Chronicle of the Eternal: Volume 1 (12 page)

The following day, Regal
arrives at Bluemist Academy as usual. He sees Frederick sneering at him while
walking through the front gates, but decides to ignore him. However, dark
emotions swirl within his thoughts as Regal mentally labels Frederick as an
enemy, and plans to have his revenge when he is stronger.

The next familiar face he
runs into is Veronica, who intercepts him while in the hallway outside of
class.

“Regal, I’m sorry,” she
bows her head slightly.

“Sorry? For what?”

“You died. It is my
fault-”

“N-no, it’s not your fault
at all,” Regal cuts her off in a hurry.

“A squad captain is
responsible for all the other members, this is a fact. You are my little
brother, yet I failed in my duty for you.” For an instant Regal thinks he sees
a hint of regret and sadness in her eyes.

Regal steps forward and
hugs Veronica, wrapping his arm around her tightly and confidently says, “There
are no problems!”

Veronica doesn’t move,
allowing Regal to hug her. The scent of her freshly washed hair enters his
nose, causing his mind to waver with intoxication while admiring to
himself,‘She smells so nice.’

“I smell nice?” Veronica
asks confused, stepping back and out of Regal’s embrace.

Regal, realizing he
subconsciously said the words aloud, is even more embarrassed than before and
his entire face turns red. A few other students in the hall notice the scene,
but don’t pay it any mind, as the two are well-known as Soulless.

“Ah, umm, never mind!
Class will be starting shortly, so let’s hurry up”

“If you say so. Let’s
hurry then.”

The two quickly enter the
classroom and find their seats just before the bell on top of the academy
rings. Most of the students are moving around the class, talking with their
friends since the teacher has not arrived yet. As usual, the teacher, Mr.
River, casually enters the classroom ten minutes late with the attitude that he
is right on time. He stands in front of the class, and doesn’t forget his usual
sigh before speaking.

“Alright, now your first
experience of a dungeon, and inadvertently the outside world, has concluded. I
don’t particularly want to go into too much detail of that this morning, so we
will keep it simple. First, there should be at least five or six of you that
experienced the pain of death. You have all experienced the most painful thing
in this world, and next time you will be more careful to avoid it.”

There are actually eleven
people from Class 4 who died within the dungeon, but Mr. River’s estimation is
based off the number of students who still have a lifeless look in their eyes,
their minds still scarred from the pain as their mental fortitude was lacking.
They will recover eventually, but it could take anywhere between weeks and
years to do so.

“Just so you know, we
can’t reserve the dungeon whenever suits us, but you will be entering it once
every month or two for training. You only have three and a half years to get to
level 10 at least, so you better get used to dungeon running.”

“All the Squad Captains in
this class, come to the front of the class with your squad’s rat ears. You also
need to give me a list of all members who were in your squad so the points can
be distributed equally among you.”

Six students rise from
their desks, including Veronica and Frederick, before moving to the front of
the class to hand the rat ears to Mr. River and report their squad.

After the six are
finished, Mr. River places the rat ears into a bag for each squad and labels
them before taking them into his personal inventory.

“Good, now we can get
started with class. I hope you can all finish quickly so you can have
self-study time.”

One particular student at
the front of the class, Tristran, raises his hand to ask a question, but the
teacher cuts him off with, “No questions. Bother the others teachers during
lunch if it must be answered.”

“Now today’s lesson is
focused on two aspects. After lunch, you will study various mutant beasts,
monsters, and other enemies you will find not just in Theore Substructure, but
outside these city walls. Right now we are going to be studying maps.”

“I will hand out the
‘Cartography’ crafting skill for anyone who doesn’t have it, which should be
most of you.”

“Everyone has a personal
map that you can use to navigate anywhere, on any floor, within the Grand
Cities. You are used to this because you have always had it.
I hate to tell you the bad news, but this only works inside the Grand
Cities. Your personal map is completely useless outside these walls, or inside
any of our dungeons.”

“Outside these walls, maps
made with the ‘Cartography’ skill are required. You can purchase or make your
own as you venture.”

“Theore Substructure
changes its layout everyday at midnight, making maps useless the next day.
Making the same map more than once will also result in less skill growth, so
Theore Substructure is a valuable resource for practicing map making. Take advantage
of this – or don’t, I don’t really care either way.”

“Everyone, come up to my
desk in the usual order. Those who don’t have the ‘Cartography’ skill will take
one skill book, while you all will pick up a bottle of ink, a feather quill,
and ten sheets of map parchment. Tomorrow, we will have an excursion outside
the city to practice ‘Cartography’,” Mr. River finishes his speech with a deep
frown, considering the guiding of the students outside the city to be too much
of a hassle.

While patiently waiting
his turn to get the skill book, Regal secretly worries that he will leave them
outside the city, but he keeps those thoughts to himself.

Half an hour passes before
everyone finishes collecting the new skill book, ink, quill, and map
parchments. Studying the items first before placing them in his inventory,
Regal is inherently curious about them.

The ink is a dark blue,
almost black color, while the quill they are to use is a low quality feather
from a standard Death Crow. The map parchments are thick, square parchments two
feet wide and made with a slightly yellow leather texture. They are difficult
to fold, but rolling them up isn’t too much of a problem.

Placing his hand on the
skill book last, a familiar translucent screen appears before him.

After selecting ‘Yes’, the
skill book disappears and the new skill appears within Regal’s crafting skills.
There is no need to select a Tier 1 Divine Art, as there is only one skill
path. The Divine Art ‘Mind Projection’ is automatically selected. This Divine
Art is classified as a passive type, even if it is closer to an active type.
‘Mind Projection’ helps the user in recreating the images they create within
their minds when drawing maps. While focusing on the parchment, a faint ghostly
image resembling the image in the mind is projected onto it. The image isn’t
defined enough to allow tracing, but it is still better than without.

Mr. River spends the rest
of the morning discussing the standard symbols and visual representations of
different landscapes, objects, and locations. There are also several different
types of maps, such as physical maps that hunters use when navigating the
outside world, locale maps that focus on a specific area, dungeon or outside
community, and topographical ones that the military favor.

The students practice the
basics of each type of map within their notebooks to get used to it. Most of
their drawings are covered in abstract lines, hardly resembling the maps that
they are supposed to be.

His drawings are still
incomparable to a map sold by hunters, but each symbol, landscape, and path is
distinct.

Surprisingly, Regal finds
he has a strong aptitude for drawing maps. In fact, his maps are better than
even the most outstanding students. Perhaps it is due to the quality of his
maps, but his ‘Cartography’ skill reaches level 2 by the time the bell rings
for lunch.

The excitement of creating
maps is still fresh within the students, so they use their notebooks to create
a locale map of the academy. Regal also takes part in this practice, with
Veronica, Kilde and Astore following his example. It is the first time the four
Soulless have interacted with the other students of their own accord.

Regal completes a third of
the map of the academy during lunch, and while the quality still needs a lot of
improvement, it is usable.

After returning to the
classroom, Mr. River is already waiting with the results of everyone’s dungeon
hunt. Regal is extremely nervous, hoping he isn’t at the bottom of the class as
he died half way through.

“I will now give you your
results. Starting from the bottom, ranked thirty and last in the class with
four points: Gertrude Tanner.”

As Mr. River announces the
results, he also writes them down on the chalkboard at the front of the class
for everyone to look over. Regal breathes out a sigh of relief at learning he
is not last. His pride has grown over the past day, and he realizes that he
wants to rise to the top of the class.

“And a big congratulations
to Piora for being the first student here to reach level 2,” Mr. River
unenthusiastically claps while announcing her results to the class. “It’s rare
for a student to reach level 2 on their first dungeon experience. All the
teachers were quite excited and surprised when they found this out… What a
headache.”

“Excuse me, Mr. River,”
Sare Yuler places his hand up and speaks abruptly, “how did you rank people
when they have the same number of points?”

Sare, Min, and Hazel
formed a three person squad when entering Theore Substructure yesterday. Sare
willingly admits to being weaker than Hazel, who was the squad captain, but not
to Min, who is currently ranked higher than her on the results.

Everyone within the same
squad received an equal share of their points, so there are a lot of students
currently sharing similar thoughts, Regal included.

Mr. River doesn’t want to
answer the question, but he can tell there is more than one student thinking
the same thing, and sighs before answering.

“Rankings within the squad
are decided on two factors. First, the squad captain is automatically ranked
first within the squad as they are in a higher position. All other positions
are decided based on how many of the enemies each member killed. Using a
certain skill, it is possible to read the name of who dealt the final blow and
for this.”

“Wanting to be stronger
than another squad member is fine, but being lower on this ranking does not
mean you are weaker.”

Most of the students seem
satisfied with his answer, but several are still discontent.

After the discussions
about the students rankings quiet down, Mr.  River continues with the
afternoon lesson. He teaches the class about some of the basic mutated beasts
and monsters that exist. Mutant rats are the first to be discussed, including
their various attack patterns, and body signals given prior to attacking.

The existence of variation
beast is also taught. These are the beasts like the shadow rat, boulder rat,
and flame rat. All mutant beasts and monsters have variations like this, and
they are always either stronger or more intelligent than the original.