.
▶ Emergency Quest Complete! [Escape] ◀
[Details: Flee or deal with all three attackers.]
[3/3]
[Difficulty: C+]
[Reward: 200 Points]
.
'200 Points…'
The translucent window hung in the air for a few seconds longer than it needed to, as if the system wanted him to sit with it, then it faded, leaving Soren staring at the space where the text had been, eyes unfocused, his thoughts lagging behind what he already knew was true.
With the completion of the escape quest, his total had climbed to 386 points.
That number sat in an awkward place, close enough to feel like progress, far enough to still be useless in the ways that mattered, because he was just shy of the 500-point threshold, the line where skills stopped being mostly convenience-based and started becoming genuinely useful.
'One more decent quest and I'm there.'
That thought should have put heat in his chest, should have lit up the greedy part of him, the part that had been clinging to points like they were oxygen.
Instead, Soren hesitated, and the hesitation felt heavier than it had any right to be.
"What should I even get…?"
He had opened the shop window more times than he could count over the past few days, sometimes out of genuine consideration, sometimes just because he needed something to look at that wasn't blood, alleyways, and the sickening resistance of an axe edge.
Each time, he scrolled slowly, carefully, weighing every option with a kind of tired seriousness that didn't fit his appearance.
Most skills at the price of 500 points were either weapon-specific proficiencies or mundane life skills.
Things such as [Archery], [Alchemy], and [Heat Resistance].
Useful, objectively, the sort of things that would make daily life smoother and less exhausting, yet none of it touched the problem sitting under his ribs.
Just not what he needed.
The only exceptions were a handful of mental-type skills, things like [Mental Acceleration] or [Pain Tolerance].
Powerful in their own way, and that was exactly what made them feel like a trap.
Soren didn't like the idea of numbing pain or forcing his mind to work faster than it already did, not after what he had experienced, not after learning firsthand that panic didn't care about willpower and that the body could betray you even when you were trying to do everything right.
'I'll think about it later,' he decided, and closed the window before he could talk himself into anything reckless.
Right now, there were more immediate concerns.
He lowered his gaze to the paper laid out neatly on his desk.
[Midterm Exam Timetable]
The midterms.
In ❰The Knight of Stellaris❱, they were little more than a pacing checkpoint, something the player breezed through between major arcs, a moment to show off progression before the story moved on.
But this wasn't a game anymore, and even minor events carried weight now, because the consequences didn't reset and the people around him weren't scripted to forgive mistakes.
Soren leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, as if the plaster might offer a solution.
'What am I supposed to do?'
When he had first arrived in Ivansia, his plan had been simple, almost laughably so.
Keep his head down, stay average, make a few friends, avoid the spotlight, and survive.
Nothing special.
Nothing dangerous.
That plan had already begun to crumble, and it wasn't even subtle about it.
There was the academy itself, combat-focused and unforgiving, constantly pushing its students towards violence as if that was the only language the world respected.
Then there were his family circumstances, the shadow of Arden politics and expectations pressing in even when he tried not to think about it, and now…
This.
It felt like the world itself was refusing to let him live quietly.
He still intended to avoid the main story as much as possible, because stepping into it was the fastest way to die, but reality had made one thing clear, so clear it was almost insulting that he had ever believed otherwise.
If he didn't get stronger, he wouldn't last.
Not here.
'But how?'
That was the problem, the question that never left him alone.
He could keep training the way he had been, light physical conditioning, endless spell repetition to grind proficiency, the same motions until his hands ached and his mana felt thin and raw.
It worked.
It was also slow.
Painfully slow.
At this rate, he wouldn't even be able to leave the academy city safely, let alone challenge a dungeon, and the thought of another fight like the alley, only without Felix at his side and without guards arriving after the fact, made his stomach turn.
Soren exhaled and called up a familiar window, forcing himself to look at what he had rather than what he was afraid he didn't.
.
[Status Window]
Name: Soren Arden
Age: 18
Race: Human
◈ Titles
- Transmigrator (Year 1)
- Hunter of Secrets
◈ Unique Skills
- Library of Memories
- ???
◈ Stats
Stamina - 0.8 (F+) → 0.9 (F+)
Strength - 0.6 (F+) → 0.7 (F+)
Agility - 1.0 (E-) → 1.3 (E-)
Mana - 0.9 (F+) → 1.3 (E-)
Divine Power - 0.3 (F)
Charm - 8.7 (S-)
◈ Skills
- Life Magic
- Basic Magic
└ Ignition (E-) → Ignition (D)
└ Shock (F) → Shock (E+)
└ Gaia (E-) → Gaia (E+)
└ Aqua (F+)
└ Shield (F)
└ Freeze (F)
- Concentration (F) → Concentration (E-)
.
"…Huh."
It had been a while since he had looked at it properly, not just glanced at numbers in passing, but actually sat with the whole picture.
'This… actually isn't that bad.'
It wasn't good, not compared to monsters like Class A, but it wasn't the hopeless wasteland his fear liked to paint, either.
Nearly all of his stats had surpassed Alex's starting values, and even thinking that name made something sour twist in his chest, but the comparison mattered because it anchored him to something concrete.
Two had even crossed into E-rank territory.
Then there was his magic.
'D-rank already.'
He had known he was improving; constant use tended to do that, and pain was a stubborn teacher, but seeing it laid out so plainly was reassuring in a quiet way, like a hand on the back when you were about to tip over.
Still.
'It's not enough.'
Not with the midterms coming, not with the way the academy measured worth, not with the reality that he had already been attacked outside the grounds once and there was no reason it couldn't happen again.
It was only the second day of the Juniper Sun.
That left roughly two weeks until the midterms began.
The written portion didn't worry him in the slightest because, thanks to [Library of Memories], memorisation was trivial, almost unfair, a cheat that didn't feel satisfying so much as necessary.
The practical, however…
That was another story.
"…Wait."
A thought surfaced, sharp enough to cut through the fog, and Soren straightened in his chair as if his body had been pulled by a string.
'Can't I just do that?'
He didn't allow himself to sit back down, didn't give doubt time to argue, and instead stood abruptly and headed for the library, moving with the kind of purpose that only came when he had found a loophole he could actually use.
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
Thud.
Two thick books landed on the table in front of him with enough weight that the sound drew a glance from a nearby student, though nobody said anything, because the library had its own quiet rules and everyone here was pretending not to exist.
[Introduction to Basic Magic] [By Stella Nocturnis]
And,
[Introduction to Divine Power] [By Gabriella Amorth]
Books he realistically should have read much earlier, books he had avoided because he had been running from one crisis to the next, clinging to game knowledge like it would cover everything he hadn't done.
'Better late than never, I suppose.'
They were part of his answer to immediate strength, not strength in the sense of raw numbers, but the kind that kept you alive, the kind that let you respond instead of freezing.
Right now, Soren's biggest weakness wasn't raw power.
It was options.
He only knew a handful of spells, and in real combat that was crippling, because a fight never politely let you cast the exact thing you wanted from a calm stance with perfect timing.
During his mock duel with Yuli, he had realised something important, something that had hit him like a door opening in a corridor he didn't know existed.
Thanks to [Library of Memories], he could copy magic circles just by seeing them.
That alone had given him access to [Shock] and [Shield].
So why stop there?
'I'll learn all the basic magic.'
Most mages would call that idea inefficient, wasteful, even embarrassing, because typically a mage focused on a small number of elements and refined them to perfection, building depth rather than breadth.
Felix, for example, prioritised earth, plant, and barrier magic, shaping it into something strong enough to restrain an assassin and block a mage in an alley without hesitation.
But Soren wasn't a normal mage.
He didn't lose time memorising, he didn't struggle with complexity, and his fighting style didn't rely on overwhelming force.
Utility mattered.
Survival mattered.
As he flipped through the pages, however, disappointment crept in, slow and irritating, because of course it did.
"Is that it..?"
In the game, there were fifteen known magic elements.
Water, ice, fire, earth, wind, plant, lightning, gravity, sound, barrier, light, dark, blood, time, and finally, space.
Pure mana existed as a rare exception.
Time and space were divine domains, practically inaccessible.
Blood magic belonged almost exclusively to vampires, and even in the game, you didn't touch those unless the story wanted you to.
However, the book covered only nine elements.
Light, dark, and gravity were missing.
Soren's fingers paused on the page, and he had to resist the childish urge to glare at the text as if it was personally insulting him.
'…At least it's something.'
Even so, he couldn't help but sigh at the missed opportunities, because light magic would have been invaluable for exploration, monsters feared it, undead avoided it, and those were practical advantages, not flashy ones.
But fine.
That could wait.
For now, he read, and he memorised, and he let the circles sink into him with the ease of someone who didn't need to repeat anything twice.
————「❤︎」————