to due his ever increasing paperwork
'this suuuuucks..'
-CHAPTER END-
heyo yalls! hope u liked the chapter! here's todays note(please drop some power stones)
where do i write? the simple answer is anywhere but inkstone, you see, inkstone has a few issues and will likely sometimes delete your data, making you rewrite entire chapters, and the best answer is google docs, easy to understand, super friendly with fonts and the such, and wont delete your work.
peace!