The first week passes in a flash. For half of the day, we train with the martial arts instructor. For the other half, we are free to do whatever we want. Without an issue, I gain access to the royal library, after politely asking the King during one of our meetings.

The library itself is huge. Rows of shelves, like two-story-high, are neatly arranged in quite logical patterns, with each section visibly marked. Once in a while, some space is put between the racks, where some tables, chairs, sofas, desks, and similar furniture are placed. The main corridors are definitely over a hundred meters long, and there are plenty of intersections.

It will take some time to learn the patterns and ins and outs of this place, but it’s not like I’m in a rush. I should be able to find a lot of valuable information about this world, its history, the whole System thing and the world’s inhabitants. Perhaps I should also ask if there are any guides to the existing races’ languages. I’m kind of curious to see how much easier it might be to learn them with that OP skill.

For a few days, I just wander around the whole place familiarizing myself with the layout and asking questions to the librarians near the main entrances.

 

※ ※ ※

 

We train for half a day, I spend the other half, or even more, in the library. In one month, I’m able to learn a whole language, besides just reading about the history and facts of the world. As for the first one, being the fantasy freak as I am, I choose Elvish. I mean, that’s an obvious choice, isn’t it?

Learning languages really do come unnaturally easy to me now. I already was aware of my talent with them back on Earth, but right now, after just reading the words and their meaning, I memorize them instantly. All the grammar and more difficult parts take a bit more time, with speech and pronunciation being the most troublesome. Regardless, almost mastering a whole language in a single month is beyond amazing.

As for the weapons, during that month, we go through some basic ones like spears, longswords, axes and bows. One week each. And without any surprise, Paul is the first one to feel something during our training. As easy as it is to guess, it’s during the shooting practice. After just a few shots, he starts overperforming everyone. I’ve never seen him so happy than in the moment when he was assured his Class would have something to do with ranged weapons. Good for him. You always get better results when doing something you like.

Others, seeing how he basically goes from no experience to novice archer in a few hours, are now brimming with eagerness to try out more weapons.

 

※ ※ ※

 

Another few weeks pass uneventfully. I’m currently sitting in one of the reading areas and slowly finishing learning the Dwarvish language. While in deep thought I hear a woman’s voice at my side.

“Seems like the rumours were true. Are you really reading here every single day?”

I look up and see the Court Magician Cornelia in her usual purple robes, holding onto some book. 

“Lady Cornelia.” I stand up and nod my head as a greeting. “Yes, it looks like the rumours you mentioned might have some truth hidden in them,” I say with a smile.

“I already told you to drop that Lady. I’m not a noble and you are older than me.”

“Yet your honourable position of a—”

“And you are a Hero, aren’t you? Who is the one with the more honourable position here?” She quickly cuts me off.

“Well… Fair enough. Miss Cornelia then?”

“Just Cornelia is fine. Besides… I’m not really a real Court Mage…”

“Pardon?”

“Well… I’m more of a stand-in…” She sighs. “Before you arrived, the main one was sent by the King to check out one of the outbreak areas and I was called as a replacement. Now that he returned, I’m back to… just a magician and a scholar.”

“The fact that you were the one chosen to represent the King already tells a lot about either your achievements or mastery over magic. You still appear more than capable to someone who can’t even use it. Anyways, anything I can help you with?”

She smiles faintly. “Mind if I sit here?”

“Not really.”

I move my scattered notes full of hand-drawn Dwarvish runes away to make some space and place my hand on a chair next to mine. Standing behind it I gesture at her to sit down. She complies and I gently slide her chair in.

“Thank you.”

Hesitant about what to do now, I wait for a moment to see if she will speak about anything, but she just opens her book and begins reading. I follow suit and focus on my own studies. We spend around two hours working in silence. 

I finish the chapter I’ve planned to memorize today and close the book. While organizing my notes, I notice that she is glancing my way. I stop and raise a brow at her.

“Are you learning Dwarvish?” she asks.

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“Hummm… I always liked learning foreign languages back on Earth. And you never know when those might come in handy. Besides, it’s really interesting.”

“I see. How is it going then?”

“I’m almost done with it. A week or so and I should be at a decent level.”

「And by a decent level, I mean fully memorizing it...」

“You managed to learn a totally alien language in two months. That’s really amazing,” she speaks visibly amused. 

“Well…” I smile awkwardly and scratch my head. “To be honest, I started around three weeks ago…”

“What?!” she says quite louder than usual.

Immediately noticing it, she covers her mouth with her hands and looks around, startled. No one seems to be around in this section, but her voice was definitely heard in the distance. Correcting herself, she speaks in a lower tone.

“Your Linguist skill must be at a high level to be able to learn it so fast.”

“Hahaha… Yeah, it’s quite high when compared to the other Heroes… It might be my only redeeming feature since I’m not really good in other areas and my stats are quite low,” I speak hurriedly.

“What level is it at?” she asks, sizing me up with her thoughtful stare.

“...”

I look around to see if someone is not coming.

「Where are the cliche timings when you need them?」

Cornelia also looks around, then back to me and squints her eyes. She traces some symbols on the desk with her fingers and a moment later, they glow with low purplish light. I notice how the air around us seems to start being distorted, like in a hot desert.

“Now, no one will be able to hear us. Unless they can cast high-tier magic. I really would like to know what level of this skill allows you to figure out languages this fast.”

I sigh and decide that it’s not wise to make a capable magician suspicious of myself.

“In full honesty, I don’t know.”

She looks at me even more suspiciously. “What do you mean you don’t know? Doesn’t it say in your skill's window?”

“It says it’s Lv. MAX”

Her eyes widen in shock and her mouth involuntarily opens and closes a few times. In the end, she just stares at me, visibly deep in consternation. She finally gets a hold of herself and speaks again.

“I’ve never even read about anyone achieving it in the records… How many languages did you master to achieve that?”

I summon my skills window and focus on the Linguist skill. 

 

 

Cornelia notices my eyes wandering in the air. “You can make any part of your system windows visible to others by—”

She stops when my window materializes for her after I think about it being visible. She looks at me again, surprised, and I just smile. Then, I try to make a swiping motion, imagining the window flying towards her face. It does as I instructed and stops in front of her eyes. She blinks quickly several times, moving her gaze from the window to me and back.

"You already learned the Elvish language?!"

Then, she swats it away and falls silent, intently looking into the table.

After a while, she looks at me with a serious gaze. “Say… Do you need some assistance with your studies?”

「Assistance? Having this skill? Oooooooh… I see...」

“You want to observe me while I’m learning, right?”

She moves her gaze away to avoid my eyes.

「Bullseye.」

“I don’t mind. You can come whenever you want. Having someone familiar with this place around could be a great help,” I reply. It would be kinda stupid to reject that opportunity. And she mentioned being a scholar.

She bows to me and speaks while smiling beautifully. “Thank you very much! I’ll be sure to help you with any questions you may have!”

And with that we leave together, talking about the library and its collections.

 

※ ※ ※

 

After our little meeting, Cornelia visits me every few days. Sometimes in longer streaks. At first, she just sits there looking all over me and my notes, but with time she proceeds to take her own, to ask questions along the way and to discuss some details.

At some point, she starts getting more active within my studies and research. She might have gotten enough data already. We begin discussing this world and whatever she suggests I should learn. With her having a good grasp of the library, I have a much easier time getting to the more useful stuff.

Under her care, I learn a lot about the world—its geography, some politics, history and inner workings of the system. 

She also starts explaining magic to me, even though I don’t seem to have that much potential in it. I manage to reach the understanding high enough to earn the skill Livelihood Magic, which is basically a weak, everyday version of it, like drying clothes, filling a cup with water, cleaning dirty things, etc.

Besides all the learning stuff, we talk about random things from each other’s world. Both of us are eager to discuss the differences and funny facts. She often takes her questioning quite seriously though.

As for the weapons, unfortunately, I don’t get to experience the feeling in these months. And I practice with loads of different types of them. Fortunately for the whole group, all others find their preferred ones decently quick after Paul’s discovery.

Shino naturally ends up with a katana. All that kendo didn’t go to waste. And I’m not really surprised they have them here. Natalie seems to have a knack for magic, so she is under the tutelage of the court magician and his peers. Marcia creates a strong bond with her two shortswords, so I guess she’s a dual wielder. Finally, Kamil ends up with a sword and a shield. Typical hero cliché.

Everyone focuses mostly on their main weapons and I’m the only one trying out new ones, for the most part. They still join for the first day to check themselves, but quickly return to their tutors. At least they seem to be doing fine.

 

※ ※ ※

 

And just like that, a year passes. We are currently sitting in one of the usual fancy rooms, waiting for Archpriest Nerphym to guide us to the place where we will finally unlock the Classes and begin our journey in this world.

Everyone went through a lot of training with their respective weapons. And naturally, they also learned some stuff about the beasts and monsters roaming around the world, some survival skills, and the list goes on.

I still haven’t found my weapon of choice, but as a side result, I’ve gone through everything the kingdom’s armoury could muster. And thanks to that, I now have two interesting new skills—Arms Mastery: Novice and Improvised Weaponry Lv.1.

All the passive skills connected to the weapons fused into that first one, while the second just appeared at some point during the training. The former is something in the lines of 'have your way with any weapon you pick up, but don’t expect fireworks', while the latter allows me to literally improvise with whatever I can get, due to all the experience with tens of weapons. 

But, even though I’m behind with weapons, I’m pretty sure not one of them is even close to having gathered as much information about this world as me. Whatever happens, I’m ready for it. I’m also on pretty good terms with the King and Cornelia. I hope.

Everyone is nervously going through their status windows. Who wouldn’t be stressed in this situation? It’s like before a big exam which will decide your life, but you couldn’t do shit to prepare for it and its result is final. 

Well, maybe not everyone is that nervous. Kamil and Marcia seem to fare pretty well. The latter sitting comfortably in the former's lap. They got quite close during our time here. Or, I should say, they stopped hiding the fact that they are into each other. They were a thing already back on Earth.

I’ve learned about that after finding out they got quite passionate in the class, almost breaking the desk in the process. Checking the security cam footage, it was revealed that it wasn’t just once. And naturally, even though I had nothing to do with it and it was just the operator's job to report such occurrence, that prick still blames me for snitching on them. At least Marcia doesn't care.

Archpriest Nerphym arrives and we are guided out of the castle. After a short ride in the carriages, we appear in front of something akin to a small chapel or a shrine, somewhere in the city. The corridors are quite narrow, so we move in pairs. Kamil with Marcia, Natalie with Shino and at the end me and Paul.

Through a double-winged wooden door, we enter a small chamber. There’s a huge carving on every wall, depicting most likely the Goddess gifting Humans various things. Everything is out of pure white marble. In the centre of the room, a small pedestal is located. On its top, a deep black orb pulsing with gold veins levitates ominously. The King is already there, waiting for us.

“This is a Divinity Stone. It serves as a connection to the Goddess. Everyone comes here to awaken their Class at some point in their life,” the Archpriest explains. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. How to use that orb?” Kamil waves his hand in an uninterested manner. 

“Just place your hand on it. That’s all.”

He approaches the floating crystal and places his left hand on top of it. The orb’s veins start surfacing with glowing golden light, and in a moment, it emanates an aura of the same colour, which surrounds him. A pillar of light strikes through the solid roof and also covers Kamil. After ten seconds, everything fades and he takes a step back.

“So, what is your Class?” the King asks curiously. Everyone is looking at Kamil, who summons his status window with a verbal command.

“It says Divine Hero of The Valiant Sword. I also see some weird three title—”

“WHAT?! The legendary Hero class?” the King shouts in surprise.

“And it not only has an adjective but also a titled addition!” Archpriest Nerphym joins him and they start frantically speaking over each other.

“Marvelous! And he even mentioned three titles! As expected from the Hero chosen by the Goddess!”

They congratulate him with hope-filled eyes, visibly amazed and certainly happy. After a minute or two, the duo manages to calm down a bit and while Kamil goes through his new status with Marcia by his side, Paul walks towards the orb.

The sphere again shows more of its golden veins, but there’s no pillar of light this time. A red, mistlike aura surrounds him and it gets quite hot in the room. When it fades out, everything turns back to normal. He gets back and checks his Class.

“Mine says Draconic Sharpshooter,” he says with a huge grin on his face. Judging by the latter part, a perfect Class for him.

“Oooh. A Sharpshooter is already quite rare, but to even link it with Dragons. It really is something.” The Archpriest ponders for a moment. “Does your status mention anything about them?”

Paul looks around for a second and answers, “Hmmm… Yeah. One of my titles is The Red Dragon Descendant and under my passive skills there’s something called Red Dragon Ancestry.”

“Amazing! Red Dragons are the ones with the most physical strength! I can already imagine the power behind your bow! Who is next, let’s learn about everyone!” The King eagerly looks our way.

Paul leaves to the side to join Kamil and Marcia comes to the pedestal. The orb shines as usual, and in her case, a current of wind appears, making circles around her and snuffing out all the candles in the room.

“And?”

“It’s… Primal Blade Dancer?” She stops for a moment and squints her eyes, but a big smile appears on her face after she reads it.

“This is truly great! Another fabled Class with an adjective!” The Archpriest marvels.

Natalie is next. A weird, but calming humming accompanies her awakening.

She calmly sweeps her gaze over her status window and speaks, “A Divine Songstress of Life…”

“Great Goddess! Another titled addition! And it’s the highest version of the Bard class!”

She smiles faintly and comes back to us to examine her status in detail. I notice Shino’s hesitation. She worriedly looks from one person to another. I move closer and plop my hand onto her head. She jumps a little and looks up at me.

“Don’t worry that much over it. Whatever happens, happens. You already kick ass even without a Class, and with one, you’ll literally destroy moons.” I smile at her.

She blushes slightly and nods. I give her a pat on the back and she slowly approaches the pedestal. She looks back at me once more and places her hand on it.

Suddenly the whole room turns dark. Not pitch black dark, but like starry night dark. Some symbol appears on the ceiling and it looks like a… crescent moon? It shines its silvery light onto Shino and her skin starts glowing too. After a moment, a black aura seeps out from the floor and surrounds her, slowly getting sucked into her body. The moon fades and everything returns to normal. Everyone is looking around, spooked. She turns to us and shakily checks her window.

“Ummm… It says… Demonic Samurai Priestess...” she informs us quietly.

“A hybrid Class? My Lord! Where was the last time we’ve seen one?” The Archpriest joyfully turns to the King.

“I have no idea. But it even has a powerful adjective! A Demonic Priestess! Almost as rare as the double Class!” he replies in high spirits.

She looks through her status. Her eyes stop at a certain position and widen in surprise. She giggles a bit to herself and looks my way with a smile. I raise my brow in mild confusion. She trots back to where Natalie and I are standing.

“Thanks for your lucky charm, Sensei!” Shino bows lightly.

“Lucky charm?”

I ask her confusedly and she throws her materialized status window at me.

 

 

「Hahaha… What are the chances for that...」

I laugh inwardly after checking her titles. After congratulating her again, I start to walk. It’s finally my turn.

I stand in front of the crystal. My Hero Sigil begins visibly pulsing in the same patterns as the orb’s veins. I place my hand onto it and a similar feeling to the one year ago permeates through my body. A pinkish-purple mistlike smoke starts circulating around me and the orb also changes its glow to a pink one.

The air gets filled with a warm and sweet scent and I’m pretty sure I can hear a cute feminine laugh in the distance. My vision blurs. I appear to be in a weird purplish place. A silhouette of a woman slowly approaches me from the front. It looks like a pink shadow. She definitely says something to me, but I only hear unrecognizable whispers. She comes closer and places a light kiss on my lips, disappearing in a puff of pinkish smoke.

I’m back in the chamber with the orb. It doesn’t look like anything changed here. I turn around. Everyone looks at me in a kinda weird way and they avoid making eye contact. Marcia suspiciously grinds her legs together with a flushed expression and biting on her lip. Even Natalie has a very faint blush on her cheeks. The guys are standing weirdly, like soccer players during a penalty.

「The hell happened here when I was out?」

“Sir Carter…” the Archpriest speaks to me with an awkward smile. He’s sweating a bit. “What is your revealed class?”

I decide to ignore their weird behaviour for now and summon my full summary. To my surprise, the window that appears is of a pink colour instead of the previous navy blue.

「Wait… WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!」