Even in the heat of a hasty retreat, the inner city of Mountain was unearthly beautiful. It looked like Olympus, the throne of the greek gods. The temple was a massive Parthenon, and was able to hold a large portion of the city’s population.

I stepped into the temple and saw the magic circle on the ground. People continued to pour in and shove me further and further into the back of the temple. Standing on the top of a raised platform at the end of the temple was Sage Svent, who had his hands on a golden scepter and was casting a spell. Standing right beside him were five other mages, who were mirroring his movements.

There was a sad look on the old sage’s face.

He opened his eyes and spoke.

“It is time.”

People were still pouring into the temple as the magic circle lit up brilliantly.

“No!”

“Take my child. My child!”

A woman, unable to jostle her way through the crowd, threw her newborn baby into the mob of people on the platform. Thankfully the baby was caught by another young woman, who took the scarf wrapped child into her arms.

The first orcs had reached the temple. With their curved blades and immense physical strength, they cut down civilians with every swing, sometimes knocking down several in one sweeping blow. Before long, the Orc Commander arrived and stared down the sage from the bottom of the temple steps.

A blinding light came from the magic circle, and I saw my feet begin to disappear. I looked around. Everyone on the temple floor was being teleported, but there were still several dozen people on the streets and near the temple.

“Farewell.”

The old sage had tears in his eyes. While everyone else’s feet and mid sections were disappearing, his body along with the bodies of the five mages beside him were still solid. The casters of [Mass Teleport] needed to maintain the spell, and thus were not able to enter the teleportation circle.

The sage and his five mages knew that they had to stay behind to ensure that the spell was successful. This was their final parting gift to the citizens--hope that some day, they could return.

A flash of light as the magic completed, and my vision faded into darkness.

*Pfffffffffffffff*

We reappeared in an unfamiliar temple. If the temple in Mountain could be described as having godly asceticism, the temple here was made of human grandiose. Gold engravings and signs of opulence adorned the room.

“What the bloody hell is going on here?”

Several royal guards opened the door to the temple. A young guard in front fell on his behind in shock at the amount of people present.

An older veteran guard called [Pietro] looked at the sea of people and nodded knowingly.

“Mass teleport.”

He rapid fired a few questions.

“Attention! Where are you all from?”

“Mountain.”

“What happened there?”

“Orcs... goblins... it was horrible!"

“I see, I see…”

Pietro sighed and looked off into the distance.

“Who was it? Sage Svent?”

Murmurs spread amongst the crowd.

“Yes, sir.”

The old royal guard shook his head wistfully.

“He was a good man.”

He cleared his throat and shouted. Through use of a skill, his shout was amplified significantly.

“People of Mountain, by the sacrifice of my old friend Svent, you have been teleported to the Royal Capital.”

“As citizens of the Empire, you are expected to learn and abide by the rules and laws of the Royal Capital. In return, we will care for your well being and prepare accommodations for you in these trying times.”

“Commoners, please note that by law, only nobles are allowed to reside within the inner city. I will escort you to the outer city, as the court deliberates on how to deal with this unique situation.”

We were quickly organized into two groups, nobles and commoners. The professionalism with which the royal guards worked was a bit brusque. Commoners were shoved to the side with each other, while nobles were addressed by sir or madam and guided with polite hand gesture.

First the nobles left the temple with the younger guard that tripped earlier. Afterwards, we exited the temple, following the old royal guard [Pietro]’s lead. The inner city of the royal capital looked very late nineteenth century European, similar to Paris in architecture. The architecture in this world took its inspiration from all different cultures, and was executed tastefully.

Inner city residential nobles looked out their Parisian-style windows at the impossibly long trail of people trailing out of the temple.

I opened my interface and private messaged Books.

I’m in the capital.

He replied quickly.

Spoon! How are you my brother?

Bruised and battered. But alive.

You were in the battle? Jesus christ man, hope you’re okay.

I’m fine now. Let’s see up tomorrow?

Sure thing. Meet me at the library in the outer city tomorrow.

Okay.

===========

The next day, a single video rocked the entire Internet.

<<Battle of Mountain>> submitted by the Light Guild.

It was an hour long video recorded by one of the combatants at the World Event battle. What made this video special was that it was the longest. Most other recordings were cut short, because the player recording was killed during the action.

A swordsman with an orb of light was the recorder. With his team, including a mage with a familiar firecracker skill, he defended Mountain for the entire duration of the battle until the mass teleport.

The swordsman’s name was [Rick], and he was currently level 52, a top 10 player in Eclipse online. He currently sat at rank 8, after accelerating past 10th and 9th place with the large amount of experience he gained during the battle of Olympus.

===========

I woke up early the next morning and made myself a cup of coffee before heading to work. Tax filing busy season was approaching, and work was more hectic than usual as we stepped up our pace to reach deadlines.

“Morning!”

“Morning.”

Yura was in high spirits today as she greeted me at the coffee machine. Her white dress shirt and sharp black skirt hugged her figure enticingly.

I felt like I was forgetting something… ah, our last interaction. Not wanting to create any more awkward moments, I decided to head back to my station after finishing my second coffee for the day, although for a moment I had the feeling that she wanted me to chat with her a bit longer.

During a rare period of down time during work, I mulled over the combat ability of my class. Currently I had several extremely powerful S tier abilities at my disposal. However, all of them were situational and difficult to pilot. Love whip was currently my strongest ability, but I didn't have the control to use it telekinetically to its full potential.

In conclusion, I needed to train to draw out more strength from my abilities.

After logging in, I contacted Books. He seemed to have run into some trouble with an urgent quest, and asked to postpone our meeting to another day. I wasn’t in a rush so I told him to take his time.

I decided to visit one of the capital city’s smaller adventurer’s guilds, Paradise guild, to utilize their training center. The training facility there had wooden dummies and other contraptions to practice on. A gruff man with large muscles greeted me at the reception.

“What do ya want?”

He wasn’t particularly friendly at the sight of my shabby equipment and level, which was currently 22.

“I’m here to train.”

He grunted and pointed at the sign.

“Six silver an hour.”

I handed over the money and walked into the training center. Inside the center was a mix of NPCs and players, mostly sweaty men with warrior type classes. The facility was relatively empty, since Paradise guild was a smaller size guild.

I wordlessly walked past several men lifting weights and practicing sword techniques on the straw and wooden dummies.