The Hidden World

It was currently 21:00 and Yuki was laying down on top of his bed with his eyes shut. He had eaten a simple dinner of whatever was in the cabinets (cereal) and went to bed. But he wasn’t lying there to sleep.

 

When Yuki opened his eyes, he was staring at a grassy field with a lone tree that stood in the center. Under the shade of the tree was a girl in a white dress, curled up and asleep.

 

Yuki walked up to her and nudged her gently. She stirred but didn’t wake up, her ears twitching. Seeing this, Yuki prodded her harder on the cheek.

 

“Akira, wake up,” he said loudly.

 

Her eyes cracked open and her mouth let out a massive yawn that displayed her sharp canines.

 

“Good evening, Yuki,” she said sleepily, smacking her lips.

 

“Good evening, Akira,” Yuki replied. “How are you still asleep?”

 

“Species trait, maybe?” Akira said, yawning. She sat up and started to stretch her arms. “So why did you come here? Miss me?”

 

Yuki ignored her mischievous smile.

 

“I just wanted to drop by to test something,” he answered. “But then I saw you asleep. Since you’re awake, do want to spar?”

 

“Spar, hmm?” Akira said, tapping her chin. “Sure, I have time. I’ll do some magic research later.”

 

“Research?”

 

Akira nodded.

 

“Yup, research. I think I told this already, but I believe I have found a way to get out of this dimension and into the real world,” Akira replied. “I just want to be certain that it’ll work.”

 

“Okay,” Yuki said. “I wish you the best of luck.”

 

He bent over and created a pair of stone knives.

 

“Want to get started?”

 

One hour later, they collapsed on the ground. As he laid there panting next to Akira, Yuki felt a sense of deja vu.

 

“That was fun,” Akira commented, gasping. “We don’t get to spar all that often like this.”

 

Yuki nodded his head.

 

“So what was it that you wanted to test?” Akira glancing over to him.

 

“A skill,” he replied. “I unlocked part of it last time. Ancestral Knowledge.”

 

He paused, catching his breath.

 

“I was also thinking that since I’m here, I should check my status.”

 

“You should do that,” Akira agreed. “Ancestral Knowledge is super useful. You can learn so much more from it that a normal library.”

 

Yuki pushed himself up and stood, staggering a little as he did. Rubbing his sore arms, he looked down at Akira.

 

“I’ll be doing that right now,” he announced. “You should do your research.”

 

Akira nodded and closed her eyes on the lush emerald field.

 

‘I hope she isn’t sleeping,’ Yuki thought as he walked over to the floating crystal that hovered a few feet away.

 

He reached out with his hand when he was in front of it and touched it. Instantly, Yuki could see his status in front of him.

 

「MAYUMI YUKI (Rank D / 3 Star / Tier 1)

   Title: None

   Class: Assassin / Support Mage

   Passive Abilities: ??? , ??? , ???

   Stats: STR - (D 3S / T2)  DEF - (D 3S / T1) SPD - (D 3S / T2)  STA - (D 3S / T1)

              INT - (D 2S / T8)   MP - (D 3S / T4)  HP - (D 2S / T9)

   Skills: Analysis (Lv. 3)   Mental Fortitude (Lv. 3) Perseverance (Lv. 4) >

              Human Disguise  Ancestral Knowledge (Partial)

   Techniques:

             Magic - Elemental Magic: Basic Earth (Lv. 9) >  Basic Fire (Lv. 7) >

                            Mana Manipulation (Lv. 4)

                            Magical Eyes

             Physical - Dance of the Dragons (Lv. 3) : Earth Dragon (Lv. 1)

                               Intermediate Swordsman (Lv. 6) >

                               Intermediate Dagger Arts (Lv. 8) >

                               Meditation (Lv. 3)              」

 

‘ I grew quite a lot since I last checked,’ Yuki remarked. He had broken into the third star of rank D and three of his techniques were close to upgrading.

 

Satisfied, Yuki turned his attention to his main task of the day. Exploring the skill that is Ancestral Knowledge. He had a hunch as to how he could access this skill and this hunch took the form of a large wooden door.

 

Behind the status, there were two doors. Previously, both of these doors had large wording on them that announced that Yuki did not have the requirements necessary to enter them. But now the notice in front of the door titled “Library” had disappeared.

 

Yuki focused his all of his attention on this door. In his mind he commanded it to open for him. The doors obeyed and swung gently to reveal what resembled a gigantic library.

 

He walked forward and stepped into this room. All around Yuki were shelves upon shelves of books that varied in color and size. The space of the room dwarfed any library Yuki had ever visited on Earth.

 

‘How am I supposed to navigate this place?’ Yuki thought to himself.

 

He started to wander around this library, reading the spine of whatever books he spied. Soon, he noticed that each row was labeled with what seemed to be a category. There was alchemy, crafting, magic theory, magic spells, weapon techniques, and many others. The library also seemed to be divided by author, all the books in one area created by the same person.

 

‘I wonder where books on classes are,’ Yuki thought as he walked.

 

Suddenly, manuscripts and novels zoomed in from the surrounding area and hovered in front of Yuki. He read the titles and found that they all pertained to classes.

 

‘Interesting. This is quite useful,’ Yuki remarked. He grabbed a book titled “Classes and How They Work.”

 

He sat down on the carpet floor and began to read quietly to himself.

 

“Classes were apparently created by the Universal Records. They are made by taking the statistics and experiences of a being and creating a class that best suited them. To find one’s class, the use of a class crystal was needed.

 

“Class crystal were divided into two categories: Common and Unique. Common crystals give all users the same list of classes to choose from, the list being filtered by the Universal Records to find the best ones. Unique crystals give users a specialized class that was tailored to fit their strengths. Unique crystals can only be used once.

 

“The classes themselves were also divided into categories. There were normal classes and special classes. Normal classes are the classes that are seen commonly around the world. These include jobs such as swordsman and fire mage. These type of classes are put into three colors: red, white, and green. Red signified that the class isn’t the best suited for the user. White stood for neutral and green was the class that fit the user well.

 

“Special classes were as their names suggest, special. They are classes that people rarely have and are denoted by a golden color. All specialized classes are special classes as well as a select few. There maybe more special classes than those that are known as the person that is best suited for them hasn’t appeared.”

 

‘This is quite the boring read,’ Yuki commented. ‘But it was useful.’

 

According to the book, Yuki had two special classes. The gemstone on Yuki’s necklace seemed to be a Unique class crystal.

 

‘Just what is this necklace?’ Yuki wondered. ‘It can store a massive amount of mana and functions as a Unique crystal.’

 

Reading through the pamphlet some more, Yuki discovered that he could find out what kind of skills he could learn by asking for the list while his status was up.

 

‘Assassin skills,’ Yuki thought.

 

Before Yuki’s eyes, a small list appeared. He scanned through them and read the names of the skills.

 

‘Stealth, Disguise, Poison Arts, Eloquence,’ Yuki read off the first few. ‘These do seem to fit quite well with the whole assassin thing. Support Mage skills.’

 

The list disappeared and another one replaced it.

 

“Holy Arts, Healing Arts, Enhancing Arts, Suppressing Arts...” Yuki mumbled out loud. “Wow, there are a lot here.”

 

Yuki decided to focus on the Support Mage skills another time and brought the Assassin skill list back up.

 

‘Stealth seems useful. I should try to learn that first,’ Yuki decided. Then he decided to test something.

 

‘Information of the Stealth skill,’ he ordered.

 

Immediately, two books appeared before him. One was titled The Art of Secrecy and the other was simply named How to Hide. As Yuki flipped through the manuscripts, he discovered that both books covered two different topics both related to the stealth skill. The second book, as its name suggested, was about the hiding aspect of stealth. The other was more focused on the moving aspect.

 

Next, Yuki began to order for books pertaining to the other skills and one by one they appeared. He put them aside into a couple of tidy piles.

 

‘Let’s get started,’ Yuki thought.

 

He opened a book that was titled Fundamentals of Magic and began to read with intense focus. There he sat for hours until his smartwatch broke through his concentration, alerting him to the start of a new day.